Weekend Review Part 2: Apologies and re-evaluating Arsenal, Liverpool, Manchester United, Tottenham, Chelsea and Everton’s performances
After reading the comments on the previous review, it seems that some clarifications are in order. I started writing this as a comment but it got too long and it would get more attention from the RSS readers and site visitors if this was put up as a separate post, so here we go. If after reading this you still feel like trashing the site, be my guest, but why not send in your opinions via email at ahmed(at)soccerlens(dot)com?
If I’m screwing up, I’d like to fix things instead of engaging in a prick-waving contest and if your criticism can help me improve the site then I’m ready to take some flak with it. So hit me up on email (or add me on IM - MSN Messenger is a_bilal(at)hotmail(dot)com and Google Talk is godofdust(at)gmail(dot)com) and we’ll talk.
I’ll deal with the criticism on a team by team basis (going alphabetically) - seems more logical as I’m answering to different sets of fans. I’m also throwing in the two articles I wrote on United’s match with Everton and the problem (in my view) that United have at left-back because - well, because there are things there that need to be responded to.
1. Arsenal
I’ve been super-impressed with Arsenal this season - they’ve always had the talent but this season they’re delivering on it as well, which is good to see no matter which team you support. However, before the Tottenham game I noticed that several Arsenal blogs were apprehensive about the game, and after the game the result (and the game) were celebrated as a big win. I agree that beating Tottenham is always sweet for Arsenal fans, but let’s look at the bigger picture:
This was an Arsenal side top of the table on points and 2nd on goal difference before the weekend.
This is an Arsenal side that’s been playing quite well this season and grinding out wins where they would have trailed off last season.
Their opposition is a club whose management is under extreme - and I’d say unrealistic (you don’t expect Champions League qualification in the 3rd year after 2 seasons of being #5 with the same manager when the difference between 4th and 5th is so big over the course of the season) - amounts of pressure and as a result it’s hard for the manager to motivate his players. The defence is shot and their keeper has been poor all season. Creatively the team has been disjointed.
Apart from the fact that this was an away game, everything pointed to a dominating Arsenal win. However, the quality of all 4 goals apart (and they were good ones), Arsenal waited till the end of the game before looking ‘dominating’. The game itself was good - open and lots of chances created. However, we’ve had this debate last season as well when Arsenal were creating plenty of chances but not scoring. Beautiful football is one thing, effective football is quite another. It took something special to get Arsenal the win, and for that I commend them because this is exactly the type of result they’ve been getting this season which they weren’t last season.
However, I expected better from Arsenal. Maybe I was wrong - but deep inside I’m actually afraid that Arsenal will mount a serious title challenge this season and as a Manchester United that worries me because our club isn’t doing that well (although we’re still *there*). Time will tell and Arsenal’s injury problem could worsen - however, I still thought Arsenal would thump Tottenham - however two late goals and allowing the opposition to create several easy scoring chances (both Berbatov and Bent should have scored) does not qualify as a great performance. The goals were good but overall there were problems in Arsenal’s game that you expect a team of this calibre to minimize.
There was also a point about this game being the best of the weekend (instead of the Everton v Manchester United as I had suggested earlier). Fair enough - and I’ve discussed this more when I talk about Everton.
2. Chelsea
The goal that wasn’t given - the short answer is that I made a mistake, my bad. Kalou was not offside, he was behind the line of the ball.
3. Everton
My reason for pointing to the Everton-United game as the best game of the weekend (as opposed to the Spurs-Arsenal game) was purely because of the quality of football Everton played - whether I’ve under-estimated them or whether they just played several levels above of themselves I don’t know (I think that they’re really this good), but IMO they played quite well. Manchester United defended quite well and as a result shut Everton out.
It’s down to opinion and how you evaluate the game - my reasoning was based on the overall technical quality of play and not just the quality of the goals and for me defensive mistakes count against a team. However, this is one place where everyone has their own opinion, and I’m more than willing to pick up this debate with anyone who wishes to discuss it further.
4. Liverpool
Fratton Park is undoubtedly a tough ground to visit - but my point about Liverpool was to give Pool fans some perspective. Every team has a couple of match winners who, when missing, lead the team to struggle at times. Chelsea have Drogs and Lamps in goal-scoring stakes, Terry/Cech in defence. Manchester United have Rio, Ronaldo and Rooney (and Scholesy to some extent). Arsenal have Toure, Fabregas, RVP. Liverpool have Carragher, Gerrard, Torres.
