Bore Stalemate at the Emirates

Let’s face it there really isn’t much to write about the game except you are a journalist and you have to compulsorily send in a match report and since you are not allowed to summarize your post in these simple words, “There is nothing to write about”, you would then have to come up with paragraphs trying to explain how Arsenal struggled to impose themselves over the 90min period and Chelsea were toothless going forward and then come up with superlatives or boring replicative references to describe Jose Mourinho, the man who knows how to get results that he wants.

It is pretty much clear that I do not envy anyone who has to review that game for a living except you are Gary Linekar and the folks at the Emirates studio who got served some pretty nice meals.

This is getting ridiculous. Afternoon tea has arrived in the Emirates studio. No wonder you’re so large @piersmorgan pic.twitter.com/XYBRjyoaQW

— Gary Lineker (@GaryLineker) April 26, 2015

Seeing his tweets, I couldn’t help but think about my current career path. It’s funny and stupid right?, how someone else’s’ meal would activate career thoughts, but think of it for a few seconds, Premier League player, earn within the region of 40-60k a week for an average player till I am maybe 34-35 (which is a shit load of money, do not believe what the Sterling’s and Walcott’s of this world make it out to seem). Announce my retirement six months ahead of time so there is always some ceremony around me every minute I spend on the pitch, head out to America or Qatar for the next 3-4 years to cash out, then return to England, set myself up with either my former club or some radio gig or who knows BT Sport, Sky or BBC might hire me as a pundit. I get to watch games for free, get served nice meals at press boxes and say complete shit…see Michael Owen for instance; he gets away with his stupidity. Oh well!!

• I am really tempted to delete the last two paragraphs, if you still see it when I publish, it means that this Smirnoff Ice I am drinking while writing this has gotten the better part of my reasoning.

You see, this is what a game against Mourinho does to you, no excitement while watching and hardly any excitement when writing. He had some tutelage at Barcelona I believe, and this is a place famous for being one of the homes of the legendary John Cruff, a strong apostle of Total Football. I really would love to have Johan’s take on the game as a footballing spectacle. The truth is I struggle to remember our game at home to Chelsea last season, in a few weeks, I would struggle to remember the finite details of this game too, but who am I to complain. In the grand scheme of things, football is about trophies right? So that is what we are meant to remember and what great teams, players and coaches will be remembered by…I differ.

What you cannot take away from Chelsea however is that they are a team really focused on the prize, and while other teams always indicate they go from game to game, I think Mourinho has a way of instilling long term laser focused approach to football games and winning titles in all his teams. Whatever the press say, whatever anyone says doesn’t matter, are we on course to achieving the final goal? Once the answer is yes, he is satisfied. See the way the Chelsea players especially John Terry celebrated at the end of the game, the celebration in my opinion had nothing to do with the result on the day but rather the effect the result on the day had on how close they were to achieving the goal clearly set out for them. WIN THE PREMIER LEAGUE TITLE!!

Arsenal have not won the league in 10 years, this is a really long time and the longer it takes you to win it, the harder it becomes. (ask Liverpool). However, to win it, we would need this same Mourinho approach, I do not mean play like his team but rather a deep seated focus on how important your final goal is. Only then will you draw a game against Liverpool, draw against Hull at home, lose to Stoke away, lose at Southampton away and immediately feel the effect of how that result has affected your final goal. It is ok to lose a game and tell yourself you will bounce back in the next game because in truth, it is really hard to win all your games but if your goal is the Premier League title, as a player and as a team you would certainly feel deep seated anger every time you drop points that derail you and the club from achieving that goal.

I feel the ingredients for a proper premier league challenge next season is already inherent in the crop of players we currently have. Surely a few more additions would help, but the question is in which positions? Coincidentally immediately after the game, this was the line of thought discussions on a Gooners only WhatsApp and BlackBerry group I belong to focused on. The general consensus was that we could do with another DM, a central defender and another out and out striker.

I feel we could do with all three especially if they are top class players but I think Wenger will not do the business. Gabriel had a good game against Reading in the FA Cup final, but once it was certain Per Mertesacker was fit to play he was back in the starting line up in a game were we knew our main threat was a Chelsea counter attack which might require pace to stop. Pace, clearly not one of the BFG’s strengths. What does this tell me, BFG still has at least a year of football in Wenger’s eyes and Chambers would be our fourth choice center back.

The DM position is no clearer, Coquelin can remain as his first choice, Arteta has signed a new extension and Wenger already has Krystian Bielik listed in the first team, but Flamini might be leaving so that frees up some space. Upfront, an out and out striker is the term I hear a lot, but Wenger does not seem like an out and out kinda guy to me, he always prefers someone who can and is willing to do more than one thing. But isn’t second striker meant to be the role Welbeck plays at the club?

Honestly, when Welbeck came into the game against Chelsea, did you look at him and say “ hei, now that is someone with a goal in him?”, I didn’t. I knew he would huff and puff with his afro puffs but I really didn’t expect any goals. I ran a small poll recently on Twitter asking “Arsenal chasing a game with 30mins to go needing to win, who would you leave on the pitch between Welbeck and Ramsey knowing we need to score” and about 75% of the respondents said Ramsey. Ramsey is a midfielder, Welbeck is an attacker. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? I leave that to your imagination.

It is on to the next one for us and I hope we do everything possible to finish second. Have a great day and week friends. Interact with me on the comments section below or on Twitter on @canoncrested. Follow us, we always follow back. Keep the Canon in your heart.