IT’S SUCH A SHAME when managers lose the plot. And they all do it.
Fratton Park turned out to be a really bad night at the office for Arsene Wenger, who ended the 1-1 draw yelling at the fourth official and Uriah Rennie for adding four minutes of injury time when seven would have been closer.
And Arsene knows he bungled his team selection.
When I heard the team I was gobsmacked. As soon as I saw the team I knew it could not work, I kept saying, “DO I NOT LIKE THAT !”
Seven changes from Sunday !!!! Four, or five if you must, but not seven !!! Three teenagers : Diaby and Song in central midfield, Djourou at right back. With Reyes left, Freddie right – and Hleb, Eboue and van Persie on the bench with Poom and Bergkamp.
THAT TEAM WAS NEVER GONNA WORK !
The spine of the side was : Sol coming back, Diaby and Song, who had never played together, and the erratic Adebayor. Four risky selections, plus Djourou playing out of position. You can’t bluff central midfield. It’s not one of the positions you can bluff.
IT FOLLOWED ON FROM SUNDAY : If you rest Henry at Old Trafford, rest Fabregas as well, because you will lose the game anyway. The kid was on his knees and dominated by the bigger, older, fresher John O’Shea. That was not fair and he suffered a foot injury.
Fabregas makes Arsenal tick and the team needed him last night. He knits the side together. He is the motor, the linkman, the controlling brain of their athletic pass-and-move game, and you need Fabregas in all the games where you have to win and can win.
If you lose to Man United, you have to beat Portsmouth, so play your strongest team against Portsmouth.
A slimmer Sol Campbell came back, did OK, got a cut eye, then a broken nose.
Adebayor missed two sitters, Djourou missed a late header, and poor Alex Song, 18, played 90 and proved he is not good enough to play for Portsmouth or Birmingham or Sunderland, let alone Arsenal.
So the midfield didn’t function and could not supply the forwards.
INCREDIBLY, ARSENE WAS RESTING players for Saturday. He was resting players for West Brom at home ! That was unbelievable. He was resting players for West Brom at home ! He was, actually, resting players for West Brom at home.
Diaby and Djourou both played well. Diaby powered forward, tackled well, passed neatly, fully justified his selection.
Generally, it’s far too much pressure on one man.
Employing 70 footballers, building the Emirates Stadium, Sol’s traumas, the diva’s new contract, Pires’s dithering, Freddie’s decline, bad press over the Vieira sale, losing Ashley Cole for the sake of a lousy five grand a week, getting involved in the Luis Aragones racist remark controversy, which damaged Jose Reyes, who was struggling anyway. David Dein got involved, Arsene got involved, Thierry got involved – that saga was insane, so badly handled, so counter-productive.
All these factors, and others we know nothing about, make Arsene’s job too much for one man to bear.
“This is the life I wanted,” he once said.
Arsene is hopeless at substitutions, always will be. He needs a switched-on No. 2, somebody to share the load, discuss tactics during the game, say no to his crazier ideas, like making seven changes, like playing Alex Song, like resting half his team before West Brom at home.
WE BUILD UP MANAGERS into gods, when they are fallible humans like the rest of us.
And I’m as guilty as anybody, I wrote a 370- page book and hyped up The Professor because I think he is a remarkable character. So 360 pages of my 370-page book are a hymn of praise to his multiple talents, his innovations, his stamina. If I was a football manager, and I went to work in a foreign country, and somebody wrote this book about me, I would be chuffed. And I’d be gratified that the author had tried so hard to understand what I was doing with my teams and my club
But I criticise him for about 10 pages, all through the book, because Arsene makes mistakes. All managers lose the plot and a few pursue their obsessions in a risky way.
Let’s face it, Fratton Park was a night of weird decisions.
Where was the leadership on the field? After Portsmouth equalised, where was the leadership? Where was Henry ? Where was Campbell, a seasoned international, when the pressure was on at 1-1?
Adabayor was having a nightmare but he stayed on for 75 minutes. He was traumatised by missing those sitters in 41 and 56 and he was NOT going to improve as the game went on. He missed the second one because he missed the first one and because he had blown other openings as well.
Fighting Freddie Ljungberg is living in a parallel universe where he thinks he can still get away from defenders and score goals. He thinks it’s 2002 but it’s really 2006. This could be his first Premiership season without a goal.
BIG DAVE came round, Michael’s friend, who was at Sheffield University while Michael was at Hallam, the other uni there. Dave said, “Uriah Rennie is from Sheffield and he referees the universities game every year.”
After 26 minutes I said, “Right, you’ve seen 26 minutes of this game. What will the score be? I’m gonna write your predictions down now.”
Dave : 2-1 to Arsenal
Jan : 2-1 to Portsmouth
Michael : 1-0 to Arsenal
Myles : 1-0 to Portsmouth
WE ALL GOT IT WRONG.
As soon as I had noted down those predictions, Henry nodded the ball on to Adebayor, Stefanovic missed it, and a decent touch by Adebayor would have given him a one-on-one. But he missed the ball
Last night Adebayor made Wiltord look like Pele.
Will he make it?
Well, Adebayor has the technical ability to tap the ball into the net from seven yards. And he has the technical ability to head the ball in from three yards. But he panicked on his first sitter and he panicked again on the header, so it’s not a good sign.On the header he had two thirds of the goal to aim at but he nodded it three yards wide from three yards. His failure was mental, not technical. But he is 22 and should improve.
I like Robin Van Persie and hope he makes it. A warm, open lad with a strong, intelligent wife, he has everything going for him, so he I hope he makes a big career.
I like Adebayor and hope he makes it too.
Only time will tell.
Adebayor, like Arsene, will have better nights, and days. These things happen in football. They seem terrible at the time, but they soon fade from the memory.
Losing two points is not fatal because Spurs have harder fixtures than Arsenal.