Our Defense is Alright, Our Midfield Needs Work

I know I’m a day late with this blog post about the Champions League match against Olimpiacos, but I really couldn’t be bothered with thinking about how poor some of our football was last night. I was too busy celebrating and making up little songs about how we were the only English side in the CL to win their match this week. Sorry about that (not really). But I’m ready to sit down and really look at the way Arsenal played football last night.

To be honest, I wasn’t really impressed with last night’s game, nor was I overly impressed with Olimpiacos’s performance. They were stronger throughout the match, and created more scoring opportunities than we did. By the end of the first half, however, we had scored 2 simple goals against them.

I’ve heard a lot of mention about how our defense is cack and how we still need to revamp etc etc. But honestly, that’s not really our problem anymore. Our defense is getting on fairly well for a back line that suffered humiliation, countless injuries, and infinite rounds of musical back line. There were, and will always be a few cock-ups (like the one that led to the Olimpiacos goal) but what needs work now is our midfield.

Yes, we’ve got loads and loads of talent in our midfield, but what the boys lack right now is the ability to read each other. In the first half alone, Rosicky and Arteta had trouble communicating numerous times and missed each other’s passes, and even got in each other’s way. There was this hilarious and frustrating moment when a pass comes toward Arteta and all of a sudden, Rosicky comes in and steals it. Uh, what?

Those kinds of misunderstandings can’t happen against a tougher side, especially if Rosicky is fighting for to be a starter. It’s in Arsenal’s best interests to have a B side that is just as strong as the A side, and Rosicky (regardless of whether he’s A or B) needs to be able to play well with whoever he’s matched up with.

Deficiencies aside, Arsenal played a decent game against a much more experienced Olimpiacos and won. So we’ve got the three points we needed, and a confidence boost we’ll need heading into this weekend for the NLD. We’ve got a nice run going and things are really starting to look up for the Arsenal. We started the season with the most embarrassing loss in recent history, but since then, I’ve really noticed the squad’s improvement from week to week. What’s really important is that the boys keep possession and play the Arsenal way. The goals will come; RVP is fit, Chamakh’s form is starting to come back, THE OX, etc.

Up the Arsenal!

-follow me on twitter: @cyclechicster

Oh! By the way, this is technically my first actual blog post. Normally, I just stick to podcasting and translations, but since we no longer have a wanky Spaniard giving interviews about his dream club, I figure I should start writing again.

Want to see my older posts? Find my name in the staff sidebar and click on the links or click my category “Red-Eye to London” for my archive.