It’s not a bad thing per se two have star players who can bail you out of tough situations - it’s the same with every side. The difference comes when someone points fingers at other clubs calling them a one-man team while conveniently forgetting that their own side is pretty much the same, and so are many other top sides (Milan without Kaka, Pirlo, Gattuso and Nesta would be where exactly?). Pepe Reina’s comments midweek were his personal opinion but lacked perspective and I took the opportunity to point that out.
5. Manchester United
I’m a Manchester United fan - shoot me for that if you want to. There is bias - sometimes more, sometimes less. In my view Manchester United came up against the toughest side out of the 2nd four (this weekend was basically first four sides vs next four sides) and were given a hell of a game. The value of the win was big for United, and I was excited because while we were good defensively we were crap offensively and Nani usually doesn’t deliver peaches (at least he hasn’t done that much this season) like he did on Saturday.
Everton played really well and made few mistakes defensively so I thought that it was a good tactical game even if there weren’t any great goals.
Tottenham have been hyped up but have some basic problems that Jol hasn’t been able to sort out for over a season (I’ve been talking about them since summer 2006, in case you wish to raise the point that I just thought of this) so I don’t think they’re as good as they’ve been made out to be. There’s talent, there’s just not enough conversion of that talent.
Both Arsenal and Manchester United scored valuable wins, in dramatic fashion (and in Arsenal’s case, in emphatic fashion). Your opinion over which match was better or on which team played better will depend on who you fancy (or who you hate). I think both teams could have done better, they’re capable of much better.
6. Tottenham
How do you expect Martin Jol to work in the environment he’s in? The whole 4th place thing has obviously affected him - the injuries haven’t helped and going up against Arsenal (a good Arsenal at that) wasn’t going to help. I’ve been crying myself hoarse that Tottenham need more steel and experience in midfield, and they need a better tactician and man manager than Martin Jol. Maybe Jol will improve and get to that point, but it’s hard to see that when nothing happens over the course of a season (last season, in case you were wondering).
Tottenham have a great core of talented players (for the record I don’t think Lennon is hyped, he just needs to be injury free for a while and he’ll come good) and they are capable of a lot more than what they’re doing at this point. They will definitely improve (there’s no where to go but up), but they were not playing like a team vying for 5th spot. If you disagree, well, see the start of this article so you know how to get in touch and vent.
7. Manchester United’s left back position
I got some stick for criticising Sir Alex about not replacing Heinze adequately in the summer when he knew that Heinze wanted away from Manchester United - apparently there’s always someone who takes a criticism of the gaffer personally and makes it into an argument where the debate turns to who is better, the manager or me. That’s not the point.
Tactically I’m not convinced by Patrice Evra and I don’t think that his work rate is grounds enough to warrant a place as the first choice left-back of a club like Manchester United. It’s personal opinion and I don’t mind being wrong, but I also don’t think that we can blindly follow the manager - everyone makes mistakes, and if you start accepting everything and question nothing, you are bound to be fed a lot of crap and call it sunshine.
Still - opinions are like arseholes (and you know the rest). Something that always amuses me is that people take any criticism of their club, player or manager personally. Even if I’m talking about a particular decision by a manager or a referee or a player, that in no way implies that the person himself is any less worthy of respect - if we’re going to talk about football rationally then we have to separate individual situations from generalisations.
So…if you think Evra is better than Baines, more power to you. Ultimately all we can do is talk shop, so why not do it without making it personal?
Apologies
I got a few things wrong in my analysis - and I admit that in a way (due to a lack of time more than anything else), I’ve let a few things slide on the blog that wouldn’t have happened, say, 6 months ago. The Kalou goal for starters, and the lack of clarification on all accounts - I stated my mind without explaining my reasoning fully, and perhaps things did need to be explained more.
The rest - well - I’ve answered the rest in the long(ish) article above. If you’ve stuck with me so far, you deserve to be congratulated. Like I said at the start, if you have anything to say, feel free to comment but if you wish to take it up with me personally I’ve left my email and IM details at the top. Hit me up, I’m up for a chat on footy anytime.
Thanks for reading, and I hope this clears up things a bit.
Related Items from Soccerlens
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- Weekend Review: Arsenal get over-excited, Liverpool stumble, Chelsea grumble, Manchester United grind and Everton take #5 title from Tottenham
- Manchester United - 06/07 Season Review - again
- How can Watford improve this summer?
