What would Arsenal look like if Mr Usmanov had taken control this summer? « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. 800,000 visits last month
By Tony Attwood
There were two 0-0 draws of interest on Sunday. One of course you will know all about, and undoubtedly the AAA are setting out their new stall. Last season it was all about how many goals we let in. Now realising that we don’t let in goals any more they are talking about not scoring goals and how terrible the loss of RVP is.
Anyway, the other 0-0 of interest was Paris St Germain v Bordeaux. PSG, as you will know, have spent just about more than the rest of the French League put together in order to build themselves a championship winning side. They are not just the Man City of France they are the Man City + Chelsea of France. The richest club in the world, and they are spending like it – not just on transfer fees but also on salaries.
What is so interesting, to me at least, is that PSG have followed, to the letter, the model that the AAA would like to see adopted at Arsenal. Spend, spend, spend, and then when you have a spare weekend, spend some more. There are details of what they are up to in an earlier post here.
So PSG have bought anyone and everyone, and they have played three, drawn three. Marseille are top, and Remi Garde’s team Lyon are second.
It just goes to show that buying, buying and buying again is not what it is all about. Arsenal have two players missing from what most would recognise as their first choice back four (Sagna and Koscielny) and yet comfortably got through two games without a goal against.
Here are the stats, as provided by the Guardian:
- Possession: 67% Arsenal
- Corners: Arsenal 11 Stoke 0
- Goal attempts Arsenal 17 Stoke 6
Which tells you that Arsenal dominated the game, that the defence snuffed out anything that came their way, that the midfield are providing everything for the forwards, but the forwards are not working as a partnership.
Now let’s see what PSG got up to – after all they are the sort of team we could expect if Mr Usmanov was in charge of the club:
- Possession: 60% PSG
- Corners: PSG 7 Bordeaux 2
- Goal attempts PSG 13 Bordeaux 10
Which tells you that PSG dominated but not as much as Arsenal, that their midfield is not as integrated as Arsenal’s and that their defence let Marseille through more than Arsenal’s defence did with Stoke.
Overall my point is that trying to make too much out of opening games with clubs who have transformed themselves in the summer is difficult. It does take time to settle new players in, and because of the Euros we didn’t have that much time to get new systems tried and tested. PSG are the same.
The game also showed us that Santiago Cazorla is a remarkable player and when we have a midfield that includes him and Jack Wilshere together I think we are going to see an even more remarkable team.
Historically we get 0-0 draws. In 2005/6 we had a couple of 0-0 draws (against Villa and then Man U) and went on to win the next game 7-0. In 2006/7 we had two draws and a defeat in our opening games and then won the next five in a row.
But the series of blanks I most remember was 2008/9 in which we drew four consecutive matches 0-0 against West Ham, Tottenham, Sunderland, Fulham – and if my memory is correct there was also a 0-0 in the Cup in the middle of that lot. Then we went five wins in a row before drawing 4-4 with Liverpool.
My point is simple – goalless draws at the start of a season tell us little more than we already knew: our attacking midfield player and two of our front men are new. The defence, so heavily criticised last season, is solid, because it is not new. In half of the last ten league games last season we conceded zero. And if we look at the five men in defence for the Stoke game we can see three (because now I have included the keeper) who are not normally first choice.
“Gunners firing blanks” is a headline as old as the nickname for Arsenal players (I think it was introduced after the first world war). It doesn’t tell us much apart from the fact that the journalists who use it are singularly lacking in literary imagination.
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