Blackburn Rovers v Arsenal - EPL- 28/08/10 - 12:45pm - SS2

[ricky1985]

Watched the game again this morning. After the discussions yesterday, thought it would be interesting to keep an eye on a few things. So I jotted down the Blackburn chances throughout the match and who was at fault;

1st Half

7 (minute) - Short throw. Diaby switches off and moves out the box leaving Samba, Grella easily beats Fabregas and crosses to the back post, Clichy poorly positioned, leaves Song with Samba and M.Diouf to mark on the back post. Samba nods the ball down and Koscielny heads clear.

7 - Long throw. Really poor clearing header from Diaby, straight to Jones, Fabregas not switched on to the second ball and then can't stop the cross from coming in, Vermaelen heads out for a corner at the back post.

8 - Corner. Poor header away from van Persie at the near post, towards the penalty spot, Song switches off and loses Nelsen whose header towards the top corner is cleared off the line by Fabregas.

9 - Long throw. Diaby beaten in the air by Samba, whose flick-on towards the far post is tipped away by Almunia. The ball comes to E.Diouf, Song tackles him well and passes the ball riskily inside the box to Clichy, his clearance is really poor, straight at Jones, Vermaelen hacks clear.

15 - Corner. Samba out jumps Diaby inside the six yard box, but his header goes a yard over the bar.

18 - Long ball. Nelsen is given an eternity on the ball to pick his pass by van Persie, he plays a ball from left to right looking for E.Diouf, Clichy unnecessarily goes to challenge Kalinic in the air, the ball sails over his head and E.Diouf has time to pick his cross, Vermaelen clears for a throw.

26 - Blackburn goal. Arshavin's attempted through ball is cut out by Samba, who strides forward, van Persie and Song fail to close him down, and he plays the ball in behind a poorly positioned Sagna and a covering Koscileny, towards E.Diouf. Koscielny tries to win the ball early and fails, E.Diouf cuts inside towards goal, Vermaelen tries to close him down whilst also trying to cut off the pass to Kalinic, Almunia commits himself early, Clichy lets M.Diouf run off him 5 yards from goal, E.Diouf passes to M.Diouf who taps it into the empty net.

35 - Long free-kick. Clichy beaten in the air by Grella, easy save for Almunia.

39 - Long Ball. Grella hits a high ball out to the right wing, Clichy is poorly positoned and allows M.Diouf to whip a dangerous cross into the box unchallenged. Sagna clears.

45 - Counter. M.Diouf gets away from Song on the left wing and drills a low cross into the box. Koscielny clears low to Sagna, who then plays a dangerous pass back to an under pressure Song in the box, his clearance is poor and straight to Pedersen, who crosses towards the back post where Clichy is poorly positioned allowing E.Diouf too much space, he manages to get tight to E.Diouf, but is then beaten easily allowing E.Diouf the shot at goal. He blazes over the bar.

2nd Half

55 - Long ball. Jones hits a hopeful ball forward, Vermaelen tries to pass it to Koscielny rather than clear it and gets it wrong, gifting Kalinic the chance to shoot on goal. He blazes over.

60 - Long throw. Almunia with a really poor punch under pressure, straight to Salgado, Arshavin and Fabregas not switched on, both standing off Salgado, Salgado shoots, Song blocks and clears well.

74 - Counter. Poor free-kick from Walcott, cleared by Pedersen to E.Diouf, hit long towards M.Diouf, who easily holds off Clichy and then plays it back to E.Diouf, who Song has let run off him, who crosses for M.Diouf, Sagna comes across on the cover and clears.

81 - Long ball. Hoofed forward by Salgado, at first Koscielny and Sagna leave it to each other, Koscielny then panics and makes a mess when trying to deal with it, Dunn gets a lucky bounce which takes him past an unbalanced Koscielny, Vermaelen hurls himself at the ball and the shot goes tamely at Almunia.

82 - Long throw. Diaby with a poor headed clearance straight into Samba, the ball drops to Salgado who fires over the bar from an acute angle. Arshavin ball watching allowing Salgado to get away from him.

