Posts Tagged ‘JET’
Oh what a difference a few wins can make, a few weeks ago after defeats to Tottenham and Braga we were writing ourselves off after a very poor November. Now we sit here top of the table with a smart grin on our faces largely thanks to the brilliance of Samir Nasri on Saturday. After a pretty poor start to our league home form this season, many punters would have had a few bob on Fulham snatching something from the Emirates on Saturday and they would have got a decent return if it wasn’t for two pieces of Samir magic. Two expertly manoeuvred finishes won us 3 points after a pretty lacklustre display.
Samir has come on leaps and bounds this season and has added directness to his play reminiscent of his Marseille days. He has an incredible knack of just keeping hold of the ball and managing to find a way past his opponent. Not blessed with tremendous pace, he has a sort of Robert Pires edge to him and this season has proved to be very effective. This season was always going to be a big season for Samir after 2 inconsistent seasons. This term already he has bagged 11 goals in 19 games which is nearly already more than he has scored in the past two seasons accumatively(12). With 4 goals in his last 3 starts, this rich run of goalscoring form has been vital to us sitting top of the league and has really compensated for the absence of Fabregas.
Of course United have a game in hand, but that just makes the game next Monday all the more important, because a win at Old Trafford next week will open the gap even further and certainly put us in the driving seat for the first time this season. Before that though is a midweek European cruncher against Partizan, which is a must-win game in order to qualify for the next phase of The Champions League. I have my tickets ready for that match and hopefully a good win to match the occasion.
In other news I stated on Twitter last night that Jay Emmanuel-Thomas (JET) is set to join Wigan on loan for the rest of the season. Speaking to Jay on Saturday he didn’t seem 100% certain on the loan move but it seems likely that it will happen in the next few days. Bolton are also thought to be in the running but I think Wenger is a fan of the way Roberto Martinez sets his teams out attacking wise, so therefore Wigan would be first choice. Hopefully JET will gain a lot of what Jack Wilshere learnt on his time at Bolton last season and that will spur him on to improve as a player and who knows maybe JET will be a regular next season. His time has come and I think he is ready for the Premier League.
That’s all for today though, remember where you heard the JET news first, I was the first to break it on Twitter and it is first hand information. Take care and Enjoy your day. Cheers
Try the Question of the Day
Samir Nasri has scored two goals for France, however against what teams were they scored against?
Fabianski – 7, Clichy – 6, Koscielny – 6, Squillaci – 6, Sagna – 6, Arshavin – 6, Wilshere – 6, Song – 5, Rosicky – 6, Nasri – 9, Chamakh – 6, Djourou – 7, Walcott – 6, Van Persie – 6
After three days away from the blogging scene I have returned this morning for my usual post match review. I don’t usually take time away but I’ve just been so cooped up recently with work, time has evaded me. Anyway enough of me rambling on lets talk about what we all came here for. Not exactly fireworks in last night’s display but the job was done and with United being absolutely murdered away to West Ham it was a very important victory in regards to us taking a step to winning a trophy this term. Arsenal are now 4/6 favourites to take home the Carling Cup and a win in the Semi Final’s will send us to Wembley.
Historically we have done well in this competition before so its nothing new that we have reached the Semi Final’s, we just normally do it with a team full of youngsters. This season Wenger has used the competition to give first team players games and to help players regain their fitness and has taken it much more seriously. Wenger’s team selection this year has signalled his intent to win one Trophy at least and I’m pleased to see this, it should have happened far sooner in the teams 5 year run without a trophy.
The game itself was pretty dull, Wigan didn’t really look at the races and we didn’t shift out of first gear. An own goal from Alcaraz and a Bendtner finish from a Vela cross sealed the win for us. We had chances to really put the game to bed, but this was the first time in a long time where we have been 2-0 up and I have felt very comfortable. Good performances from Van Persie, Djourou and Gibbs were the highlights of the display and also RVP came away with 70 minutes under his belt and seemed to be unscathed (Touches wood).
Not too many negatives to take from last nights game other than only giving JET 10 minutes playing time once again. It’s great Jay is actually getting games but 10 minutes is hardly enough time to make an impact and impress. Maybe if we had been 3-0 up Wenger would have bought him on earlier, but I just feel like if your going to give the boy a chance then it has to be a real chance not just 10 minutes here or there. Who am I though to criticise Wenger’s skills in player development, I’m sure he knows what he is doing and just giving Jay a taster and something to work harder for in training and impress further in the reserves.
Overall though a fairly positive night, one step further to winning a trophy, RVP gaining some playing time, Gibbs playing very well and another clean sheet from Szczesny. Its imperative that we go all the way in this competition so this team knows what it feels like to win a Trophy together. For many players this will be their first trophy as a professional footballer and will be their first experience of actually winning something. If we do go all the way in the Carling Cup this could serve us well in the title race because for once the team will be full of winners and confidence.
