Arsenal 0 - 0 Olympique de Marseille: Back down to earth

Well, that was a rather drab affair, wasn't it?

Usually, if I'm discussing the strange ways of the Brazillian league structure with my brother instead of the match on the tv screen, the match in question is pretty dull. And it was.

Everything just seemed a bit flat. The fans were flat, the passing was flat, the energy up front was flat... it seemd that Saturday's effort took a lot more out of the team than one would think.

Of course, there's more to it than that.

Arsenal only had 33% posession in the first ten minutes of the game. Marseille started brightly and with lots of energy. They pressed us excellently and attacked with the pacey Ayew brothers and Remy. Though they didn't really create any moments of danger, Arsenal could not get going without the ball.

When Arsenal did manage to get some posession, they were wasteful with it going forward. The likes of Gervinho and Ramsey would find themselves in good positions, but fail to produce the necessary quality. With posession wasted, Marseille would break on us and do the same at the other end. Then Arsenal would do the same... and that's basically how most of the game would play out.

Without being able to sustain any pressure, Park struggled to get into the game. He was left chasing a lot of lost causes and couldn't really hold the ball up, partly due to good defending from the French side and partly due to a sloppy first touch. Walcott, the remaining attacker, was rarely used despite switching flanks with Gervinho.

Arsenal didn't get going at all in the second half, and Marseille were the better side. They were hardly impressive themselves, though.

Now I'm sure the headlines will be "gamble to rest van Persie backfires" but to be honest I don't think van Persie would have made much difference to the game. As much he can turn a game, he relies on the service from the likes of Gervinho and Ramsey and that service was woefully lacking tonight. Case in point, when van Persie came on he didn't do much bar one failed lob and one good cross. Without the ball, and subsequently without any service, you really can't do much going forward.

I said after the Chelsea game that the next step is keeping up the good form by winning, but I think it's important that we don't judge this game off the Chelsea performance. Tonight was more of an off night, than a night that revealed a bunch of deep-rooted issues like it would be a month or two ago.

And there are positives to take from the match. The defence was good, perhaps with one exception, and kept a cleansheet. We've not kept one of those in a while, have we? After a game where our defence was quite poor, this a good defensive display and a cleansheet is welcome.

Really, I think what let us down tonight were the attackers. Perhaps if Ramsey, or Gervinho or Park had a better night, we would've won the game.

But as it is, it's a point and a point is hardly disastrous. We're still top of the group, still with one home game to play and one reasonably difficult away fixture. We should still qualify and win the group.

Player Ratings
Wojceich Szczesny - 6. Marseille attacked but seldom tested Szczesny in goal. One or two hairy moments when coming to collect a set-piece. Kudos for the doulbe Cruyff-turn in the first half... but I wish he'd stop doing that.

Per Mertesacker - 7. Very good showing. His positioning was spot on all game and he made a lot of good interceptions. Also won his fair share of aerial duels, which is something we've yet to see from him.

Thomas Vermaelen - 7. A very encouraging display, where he hardly put a foot wrong. It's great to have him back.

Carl Jenkinson - 6. Solid defensive display. Wasn't beaten often and generally defended well.

Andre Santos - 5. Eh, what do I say? Typical Brazillian wing back, really. Well, without the pace and stamina. Positioning was poor, and he was too eager to get forward and join the attack. Is certainly blowing hot and cold at the moment.

Alex Song - 7. Rarely beaten and made a number of very good tackles. The game suited him, since it was quite scrappy in the middle of the park. Going forward he was as inconsistent as ever though. I wish he'd just stay back, so I don't have to give that criticism.

Mikel Arteta - 6. Defensively he was good, and his distribution was also okay. His set-pieces were disappointing, however.

Aaron Ramsey - 5. Sorry to say, but Ramsey disappointed tonight. Bar one or two moments of confident play, his final ball was lacking and his decision making also wasn't right. He'll have better games.

Theo Walcott - 6. Not much to say. Arsenal rarely attacked using Walcott, and he was hardly awful when we did use him. The game just sort of passed him by.

