Arsenal vs Besiktas: Match Preview

Preview | Pre-match conference | Team news

One of the annoying things of being a blogger is filling up space when the matter is in desperate dearth.

Match previews for rather uninteresting matches are a fine example of this. At such times, using cliches like "don't underestimate the opposition" and "a win should be the order of the day" are enforced, however much it may bore the author and his readers.

But make no mistake - today is not that day.

Today is not a given. Today should not be taken lightly. And considering our performances and depleted team, today is not a day to feel confident.

I am not fancying our chances tonight. I don't trust the team to come out focused and determined, and to blow the opposition out of the water. I'm not saying that Besiktas are favourites, but that I'd be mighty relieved rather than expectantly happy if Arsenal get past Besiktas.

The team are on the verge of crisis. Giroud's injury has added to the requirements of a fair amount of players. Even with him our performances were unconvincing. We've gotten away with it three times so far. For obvious reasons, I hope today marks a fourth.

Losing tonight would be disaster. Without the lure of Champions League football and the monetary rewards of it, we wouldn't be in the best position to buy players Lord knows we need. We have the best squad assembled since more than half a decade, but it could quickly disassemble without the carrot of CL.

My worry lines have seldom been higher. I can only hope the manager shares the same sentiment.

Fucking come on Arsenal already.

-Santi [Follow me on Twitter @ArsenalBlogz ]

Besiktas 0-0 Arsenal: Another unconvincing performance raises doubts

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Well that was dreadful. And disturbing. And, from my side, unexpected.

Let's start with the performance. I thought it was sluggish and questionable right from the start. Link-ups always seemed to break down, and when they did make the striker, Olivier made sure he put most of them to waste. He's gaining an unwanted reputation of unreliability. It came to such that our only attacking outlet was Alexis Sanchez, a man who was one of the only silver linings in a day full of black clouds.

Against Palace, Rambo's late tap-in ensured that we got away with question marks on our showing. But yesterday, when Besiktas managed to hold us at arms-length to a draw, our attacking woes were more vividly exposed. Some might argue that factors like the pitch and the country may have resulted in a poor display, and they may have a point. But hey, for a club like Arsenal that plays in the rough weathers of England and travels to the Britannia and St. James' Park twice a year, we ought to be used to it.

If Wenger's passing philosophy only works on a sunny day with perfect grass then I suggest he'd drop the whole philosophy, because the climate won't contrive to his wishes every time.

It's difficult to single out the main cause of our attacking shortcomings. Plenty have passed the buck to Olivier Giroud, and while he most definitely had one of his worst games in an Arsenal shirt, only holding him guilty is narrow and naive thinking. Look at the quality we had out there. Wilshere, Cazorla, Sanchez and Ramsey. That's flair, vision, pace and goals right there. How is the manager NOT getting the best out of these players?

Almost all of them performed badly, with Giroud the one taking the cake. And there can surely be little defence to that. Giroud was one of the worst performers on the pitch. Even his usually adept lay-offs were missing, and he always took the ball in the most unconventional of positions, and vainly tried to dribble it past (read: through) defenders.

Meanwhile, Demba Ba was delivering a much more accomplished performance at the other end, what with half-line strikes and volleys. Wenger once said that he passed up on Ba because him and Giroud were pretty much the same animal. Well, I'd rather two animals than one, then.

Also, this.

That shouldn't mean others must slip under the radar. Now, I rate Cazorla highly, but I've always said that his powers are curtailed on the left flank. He's time and time again proven to be inconsistent (if not average) when shunted out wide, and yesterday was another example of that. He had his usual accurate passing, but he was mostly anonymous, well off the pace and not providing the width that we needed.

I'm increasingly getting of the opinion that we should make Chamberlain a regular on the left, relegate Santi to Ozil's deputy and make Rosicky Walcott's alternative option.

Left flank: Chamberlain, Podolski
Right flank: Walcott, Rosicky
Attacking midfielders: Ozil, Cazorla
Strikers: Alexis, Giroud, Campbell, Sanogo

Not too shabby, eh? Just a thought.

Anyway, Ramsey. He too had a forgettable game, being rather ordinary except for providing a delicious pass to Giroud towards the end of the first half. What I found striking, though, was the general defence of the ones backing Giroud (I'm one of them, remember) being "Well, Ramsey was equally shit too, why aren't we slating him?"

Lest we forget (or choose to forget), Ramsey has been playing out of his skin for around a year. He's almost earned his one-off. Giroud, however much I may rate him, has been inconsistent and unreliable since March. This wasn't a knee-jerk reaction towards him. This was simmering for a good few months.

Towards the end of the game Arteta limped out injured. For a 32 year old footballer playing regularly in such a stamina-consuming job that he does, the repercussions could be severe. I haven't got any news of his injury status as I type this, but it goes without saying that it makes our need for a proper, reliable defensive midfielder even more. And no, not a Kim Kallstrom-esque body.

Wenger wasn't encouraging.

"Honestly, we are not close to signing anybody."

However, based on the clear evidence of yesterday, buying a defensive midfielder will not solve our problems. For all our defensive personnel crisis and cries for a DM, it is our star-studded attack that's faltering. The reasons for it could be as simple as fitness problems or as complex as fundamental flaws tactically; I won't pretend to be in the know.

However, all I know is that we need to sort out our attacking problems quickly. We have the players to do it, and based on Arsene Wenger's previous Arsenal teams, we have the manager to do it. But for some reason - reasons I haven't worked out yet - our attacking dimension of the team seems completely dysfunctional. Giroud was a part of that yesterday, but by no means was he the sole reason.

