Written by Ben Harrington Tuesday, 24 January 2012 12:59

GunnerTalk Blog

Since I last posted we have managed to make a pigs ear of 2 further games that in the not so distant past we would have won more often that not. But the way its going we don’t look like beating anyone right now and its getting mightily depressing. The faces of all the lads (and ladies) in The Gunners Pub after the match said it all, our team is sending us all into a spiral of footballing depression. The only clear route to cracking a smile was to have a good old fashioned binge, sing-song and a bit of a boogie.

Admittedly it had lifted my spirits because I seriously had my lip out after the game and rightly so, another uninspiring display from the team. All of these negative results unfortunately seem to be pushing our skipper out of the door and for me that would be the death nail in any future title aspirations over the next few seasons. I would desperately hate for Van Persie to leave, but I wouldn’t begrudge him a move to win trophies and have some success before his career finishes. Because I doubt he would want to spend his peak years in a struggling team, which is what we’ve become this season.

The lack of transfer activity seemed to be the source of many peoples anger in and around the stadium on Sunday, I have erred in that direction slightly as I have witnessed one inept display after another, the squad needs bodies before the laughable dream of scraping fourth place becomes a mountain too hard to scale.

A few thoughts on the game itself and my first port of call will be the defence, time and time again Djourou was getting owned by Nani and Evra, I am fully aware he isn’t a right back, but he is a defender who appears to have the positional sense of a toilet brush. Their left side was pretty much non existent in the second half as young Nico Yennaris had a fabulous Premier League debut. I for one hope he makes that position his own until Sagna is 100% and ready to return.

A huge source of frustration for me is Per Mertesacker, how can a 6’6 giant repeatedly get beaten in the air by Wayne Rooney? Someone either needs to take the lead out of his boots or tell him to head the ball successfully against midgets he might need to try jumping. Add into his huge lack of pace I am struggling to find a positive he brings to the back line at the moment.

I don’t think we missed Mikel Arteta nearly as much as we did in Swansea as I thought Tomas Rosicky played very well, but the high point of the match was the outstanding full Premier League debut of Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain, or The Ox for short. He seems to play the game with no fear, has bundles of pace, isn’t afraid to shoot from anywhere and best of all he can cross the ball very, very well. He made Theo look like the unproven 18 year-old for 70 minutes.

I can’t really go without mentioning THAT substitution, I will fully admit in the heat of the moment I wasn’t happy with the change. Rather than hurl abuse at Wenger for taking The Ox off I was more miffed with his replacement, how many more chances can Arshavin be given? I have been a great fan of him since he joined, but this season I have run out of patience with him and would be so very glad if he was shipped out this month as really I don’t feel he gives us anything positive anymore. My preference would have been to bring Yossi on as what he lacks in skill and creativity he certainly makes up for in work rate, I like Yossi and would like to keep him after this season.

That’s it’s from me this time, but would like to leave you with this final thought,

We are all Arsenal, we are all seriously frustrated and angry, but let’s find it within ourselves to remember why we are all Arsenal in the first place and support the manager and the team for the remainder of the season as they need us even more than before.

Until next time…

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