January 25, 2012
Putting the Injury Crisis Into Context

It is easy for a team to simply put poor form down to an injury crisis. It has been a long-standing excuse at the Arsenal to put our failures down to our excessive injuries. Personally, I attribute the collapse of the 2009/2010 season to the injuries of Robin van Persie, William Gallas, Thomas Vermaelen, Johan Djourou, Aaron Ramsey, Andrey Arshavin and especially Cesc Fabregas - who was beyond world class that season - as we approached the long-prophesied ’easy run-in’. And last season, as we all know, the Carling Cup final débacle was the catalyst for a collapse of mythical proportions, though I am of the opinion that with Cesc and Theo Walcott fit to play, we would have walked our way to victory; and perhaps would have ground it out had van Persie not had to go injured. Some may not share those opinions, but that is my personal view.

But there is no hope of rectifying that which went wrong over those season; they are confined to the past and remain as mere excuses. Perennial ‘what ifs’ and ‘if onlys’; but this season we are not in a title fight, we are fighting for fourth again, though our push is being hampered by injuries once again. After three losses in a row, some (idiots) are turning on Arsene Wenger and though he has made his mistakes, it is worth noting how hamstrung he is by the injuries to the squad.

For starters, there is the much mentioned dearth of full backs. No Bakari Sagna, no Carl Jenkinson, no Kieran Gibbs (shocker) and no André Santos since early December. No right backs since late October - at first, Laurent Koscielny filled in there, as Per Mertesacker and Thomas Vermaelen played at centre half and Andre Santos at left back. Not ideal, but what else can you do when both your right backs have injuries? Then, with Kieran Gibbs predictably injured with a raft of strange and unusual injuries, Andre Santos gets injured. Enter the four centre back back four. Vermaelen has played left back many times in his career and though it is far from ideal to have your best centre back out-of-position, desperate times call for desperate measures. As long as we can keep these players fit for a month or two, until at least one of the full backs returns. Then Djourou picks up a knock midway through a game. Ignasi Miquel, 18 year old centre half, is thrown into the mix as a left back, as Koscielny moved back to right back and Vermaelen in-field. The inexperienced Miquel is caught out of position at we go down 1-0 at Eastlands. The next game, Aston Villa away, we send Francis Coquelin out at right back - not his natural position, but he does have some previous experience of the role - he performs well, a fine solution until Djourou is back.

Next, Vermaen picks up a calf strain and is ruled out for 2-3 weeks. Now Coquelin must fill in at left back against Fulham. In the same game, Djourou picks up a red card at Fulham and is banned. Such was the desperation for defenders, Sebastien Squillaci was called upon. The game was promptly lost. Squillaci would have to play in the FA Cup game against Leeds at centre back, with Coquelin at right back and Miquel on the left. Then, half an hour into the cup clash, Coquelin limps of and joins Vermaelem on the ‘out for 2-3 weeks’ list. 18-year old Nico Yennaris is introduced to the fray for his first professional game. With Coquelin now injured, it was fortunate that Djourou was back for the game against Swansea. But the two fullbacks’ instincts to wander inside was exploited readily by Nathan Dyer and Scott Sinclair. Another loss due to the lack of natural fullbacks. Next up were Manchester United. Vermaelen was rushed back, Djourou remained at right back. The first goal came from Djourou being roasted (one of many times) by Nani, who sent a cross over to Antonio Valenicia who in turn exploited Vermaelen’s poor positioning and headed home. Djourou was reported to get a knock at half time and was replaced by Yennaris. A risky move, but a successful one, as the young Chinese-Cypriot handled the immense challenge of Nani well. In the space of one month, Arsenal were forced to use their seventh choice left back (Miquel) and sixth choice Yennaris on more than one occasion each, such were the magnitude of the injuries; so plentiful were they that we had to play Squillaci!

That ridiculously unfortunate set of events will hamper any team, but the injuries did not stop here. Oh no. At the very start of the season, we were told that Jack Wilshere would be out for a week or two with a slight ankle problem. A week became a month. One month became three, until all of a sudden he was ruled out until February. So we were to going to have to survive 5 months without our best midfielder, following Cesc’s departure. So on the long-term absentee list, we have Bakari Sagna, Kieran Gibbs, Andre Santos, Carl Jenkinson, Jack Wilshere and for intermittent spells, Thomas Vermaelen. Meanwhile, Abou Diaby had ankle surgery in the summer and was unavailable for the first three months of the season. Though after just 25 minutes against Fulham, he was ruled out indefinitely, with a hamstring injury and no return date mentioned (and rumours abound that he may be forced to retire). Not conducive to success.

