Written by Mean Lean on Friday, 12 November 2010 21:19

Good evening to you,

It seems like.. forever (in a teenage American girl accent) that I have written anything on the blog. I have been a little late with the Wolves post match thoughts but if you wish to read it then be my guest etc.

The Wolves game was fantastic, I loved our defending throughout the game, a real backs to the wall job in the final stages and we held out. Lukasz Fabianski was in fine form and the Arsenal goalkeeping situation looks rather healthy now as Wojciech Szczesny has signed a new contract which is fantastic news. There was plenty of talk about the young prodigy wanting to move away in search of first team football as he was in his final year of his contract, I assume that the boss has reassured him that first team football will be around the corner.

How things can change in football. Manuel Almunia started the season as our number one and was one of our better players until the horror show against West Brom. It is hard to believe that he is still out with injury after so long and I wouldn't for one moment be surprised to see him depart in January should he want first team football. Wenger has said that Almunia has a future at Arsenal and that he can fight to win his place back but at his age I think Wenger may just look towards the younger members of the squad for long term success. Wenger will not want to block the path of Wojciech Szczesny especially with a player who has had an uncertain future over the past few months. It would make sense to invest in the future and promote him to second choice, especially after he showed his potential in the Carling Cup game against Newcastle.

Lukasz Fabianski will almost certainly remain in goal as first choice so even if Almunia did stay beyond January it would be likely that he would be playing second fiddle to Lukasz. That being said, I am not one of his knockers (god, that really would be weird!) and thought he had been superb up until West Brom. He had a big test at Blackburn earlier in the season and came through that with gold stars

On the injury front we have some good news, Kieran Gibbs is back in the squad at the weekend following yet another injury. He will take a few weeks to get back up to speed and once he does he can start breathing down Clichy's neck, that is if they are both ok with doing that. Not so sure that it is my cup of tea but each to their own and all that. In all seriousness though, it is time for Mr Gibbsy to remain fit for a length of time and become a regular member of this squad. With the amount of games and energy that Clichy puts into his football, he will undoubtedly need breaks from time to time and then it will be up to Gibbs to make sure that Clichy does not come straight back into the team due to top level displays.

It looks as if Arsene has taken a few backwards steps from his original stance about the Robin Van Persie situation. Arsene really doesn't have much in the way of choice as the rules state that international coaches can pretty much do as they wish with players. Arsene has no choice but to try and gain some sort of relationship to make sure that his star forward comes back as fit as possible.

If Robin is actually fit then he will need games so on one hand, Robin playing for his country without the pressure of having to perform at a level good enough to win us games could be good for us but I wonder if the upcoming game will limit his time on the pitch for us.

Massive game on Sunday, bloody difficult one as well. Everton are a tough, hard working bunch who give pretty much everyone a game. We will only beat them if we are good in all aspects of our game. We need to play quick passing football, be physical in the duels, and stop them playing. Hopefully we can take a large bucket of positively from the Wolves game last Wednesday into the game on Sunday.

Before I make a dash for it, I would like to point you in the direction of Iron Man's Arse Weekly and also you may have noticed a few tweaks to the site. The comments section now has your own avatar type thingy. Those who are members of Wordpress can use that name and email which will display the avatar. Also you can create your own avatar if you are not a word presser at http://.gravatar.com/ it is all free and stuff. We all like a bit of freeness don't we?

Back tomorrow.

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Comments (2)

• 13-Nov-2010 14:24 | | Sergio Giorgini  - Fab or flap?
  

  Hello ML
  
  The difference between Fabianski and Almunia in my eyes, is that the former in his recent performances doesn't suffer from the latter's indecision. Taking the Carroll goal as a good example, his decision (as well as positioning) in this instance were wrong but at least he actually MADE a decision. Almunia's problem is that his indecision normally gets him exercising two to three neural pathways at once, resulting with us conceding a goal and him looking like he's trying to mix performance arts with a Jimmy Somerville dance move. If a mistake is going to be made, I'd rather it be doing 100% of something rather a wet fart of nothing. It gives something to build on.
  
  Also, normally when Almunia makes a mistake we almost always seem to have to accept that we're guaranteed another in the next match whilst his fragile confidence slowly builds. The question with Fabianski on Wednesday was if he was going to put the Newcastle goal behind him, going into the Wolves game with self belief intact. He did and hence was able to give the performance he did.
  
  In general I think the Pole looks a lot more confident in games, his body language (and decision making) a lot more solid and off-putting for a forward, with none of the shuffling feet, twitching and knee shaking that we see from the Spaniard. He's a lot more comfortable coming out to the edge of area, which if you notice has helped the full backs particularly when a ball is lobbed over the top. Coupled with the stronger (and shall we say, more understanding-William-Gallas-I'm-looking-at-you,) centre-pairings, we don't seem to get caught by these half as much as we have.
  
  Fabianski has much more to prove still, but he's definitely done enough to warrant being first choice at the moment and I see the seeds of something that mean he can improve. Not saying he's going to be Schmeichel or Seaman, but certainly more solid than what we currently have and maybe even more so than Lehman.

• 13-Nov-2010 14:50 | | MeanLean
  

  You make some very good points. The great thing about Fabianski is the fact that he can improve with games. We know pretty much from Manuel is what you see is what you are likely to get from now on.
  
  Fab has always been certain in what he has tried to do, he hasn't always judged the situation correctly but hopefully that will come.
  
  If he can pretty much eradicate his mistakes from crosses then I see no reason why he cannot become a great. Any keeper with his reflexes has more than the capabilities to be a world beater.
  
  Let him train with Van Persie all day every day. Van Persie just has to keep smashing balls under his cross bar and make him deal with them 9 times out of 10.

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