87 - Long ball. Nelsen hits a long ball up towards Pedersen, Sagna wins the header, but the ball drops to Olsson, Walcott has switched off and let Olsson run off him, leaving Sagna facing a 2-on-1. Sagna closes down Olsson who plays it to Pedersen in space, who crosses towards the back post, where Clichy nervously chests the ball out of play under no pressure.

88 - Corner. Pedersen whips it in near post, Diaby with a great header away, some head tennis and then the ball drops to Clichy whose attempted clearance is blocked, it drops to Wilshere on the edge of the box, his touch is good but he looses the ball when he tries to dribble clear of the challenge, and Dunn floats in a cross towards the back post, Samba beats Vermaelen in the air and the knock down falls to Givet, whose weak shot is blocked by Song, who then clears.

90 - Long throw. Well cleared by Song, the balls is crossed back in and hits Song awkwardly, the ball rebounds to E.Diouf who gets momentarily the wrong side of Koscielny, Song tackles E.Diouf and Diaby clears.

Didn't get a chance to actually look at what I'd written earlier, had to shoot out, but you really see how relatively untroubled we were in the second half. Remember those are all the chances Blackburn had in the whole game.

We had trouble early on getting to grips with their aerial bombardment. Diaby, in particular, struggled to cope with Samba - which is understandable. We improved dramatically when Chamakh came on and took over that responsibility. We also seemed to make a tactical change at half-time, with a man positioned in front of Samba, to help the man marking him. It worked well, Samba didn't cause us any problems second half.

Everyone got better second half, whether that was a result of us keeping the ball better and playing our game - Arsène said "we were calmer in possession" - or because we were more switched on defensively, is hard to say.

Of the back 4, as you can see the centrebacks didn't do much wrong at all really, especially considering the sheer volume of balls they had to deal with. Sagna made a few small mistakes here and there, but was generally very solid, by contrast Clichy made a lot of mistakes. His positioning was constantly off, and he was frequently unaware of what was around him when balls came into the box.

Song improved dramatically in the second half and went from being at the root of a lot of our problems in the first half, to someone who was near faultless defensively for the second 45. There were some issues with players switching off for the second ball, or when the ball had been cleared from a long throw or corner and then lobbed back into the box. Also some issues where our man marking didn't stand up to a bit of movement from the Blackburn players. Too often at least one man had managed to wriggle free of his marker, but we got away with it for the most part.

All in all, though, we coped very well, especially second half. Chamakh was a godsend. He won nearly every header he went for in all areas of the pitch, and when defending against Samba, he, without fail, either won the ball or stopped Samba from winning it. Room for improvement, but some positive signs of improvement on recent seasons.

 

[Lord Dula]

You've got too much time on your hands tricks. Oh well, suppose it keeps you out of brawls

 

[regele]

You've got too much time on your hands tricks. Oh well, suppose it keeps you out of brawls

Hope it doesn't keep them away from girls too.

 

[Anzac]

Have to re-watch the game to be certain, but our midfield looked less solid defensively today compared to our previous 2 games.

With Song back, as I feared, Diaby played higher up the pitch than Wilshere did in the same position against Pool and Pool, and that messed up the balance of the team. I absolutely hate this link role in midfield!

It didn´t help of course that both Song and Cesc, Cesc in particular, looked well off the pace. IMO Wenger made a mistake starting Cesc today instead of Rosicky, and we were lucky not to be punished. Hope this helped his fitness though, and that we will have the real Cesc back soon.



Off to re-watch the game! I may change my mind...

Since having re-watched the game I have changed my opinion a bit regarding our midfield.

Diaby had an even better game than what I first thought.

The only times we looked vulnerable through the middle were when Diaby pushed forward ahead of the ball, Cesc totally ignoring that and also pushed way up, and we lost the ball. Happened on a few occasions. The problem was not with Diaby, but with Cesc ignoring Diaby´s position.
On every long throw Rovers had we cheated defensively by having 2 players not marking anyone and IMO taking stupid positions in the box where they could do jack all if the ball was not properly cleared. Which happened on several occasions. Almost cost us a goal twice. Diouf made the same run from the near to the far post at least 5 times during the game and no one followed him. This left us 1 vs 2 on the far post every time and we were again lucky not to be punished at least once.

