A good win yesterday against Blackburn in what ended up being a pretty comfortable game. Senderos scored the first heading in a corner in the 3rd minute, and Adebayor ended it with a well taken goal in injury time. 2-0, job done, top of the league with a five point lead.

Adebayor’s hot scoring streak continues with his 11th goal in 2008 in only 8 games. He has averaged almost 1.4 goals a game this year!! I can guarantee you there is no better striking rate in Europe in 2008. I think his new song gives him confidence, he has scored in every game since the song was created. His 2nd goal was very well taken, showed how confident the guy has become.

Blackburn didn’t really trouble us, and were very toothless to be honest. Without Savage (who is now Derby’s captain), Dunn, Pederson, Samba, Nelson, Derbyshire, and a couple more, they were very tame. I think there were less fouls in that game than any other previous game against Blackburn, which gave us a chance to play our game and create chances.

Hleb dominated the game and was man of the match by far. Fabregas, Sagna, Flamini, and Adebayor also had good games. The biggest surprise was seeing Gilberto play as well as he did. I thought he was very sharp, missed a few passes but made some nice ones too, and stopped their game once or twice too. Hopefully the international game during the weekend with Brazil helped him a bit at least regain some of his lost confidence or self belief.

In all honesty, before this season started, I didn’t think that we will be able to challenge for a top two spot. I’ve never been convinced with Liverpool, so I firmly believed that our main challenge would be to maintain 3rd place. Throughout the season I have been expecting a downturn in result and still didn’t think we would win the title. This doesn’t mean I don’t believe our squad is good enough. On the contrary, I believe if we keep our players, we should be considered CL contenders every year in a year or two from now. It was just a matter of not having enough players who can cope with the pressure. Not many of our squad can say they have won much silverware in their career, that is the only reason I thought it would take another year or two for this young team to gel together and to mature.

After today’s win, my eyes are finally open to the possibility of winning the title. It is definitely not over yet, but we have good chance if we continue to do well. The winner will be determined mostly by our game away at Old Trafford on April 12th. Manchester United’s schedule looks to be easier than ours, especially with their Liverpool, Arsenal, and Villa games all being at home. We play Chelsea and United away, which are very important games in deciding the title. I think the winner needs to surpass the 90 point barrier considering the upcoming games.

Of our remaining 12 games, we have 5 at home and 7 away. Villa, Boro, Liverpool, Reading, and Everton will be played at home, and we really need maximum points from these to win the title. Away, we play Birmingham, Wigan, Chelsea, Bolton, Man Utd, Derby, and Sunderland. This will be a very close race to the title!

This is an excellent excel file created by Aidan O’Byrne to try and predict the premiership run-in by predicting the results.

Premiership title run-in calculator

(right click and save)

Tonight we play Blackburn at home in an opportunity to extend our lead of the premiership after a great footballing weekend for us so far. Yesterday saw Chelsea held to a mind numbing 0-0 draw at home against Liverpool, and more importantly, Manchester United suffered their first loss at home this season. To make things worse for them, it was a local derby against Manchester City, and it was their first loss to them in Old Trafford in 34 years! This loss also broke their 13 match winning streak, which is their longest in 103 years!

Why am I mentioning this? Why should we care? Because it shows how good we have become. Even with a run of 13 winning games their best in a century, we are still leading the premiership! Arsene Wenger also proved himself a master in psychological warfare in matching Ferguson’s usual mind games when he said only 12 days ago about their one day trip to Saudi for a friendly:

“You can suffer in the next game as you travel, you come back, you need time to adjust and you switch off when you are away to a different country. So the focus could go a little bit and you can suffer.”

He was proven right with their recent performances and this result also must make Wenger’s words resonate somewhere in the back of Ferguson’s mind.

The day just got better later with the African Cup of Nations final ending in a very convincing win for Egypt, who proved to be the best team in the tournament by far. That Aboutrika guy is incredible, a midfielder with 81 goals in 128 games for Al-Ahly, and 10 in 33 for Egypt. He is a god to most Ahly fans and Egyptians fans overall, he was the main reason Al-Ahly went undefeated in 55 games in all competitions, a streak that lasted a year and half where they won everything possible, including the domestic league and cup and the African champions league. Aboutrika is a mix of Pires/Riquelme, not blessed with speed or strength, but incredible vision and reading of the game. His problem is his loyalty to his club, which is a shame since we don’t get to watch him against top competition continuously, and at 29, its hard seeing him go and start a career abroad.

