Could Arsenal’s Blackburn performance be a template for the next 12 league games ?
That’s what I wondered on Monday night.
By Tuesday night I’d realised the folly of such musings.
Not only is every match different, but every match against Blackburn is different.
This was a poor Blackburn, a million miles from the team who almost made it 3-3 before losing 6-2 last season. This game was so one-sided as to be irrelevant. Arsenal’s defence will never have an easier night.And they will rarely score such a soft goal so early in a crucial game. No wonder Mark Hughes looked so gutted.
With Fabregas wide, having risen from three days in bed, with Gilberto giving the ball away, with Eduardo tidy outside the box, with the team playing at jogging pace, exploring a multi-pass game, they waited patiently for openings to present themselves. Few did so.
Senderos had scored in 4 minutes and it was 1-0 for 86 minutes before Adebayor made it 2-0 in 91.
It was : We’ve scored early and we’ve got the ball, so you can’t do much. Our possession game is stronger than your attempts to take the ball off us and try to attack us
I never really saw Blackburn as a potential banana-skin. But I expected them to have much more verve than they showed.
As expected, Arsenal were a yard or two quicker all over the field, so they could pinch the ball off Blackburn, close them down, force errors. It looked one-sided after 20 minutes, as Arsenal toyed with them, and Mark Hughes looked deeply troubled. If you allow Senderos to score from the first corner of the game, your game-plan has gone down the toilet before the game has really started.
But Sparky’s game-plan was stupid anyway.
The way to beat Arsenal is to play 4-4-2 and press them and disrupt the rhythm of their pass-and-move. Every team that’s played 4-5-1 and sat back has been beaten. It’s blindingly obvious but managers are so thick they still haven’t twigged it.
After the goal, Mark Hughes changed the marker on Senderos but it was too late. The damage had been done.
By 60 minutes, Arsenal still needed a second goal and the walking-pace keep-ball had become tedious.
Hleb has been tremendous in this midwinter period and in the 91st minute his pass reached Adebayor, who flipped the ball up and lashed it in the bottom corner. Adebayor and Ronaldo both have 19 Premiership goals now.
Clearly, 12 more games of keep-ball, protecting a 1-0 lead, could win the title, regardless of what Manchester United do. And regardless of what Chelsea do.
In football, every game is different. At home to Blackburn it was 1-0 for 86 minutes and it’s unlikely we’ll see that happen again this season. But we might see a game where it’s 0-0 for 86 minutes and that will be far more tense than Monday night was.
From now on, it’s not about flair, freedom, self-expression. It’s about keeping your nerve, maintaining concentration, handling the pressure. Arsene says they can handle the pressure.
Ten years ago Arsenal had superfast forwards who penetrated and scored one-on-one goals.
Now they have superfast full backs who give them seven players in midfield, so they always have options, and can also win the ball back when they lose it.
Fabregas and Eduardo are not fast but it’s still about pace. It’s just a different deployment of pace. It’s pace that helps them keep the goals-against column as low as it is.
Will Chelsea and Man United keep changing their teams because they have to keep too many players happy ?
Critics will always say that Arsenal’s kids will bottle the run-in.
But I don’t think Fabregas is a kid.
Gallas is a World Cup finalist who won’t bottle it, Fabregas and Hleb won’t bottle it, Clichy and Sagna won’t bottle it. And Flamini is a steely character who’ll scrap till the 94th minute of the 38th game.
Adebayor will compete boldly and constantly with huge pace, even if he misses a big chance or two.
So there’s seven gladiators who won’t bottle it.
We tend to think in terms of what applied last season, the season before that, the season before that.
Because maybe we should re-think in terms of Future Shock, realise that the future has already happened
Because football’s changing all the time. We tend to think Arsenal are on top at the moment. We tend to think they’re up there temporarily.
There’s a reason why they are top of the table : Arsenal are more consistent than their rivals. That’s why they are five points clear.