- How can Reading improve this summer?
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I didn’t think the first article was all that bad to be honest. I understood what you were saying, and you were right about a lot of it. Arsenal beat a mediocre (at the moment) Spurs team not that convincingly, Liverpool need either Gerrard or Torres AND Mascherano on the field against good teams on the road, or else it’s just a 50/50 proposition, and Everton are REALLY good. Anyway, anonymous people like to pile on knowing there are no consequences for themselves. It’s easier to get pissed off than to really think. Pissing people off is how COS succeeds anyway–maybe it’s a good thing.
you know nothing about football.. let alone “technical quality of play and not just the quality of the goals and for me defensive mistakes count against a team”, you think you are expert huh?! craps!!
First of all I would like to thank you Ahmed for taking our opinions into consideration and making this post. Whilst I disagree with your evaluation on the best game of the weekend I do see where you are coming from. From an Arsenal fan’s perspective the spurs game would be one we will remember for a long time for various reasons. Chief among them is the preseason flak the team has been getting from spurs fans claiming that this season will see arsenal struggle at mid table while their team would qualify for the champions league. Now having your team prove a point against your fiercest local rival on the pitch is definitely a cause of excitement in any arsenal fan regardless of how fragile we think our defence can be at times. By no means are we implying that arsenal played a perfect game against spurs but an away derby win that happens to take us on top of the table(at least for now). While I personally feel rather vindicated in my believe in Arsenal’s ability to perform this season, I am under no illusion that the team needs several inprovements to the squad in order to sustain a prolonged challenge for the title. However with the encouraging start that the young team have made, I look forward to watching them make life extremely difficult for the other teams who have ‘outperformed’ arsenal in the summer transfer window;) All in all, good second post Ahmed. I for one would still be visiting this site and i’m looking forward to exchange views about the game with all the other fans on the site.
“you know nothing about football.. let alone “technical quality of play and not just the quality of the goals and for me defensive mistakes count against a team”, you think you are expert huh?! craps!!”
…my point exactly
I agree with Josiah’s statement. Ahmed, this was a good follow-up/rectification from the last one. In future maybe you should take a deep breath & count to 10 before you write the reviews?
Anyway, i’d just like to add a comment for all Arsenal fans. I think the team is doing great & yes there are problems. Main thing for me would be injuries & what happens to the line-up in January. Also, we need to stabilise the goal keeping position. Should Lehmann be given another shot or not? Almunia has done well so far & he’s long overdue for his chance in the Sun.
I think Wenger re-signing his contract has gone a long way in boosting morale for the whole team & that might have given them the extra spring in their step to unleash on Spurs. We’re going great guns! (excuse the pun).
I applaud the team for a magnificent performance uptil now. Specifically, i think Gilberto should be be given a standing ovation for keeping his head down & doing the job as required of him without any gripes. The guy has adapted quite well to a fill-in CB position & i don’t think we as Arsenal fans have shown enough appreciation for him. I’m gonna miss him when he leaves.
Lastly, i’m hoping & praying RVP starts clicking again. Its good we’re scoring goals from all around the park. But the guy needs to start doing what he’s supposed to do. I’ve said it before, but once he gets going i think Arsenal are going to be unstoppable this season!
It is obvious that you are biased but there is nothing wrong with it. As an Arsenal fan I am biased towards Arsenal and thats why I don’t have a blog. Arsenal are on fire and it started in preseason where we demolished every team we came across. To a lot of fans it is like a dream, we are not used to seeing the team this consistent and thats why we are skeptical about our team. I know a lot of people are critical about the defending but you should realize that we had a midfielder with jet lag playing in central defence. In a few games Gallas would come back and you will see the difference. I know it is easy to write off Tottenham but were they not the same team that almost beat united some weeks ago. How about Portsmouth who we made look silly a couple of weeks ago. That was the same team that almost beat Chelsea, drew with united and Liverpool. What you have to acknowledge is we are making teams look bad not the other way around. Finally, your assessment that Everton look great was an over statement, United currently suck and any decent team you play against would look great against you. Go and watch that game again and clear you eyes to see that you are playing so bad and your game against Everton was not a great game by any stretch of the imagination.
“Football news you can trust”
This is the most hilarious tagline for your blog here. You blog should rather be a ManUtd blog. Insightful journalism requires unbiased analysis, not an analysis from a manutd perspective biased to all other rivals.