Gervinho - 5. Back to pissing me off. Okay, we've established he's a very good dribbler who's capable of making things happen, but his end product lets him down so often. His passing is wayward, and he passes up opportunities to pass or cross to either dribble more or shoot. He's been good in recent weeks, but he definitely needs to find that consistency.

Park Ju-Young - 5. I like Park, but he was barely in the game. To be fair to him, he didn't have much service, but his general play just wasn't that good.

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Tomas Rosicky - 6. Made one excellent pass and two poor tackles when he came on. That's about it.

Andrey Arshavin - n/a. Not on long enough to have an effect.

Robin van Persie - 6. Like Rosicky; one or two moments of quality, but that's about it.

cant blame the team

we were shattered in the 2nd half. Marseille pressed us all game and it was really hard to do anything

However we did miss couple of decent chances. Ah well, its either 1st or 2nd for us in the CL

We are still in a good position in the group, since we are yet to play Dortmund at home and Olympiacos away.. Both will be difficult but 4 points off the two should see us top the group..

OM were up for it and pressed us throughout.. Good game to them, and I would concede that they deserve a point for the effort they put in.. At the same time, I have to be critical of our performance in saying we deserved ONLY 1 point for the way we played..

We should have had the lead in the 1st half.

I'm not too dissapointed with the result considering how our fatigue, but this sets up a dangerous tie against Dortmund.

Also, Santos at LB gives me shivers. Its always a make or break tackle, or he's caught out of position. I can count at least 5 times where he was caught out of position. His fitness is a concern as he gets way too tired running up and down the flanks.

I thought Theo was frustrating but fecking hell Gervinho is even more frustrating watch

Our lack of depth bears its ugly head.

At least we got a clean sheet, which I'm happy with. The other games are still winable and we generally don't do well in group stages.

What I have observed with Santos is, the chap isn't a patient defender. He jumps in to make a tackle. He doesn't watch his man carefully enough, he just tries to attack and get a foot in.

Usually, this works [Chelsea 2nd half]. But if he was playing against a top dribbler with a quick set of legs, then he will look like a fool - he'll commit to the tackle and be caught on the wrong foot while the attacker dribbles around him and has acres of space to run in or to cross = Oops! Imagine Santos against Nasri, Messi, Gervinho, etc.

That is where Gibbs is good, because like Clichy, he is quick and can easily make up for the error with his speed.

Going forward, I think the Samba-blood is wayy better and way more exciting than Gibbs is or Clichy ever was.

gunnerlistick wrote:I thought Theo was frustrating but fecking hell Gervinho is even more frustrating watch

Really? I thought they both had pretty decent games after playing Chelsea just 3 days back.. Gervinho kept trying to dance past them, which was a bit irritating.. I guess you mean that..

Sushi Master wrote:Our lack of depth bears its ugly head.

At least we got a clean sheet, which I'm happy with. The other games are still winable and we generally don't do well in group stages.

We could have got a better result if we had played AoC, Park and Benayoun with Arshavin or Rosicky behind them and Coquelin and Song in the midfield imo.. We have a good depth, but we wanted to rely on pretty much the same bunch of people we played 3 days back.. I agree that with the players I suggested, we would have been gambling a bit, but this was a home game and we had a good bench, so it should have worked..

Ah well, Wenger knows best

At least now we get to call him the best LB evah after his defending becomes decent.

at the end of the day, we kept a clean sheet, while managing to be first in the table. Still tip us to wrap things up in the next match.

don't really care about this competition...the only reason i want us to qualify is moral boost and cash, the league is much more important

now we need to find the balance between good defensive performance and our attack !!! I think the game was pretty even, arshavin should've been brought on earlier or even starting, since he got a rest from last game. Walcott was ineffective, and gervinho looked out of place. Park didn't impress either. Main problem today was lack of creativity and bad distribution, we made many wrong decisions that could've brought goals. I think wenger got it wrong this time with the attacking squad.