Anyway I got sidetracked there, it was a good game with the only negative being Song’s injury which meant he had to limp off in the early minutes and was subbed. If he was playing, the game would have been different, I can guarantee that! He has been in excellent form for Cameroon like I said in my last post, and has actually been selected in the best African XI from the tournament. And just as a reminder, he is ONLY 20 years old!

Now to the game at hand tonight against Blackburn. We need to make up for the game we drew at Ewood Park earlier in the season, where Lehmann practically ended his career at Arsenal with a mistake from Dunn’s goal. It seems though that he will get a chance to redeem himself today with Almunia being sick. Our injury list is long and still hazy in terms of who might be fit just before the match. Alongside Almunia, at a worst case scenario, we could miss Flamini, Senderos, Rosicky, Djourou, Van Persie, Eboue, Toure, Song, Denilson, and Diaby. Hopefully from now till game time, we’ll have a few names back, hopefully Flamini being one of them.

Blackburn’s squad isn’t having any better luck for this game with their missing players. Players expected to be out through injury or suspension include Nelson, Samba, Dunn, and Pederson. Derbyshire might also miss the game with his girlfriend expecting to give birth anytime. Personally, I am glad that Samba and Pederson are out. Samba is a solid defenders who has proven his strength against us more than once, and Pederson can really whip in some great crosses. This still leaves them with Bentley, who is as good if not better in crossing than Pederson. On the receiving end of the crosses is the very dangerous Santa Cruz, who is very dangerous in the air, and is proving to be one of the buys of the season.

I expect alot of crosses and long shots from Blackburn, which means Gallas needs to be very alert, and it also means that if Toure is not available, Gilberto will more likely replace him instead of Hoyte, purely because of the height advantage. Hoyte has proven himself to be a very capable CB when he had to play in that position, and I personally think he plays better as a CB than he does as a RB, but its not a fair judgment since he only played there a couple of times.

Great 3-0 win against Fulham on Saturday. Back to basics, playing our usual stylish sexy football, and scoring two somewhat unusual goals for us.

Adebayor scored two towering headers in which he jumped around 30 feet in the air and placed the ball perfectly both times. The first was a cross from Clichy on the left, the second was Hleb from the right. If you read my post about last game, my main concern and criticism was that we did not utilize the width of the field and kept it very narrow, which made it pretty easy for Birmingham to defend. I’m glad Wenger read my post and told the boys to push forward and use the flanks! We have Adebayor and Eduardo, who are both excellent headers of the ball, why waste that perfect opportunity. Also, Wenger pushed Adebayor in the middle apparently, and after the game said something which was great to hear and I hope all the Adebayor haters read it -

“He is also the main striker now and he gives us an added dimension with his headers.”

Its official, Adebayor is the main striker. I really doubt a fit Van Persie would take over that mantle, and with Eduardo playing well, it would be hard to see where Van Persie would fit in the starting 11. Wenger could use him like Van Basten does on the right wing, but I don’t see that happening. He would probably fit in better in our 4-5-1 formation just behind Adebayor, where Hleb plays.

Rosicky scored the 3rd after some nice play by Eduardo and the game was quite comfortable. Our away support was incredible, the best I’ve ever heard (on tv). The one song that kept going on forever after his two goals was Adebayor’s, here it is -

Well done everyone! Ade, the team, the fans … thumbs up to everyone!

Just a couple of notes on the game. First, although we did play well, Fulham were absolute shit. Almunia had 0 shots on goal all game. Second, and more important in my opinion, we won comfortably and played well even without Fabregas having a great game. He was ok at most, and we still dominated, this is always a good sign!

Ok enough about the game. Now to the ‘other things’ section of the post.

Loanees and Ex-Gooners watch -

This has been a good week for gooners and ex-gooners apparently. Pires was excellent in Villareal’s 3-0 over Valencia, and scored a beautiful goal. Henry scored a header for Barca! Merida debuted as a loanee at Real Sociedad and apparently did very well according to some reports out there as they won 3-1. Carlos Vela our Mexican wonderkid also had a good day, scoring for Osasuna their second goal -

Thats it for now, today will be the first piece of action for our boys in the African Cup of Nations as Ivory Coast meet Nigeria in what is considered the game of the first round with so many quality names - Toure, Eboue, Y Toure, Drogba, Kalou, Yakubu, Martins, Obi Mikel …. and so on.