A trip to Everton beckons in the weekend. If we're not careful, the expectations surrounding the Gooner community may well take a major hit by then.

Right, that's it from me. Here's to hoping that Sanchez takes over Giroud's starting berth soon...

-Santi [Follow me on Twitter @ArsenalBlogz ]

Besiktas preview + Is Wenger done for the summer?

Preview | Pre-match conference | Team news

We need to do well in the Champions League this season, but for that we need to get through the most basic requirement – which is rather simple, really.

Besiktas away is a potentially tricky test, but I feel that it’s been rather overrated. It’s almost like people are saying "don’t underestimate them" simply for the heck of it. In truth, it’d be quite the achievement if we manage to (what is the word for...?) fuck this up. I agree that it’s a very important clash that would go oceans into judging our season, but going as far as saying that Besiktas at Turkey should be treated with extreme caution is, frankly, an insult to our talented squad.

Is our team so incapable that we find it difficult to beat a team that finished third in the Turkish League? Given our eight year record in the playoff area, and particularly our 3-0 win against Fenerbache roughly a year ago with a mismatch team, I daresay this match should be one of the easiest we face this season.

Don’t get me wrong, I understand the sentiment of not underestimating the opposition, better safe than sorry stuff. My concerns lie, however, when not underestimating the opposition quickly turns to overrating them. Sometimes it’s healthy, but sometimes it’s just counterproductive and useless. If we trash them 3-0 or 4-1 in Turkey, the perception created prior to the match about Besiktas being roughly equivalent to Turkey’s Bayern Munich would result in Gooners incorrectly singing undue plaudits upon the team, hailing them as title favourites and heaping more pressure than necessary on the lads.

The significance of the match is undoubtedly vast, but let’s face it – the quality of the opponent isn’t. With that respect, I find the practice of playing men like Ramsey and Sanchez a bit extreme. I know I wouldn’t risk Aaron and Alexis missing Everton away because they played ninety minutes and comfortably saw through Besiktas. Then again, I'm not paid £8m a year.

Using fresher, like-for-like replacements like Rosicky, Oxlade-Chamberlain and Giroud would be really wise from Arsene. There’s little virtue in overplaying the likes of Ramsey, Cazorla and even Sanchez for this match, unless Wenger opines that Besiktas would be tougher than Everton away, which is really unlikely. Hopefully, we’ll see a more rotated lineup of Szczesny – Debuchy – Chambers – Koscielny – Monreal – Arteta – Wilshere – Cazorla – Rosicky – Chamberlain – Giroud, or something of that sort. Maybe even throw in a bit of Campbell and Flamini in there?

I wouldn’t be too concerned about this match. I’m confident we’ll pull a decent result, providing we defend well on set-pieces. Let’s face it – if we give away free headers [as we have in the past matches (including pre-season)] to a guy like Demba Ba, we’re inviting trouble.

Aside from set-pieces, however, I see no reason why we shouldn’t see this game through with much trouble. A 2-0 or 3-0 win for me.

I’ve jinxed it, haven’t I?

--

As if that wasn't enough, the injury gods have set a 2-3 week timeline to Kieran Gibbs’ injury. Aside from the back four that are starting today - out of which Koscielny is a bit of a question mark – we have zero match fit defenders to go on with. I heard Bellerin is making the trip to Turkey. Now, I like Bellerin, he impressed me in pre-season and all that, but I have a strong suspicion (as do many) that Hector is used more as a stop-gap than a well thought-of choice here. I wouldn’t particularly mind if Wenger decides to promote Bellerin as Debuchy’s deputy and make Calum Chambers a backup to our centre-halves, but Bellerin’s exclusion from Arsenal’s category of first team players suggests that that may not be the case.

We’re desperately short on full-backs. We’re one injury away from bringing on a player who Arsene Wenger perceives as a reserve. Even if we have all of our defenders fit, we have merely six of them to work with. Number-wise, we’ve gone backwards from last season. And plenty would argue that we weren’t well-stocked on centre backs the last time around.

If Wenger looks to promote Bellerin and make Chambers a centre back, we’ll still need at least one more centre half. What happened to the days when Wenger employed five centre backs in the club, of Koscielny, Squillaci, Djourou, Vermaelen, and Ignasi Miquel? Why has that number fallen down to merely three? In addition, at a time when we should be in the market for (at most) two defenders, why are we not seeing any concrete links to any centre backs?

Now, I know I got it all wrong about this transfer window, by confidently saying that by this time we wouldn’t have bought more than two players. However, my concerns lie that Wenger has chosen to close his book for the summer. Possibly, he’s seeing the buzz and atmosphere around the club and mooting, "Well, the pressure’s off me, I could just save the money for next year". He’s done it before, lest we forget. Remember 2012, when he bought Santi, Podolski and Giroud, and when the hard part was over and he just needed to get a DM, he shut his transfer chequebook?

We need two, if not three players in the club. An ideal, not impossible scenario would be if Wenger buys a pure centre back and then buys a versatile defensive midfielder, who can also fill in defence. However, since my trust in pretty much everything has extinguished after Cesc left for Chelsea, I’m going to go out on a limb once again and say that Wenger is done for the summer. He may get the odd promising centre back, but not enough number-wise to sustain a title challenge throughout the year.

I’d love it if I’m wrong, like back in July.

-Santi [Follow me on Twitter @ArsenalBlogz ]