Also we played chelsea over the weekend (3 days ago), with a Striker who is known to be injury prone.

gunnerlistick wrote:don't really care about this competition...the only reason i want us to qualify is moral boost and cash, the league is much more important

Agree mate.. We have no chance of winning this.. We do have a better chance of winning the league cup or FA Cup and that would be a good start.. I don't want to see the "we're still in 4 competitions" thing, which will be followed by " we played 27 games in dec, jan and feb and that showed in march and april".

Lets get to the QF and if the draws are kind to us [yeah right!] to the semi final.. That should do enough for our coffers for this year :/ [I can't believe I am saying this. Where is my gun, I want to shoot myself.]

but i think wenger wants to take his chances in this competition... first of all we need to finish first after that hopefully we would get someone easy and then its luck or re-enforcement

KMD wrote:but i think wenger wants to take his chances in this competition... first of all we need to finish first after that hopefully we would get someone easy and then its luck or re-enforcement

lol we have no chance...we are one or two injuries away from disaster.We will loose Gervinho in january if anything happens to RVP then we are in big trouble

Agreed. This is a rebuilding season as most people put it.

We need to strengthen and most of all have lots of depth if we're ever to challenge the CL.

Updated the first post.

I think to sum things up: defence was good, but the attackers let us down. They were probably just worn out after Saturday.

I'm not at all comfortable with Santos at left back.

Gervinho is back to pissing me off.

Mertesacker and Vermaelen were very good.

Jenkinson is steadily winning me over.

Song is a beast... defensively.

Dull dull match. our creativity was close to zero in the second half. at least our defence (minus our full backs) was top class. Walcott needs to bench for one game


*looks at Ramseys and Parks chances*

defence was class....next game i would shove Vermaelen at left back

The fact we can actually just brush this result off and just an off day is a good indication of how much we've actually improved recently. Makes a nice change from the doom and gloom that usually proceeds these sorts of results.

Ramsey deserves atleast 6 according to me. Yes he did miss a very easy chance but when he was on the pitch we did manage create and start counter attack easily.

Rosicky on other hand had only one great pass but take that away and he was just useless. He gave ball very cheaply many times and had one crazy tackle. Yet you give him 6

djoe26 wrote:Ramsey deserves atleast 6 according to me. Yes he did miss a very easy chance but when he was on the pitch we did manage create and start counter attack easily.

Rosicky on other hand had only one great pass but take that away and he was just useless. He gave ball very cheaply many times and had one crazy tackle. Yet you give him 6

His distribution and work rate was good but his decision making and end product was Theoesque tonight

djoe26 wrote:Ramsey deserves atleast 6 according to me. Yes he did miss a very easy chance but when he was on the pitch we did manage create and start counter attack easily.

Rosicky on other hand had only one great pass but take that away and he was just useless. He gave ball very cheaply many times and had one crazy tackle. Yet you give him 6

You've got to look at the context of the match situation, though.

Ramsey was only for 60-70 minutes. He failed to really create any outstanding chances and didn't take any chances that fell his way. As the designated playmaker of the team, he failed, hence why he got a 5. It was a below average performance.

Rosicky played 20-30 minutes, during a period where Arsenal were on the back foot. He was incabale of having much of an influence on the game, but not because he was having a bad game, but because there weren't any moments where he could thrive. Thus he gets a 6, which is essientially an effort mark I give when a player has a solid but non-outstanding game.

As a general rule, I only give out scores of 5 or lower when someone has a poor game. Anything else is a 6 or hgiher.

GoonerJay29 wrote:
You've got to look at the context of the match situation, though.

Ramsey was only for 60-70 minutes. He failed to really create any outstanding chances and didn't take any chances that fell his way. As the designated playmaker of the team, he failed, hence why he got a 5. It was a below average performance.

Rosicky played 20-30 minutes, during a period where Arsenal were on the back foot. He was incabale of having much of an influence on the game, but not because he was having a bad game, but because there weren't any moments where he could thrive. Thus he gets a 6, which is essientially an effort mark I give when a player has a solid but non-outstanding game.

As a general rule, I only give out scores of 5 or lower when someone has a poor game. Anything else is a 6 or hgiher.

Lets admit it, you like Rosicky more than Ramsey