Marseille 2 Arsenal 5; match report « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager

By Tony Attwood

Of course one doesn’t like to boast, and I am well aware that quoting oneself is a sign of a thoroughly deluded mind.

But nevertheless, if I may quote from yesterday’s preview.

“I thought Koscielny played well on Sunday, and when Vermaelen returns we will have three centre backs in good form which is a novelty for recent times.”

That was me, yesterday before the game.

And indeed last night he was terrific.   So, Mr Wenger can’t find centre halves?  And yet we have in the squad, Mertesacker, Koscielny and Vermaelen with Djourou as a backup, and Miquel coming up through the reserves.  I really don’t think that is too bad.  (And you never know, Squillaci might recover the form that he had in earlier days).

(Actually I must also point out that I did suggest that Gervinho might be dropped.)

As for the 2-5 –  that was the number of shots on target – at least according to one of the stats floating around this morning.  These numbers are however always very dodgy, something that has been noticed since the BBC gave Morecambe 1 shot on target when they scored six, but such matters are of course details.

We have another full back problem, but I am told that Koscielny can play there – although quite what we do against Stoke I am not sure – maybe Djourou goes in at right back again.   Or perhaps Coquelin.

But that’s for next weekend, for the moment, let’s just watch all the negativists say “yes but it was only one match” and “yes but the ref missed a penalty call” and “we still won’t be able to cope with Stoke’s kick-the-ball-high and kick-the-player-on-the-ground approach, now bolstered by a certain Crouch”, and all the other catchy slogans that they will come up with.

Let’s give everyone 10 out of 10, and smile and think, maybe this season might turn around after all.

Because there’s just a few players who are really finding some form at the moment.  Apart from the central defenders and Van P whom everyone thinks about, what of Rosicky?  I don’t just mean this game, I am thinking of his performances in general.   He really is fighting his way back into the starting XI for each match, in my view.

Oh, and we have rather a nifty goalkeeper too – apparently Wenger couldn’t pick any of those either and was out trying to buy every keeper on the planet, but couldn’t get it together.   I wonder if any of those bids were real, or just something to lead everyone else astray while we tried to make other deals happen. After all it is what other clubs do to us all the time.  Put in a silly bid just to unsettle the squad and give the AAA something to moan about.

Anyway, my point is, even after such a horrible transfer period this summer, we seem to have emerged with a side that has actually got a few nifty players in it.    How on earth did we manage that?