Someone pointed out to me the other day that Arsenal are ‘a team full of losers’. Not loser’s in the fact that they ate their packed lunch alone in the canteen when they were 15 because they had no friends, but loser’s in respect to the fact that hardly any of our player’s have actually experienced winning a trophy, not just with Arsenal but any other team as well. This season we have bought in Chamakh who has won a French league title with Bordeaux and a few domestic trophies, as well as Squillaci who has won 5 league titles on his travels. Other than that however our best players don’t know what it feels like to win anything domestically. RVP, Sagna, Vermaelan, Nasri, Fabregas, Clichy and Song have never won a league title in their careers.
Now I’m not sure whether this has been a factor in recent years where we have failed to win a Trophy but it’s no coincidence that United’s and Chelsea’s squads are full of players that have won Trophies not only at their clubs now but with previous clubs also. Arshavin, Rosicky, Chamakh, Clichy and Squillaci are the only players at the club that have experienced Domestic League title success. Maybe this is why in recent years we have bottled it at the end of the season, because we don’t have enough players in the team that know what you have to do to win a league title. It’s just a thought but it explains to an extent of why we haven’t won anything since 2005.
Of course in order to gain experience of winning league title’s you have to actually win one first and I feel like winning the Carling Cup can give the team the belief and also the relief of winning something to push them on to do well in the League race. In recent year’s we have lacked belief and confidence when it has come to the final hurdle and in many of the last few season’s we have dropped out of all competitions pretty much within a few weeks or so. If we can win the Carling Cup and stick around in all competitions for as far as we can then maybe that could well prove to be the turning point in the title race.
Thanks for reading. Leave lots of comments please and answer my Question of The Day if your smart enough
Stat of The Day -Djourou has the highest win % at the club so far this season, having won 10/12 games he has played in.(83.3%)*
Question of The Day – Having featured in at least 7 games, Which Arsenal player has the lowest win % so far this season?
*featured in 7 games requirement
Szczesny – 7, Gibbs – 7, Djourou – 7, Koscielny – 6, Eboue – 6, Vela – 7, Wilshere – 7, Denilson – 6, Walcott – 6, Bendtner – 6, Van Persie – 7, Eastmond – 6, Nasri – 6, Emmanuel Thomas – 6
A few talking points today in different area’s that I’d like to touch upon. An uproar broke out on Twitter today revolving JET-gate, following an outburst by him which he called a mate on Twitter a ‘C***’. Now I’m not condoning such language to be used on Twitter but I know Jay personally and the guy he was talking to and if anything it was nothing but a kick up the ass to a friend who is as lazy as Nicklas Bendtner. In regards to the other thing he said which was merely just a song lyric from an artist from the area we grew up in, I just can’t see what the whole comotion is about. He is 19 years old, all his friends are on Twitter, it is a social networking site why should he or any other young footballer be denied the chance to have a normal life having a laugh and joke with his friends?
As you can see I’m very much for the youngsters to be on Twitter, if people just stopped being moany Granny’s and just understand that its only Twitter, it’s not like he tweeted to all of his followers swearing, to be honest I don’t think he could care less if he had 30 followers or 30,000 followers, he is just on Twitter to socialize with his friends, nothing more and nothing less.
The top story of the day however has to be Aaron Ramsey’s shock loan move to Nottingham Forest until January. No doubt it is an excellent coup for Forest but I just can’t see the logic behind it. If we kept Aaron at the club he would be under our watchful eye and we could play him and monitor him all the time. At Forest I can see more harm than good happening to Aaron, the only reasoning I can see behind it is that Wenger and the Arsenal medical team wanted to try something different to the methods they used with Eduardo and Diaby. Maybe they feel that competitive football is exactly what Aaron needs to get back into the swing of things straight away. You can imagine the reaction though if Aaron comes back to Arsenal injured for another long spell or burnt out because he has played too many games in short period of time after a long stretch out. There would be an outrage, it’s a risky call by Wenger and I don’t think its a risk he needs to take.
Other news is surrounding Cesc’s injury and that he could be out for at least 2 weeks but it could be more pending an in-depth investigation to his latest injury suffered against Braga. Just as it happens, in two weeks time is a showdown with United at Old Trafford, but to be honest I’d rather not rush Fabregas back to fitness. I would give him the time he needs, even if it’s until the New Year, that way we have a fit and vibrant captain for the start of the crucial second half of the season. The last thing we would need is rushing Fab back to fitness and then he picks up another injury that could keep him out for even longer.
That’s about it for today folks. Just one last shout out to the winner of yesterday’s question of the day which was answered correctly by only one person who was Sirach. give him a follow on twitter as well @YebsAFC. The answer incidentally for yesterday’s question was a 3-2 defeat in December 1998 where Bergkamp’s brace was not enough to get us the 3 points that day.
Stat of The Day – We average 3.11 goals per game at home so far this season in all competitions.
Question of The Day – Who scored Arsenal’s last goal of the 1990’s?
Leave your answer’s in the comments section or @ me on Twitter. Todays winner will recieve a shout out in tomorrows post. Enjoy and have fun researching!
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