Aston Villa Hangover 18 November, 2008

This week’s going to shit again. Not only is it international week, but we have a while week to think about the Aston Villa result. It was another poor performance off the back of a great show against Man United. Our inconsistency is frustrating, annoying and worrying – you now never know what Arsenal side is going to show up.

Sorry there was no match report this weekend. I’ve been really busy and I didn’t really know what to say about it. I sat down to write it up yesterday but it just baffled me. It was exactly the same team that started against Man United a week later with fresh legs and we were rubbish. It just doesn’t make sense. We even had a good result in the Carling Cup in the week so it’s not as if there could’ve been any pessimism going into the Villa match.

So next we play Man City. I want to know, are we going to play some great football and get a nice win against the Premiership’s richest club? Or are we going to play like we don’t give a shit again and curl up and die?

Gael Clichy says we must sort our our consistency but Arsene Wenger’s been saying that it’s not linked with experience in the side. I have to disagree, if you have a top player who has been through a lot of different scenarios as a player then he can inspire the team in the right direction, especially is he’s captain. We don’t really have anyone like that at the club anymore. When I look at the squad thinking who’s won things, lost things and played many games the only player I see is fucking Mikael Silvestre.

In that Arsene Wenger link above he explains the loss here:

“I think we were not, as a team, sharp enough to dictate the pace and be dominant in the fight [against Aston Villa]“

And here he also says this:

“We were beaten by a team who were sharper than us. You can watch that again on the tape; it doesn’t change.”

Gilbertosilver from Gunnerblog explores the meaning behind ‘lacking sharpness’.

As always with international breaks, they are brilliantly timed. Arsene Wenger has said how annoying this one is especially because he’ll get no chance to calm the players down after this defeat and some of them will even miss the City game with late arrivals back in London and the inevitability of more injuries.

One player who is definitely out of Saturday’s game is Bacary Sagna who is out for a month. He was stretchered off with an ankle injury in the build up to Villa’s opener. Here’s a list of everyone who has gone off to play for their countries.

Nicklas Bendtner believes he merits more first team starts. He’s been given that opportunity a few times recently and he has hardly impressed me.

Right I’m off, I’m getting pissed off with all this. I do apologize for my own personal inconstancy updating the site. Will do my best. Thanks for reading.