Take a bow Arsenal. You make every other team in the Premiership look pedestrian. Man Utd, Chelsea, Liverpool may rank above you in the table but that says very little about the quality of this Arsenal side. They make mistakes and sometimes believe in one pass too many but when they are on, they are breathtaking to watch.
Arsenal is a right brained team. Intuitive and anticipatory. Spatially creative. Artistic and articulate. Illogical and emotional. Frustrating and exhilarating.
Watching Arsenal makes you a symptomatic manic depressive for 90 minutes and in the Bolton match much longer. I lost count the number of times I alternated between delight and despair, punching the air and rocking back with my head between my hands. Adebayor goal: Punch. Gilberto PK miss: Head between hands. Meite equalizer: Head between hands. Ljungberg goal: Punch. Baptista PK miss: Head betwen hands. Adebayor goal: Punch. And these are the broad strokes. Sometimes you wished for those stolid, salt of the earth George Graham teams.
As bizarre as the FA win over Bolton was, it showed that Arsenal’s future is bright. Denilson was the pick and this young lad skipped around the tough no nonsense Bolton defense to set up Adebayor’s first goal via Rosicky. Wenger rested most of his first team big boys including Henry, Lehmann, and Fabregas and went in with an even younger lineup as Denilson took over Fabregas role. This win was more important than just keeping their FA Cup hopes alive, this was a test for beating a bogey, Big Sam and the Boltons. And this young Arsenal side (Lehmann could well be Denilson’s father), barring some nerve wracking hiccups, came through.
4 comments on “Arsenal a seriously certifiable team: Take your meds”
The reason that Arsenal were both brilliant and awful was that they were battling the Reebok “hoodo” or curse. Sam Allardyce chose to mouth off before the match, trashing Wenger and Arsenal in reaction to the Wigan match fallout. Good manager, nasty piece of work that big sam. Wenger said nothing in response (tho the headlines erroneously said “Wenger and Allardyce renew feud” – it was all Allardyce). Well sam’s comments helped to galvanize the Arsenal players and gave them focus and determination to finally show that Bolton is not Arsenal’s “bogey” team. So I think what we saw last night was Arsenal working hard to prove they could handle Bolton, but that “bogey hoodoo” kept fighting back against them. Hence, moments of brilliance combined with inexplicable moments of wasteful stupidity. It was an incredible match and Arsenal were just amazing.
I think Allardyce’s bluff was called in this game. He demands a physical game from a veteran team, many like Campo and Giannkopoulos are aging. Arsenal blinked but it did not back down. In the end their fresher legs carried them through.
Arsenal is good side but they lack consistency and their injury worries are stable.
They always have good number of injury list.henry’s domination is also a reason for their downfall
Granted many of you know more than me on the topic; but that said, now this article lays out what I have vaguely thought of before; “…a pass to many” and “Intuitive and anticipatory. Spatially creative. Artistic and articulate. Illogical and emotional. Frustrating and exhilarating.” These are very similar to the way the great Ajax teams were described. I understand Gullit tried to Hollandise Newcastle to no great avail. I would finish in saying there are similarities with Arsenal and Dutch Football; but perhaps the root is more from Arsene himself.