Arsenal will face Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final on Sunday and many will be concerned with how the Gunners will fair against the runaway Premier League leaders.
The Emirates Stadium outfit will need to sure up their leaky defence ahead of their day out at Wembley Stadium, especially after they suffered an embarrassing 2-1 defeat to Swedish side Ostersund in the Europa League on Thursday.
Although Arsenal will need to attack Pep Guardiola’s team, perhaps a defensive body should be used in the midfield to try and help reduce the number of attacks the Citizens could potentially have.
With Mohamed Elneny the only defensive midfielder on the club’s books, following the departure of Francis Coquelin to Valencia in January, it would make sense for the Egypt international to feature.
The Egypt international, who is valued at £9million by Transfermarkt, could be seen as a better fit than the likes of Aaron Ramsey or Jack Wilshere.
A number of supporters would appear to agree with those thoughts, as 71% of Arsenal fans would start Elneny in the cup final according to our poll.
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Arsenal fans, who else would you like to see starting for your side in the Carabao Cup final on Sunday? Let us know by commenting below…
Sunday’s 2-1 defeat to Brighton has inevitably been painted as yet another Arsenal failing Arsene Wenger must answer for. No matter what perspective you view the Gunners’ current malaise from, all roads – transfer policy, tactics, team selection, youth development – eventually stem back to the Frenchman after two decades at the helm.
Yet, particularly during the last 18 months which have been the most testing, turbulent and disappointing of his tenure, the constant criticism Wenger’s received has become a smokescreen for underperforming players to hide behind, knowing it will be the manager who bears the brunt of bitter condemnation regardless of how pathetic individual performances are.
Sunday’s game provides a classic example. After two humbling 3-0 defeats to Manchester City, the Amex Stadium should have hosted a collective reaction from the players, an act of defiance against beatable opposition to remind fans and Premier League rivals of the undoubted quality this Gunners side possesses – a World Cup winning playmaker, one of the most prolific strikers in Europe and a centre-half pairing that has been capped 70 times at international level – but there was no response and once again, Arsenal’s biggest talents and dressing room leaders were nowhere to be found.
Of course, away form has been a constant problem for Arsenal this season; they’re now tenth in the Premier League’s away table, picking up the same amount of points as relegation-threatened Newcastle, and their most humiliating result of the season came at the City Ground against the Championship’s Nottingham Forest in the FA Cup.
Once again, all roads trace back to Wenger and his strategy on the road, but there wasn’t even time for tactics to come into play against Brighton – seven minutes in and the home side were already a goal up through Lewis Dunk as both Seagulls centre-backs were allowed precious space at a corner.
When you’re talking about early goals from poor marking at set pieces despite the chasm of investment between both sides, there’s only so much the manager can really be held responsible for.
Key defensive players should be organising the team better, and leaders within the squad are as culpable as Wenger for ensuring the side starts games in the right way with the right mindset.
Regardless of the formations used or the personnel involved, that just hasn’t happened enough on the road this season – and when Arsenal have gone behind away from home, positive and immediate reactions have been few and far between. In most instances, the players have wilted in front of partisan crowds.
Britain Football Soccer – Crystal Palace v Arsenal – Premier League – Selhurst Park – 10/4/17 Crystal Palace’s Christian Benteke scores a goal which is later disallowed Action Images via Reuters / Matthew Childs Livepic EDITORIAL USE ONLY.
But when Arsenal fans turned on the players rather than Wenger towards the end of last season following a 3-0 defeat to Crystal Palace, Hector Bellerin particularly enduring a barrage of abuse, the individual and collective performances vastly improved – winning seven of the last eight in the Premier League and signing off the season with the FA Cup.
That shows how motivated and determined Arsenal’s players become when the focus is on them rather than the manager, but also highlights the lack of professional pride in their own performances when the situation is reversed.
It’s a problem that stems from notoriously mercurial talisman Mesut Ozil, who often evaporates just when Arsenal need him most, all the way through to the likes of Laurent Koscielny and Petr Cech who should be the unrelenting, dominant voices challenging this side from the back.
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Throughout the entire team, Arsenal’s players just aren’t standing up to be counted – they’re playing below their own proven standards, safe in the knowledge it will be Wenger rather than them who ends up in the firing line.
No doubt, Wenger must accept his share of the blame for that. The idea of Arsenal lacking ruthless is nothing new and at this point it appears to have ingrained itself in the club’s psyche. Wenger himself is symbolic of that, kept in job despite a decade of essentially non-participation in the title race, and he’s guilty of it too.
