By Bulldog Drummond
Mesut Özil does ‘the hardest part of football’… has the Arsenal star finally silenced his doubters?
That was a headline in the Daily Mail this week followed by the usual bullets…
- Mesut Özil has more assists, and chances created, than any other player in the Premier League this season
- Chris Waddle says Özil is the man who can ‘open the door’ for Arsenal
- ‘We never get the best of our flair players in this country,’ says Waddle
So, “Arsène Wenger has admitted he is very concerned about Arsenal’s injury situation,” although actually what happened was that he was asked “are you very concerned about the current Arsenal injury situation?”
If he said “no” the headlines would be “I don’t care about injuries – Wenger” and wild claims about his mental health. So he said yes.
“I am very concerned, honestly, because we are only in November and to have so many players out, knowing we go into the Christmas period soon, I am concerned,” Wenger said. “At the moment, we have too many players out.”
What else could he say?
As we have seen, the benefit of the injuries will now come to us as several players who could have been injured won’t be in meaningless interlull games. And we have the option of giving Kos that two week break by not playing him today. It is a tempting option and whatever we do we will come back after interlull with several members of the squad very refreshed and more joining them week by week.
As for today, we all know that Arsenal has always finished above Tottenham in the league during The Wengerian Era, and the boss spoke on this too…
“On a financial level with Tottenham, we always had level power because when we had 38,000 seats at Highbury we were level with White Hart Lane. And after we moved into the new stadium, we had less financial resources than them because we had to pay our debts back.
(That’s rubbing it in. “You should have got above us,” he is saying, “and you blew it”.)
But he then said something curious. “…maybe in the last two or three years, we are in a stronger financial situation but that will not last because Tottenham build a new stadium, as well. West Ham, too, will have a new stadium and that is the biggest challenge we face. It will be purely down to the technical quality of work.”
With State Aid Utd that is true because they not only don’t pay for the stadium but also don’t pay for the door keepers, stewards, paper pickers and all the other bits and pieces. But Tottenham have not revealed where their money comes from. Unless the owner is paying and doesn’t want the money back, Tottenham will have something like two years of building, plus five years of financial privation. Although maybe Mr Wenger knows more than us about the source of the money.
When it comes to Mesut Özil’s wonderful performances, the press however are always looking for a way to knock him. Not being able to do it in terms of performances they are now saying the player has underperformed on goals. Apparently Mr Wenger asked for 10 this season, and Mesut is only on course to deliver eight from this season’s work thus far. Terrible! But that means a goal today and he’ll be on track to deliver 12. How the journos will hate that.
His two goals were against Man U and Bayern. He got a second against Bayern in the second leg but that was ruled out for rather spurious reasons.
Only David Silva and Gerard Deulofeu average more assists per 90 minutes than Mesut, but if you measure “chances created” he is on top, “almost 20 per cent more than second-placed Dimitri Payet,” according to Opta.
“For only chances created from open play, Özil is at 4.14, a nearly 40 per cent margin over Eden Hazard in second. On the creation of “big chances”, the gap is narrower, but Özil is still top, ahead of Riyad Mahrez and Deulofeu.”
That’s why he’s on the pitch, and those who criticised him over the past two years are now eating their words or just hiding in the forest waiting for it all to stop happing to them.
In terms of assists, chances created, and open play chances created, Özil is now ahead of his best numbers from Werder Bremen and Real Madrid. His contribution was measurable all along but no one reported it until it got so bleeding obvious that it could be seen by a PGMO ref who joined Özil’s critics in the darkened forest while facing the wrong way, looking at his watch.
As to the midweek game he said, “It was a disappointing result on Wednesday night, but before that we did extremely well in the Premier League so we will try to continue from one competition from the other. I believe that in the Premier League we have a strong confidence and focus and that is what we want to reproduce on Sunday against Tottenham. It is always a game where the commitment and nervous force will be important.”
The Tinies have two wins in four days playing Aston Villa and Anderlecht this week. So are they super confident and feeling good, or will three games in six days be too much. Will we be nervous, or will we be determined to flourish?
Certainly as the referee preview said, we are playing 12 today – 11 Tiny Totts and one Referee. We are however restricted to eleven.
Cech
Debuchy Mert Kos Monreal
Coquelin Santi Caz
Campbell Özil Alexis
Girond
Lurking in the November sun on the beach: Macey, Ospina, Chambers, Gibbs, Gabriel, Flamini, Arteta, Iwobi
Leading scorers: Giroud, Sánchez 6. (I don’t normally put leading scorers in but I thought I would today to annoy all the Giroud haters. Actually Giroud has eight in all games. Or 7 goals in his last 7 appearances for club and country.)