Going into the game against Swansea, Mikel Arteta is ruled out, while Gervinho and Marouane Chamakh are off to the Africa Cup of Nations, taking the number of absentees to 12 (Fabianski, Sagna, Jenkinson, Santos, Gibbs, Vermaelen, Wilshere, Arteta, Diaby, Coquelin, Gervinho and Chamakh). Following the 3-2 loss in South Wales, Vermaelen returned (perhaps earlier than was helpful to his recovery) but Thierry Henry picked up a calf injury. Meaning there were still 12 absentees as we went to face United.

To put those absentees into context, the equivalent injury crisis at Chelsea would see Ashley Cole, Jose Bosingwa, Branislav Ivanovic, Paulo Ferreira, Juan Mata and Oriol Romeu out for the majority of the season, while John Terry would have spent spells on the sidelines. To compare to the number of injuries we had against United, they would have had no: Henrique Hilario, the aforementioned six long-term players, Ramires, Daniel Sturridge, Didier Drogba and Saloman Kalou (rough comparisons). A side whose depletion does not bare thinking about.

Or for high-flying Sp*rs, the equivalent long-term six would be Benoit Assou-Ekotto, Kyle Walker, Younes Kaboul, Michael Dawson, Sandro and Luka Modric, with Ledley King often missing. While their equivalent to the injured 12 would be: Carlo Cudicini, those six, Rafael van der Vaart, Sebastien Bassong, Aaron Lennon, Jermain Defoe and Roman Pavlyuchenko. A larger squad than Chelsea’s but one which would still be badly damaged by all those missing.

And one last comparison: Manchester City. Perhaps the strongest squad in the league, but they would be hurt with no Gael Clichy, Aleksandr Kolarov, Micah Richards, Pablo Zabaleta, Nigel de Jong and David Silva for much of the season, with Joleon Lescott out for parts of the season (a better comparison to Vermaelen as he would be . As well as them, no Pantimilon, Yaya Toure, Adam Johnson, Samir Nasri and Owen Hargreaves. 

All very rough comparisons but I tried to compare the players’ positions and importance to their teams to those of the missing players at Arsenal. It is vague but it hammers home the point that our injury list is horrendous, as has been our luck. At this point it is very necessary to give a lot of credit to Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United, who have had similar problems but have done magnificently well in spite of them (their Champions League fate notwithstanding). This has been a ramble, but I felt it necessary to emphasise just how unfortunate we have been and are. We have done very well to be as high as we have been but now, as those players start to return, we must capitalise. If we keep winning games, we will get into the top four and with a full team, there are not many who can match us. Certainly not the other top four challengers. This is not to say this is the sole reason for our recent bad patch, but it is worth taking into consideration. 

And what treatment would those teams get from the media if they were in the same position? More sympathy, at the very least. And we have been lucky in one regard - Robin van Persie has remained injury free, and let’s pray that doesn’t change!

Apologies for the rambling.

11:46pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZWYsLyFMqzKr
(Notes: 7)
  
Filed under: fan piece football arsenal premier league sagna wilshere henry van persie 
August 9, 2011
4. Arsenal 2-1 Barcelona, 16th February 2011

No one gave us a chance. Following on from last year’s thrashing at Barcelona’s hand, everyone assumed this was just another chapter of the same story and that a weaker Arsenal would get a more brutal beating from a stronger Barcelona.

Only this year there was a little more nouse about Arsenal, and far fewer injuries. Last year, there was no Robin van Persie, an injured William Gallas and Andrey Arshavin needing replacement before half time, an idiot between the posts, Cesc Fàbregas needing to be rushed back from injury, Alex Song at centre half, Denilson playing - in short, that team was in no fit state to tackle the strongest team around. This year, the only injury was to Thomas Vermaelen. Wojciech Szczesny would start in goal and they were not going to suffer from their own naïvety as their counterparts of the previous year had. The only real change to Barcelona was the switch of David Villa for Zlatan Ibrahimovic - a definite improvement.

Many of Barcelona’s games seem to follow a pattern - the opposition decide they’re going to ‘get in their faces’ and not be ‘pushed around’. This idea seems as though it is paying dividends until the clock reaches the tenth minute, at which point Barcelona become near-impossible to dispossess. From there it’s a slow, painful and demoralising death for the challengers, as the Catalans slowly drain them of their stamina, strength and in some cases, their collective will to live. Their ball retention is the best going, by far, but it was not a destruction à la their last Emirates Stadium encounter. Arsenal had a gameplan and it was working - push Barcelona up the pitch with the high line and aim to play on the counterattack. In rewatching the game, it was plain to see that the back four waited for Barcelona to get past Song and Jack Wilshere and then charged them down. This worked in places, but a high line is always a risk, especially against the forward line of Lionel Messi, David Villa and Pedro Rodriguez.

