We've had an international break. Whilst this tends to cloud the memory - I find deliberately blotting it out also helps! - Arsenal's last three matches deserve a brief reprise:
A quick recap on Swansea, October 28th: a truly dire first half performance somewhat retrieved by 10 minutes of urgency, when Arsenal first equalised and then took a narrow lead, followed by a sense of holding on to what they had. Hardly a dominant show, and questions need to be asked yet again about team preparation. Now, I have no idea how much attention the Manager pays to 'lesser' opposition, or if he merely expects his team's supposed superior class to tell in the end, but it seems to me that we're seeing a pattern here. It takes half an hour for the team to get a grip on how the other side are set up and playing (by which time they may well be behind), and only then do they manage to adjust - and I think the players do it, as I see nothing from the bench to help them - and do the necessary. That first half was one of the worst 45 minutes I'd seen put together by an Arsenal side in a while. Despite there being many recent examples of other horror shows...
Talking of horror shows, I'll move on to Red Star Belgrade. I remember standing on the sparsely-populated terraces at Highbury at Christmas 1983, watching Arsenal play Birmingham City. The Arsenal side included such legends as Colin Hill, David Cork and Raphael Meade. The game is memorable only for Charlie Nicholas' first home goal for the club (a penalty). I recall the first half being so bad - additionally it was bloody cold! - that I and my friend Anthony deliberately waited until the players came out for the second half before then going to buy hot drinks.
This, I'm afraid, was worse. I'd have had more enjoyment sitting at home in an ice bath, counting my bathroom tiles. Compounded by watching Arsenal's newest bright young thing, Reiss Nelson, played totally out of position at right wing back whilst his rightful spot in the line-up was taken by the totally innocuous Theo Walcott. Frustration heaped upon frustration, but the Manager had at least made 10 changes in preparation for Manchester City. So we hoped (against hope)...
And witnessed the football equivalent of a massacre.
And so I move on to discussing Deception and Deflection, the title of this piece. I seriously have no idea what game Arsene Wenger was watching, judging by his post-match interview, but if City had won 8-2 it would have been no shock. The gulf in class was gargantuan, as Arsenal chased shadows for pretty much the entire 90 minutes. Yes, the penalty may have been a bit soft (no, it WAS a penalty), and yes, David Silva was offside, but City missed a myriad of chances (alongside two great saves from Cech) and probably had at least two more gears they could have engaged if required. To attempt to deflect blame onto a supposedly diving Sterling and the officials, as Wenger tried to do, was massively dishonest and disingenuous.
With the thing that hurts the most being that Arsenal used to dominate like that not too long ago. The move to The Emirates was intended to move the team up to that level, was it not? Well, we saw the chickens come firmly home to roost in that shambolic 3-1 defeat. The diametrically opposed directions that the two clubs are taking was packaged up in those 90 minutes.
And here's something that many have missed: Wenger drafted Coquelin into the team, and so to a man we thought: 'Ah; sensible planning - an extra body in midfield. Perhaps he'll use him to sit on De Bruyne and cut off the main supply line.' But no, he plays him in the middle of the back three - leaving a proper centre-back on the bench I should add - and leaving Ramsey and Xhaka outnumbered and overrun.
And it's worth chucking in that Wenger had experimented with a defensive midfielder in that position on a handful of occasions in pre-season and earlier in the season. But the man he'd used, Elneny, was sat on the bench. Clearly, this was just the sort of thing to experiment with when coming up against Aguero, Sane, Sterling, Silva and De Bruyne?!? This is the latest in a long list of completely illogical tactical decisions taken by the coach (lest we forget playing Bellerin at left wing back in order to accommodate The Ox at right wing back at Liverpool - to whom the latter was abut to be transferred - just a few weeks ago) once regarded as the best in the world - but now not even the best in a 5 mile radius of his home ground.
And so we move on to...
Never do I recall being more fearful of ignominy and embarrassment than I do about this match. Tottenham are another club moving rapidly in precisely the opposite direction to Arsenal. With a vibrant young side and an impressive young Manager who coaches them properly, all that really remains for them to do is actually win a trophy - and that surely won't be long in coming. When I think about the match-up, it terrifies me, as I believe that Tottenham are superior all over the pitch. I genuinely don't see weaknesses, whereas I see weakness all over the pitch in the Arsenal side.
I hope that I am proved wrong, and that Arsenal can compete with Tottenham, but I am prepared for a hammering and for the atmosphere at the ground to be as poisonous as can possibly be imagined. And if it gets really bad, where will that leave the Manager (let alone the squad)? With sudden talk about possibly selling Ozil and Sanchez in January, we can with that kiss any hope of Top 4 goodbye. And when I say Top 4 I mean fourth - the top three places are already reserved.
And so to Piers Morgan. Now, he polarises opinion on pretty much everything, but he has his beliefs and he believes in calling a spade a bloody shovel if that's what he has to do. It's worth watching his tete-a-tete with Sir Alan Sugar on Sky Sports News, because for all that he speaks in headlines I believe that he is spot on in what he says. We all used to love Arsene Wenger and what he did for the club and its fans. But that was then, and this is now. I hope for the sake of the club and its supporters that my gut feeling about the NLD is wrong, and that the infamous 'mental strength' can show through, but I suspect that Saturday lunchtime might just be a giant watershed in the history of Arsenal Football Club. And maybe that will finally open Stan Kroenke's eyes to what needs to be done.
