Tottenham 2 – 1 Arsenal. With Apologies to Harry Kane – Le Grove – The Arsenal opinion blog
February 8th, 2015 by
& filed under .
He’s one of your own
That, my friends, is up there with the worst feelings in football. Blowing a 1-0 lead away to your local rivals. Seeing a guy who looks like he’s just had his probation extended at the Carphone Warehouse take the piss out of your defence and be lauded as the next Didier Drogba. Seeing Mesut Ozil unhappy. These are not things I can countenance.
Now don’t get me wrong Harry Kane is a class player, but the Arsenal tinted spectacles through which I view all matters football mean I simply refuse to accept he is anything but a massive fucking fraud. Remember when Andros Townsend was the next Lionel Messi? Or when David Bentley was the new David Beckham. Tottenham have pedigree for producing fraud players, and this guy has the potential to be their best one yet.
So take solace that he will crash and burn eventually, Tottenham will resume their rightful place as the also rans of the Premier League, and Hugo Lloris will be sold to Madrid. Even if Kane does turn out to be this generation’s Marco Van Basten, remember that he will be out of that hole as soon as he can.
So on to the game itself. Veeeeeery frustrating, I was super confident that we would turn them over. We’ve been on a fine run with key players starting to click and squad players working their socks off for the team. The only selection question mark raised before kick off was bringing in Welbz for Theo. Don’t get me wrong I like the lad and I understand he does more of a job defensively, but Theo scares the piss out of defences and pushes their line back another 10 yards, which would have been very helpful yesterday.
As usual I was proved wrong when Welbz skinned Danny Rose like he had anvils in his boots. He broke down the right, picked out Giroud who I’m fairly sure was trying to shoot, but whose pass found Mesut completely unmarked as he dinked it into the goal. An absolute gem of a goal and a good sign of things to come.
The goal had been a reflection of our opening 10 minutes where we had looked calm and dominant. However from that point on we seemed to switch off. Ramsey and Cazorla were getting absolutely bullied in midfield and the usually reliable Bellerin decided he wanted to play Centreback as well, leaving a gaping hole down the right that Danny Rose was able to exploit again and again. I have no problem with piss poor defending – I’m pretty used to it by now – but when you’re making a player of the quality of Danny Rose (i.e. absolutely fucking none) look like Cafu, its time to go home.
And that was pretty much the story of the first half. And the second.
Their equaliser came from a corner. As the commentator on Match of the Day said, if you’re not picking up the hottest striker in the league on your corners, you might as well eat some monkeynuts. I mean surely, surely someone could have seen him at the back post?
The defending for the second goal was even worse. Where was the pressure on Bentaleb? He was given about 10 seconds to compose himself, tie his shoelaces and float a ball into the box for that guy who used to be an extra in Grange Hill to head it home.
We did have some chances to push ahead again but were just not clinical enough. Welbz created a chance from the edge of the box which forced a great save from Lloris (Thierry would have totally buried that). Koscielny also had a free header from a corner, but it went straight at the keeper.
Kane was able to grab the winner in the 86th minute, which left a few more minutes for Aaron Ramsey to give the ball away and that was that. So what can we draw from that performance?
Was yesterday the day David Ospina was found out? I’m still not convinced he is a world class goalkeeper and he certainly doesn’t give off a Neueresque sense of calm. However there was some debate yesterday as to whether he played well. A lot of his saves were parried back out into the danger zone but, to be fair, he was getting bombarded pretty much all day as our midfield and defence put barely any pressure on Tottenham players who came into shooting range. Ill give him a C+.
The basics: marking on corners, pressure on the man putting in the cross. It’s so disappointing to see errors like this creep back into our game, as it has absolutely nothing to do with our style of play. It’s just about organisation from a coaching point of view, and desire from the player’s point of view. Tottenham just seemed to want it more yesterday which shouldn’t be the case in in this type of game.
The tactic yesterday seemed to be sit back, absorb pressure and hit them on the break. This had worked really well against City but was our undoing here. Why? I’m not quite sure, but we did seem to sit a bit too deep for most of the game.
Ryan Mason
Harry Kane
Has every episode of Miranda on Skyplus. His favourite restaurant is Harvester. He loved the last Spiderman movie (with the electric fella). He cried during the Great British Bakeoff. He thinks John Bishop is hilarious. He cant find Canada on a map. He thinks owls are a waste of time. He’s got no matches on tinder.
Player Ratings
Ospina – 7 – Some good saves but a little too much parrying back into the danger zone
Bellerin – 5 – Great performance if he was playing centreback, which he wasn’t
Merts – 5 – not very calm or composed
Kos – 5 – ditto
Nacho – 6 – didn’t notice him too much which must mean he played ok
Coq -6 – fairly solid
Ramsey – 4 – anonymous, except when he was giving the ball away
Cazorla – 4 – ditto
Ozil – 6 – class goal, some nice movement but not much else
Welbz – 6 – good work for the goal, ran his socks off
Giroud – 5 – not very effective and spent far too much time feigning injury
Theo – 6 – not really
Rosicky – 6 – ditto
Right that’s your lot from me. You can follow me on twitter
Please don’t let yesterday’s result or your massive hangovers make you feel too down today. There’s always tomorrow x
SUBSCRIBE TO LE GROVE
Email Address
powered by !
No public Twitter messages.FOLLOW US:
RECENT POSTS
Select Month
August 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
April 2015
March 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
April 2013
March 2013
February 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
August 2012
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
&2011 Le Grove&&&
Send to Email Address
Your Email Address
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.}