Thanks for clearing that up
To be honest I thought most of what you wrote about Arsenal Pool Chelsea (aside from the mistake with the goal) and Spurs in the first article was pretty much right on and based on truth and logic. The only problem was that you tainted it completely by trying to cover up the fact that Man U have looked relatively poor all season and the weakest of the top four so far.
Its understandable, if arsenal stormed the league last year and then went on a massive spree I would have been wetting my pants with excitement aswell, but at the moment you’re letting your original expectations of how Man Us season was going to go affect your writing. Most Man U fans are the same as you in fairness but I think you should all calm down just a little. Man U did it with smoke and mirrors last season. The fact is Rooney, Ronaldo and Scholes were all consistently brilliant last year which was what made the difference more than anything else. When they didnt perform or were shackled by good teams Man U became exposed and didnt look particularly strong. As has already been proven there is no way the three will be as good this season so it will be very tough. That said the fact that Man U are keeping pace is scary because Im sure that for about 4 months (as opposed to 7 or 8 like last year) you lot will be brilliant.
For the record I thought it would finish Chelsea, Arsenal, Man U then Liverpool this season, but that was at a time when I thought Arsenal would have signed Babel and Anelka and before Carlos arrived at Man U.
I tend to think now that you had not had yourself enough sleep before posting comments here.
Yes, arsenal has some slight problems that may cause trouble in future, but we are also known for compensating our deficits. ” YOU SCORE ONE, WE STRING UP THREE” So, what is the big deal, + let Robin wake up. You must be mistaken.
wait for the real van persie to start playing and arsenal will then reach their full potential
Ahmed,
You do a good job holding true to your mission statement on the “Write on SL” tab. “Our business is passion, and with that comes a responsibility to dispense with the bullshit and present the bare truth to our readers.” If fans from other teams can’t handle opinions that don’t toe their company line, they can go find a website that drinks their brand of kool-aid.
Keep up the good work.
Everyone has convidence in Chelsea and Man Utd to get back on track but what if it isnt that easy what if it just doesn’t happen i’d be a bit worried? But i do think they will get back into the league and it won’t be a 2 horse race i think it will be all 4 teams going at it
Well done for clearing that up Ahmed, but I didn’t think the first article was that bad. The main problem with the other one was you said the UTD match was the match of the day, when it clearly wasn’t. You also said Arsenal played bad which they didn’t, and you couldn’t have said it on a worse weekend, when they play Spurs.
quote,’Time will tell and Arsenal’s injury problem could worsen - however, I still thought Arsenal would thump Tottenham - however two late goals and allowing the opposition to create several easy scoring chances (both Berbatov and Bent should have scored) does not qualify as a great performance. The goals were good but overall there were problems in Arsenal’s game that you expect a team of this calibre to minimize.’
quote,’It’s down to opinion and how you evaluate the game - my reasoning was based on the overall technical quality of play and not just the quality of the goals and for me defensive mistakes count against a team’.
If you read the above 2 quotes from your article, I can well assure you, you dont understand football. You are like a horse which has a restricted field of vision. If you are honest, you would even acknowledge Man City are playing some pretty good football.
There is nothing wrong with being a fan of a particular football club but I think its not proper to bring your personal bias to bear on your analysis of football matches.I think by all means,you should try to overcome that.I will enjoy your articles better.
Ahmed will stay loyal to Man u all his life so dont expect anything else from his writing. Having said that, I’d also like to point out that it is still early days in the league(hell even 25% of the matches are not over). As of now I’d say Liverpool look the strongest, even though Arsenal top the table and I’m a Gooner. Gunners have let in some bad goals (2 courtesy of Lehmann) whereas Liverpool have dominated every game they played and lets face it, they have the best squad and bench. Proven matchwinners, raw talent, they have it all more than any other team. Man U are extremely lucky with some cruical refereeing decisions going their way(both against spurs and everton). Chelsea look like they still havent recovered from the shock defeat at villa park. Its good to see that all teams have registered a victory. Looks like the league will be a bit more unpredictable than the ones in recent years and thats quite good to be honest………………
I think we should all thank Ahmed for writing blogs for us daily or almost daily (I’m not sure. I don’t keep track of dates) and always speaking out his opinions. Just because he thinks that way doesn’t mean that people should be so rude.