We lost our lead in the premiership after today’s game. Our game against Birmingham at The Emirates ended 1-1, and was “very frustrating” as Wenger said. ManU won their game against the managerless Newcastle 6-0, which gives them a 7 goal advantage on us for the lead.

We played a very good first half, but didn’t capitalize on our dominance. We should have been 2 or 3 up and to be honest it looked to be a very comfortable game until their goal. Our passing was good, we had shots on goal, everyone was doing it right (except for Walcott). We scored our goal from a lucky penalty call. Adebayor got his 13th goal of the campaign.

Only 3 mins into the second half, we were caught from a corner, which is unlike us this season, it is very last season of us. This whole game was actually very similar to a couple of games from last season where we dominate and don’t win. We had 16 corners, they had 3, we had 16 shots, they had 2. Their goal came from a corner which was deflected by Fabregas.

The rest of the game was just annoying. I do want to discuss few points though -

• Waclott was out of sync and on a different wavelength the whole time. Most of our fluid game was disrupted when the ball went to him. This was the perfect game for him to start though, at home against a team 2 points away from the relegation battle. Unfortunately, this is another below average performance from our young Theo.
• Senderos did very well again following his good game in the cup. Our future captain was solid and hopefully can make the most from his opportunity as a starter.
• Fabregas had an average game, but what really bothered me about his game today was his delivery from corner kicks. We had 16 corners, all of which were useless. Taylor went and grabbed most of them easily. That was a very frustrating part of our game today.

I believe we missed Eboue today. I think he is a quality player who gets way more criticism than he deserves. He would’ve helped today at least in one aspect, our width.

Birmingham were able to defend well because we gave them the space to defend. Whenever Walcott got the ball on the right, he would cut inside. We were very narrow in our attack, which makes the defenders’ job much easier. Hleb used the width of the field once or twice and Clichy was there with him. Our best chance of the game came from Hleb’s cross from the left which Eduardo headed straight to Taylor. On the right however, there was a whole section of the field that was not used.

This is where Eboue would’ve helped. He stretches the defence with these runs, which gives our strikers more chances with less people surrounding them. When Walcott was taken off, Bendtner went up front, Hleb switch to the right, and Eduardo went left. In his short time on the right, Hleb created a nice opportunity. Eduardo kept cutting in like Walcott did but had Clichy running on the left which gave him some space.

When fans talk about getting a winger, I think someone who adds width is what comes to mind, and in our squad currently, Hleb is the only true winger we got. Rosicky plays behind the strikers for the Czech national team and I think that is his preferred position. Funny enough, when we see the young players who left in recent years, most of them are decent wingers (but crap mentality) - Bentley, Pennant, Reyes … The one player who I believe could’ve helped us perfectly would have been Ribery, who is doing wonders for Bayern. He’s not available now obviously, and Wenger doesn’t think we need to buy anyone now. Wenger knows, and I’m not being sarcastic.

Speaking of buying players, Wenger was asked if he will look for defensive cover during the transfer window, his response was - “If there is no additional injury, we don’t go on the transfer market.” That settles that then.

I wrote a post earlier regarding our strikers and how they measure up against each other in different categories. The one main statistic that matters the most has to be the Goals per 90 minutes.

Goals per 90 minutes is a more accurate measure than overall goals or goals per game. It is a better measurement of how much impact a player has for every 90 minutes he is on the field. Our main man in this category is Eduardo. He had a 0.78 goals per 90 minute average up until the Everton game. Following the West Ham game, his ratio increased because he scored a goal in the 63 minutes he lasted. I decided to see how his new average ranks in comparison to the other top scorers in the league. This measure is for all games played by the team, which includes any domestic or European cups.

Here are the results -

Ronaldo is having his best season to date. He has been banging in goals at every opportunity. He is also having more shots per game than any other player from this list.