At no other top Premier League club would Mesut Ozil survive so long while consistently failing to produce in big games, and at no other club would players like Mohamed Elneny, Mathieu Debuchy and Carl Jenkinson be allowed to stick around to simply make up the numbers.
Even including the likes of Aaron Ramsey and Jack Wilshere, Wenger’s shown too much faith in too many players that haven’t consistently produced for him and at this point, the lack of ruthlessness in performances is only symptomatic of the whole culture at the club.
But a significant portion of the blame belongs to the media as well, because they’ve allowed Arsenal’s players to get away with it for far too long, especially over the last 18 months. Blaming every problem on the manager has become a disturbingly superficial increasing obsession with English football, and particularly in the case of Arsenal it has made analyses of their flaws far too simplistic.
Sure, Ozil is often put in the spotlight and sometimes Ramsey and Wilshere are too. But more often than not, whenever Arsenal fail to meet expectations, the vast majority of the prevailing narrative is dominated by criticisms targeted at Wenger.
Perhaps that’s an inevitable consequence of clinging onto a job despite increasingly poor results and a growing share of the fan base turning against you. It’s clear Wenger’s lost his mandate to rule at Arsenal and the Frenchman has admitted himself that the uncertainty over his own future, some of which was self-created by non-committal and vague public remarks, brought added negative attention to the club last season.
It’s created a situation where every Arsenal discussion is inevitably reduced to whether he should still be at the club, how long he should still be there for and why the board are so reluctant to act.
Nonetheless, that doesn’t change the fact it’s become an object for Arsenal’s players to hide behind, an excuse to continue playing below their means, a scapegoat to pin their own failings onto.
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There is no doubt Wenger has been the driving force behind Arsenal’s decline from undefeated champions to mere Europa League qualifiers, yet there is equally no doubt that the players have continually shied away from chances to respond to disappointing performances this season – including on Sunday.
Even if they have become unresponsive to Wenger, they’ve shown little pride their own performances and no Arsenal player at any point this season – perhaps excepting Wilshere – has shown any real willingness to try and truly affect the state of affairs.
They’ve passively ambled around, as if circumstances are beyond their control, seemingly waiting for the change to come from elsewhere. For players paid so healthy, employed by such a prestigious club, that simply isn’t acceptable.
It’s become almost too easy to blame the manager alone in English football and that rings painfully true with Arsenal right now. For that, Wenger, the Arsenal players and the media must all accept some responsibility.
But it would be interesting to see how quickly those hiding behind Wenger’s shadow suddenly up their games once again should the Arsenal fans put the spot light back on them instead.
Southampton appointed Mark Hughes as their new manager on Wednesday night, and some of the comments from the Welshman in his first interview since the announcement will be gladly received by out-of-favour striker Manolo Gabbiadini.
While the Italy international made a blistering start to his Saints career more than a year ago, he has found form harder to come by in more recent times and he quickly fell down the pecking order under former boss Mauricio Pellegrino during the current campaign, with the likes of Charlie Austin, Shane Long and now Guido Carrillo ahead of him in the pecking order.
The 26-year-old has only started one Premier League match since December 16, much to the annoyance of the St Mary’s faithful, and despite scoring the equaliser as a substitute in the 1-1 draw against Burnley last month, it wasn’t enough to earn him a spot in the XI for the following match against Stoke City at St Mary’s.
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Hughes will know Gabbiadini well having tried to sign him – along with many other of the south coast outfit’s stars – when he was in charge of the Potters, and that should bode well for the attacker’s chances for the remainder of the season.
Speaking to southamptonfc.com, the 54-year-old said: “If I’m honest I’ve probably tried to sign half of them so I know a lot of the quality that these players possess, and it’s going to be good to get the opportunity to finally work with some of the players that I missed out on at previous clubs.”
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Gabbiadini will be hopeful that those quotes from the Welshman ensure that he will get more playing time between now and May – starting in the club’s FA Cup quarter-final tie against Wigan Athletic on Sunday.
Southampton midfielder Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg has paid tribute to the impact of the club’s new head coach Mark Hughes.
Hughes was confirmed as Southampton’s new manager on March 14, with the Welshman signing a contract at St Mary’s until the end of the 2017-18 campaign.
The 54-year-old oversaw Sunday’s 2-0 win over Wigan Athletic in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup, which set up a semi-final clash against English champions Chelsea.
The Saints still have big problems in the Premier League, however, with a total of 28 points leaving them in 18th position in the table.
Hojbjerg, who scored his first Southampton goal against Wigan, has hailed Hughes for making an immediate impact at the struggling club.