The statistics
Here’s a good one – The percentage of draws in Us v Tinies games is tinier than the tinies. There have only been 11 goalless draws in the last 119 years and 1 in the last 31 games. Of course we don’t play them every year because sometimes they are in the second division, but still, it is quite a lot. The last three have been not at the normal level we expect so time for a thumping good win today…
Tottenham Hotspur 1 (Chambers OG) Arsenal 2 (Flamini 2)
League Cup, September 2015
Tottenham Hotspur 2 (Kane 2) Arsenal 1 (Özil)
Premier League, February 2015
Arsenal 1 (Oxlade-Chamberlain) Tottenham 1 (Chadli)
Premier League, September 2014
Tottenham have only won once at Arsenal in 25 matches in all competitions since May 1993 (D9, L15). Arsenal last failed to score at home to the Tinies in the Premier League in November 1998.
As for the form guide in all matches (but remember this includes us away to Bayern and them playing Anderlecht…)
- Arsenal: LWLWWW
- Tottenham: WWWWDD
The Koscielny dilemma: play him or keep him out of the international week?
The anniversaries
- 8 November 1930: Arsenal 5 Aston Villa 2. This was the first of nine games during the season where Arsenal score five or more. Bastin and Jack got two each and Lambert one.
- 8 November 2003: Arsenal beat Tottenham 2-1 in the 11th league match of the Unbeaten season. The Observer in its review called it “another stuttering performance” from Arsenal.
Despite the ref, we need to dig in for a win today, the cavalry are on their way after the inter lull.
3-2 Arsenal?
When the Olympic Stadium, in theory at least, became available for Spurs to try to move to they announced that the building of their new stadium had become ‘uneconomic’. When they failed to get into the Olympic Stadium all of a sudden the new stadium started to make financial sense again.
If they have the waiting list for season tickets that they claim then there shouldn’t have ever been a question about the economics unless, of course, they don’t believe their own figures or realise that if they can’t sell out for the likes of Europa League games then those figures are irrelevant anyway.
Or maybe they’ve looked back in history and realised that the vast majority of clubs that have moved stadium have subsequently been relegated and got very cold feet on the whole deal.
The fact is that some fifteen years after they first got an inkling of Arsenal planning a new stadium Spurs remain exactly where they were. If they move they won’t be playing in it for at least another three years (depending on if they can move out in the meantime) and then there will be (we must assume) the initial privations caused by debt repayment.
Arsenal serviced their debt from Champions League money alone so, if Spurs want to put themselves in an equivalent position, they’ve got to be in the top 3/4 every season for the next ten years or more.
Ask William Hill to give you the odds on that happening.
The thing in Spurs …and liverpools favour, thanks to TV deals, revenues are massively increased compared to when Arsenal made their brave move over the stadium. We had to be in Europe and even then, some reports suggest we were in a close run thing with our self financing model. Just goes to show the miracles Wenger has performed. My only gripe is that I believe he should have been given more help from some very wealthy people above, however there is no evidence he asked for or ultimately needed said assistance. Spurs should find it a lot easier with today’s revenues……unfortunately. Twenty or thirty mil a year should not ….at the moment be such a problem …..and that is assuming the owner, or other investors are not fronting this money, possibly with the aim of eventually selling
The key today, for the rest of the season and indeed other seasons is, in my opinion, how we manage our prolonged injuries list.
I have long held the view that the absence of key players for over-long periods has been the main cause of failure to win major trophies.
Our fast, close-passing mode of attack simply begs for fouling in order to break it down. And the absence of brave and honest match officials merely adds to the problem.
If we have a plan to achieve instead of re-acting to pressure, due to missing players, we can overcome all odds and attain success. 😉
insideright,
That last sentence in particular is gold.
@Mandy – you’re right to point out that TV revenue in particular has gone up substantially and, in theory, interest rates may have gone down. But building costs have soared and Spurs will have to undertake the move away from WHL which will cost them rent and probably lead to losses in revenue – at least in the short term. Absence from high revenue European competition will make matters worse as will the fact that other clubs will also have the TV money increases which can be used to threaten Spurs’ position in the league – something which Chelsea and Man City tried with some success to do to us.
Neither will Spurs have the income generated (eventually) from the sale of their old ground for housing because essentially the new ground is the old ground rebuilt.
Overall their ability to finance the’move’, to justify it from existing demand and to make it pay in the long term are all weaker than Arsenals was and if money can come from wealthy owners why hasn’t Joe Lewis coughed up Spurs before now? Maybe he knows it would be throwing good money after bad?
Interesting and informative Insideright, had not factored in building costs. I guess they have recently been fairly parsimonious, at least since the Bale squanderlings, maybe suggesting they are aware they face a bit of a challenge.
Will be interesting to see if they, Liverpool….or someone else can gain from Chelsea’s problems this season at least
Nicky – brave & honest! Not a PGMO trait. They are yellow livered chickens without balls. The cheating has been ignored by media & police. Fraud has been rampant but difficult to prove. However the police have access to financial dealings but are probably not allowed to publish.