Torres has been proving his worth more with every game. He may have scored less goals than Adebayor in the league, but you have to put in mind Benitez’s rotation policy which limited his minutes. Although Liverpool have played more games than Manchester, he has 200 minutes less than Ronaldo and 100 less than Adebayor. Add to that the fact that he is in his first season in England, where players usually need a season to adjust.

Our recent goal scoring machine comes in 3rd with his 10 goals in all competitions.

The rest of the stats tell us that Berbatov isn’t as great as many people make him to be. Keane scored 2 goals against Anorthis Famagusta and 1 against Hapoel Tel Aviv in the eufa cup. Getting the opportunity to play against pub teams like those can boost anyone’s average.

Tim Cahill is much better than most people make him to be. He did not play in August or September but has still managed to score 9 goals, and the goals per 90 mins shows how good he is, especially as a midfielder.

Anelka seems like he’s very overrated, but you have to remember that his team is really shit, so being able to get those goals without much support should be something to consider.

Rooney comes second after Ronaldo in shots per 90 minutes, but his goals per 90 mins average is almost half that of Ronaldo’s.

As I said in the earlier post, just like most stats, there are many variables that affect this average, so it is only an indication of how good these players are. Although looking at the top three, you realize the quality!

A very efficient performance saw us brush aside an average West Ham team 2-0. The Hammers came to the Emirates on a high from their previous win against the then leaders, Manchester United, but they also came with a very depleted and injury-ridden team. No Dyer, Bowyer, Zamora, Parker, Solano, Etherington, Bellamy, Boa Morta, Gabbidon, Faubert, Davenport, and Collins. Ljungberg limped off after 37 mins too, so thats a full team that can probably easily beat the team that started today.

Like I said in my game preview, the only threat I expected was from set pieces. At full strength, West Ham would give anyone a good game. So lucky for us, we got a break.

We had 4 changes from our last game, with Eboue, Hoyte, Adebayor, and Rosicky replacing Diaby, Sagna, Bendtner, and Hleb. The 4-4-2 formation was expected to be used at home against a mid-table team.

The game started with a bang. A superb cross from Fabregas who was given more space than he should ever be given was chested down and volleyed into the bottom corner with one touch by our Crozilian Eduardo, again proving how clinical and lethal he is in the box … almost clinithal!! This goal was the fastest goal to be scored in the Emirates, only 72 seconds into the game.

West Ham actually tried to make a game out of it in the first half, and had a couple of half decent chances from corners and free kicks, the most significant being Ferdinand’s shot from the corner which was cleared off the line by the magnificent Clichy. Not much later, Clichy again was involved and made a great pass down field with Adebayor running between Upson and Ferdinand and using his pace to get to the box before them and nudged the ball with his head past Green’s outstretched arm and just when everyone thought the chance was lost reaching the corner line, Adebayor used some sort of Togolese voodoo magic to hit the ball from an impossible angle where it twisted and turned and spun outside then inside the goal even with two defenders almost getting to the line!

2-0 with only 19 minutes gone. After the second goal, the game was relatively over. Arsenal went from 2nd gear to 1st gear, never needed to anything more. The only other significant events of the half were a penalty for us from Spector’s handball blocking an Eboue cross, and Ljunberg being subbed after injuring his hamstring. An amusing argument between Freddie and McCartney was caught on camera a few mins before the substitution.

The second half Arsenal just went through the motions. Relatively stress free half with nice touches throughout from our team. Walcott came in for Eduardo in the 63rd min. We changed our 4-4-2 to a 4-5-1 at that point with Theo slotting as a left winger. It was weird strategic change, I would’ve thought it was a perfect chance to have Theo play upfront as an out and out striker. A few mins later Hleb came on for Eboue, which meant Theo moved to the right with Rosicky going left, while Hleb went in just in front of Fabregas and Flamini almost as a 2nd striker. Nothing that significant happened, except maybe Theo seeming to have re-injured his shoulder, but that didn’t look too bad.

A comfortable win overall. One thing I really enjoyed about this game was the fact that we always had people in the box for crosses. Eduardo was there, Adebayor was almost there, and even Rosicky was in the box! When we switched to 4-5-1, Adebayor was as good as we know he can be, dominating their defenders, controlling the ball, and so on. Fabregas was excellent, everyone else had a good game or better, except Hoyte. He’s not Sagna for sure, but he also lacks match fitness, so giving him the chance today was a good move.

