Fulham 1 - 0 Arsenal
Arsenal started yesterday pretty much the same way they ended against WBA. Tired looking and lacklustre. Playing a better team (than WBA) meant our midfield frailties were exposed much more sharply - Eboue did a good job of tackling, but he is clearly out of position in defensive midfield and looked uncomfortable. He also has a terminal lack of vision from the middle - I know that’s a sharp contrast to my usual rants about him losing the ball with wild passes, but the team as a whole looked flat and short safe passes from Eboue meant Fulham were able to track us that much more easily. Denilson appeared to weave in and out of the game - he’s certainly not the tenacious Flamini replacement that he looked like he could be.
Upfront Van Persie continues floundering in the doldrums, and Adebayor proved yet more wasteful - one of his more difficult chances hitting the post solidly.
I’m getting a bit worried about Gallas - 2008/2009 season’s Gilberto? He looks half a yard off the pace at all times, and was consistently being bailed out by Toure, who’s not even fit. Not surprisingly Gallas lost his mark in the box who didn’t need any invitation to slot the ball home. I hope the next time Gallas cries because our season is imploding, he remembers back and thinks about his somewhat lazy reaction to that particular corner.
I know Arsene is thinking that we have Rosicky, Fabregas and Diaby all injured and that the midfield is covered a bit better when they are not all out, but with Arsenals luck, surely you’ve got to assume that we’ll be in this position again towards the middle of the season.
There are some really talented youngsters about to break through but he really needs to lay down some cash and fill the gap that we have now with experience and ball winning skill.
I’m getting a little tired of hearing about the stadium as an excuse for not spending - we’ve made some good money from transfers, including a wedge from Tottenham for DBentley (who actually looks like the only ‘player’ in their team incidentally)and I think now’s about the time to spend that on the missing link in the middle.
With a proven ball winner in midfield at least we’ll have some cover for the somewhat shakey defence.
Filed by Kieran at August 24th, 2008 under Uncategorized