Still we must play along winning our way, the Arsene way.
We’re going top, we’re going top, we’re going top of the league. 🙂
Well first, a little matter of beating spuds today.
COYG.
City drew. Good chance for us to go clear
Interesting. Ex and some believe, future Arsenal man, Remi Garde has managed Villa to holding city.
Which of course means a win for us puts us clear at the top going into the inter lull should we manage it.
But, there is an ex northern ref, sitting in some northern town who might not especially want us sitting so pretty, and putting some distance between us, and a northern team he has a strange relationship with, despite Yorks Lancs history.
Boys, take care out there today. Let’s hope the game is decided by the players, not the ref.
COYG!COYG!COYG!FOYS!
Agent Garde does it..hahahahahahahaha.
Come on gunners.
Please shout Santi when he’s in danger!!!
chicken acting…Oscars all round.
Come on you Gunners!!!!!!!!!!!
keep cool Giroud.
Giroud ….just give your shirt to him. Let him have it.
Atkinson, pitch tilting master….
Come on gunners…. They are just the chickens. And chickens can’t play football..
We need to seriously improve in the second half, or make the non existent AAA and media very happy. Looks like a lot of tired players out there, not surprising after the week they’ve had.
Maybe some work on offside traps required!
Really depressing first half – outplayed and outworked all over the pitch.
Dont really know what the team is trying to do but its just poor.
Lets pray for a better second half like the game against Swansea otherwise we are going to get beaten well on our home turf by bloody Spurs.
Yes the goal was offside kind of according to my tele,but we have to expect that, but it looks like we are so tired than spunks who played on Thursday night.
We need to up our game simple and easy and and we will be top but we are not going to be allowed as you know our friendly FA fuckin as…..we won’t have it easy and wonder why kos had to do that but that is gone we need to keep our record and calm, we need dem three points period.
oh dear…we don’t look like scoring here one bit. This is playing right into the spuds hands. Fair to say we’ve lost this one with ease, Pathetic.
Kos played Kane on I’m afraid KampalaGun, no argument, it was a legitimate goal.
Bad day at the office so far, we are not really firing on all cylinders, no goal threat at all. Hopefully better to come in the 2nd half.
Flamini on for Cazorla.
Come on Arsenal!!!!!!!
Anybody agree Erikssen looks like Barry Manilow? LOL!
COYG!!!!
Oooooooooooooooooooooooo….Girouuuuuuuu.
Come on gunners.
COYG!COYG!COYG!
Much better in the second half. COYG!
Noooooooo…. Girouuuuuuuu.
Come on gunners…
@mick thanks but all those chances looks like the AAA plus the sewer rats might have there day or not ‘?!
Gosh wer’re missing Bellerin and Ramsey.
Gibbooooooooo….yyyeeeeaaahhhhh
Yyyeeeeaaahhhhh
Yyyeeeeaaahhhhh
Gggggggggggggggggggggiiiiiiibbbbbbbbbbbbbbbooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
OZIL
Come onnnnnn gunnnerrrsss
Ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo Girooooooooo
Who remembers when we were told ozil was not a big match player.
I would take a draw here but spurs are wobbling. just hope we keep the discipline at the back.
Girouuuuuuuu…
BBC Babbling: That goal for Gibbs? Is the 24,000th goal in the EPL.
COYG!
What the efff… Either a penalty or let the play go on…why free kick for them????
Come on gunners…
Try try come ooonnnnnn
Commentators say for the fifteith bloodiest time: Martin Atkinson might give a yellow card but decides against it …
Atkinson might as well have worn a spud shirt today…disgusting
Ppffff….not a bad result overall…
Come on gunners
Atkinson made sure we wouldn’t win
How did Lamela stay on the pitch?
We looked tired and effortless today, and it was Spuds that played mon and thurs???
Gibbsy the “supersub” 🙂 saved us.
Still, well done not to lose.
Shame we couldnt nick it at the end, but the Kane gang were at least thwarted.Sure hope Santis Ok.
COYG!
That ass of a ref, i pity the sewer rats and their blood brothers the AAA.Gunners let’s keep the fire burning.
Happy with a point there. Better last 30. Too many chances missed though.
Good point. Good teams find a way.
match report is online
Fighter Gibbo saves the day..
Another assist Ozil.
Is that a record??..
@Menace,
Re your 2.22, can’t imagine why 19 folk disliked the truth in what you had to say. 😉
Yes that is a record for Ozil. The most consecutive games with an assist in Premier League history.
Nicky, considering the likely stance and agenda of the person/persons doing the multiple dislikes on here, I would say what Menace received is a badge of honour of sorts, some don’t like home truths, cannot think why!
Terrence I am sorry your post was delayed in being approved – I was at the game, and I know Walter was watching the game on TV. But I can tell you that from within the ground it was not pathetic at all.