Player ratings -

Almunia - 7 - Not much to do.
Clichy - 9 - An excellent assist, a game changing goal line clearance, and an overall Clichyesque performance.
Toure - 7 - Solid, will be missed
Gallas - 7 - Solid
Hoyte - 5 - Shaky first half, much better 2nd half.
Rosicky - 8 - I personally thought he had a very good game.
Flamini - 7 - Typical midfield engine performance.
Fabregas - 9 - Controlled the midfield and a great assist. One more assist or goal away from our man of the match.
Eboue - 6 - One of the most skilled players we have. Needs to help out more defensively. Needs to quit his silly “I’ve been fouled” jump everytime he’s hit, makes it look like a dive even when its not.
Adebayor - 8 - Used his pace and power for the goal, and had a very good 2nd half.
Eduardo - 8 - Great control, great finishing. Will rip defences apart the rest of the season. Coolest finisher I’ve ever seen.

Man of the Match - Clichy.

The team finally returns home after two tough away games, and they really ended that mini-trip in style with the excellent and unexpected 4-1 win at Everton on Saturday after the disappointing 0-0 game at Portsmouth. I say disappointing because we ended our ’scoring in every game this season’ streak, not for the point we came back with. A point away at Portsmouth is not as bad as some fans think, and many fans actually went to panic mode all of a sudden!

Back to Tuesday’s game.

West Ham are the only other team to EVER win at the Emirates in all competitions!

They also come to this game in a good mood after doing us a favor and making a really good come back to defeat Manchester United 2-1. I watched most of that game, and they did very well, didn’t roll over and actually tried to create something from the game. They had more possession, more shots on goal, more shots on target, and twice as many corners as United. Both goals came from set pieces - the first a corner from which the less ugly Ferdinand brother scored from. The second from a free kick which former gunner Upson scored from. Both goals were headers too, which is an important stat that I’ll come back to later.

West Ham have the best defensive record in the league outside the top 4, with only 17 goals scored against. Fortunately for us, there are also missing many players. Dyer, Bellamy, Bowyer, Boa Morta, Zamora, Gabbidon, Etherington, Faubert, Collins, and Davenport make a loong injury list, which significantly limits their attacking strength. Add to that the fact that both Solano and Parker were substituted because of injuries in the ManU game, and they really do look limited.

Back to the set pieces issue mentioned above - Both Ferdinand and Upson are tall defenders who are good headers of the ball and will be a threat at set pieces. But wait, there’s more … Dean Ashton and Carlton Cole are both taller than the defenders and are also a dangerous aerial threat. So imagine this, in any corner or free kick situation, they will have Ashton (6′2″), Cole (6′3″), Upson (6′1″), and Ferdinand (6′0″) in the box against Gallas (5′11″) and Toure (6′0″). We should try our best not to concede silly fouls near the box. Solano and Noble are two of the better crossers of the ball in the league. I worry about crosses to either side of the goal, hopefully they wont capitalize on the height advantage against Sagna and Clichy.

From our side, Van Persie remains injured as well as Walcott. I can’t find any news of other injuries. Correct me if Im wrong, but I think Flamini’s 5th yellow and Bendtner’s red rules them out of the Burnley game, so they should be fine. Eduardo is making a case for more starts. I honestly expect him to turn things around the second half of the season. My guess is that we will go back to 4-4-2 since we are at home playing against a mid-table team.

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In the last 10 years, we’ve played West Ham at home 8 times (they were relegated for 2 seasons). We won 6 and lost 2 . We scored 17 goals and had 6 against. That’s an average of about 2.1 goals a game against West Ham at home, and 0.75 conceded.

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My guess for our formation is -

**EDIT** Since I wrote this preview a day early, there was little news on team selection. It turns out that Sagna and Gilberto are out, while Eboue, Hoyte and Walcott are back in. My guess is that Eboue will start after his rest, either in last season’s role at right back or replacing Hleb. Rosicky did well last game and scored and I think Wenger will give him a chance. Hoyte would slot in at right back if Eboue replaces a winger.

I hope Fabregas and Hleb will get their groove back, and I really hope we start 2008 like we ended 2007! Also, lets give Ljungberg the welcome he deserves ….

Happy New Year in advance!