Koscielny was woeful when passing out of defence.

Arshavin and Theo looked dangerous almost every time they got the ball. Glad to see our fat little Russian looks fitter!

Vermaelen was a beast, dominating everyone physically. Glad he is our beast!

Perhaps the 'real' issue is that in a 4231 with an AMC/SS the 2 CMs SHOULDN'T be looking to go forward ahead of the ball, but should be looking to keep it simple & quickly recycle the ball to the 4 attacking players in the first instance and then SUPPORT the attack, as opposed to trying to instigate / directly get involved in the attack.

I see NO valid reason why an AMC playmaker/SS should ever need to cover a holding CM in such a shape.

 

[Humble Rex]

the situations I am referring to was when Cesc had dropped deep, we won the ball and Diaby was in a better position ahead of Cesc to help our attack. Ofcourse Cesc has to read the situation and not just push up as well.

 

[Y va marquer]

Wenger hails Arsenal's returning 'leader' Fábregas after Blackburn win

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/aug/30/blackburn-rovers-arsenal-premier-league" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010 ... ier-league</a>

 

[Alexone234]

I think that one of the problems is that we, as fans, have zero confidence in our defence, so last ditch tackles or dogged defending looks more like ineptitude needing cleaning up or panic defending.

Every time Blackburn lumped the ball into the box I thought "they're gonna score here". But they didnt therefore we defended well.

 

[patrick42uk]

Wenger hails Arsenal's returning 'leader' Fábregas after Blackburn win

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010/aug/30/blackburn-rovers-arsenal-premier-league" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2010 ... ier-league</a>" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Kinda implies we arent seeing the real cesc yet. Interesting as well that Wenger says Cesc isnt "mentally involved yet", saying that he will be once fit.

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/wenger-fabregas-will-lead-from-front-again" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archiv ... ront-again</a>

Dont quite buy that argument- the two occassions we'v seen Cesc this season, I see the disappointment of not being at Barca etched on his face. I dont see how being mentally involved or being the team's leader has anything to do with fitness to be honest.

You hope that that once we get into the heat of the battle, we'll have all of Cesc here.

 

[Y va marquer]

Patrick

Maybe you see a player ill at ease because of what’s happened over the summer as opposed to a player who has “the disappointment of not being at Barca etched on his face”?

I suppose we can all and read whatever we want to from his expressions.

 

[Lord Dula]

why is cesc not fully fit when the rest of the spainheads sqauad played full games this wendo?

 

[Y va marquer]

Didn't he have a slight problem with his knee during the BB match?

I seem to recall him limping.

 

[TheEconomist]

wenger gave him and vp quite a long break after the wc, maybe the rest of them went straight back to their clubs. He takes his time i guess, probably better off that way, it didnt help rushing toress back, and i think xavi did his achilles yesterday

 

[Klaus Daimler]

He had a fractured leg prior to the World cup so he didn't play a single minute between march 31 and the start of the tournament (where he mostly sat on the bench), and he only had a few minutes of preseason after that. He'll get there though. He just needs a little time.

 

[Feanor]

@Dula, he went into the world cup injured and he only played a cameo role in the WC, apparently , he has not practiced much since last may. Cesc will be fine.

Good win, the difference between this game and past couple of years is that I felt fairly confident, even with Big Gay Al in Goal and after they tied the game from that amateurish bit of defending from Kol.

Diaby was one of the few players who played well for France at the World Cup and he is becoming very comfortable in the CM role in this formation, showed some class and added some physicality to our game. IF he can healthy (why do we have so many injury prone players?), I think our CM will look very good.

RvP is really starting to worry me, I think Wenger may want to sign someone now or in the January transfer window to completely replace him. I love RvP, possibly my favorite player in the current squad (or cesc, I go back and forth) but dude is made of glass, brittle thin glass.

Theo is starting to come of age, long may it continue.

The player I am most impressed with so far is The Mighty Midget, Jack Wilshere. ************ can sure play some mean football! Absolute class with a little bite! He's going to be immense by next season, maybe the end of this season.

I don't know if anyone else saw the post match interview with big fat Sam but you could tell he was shocked by how well we copped with his team.