Hojbjerg told Southampton’s official website:
“I think I speak on everyone’s behalf when I say it has been positive. It is a new impulse, new energy, good vibes, a fresh start. He worked a lot on intensity and discipline, and the desire to go the extra yards as individuals and as a team.
“We have some really good players and maybe this is the perfect fit, nothing is perfect in this world but it’s a good start, let me just say that.”
Hughes, who has recently been blasted by outspoken pundit Joey Barton, left his position with Stoke in January following a poor run of results.
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Next up for Southampton is a huge game away to fellow strugglers West Ham United in the Premier League on March 31.
Tottenham fans have been sweating on the fitness of Harry Kane ahead of this weekend’s clash with Chelsea.
With five points separating the London rivals, this weekend’s clash between Spurs and Chelsea could effectively decide the top four race.
Of course, Spurs fans have been biting their nails waiting for updates on Harry Kane’s fitness, after the 24 year-old injured his ankle against Bournemouth.
Many fans were hopeful of a return for the Chelsea clash after Kane was pictured enjoying a joke with Gareth Southgate, notably without his protective boot.
Fans are now coming to terms with the idea of resting the striker this weekend though, with the risk of damaging him further deemed just too great to take.
Last night, Alasdair Gold, Tottenham correspondent for football.london, said Kane has had one eye on the clash with Chelsea but it would probably be too soon.
Though it’s not the news fans would have wanted to hear, the excellent form of Heung-min Son might ease some of the pain, and fans are now hoping Kane does not rush back.
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Some of the best Twitter reactions can be found below…
Adam Armstrong is once again forcing himself into Newcastle fans’ minds, after the young striker scored another brace for Blackburn Rovers on Monday.
Newcastle fans can’t decide what the future holds for Armstrong, as the 21 year-old kept his sensational run going with two wonderful goals against MK Dons.
Blackburn are now top of League One, and it’s no surprise given the form of Armstrong, who has nine goals and two assists in his last nine games.
The 21 year-old opened the scoring on Monday with a lovely finish, racing onto a long through ball before firing past the keeper. He added his second just before the break, once again finishing with aplomb after receiving a through ball.
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Armstrong has struggled in two Championship loan spells in between two fantastic spells with League One sides, prompting comments from some fans that he has “found his level” in League One.
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February’s League One player of the month will surely want to force his way into Rafa Benitez’s plans next season, as the youngster is reaching the age where he needs to produce at the top level.
Fans have been discussing his future on Twitter, and some of the best reactions can be found below…
Southampton manager Mark Hughes confirmed in his pre-match press conference for the vital Premier League clash against Leicester City at the King Power Stadium on Thursday night that Mario Lemina and Sofiane Boufal will miss out through injury and illness respectively, but Saints fans feel that there is more to their absence than meets the eye.
Considering the talent the duo clearly have, they have been two of the south coast outfit’s most disappointing performers in what has been a difficult season for the club, and both have found it difficult to gain a spot in the starting XI under Hughes in the last few matches, with Lemina struggling in the 3-0 defeat against West Ham United in which he came under heavy critcism from fans on Twitter for his display.
Now the pair will miss what looks to be a must-win game for the club against the Foxes and former manager Claude Puel, and the St Mary’s faithful feel that their absence perhaps is down to their attitude, rather than injury and illness.
Southampton supporters were quick to have their say on the two players via social media, and while one said “I think it’s code for the fact that they’ve been told not to bother coming back in”, another said they are “obviously not up for the fight”.
Here is just a selection of the Twitter reaction…
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As reported by The Sun, Rangers have opened talks with Liverpool legend Steven Gerrard about taking over as manager of the Ibrox side this summer.
What’s the story?
Currently a youth coach at Anfield, former Reds captain Gerrard has never managed a senior side at this point of his career, making him a surprising candidate for the Rangers manager job.
However, it certainly appears he’s in the running with The Sun reporting today that he is already in talks to become boss of the Ibrox side at the end of the season.
The paper say those talks are ongoing and that a potential deal is close, with Director of Football Mark Allen leading the negotiating party.
Can he be the one to inspire the Light Blues to major honours like every supporter craves?
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Difficult first job
Although Gerrard clearly has a fantastic playing career behind him, won multiple trophies and demonstrated his excellent leadership skills on a weekly basis as captain of Liverpool, the Rangers manager’s job is still a massive one to take as your first.
Gerrard would be coming into a high profile, high pressure situation, in a league he doesn’t have experience of, against an elite coach that he formerly had a relationship with in Brendan Rodgers.
