Monday 11 August 2008

The new season approaches... but what happened this summer?

Just a few days until our season starts with the Champions League qualifier against McLaren’s men, FC Twente. Most of the team you would think picks itself, if injury free, with just the central midfield position next to Cesc still a major talking point amongst fans. But another position which many thought would be improved this summer with acquisitions, is the central defence. Towards the end of last season, we were conceding too many goals, not hanging on to leads, and faltering too easily under the long ball. The Toure/Gallas partnership was deemed too similar – 2 athletes, strong and quick, but not a dominator between the two of them. Senderos was (again) criticised for his performance in that crucial 2nd leg at Anfield, despite impressive performances leading up to that game. Arsene even said that we conceded too much last season from long balls down the middle,

“We have conceded 31 goals which is six or seven too many. It's as close as that to win the championship.
"We didn't give more goals away than any other team in the League on open play, nor on set pieces, but where we gave more goals away was on direct balls, in the air, through the middle, and most of the time on second balls.
"On set pieces and open play we were as good as Manchester United and Chelsea. The numbers are available. But we have to rectify how we deal with direct balls. When a team just goes for long, direct balls against us, we have to improve."


He followed this up by saying,

"I will try to buy, maybe in the defensive area and one on the creative side of the game as well because we had some players, important players, who were out this year"


Now, we all know Wenger is very cryptic with his transfer talk, and whatever he says should be taken with more than a pinch of salt. But when he said these things back in May, most would have assumed that defence would have been the 1st thing to strengthen, especially considering that at the time, Hleb and Gilberto were still with us. And most of us would have agreed that it was the right decision. So it perhaps came as a bit of a surprise that a month later, when commenting on alleged links with Vincent Kompany, Arsene dismissed the notion that we needed new defensive signings,

"I know him to be very, very good but I have decided that defenders are no longer necessarily needed for next season.”


So, what changed during this time, which was only a month apart? Did Arsene see something in our team that could be rectified without the need of spending the dough? Well, let’s look at the current situation.
Toure and Gallas are our main partnership; they are the best defenders we have. Do they work well together as a partnership though? They are both very similar players, they are both quick and strong, use athleticism to counter attacks, but neither are natural leaders. Gallas was excellent when next to Terry at Chelsea, Kolo was immense when partnered with Campbell. In the 2 years together, it seems that neither takes command of the situation, especially when dealing with long balls. We lack a Vidic, Adams, Nesta type defender, a natural no nonsense leader who can come and clean up any danger, but to also organise the back four. Communication does seem to be a problem at times, neither are natural talkers.
But maybe looking at the situation closer, maybe the disruption due to injuries and the African Nations Cup could be one of the reasons they haven’t worked, and a bit of continuity is what Wenger is banking on this season? In their 1st season together, Gallas joined on deadline day, never had a pre-season with us to help him get accustomed to our style of play and forge a partnership. He also missed many months with injury. By the time he came back, we were out of everything with nothing to play for, apart from consolidating 4th again. Last season should have been better. But Gallas again missed the 1st couple of months, and Senderos and Toure led us to the top of the league. With the team on top form, Gallas and Toure took us through the busy Christmas period into January on top, before Kolo went off to Africa. Senderos slotted in, and all was well, up until the much publicised Birmingham game. After that, our defence was chopped and changed, Sagna got injured, and our season fell apart. So could continuity be one of the reasons the Gallas/Toure partnership hasn’t flourished like many thought it would when Gallas was bought in? Perhaps it is, although for me the balance is still not right and is probably the major reason for us conceding too many goals, and I think that this partnership has a lot to prove this season. They need to become more dominating, more ruthless, and concentration must be improved, although the whole team needs to be better concentrated (conceding twice immediately after taking the lead against Liverpool in both legs was shocking). Our full backs are amongst the best in Europe, I wouldn’t trade them for any other pair, but the middle needs to be sorted out. Some point to our attacking football for the reason we probably conceded a few too many goals. That’s a load of flaming dog turd. Man United won the league by scoring more than us, and conceding less. Our Invincibles team showed the way too. The bar has been raised in recent years, and in order to be Champions, you have to be great offensively and defensively.

Now, if any of the 1st two get an injury, the back ups are Senderos, Song and Djourou. Hardly inspiring stuff you may say. Song played well towards the end of the season, but essentially he played in 4 dead games. Senderos we all know about, will he finally silence the doubters this season? Statistically, his partnerships with Gallas and Toure conceded less goals then our 1st choice. I don’t know have the stats on hand, but this is fact. But stats don’t show the whole picture of course, such as which games they played, in which competitions, the rest of the team on the day, just returning from injuries (such as Senderos coming back against Sevilla away, and Kolo at Old Trafford in the FA Cup) etc. Big Phil will continually be under scrutiny and as the next in line we rely on him a lot. I sincerely hope that he and the others will be good enough to step in this season, but we should have bought another centre back, I really hope we don’t live to regret it come the end of the season.

Who could we have signed? That’s not our job, and maybe there hasn’t been anyone good enough available for the right price. Not many great defenders stood out at the Euros. However, let’s be honest, I’m sure there are players out there that could have helped improve our squad. So maybe Arsene has seen something that we can work on as a team? Well, we improved our record from conceding from set pieces, which was a problem a few seasons back, maybe we are banking on this again? Let’s bloody hope so, because as we have seen from this pre-season, we are still conceding cheap goals. Yes, pre-season shouldn’t be looked at too seriously, but it’s not a good habit to fall into; we can’t keep coming from behind. Getting a new defensive midfielder is a must, no question about it. And a tall player might be something we need. Gilberto helped us win more headers from set pieces and long balls, something that Flamini couldn’t do, despite everything else he brought to the team.
There is still time for Arsene to change his mind and bring someone in, Diarra last season was a signing that no one could have foreseen with the amount of defensive midfielders we had at the club (ironic now, eh?). If not, then the current players have to show the boss that he was right not to strengthen. It’s not as if we have no experience there. Championship winners, FA Cup winners, played in World Cups, Euros, African Nations – they have played at the highest level so there are no excuses on that front, but is the quality there in depth? We are about to find out. I have a feeling that should we fail this season and the defence is one of the main reasons, then there will be changes. I believe that this is a major gamble from Le Boss going into the new season.

By Mario Leontiou

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