The Catalans broke past the line of defence three times in the first half. Once it was a sloppy pass by Song that meant, five touches later, Messi was bearing down menacingly on the goal. It was a narrow escape as the little Argentine fired wide. Uncharacteristic, but credit must go to Szczesny, who held his ground and stayed on his feet until just before Messi opened fire. The second time led to a goal. Gaël Clichy was caught behind the line and Villa needed no second chance to exploit the yard of space his poor positioning provided. Villa rarely misses and Szczesny had no chance. Barcelona were now a goal up. It would then have been easy to let them run riot, but it did not shift Arsenal’s game plan. They were broken through a third time but Pedro’s eventual goal was (somewhat luckily) ruled out for offside.

Though this is not to say that Arsenal had no opportunities through the first half. They came closest on a counterattcking move, involving van Persie, Fàbregas and Theo Walcott, with the latter two in something of a role reversal, as Walcott supplied the through ball from the centre circle and Arsenal’s captain sprinting onto it down the right hand side. The pass was slightly overhit, but Fàbregas made it onto the end of it in time to send a cross towards van Persie, which was just headed away by Abidal. Walcott came close in the early stages, while van Persie was unlucky with one effort and foolish with another, taking too much time before shooting and allowing Gerard Piqué to recover and force his shot wide. 

By the half it was 1-0 to the Catalans, but it was not all doom and gloom on the terraces. There was a cautious optimism amongst the Arsenal faithful. They were only a goal away and we were posing an attacking threat. All was most certainly not lost. Indeed, as the second half began, the home crowd were in full voice, as they had been through the first half, and would continue to be through the second. In its short life, the Emirates Stadium had never experienced such a raucous atmosphere, or anything approaching it. It was a relief, in some ways - if the rest of the crowd would not sing and shout on this, of all occasions, then they would never do so. The second 45 were slightly more open than the first had been, with there being a more potent flow to the games of both sides. All the while the Londoners were looking more and more likely to get a goal, but the threat of Barcelona was always a looming shadow, lurking in the background after every missed attempt on goal.

Credit here must go to Laurent Koscielny. He almost marked Messi out of the game and on one particular Barcelona attack, Pedro was clean through behind the line of defence until Koscielny miraculously managed to disposes him without bringing him down. It was a game that showed all his good qualities as a defender, and though he was liable at the Carling Cup final just two weeks on, it left me completely convinced of his abilities. As the game went back on forth, it was plain to see that it would not end 1-0 to Barcelona, but it could so easily have gone either way. On 78 minutes, Clichy produced a nice bit of improvisation, chipping the ball to the waiting van Persie in the area; what followed was spectacular. With Nicklas Bendtner arriving in the area, everyone assumed that the Dutchman’s next move would be to play to ball towards the big Dane, even Victor Valdes. Spying a football-sized gap between ‘keeper and post, van Persie opened fire. From the other end of the ground, where I was sat, we saw the ball disappear behind the figure of Valdes, then re-appear in the now rustling net.

Cue pandemonium.

The best thing about watching and rewatching clips of the goal is that as the television coverage shows the replays, the crowd are seeing them at the same time, and as the ball sneaks through that minute gap between Valdes and the upright, there is a clearly audible collective intake of breath. Many, myself included, initially thought there may have been an element of luck about the goal, but it’s clear to see van Persie knew exactly what he was doing. Now there was the belief that we could actually win this. We didn’t have long to wait for the second.

It was another example of the end-to-end nature of the match. Barcelona were on the attack, then Koscielny made the tackle, Bendtner played it short to Jack Wilshere - another who played fantastically - who played it short to Fàbregas, then two touches later, Samir Nasri was flying down the right hand side. As he slowed up, it looked as though the chance my have alluded him. The ball in looked misplaced, as it was behind the onrushing van Persie, but Nasri clearly saw more than we did. The ball fell to Arshavin and within a second the ball was again in the back of Valdes’s net. Delight. The Emirates had never felt that level of jubilation - truly that stadium’s finest hour (so far).

Barça would continue to attack and despite the natural tendency, as Arsenal fans, to panic, there was a feeling that we knew we had won, and even as they spent the last 5 minutes camped in the penalty area, we knew the victory was ours. Wilshere and Koscielny were the outstanding performers on a night no one in the ground will soon forget. I still have the flags that were given to us on display in my room; despite the injustice that was the second leg (Bussacca, you cheating swine*), you can’t ever take away from the joy, jubilation and sense of triumph that came with reigning victorious over this Barcelona. I returned from the game hoarse and emotionally and physically drained and with a sixth form interview the following day, but that did not stop me from rewatching and reliving the last 90 minutes again. Unforgettable evening.

*no, I won’t let it go.

4:55pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZWYsLy864UGR
(Notes: 5)
  
Filed under: football Arsenal barcelona barca fabregas van persie messi wilshere szczesny history fan piece favourite games 
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