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It’d certainly capture the imagination of supporters and the media, but it also has the potential to go massively wrong for both Gerrard and Rangers themselves and perhaps the club should be seeking a man who has the experience and managerial knowledge needed for such a task.
There’s a chance that Gerrard can be as good a manager as he was a player, but he’s simply untested, and the next Rangers appointment is too important to treat as an experiment.
Mohamed Salah has been showered with praise throughout the season, and it is easy to see why given the influential and dynamic displays for Liverpool.
The Egyptian international has scored 43 goals in all competitions, which is a remarkable tally when considering that he generally plays out wide as part of the attack.
In the first leg of the Champions League semi-final between Liverpool and Roma at Anfield, Salah stole the show.
The Chelsea reject scored twice in a thrilling 5-2 victory, but he was unable to make a similar impact when he returned to the Stadio Olimpico to face his former club on Wednesday night.
As shown above, the 25-year-old registered just one shot on target during the entire match, and he struggled to say onside having been caught off three times.
It was an uncharacteristic performance from Salah as he cut a frustrated figure and in the end had to rely on his attacking teammates to get the job done.
The Egyptian, who has been capped 57 times by his country, did not seem as sharp and he was off the pace slightly, which could indicate fatigue, or perhaps it just was not his day.
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Salah has failed to score in his last two outings in all competitions, but fans will be hoping he finds his shooting boots in time for the showdown against Real Madrid in Kiev.
Liverpool lost the match 4-2, but goals from Sadio Mane and Georginio Wijnaldum meant that the team progressed into the final 7-6 on aggregate.
Manchester United and Arsenal’s Premier League clash this Sunday will write the closing chapters in two glorious rivalries that have defined Arsene Wenger’s career.
The intensity of the feud may not be as great as it once was, but the Red Devils were the Frenchman’s instantaneous enemy upon being appointed Arsenal boss in 1996, the club he needed to topple to make his tenure a punctually successful one.
That rivalry reached its peak in 2002, when Arsenal secured the Premier League title at Old Trafford by beating the reigning champions. Two years later, the Gunners did something Sir Alex Ferguson’s United never could – the Invincibles once again beating them to the English crown, but this time undefeated.
That achievement though, wouldn’t have been possible without United playing their part; their illustrious dominance of English football helped drive Wenger to become such a transformative figure in the Premier League, someone who changed almost every aspect of the game as it was understood, from diet and fitness to the utilisation of cheap foreign talent and an idealistic emphasis on attacking football.
As Gary Neville quipped following news that Wenger will step down, the manner in which he rebuilt Arsenal from an unspectacular yet effective team into English football’s most entertaining side forced United to change the way they played against them.
In fact, it ultimately obliged Ferguson to adopt new practices, to embrace more foreign talent and to reconsider his own tactical principles as well. One of the Scot’s greatest strengths was always recognising changing trends and bringing them to the Old Trafford camp.
“The biggest compliment I can give him is that he played a level and brand of football that made us change the way we played, which you don’t say about too many teams.
“We’d have to go more defensive, and change our style, and across a 20-year period they were just wonderful football teams that played in a great style.”
But if that rivalry represents something of a gentleman’s dispute that Wenger arguably conquered, at least for a significant period, the second glorious one of his career was far more foul tempered, and proved the be the turning point that resulted in the moment we’ve now reached – where Arsenal’s decline has been so severe that Wenger’s tenure has come to a somewhat unceromonious end.
Wenger’s rivalry with United certainly suffered its dark moments – Martin Keown infamously hounding Ruud van Nistelrooy after missing a penalty, Le Professeur and Ferguson partaking in snarky press conference exchanges and of course, Pizza-gate. But his rivalry with Jose Mourinho has been a different category altogether, the Portuguese publicly branding his nemesis a ‘voyeur’ during his first spell at Chelsea and a ‘specialist in failure’ during his second.
The crudeness of those remarks etched them in history, and in one way or another they’ve loomed over Wenger ever since.
In terms of results too, Mourinho’s self-declared coronation as the Special One signalled the end of Arsenal’s impeccable peak. Mourinho’s Chelsea side instantly took away the Invincibles’ invincibility, beating them to the next Premier League title, and the west Londoners’ first crowning in 2005 instigated a nine-year wait for a trophy in north London. Mourinho, for all intents and purposes, had evicted Arsenal from the Garden of Eden and banished them to a barren wasteland.
And that dramatic shift was no coincidence either – coupled with how the personal element of the feud with Mourinho clearly had an effect on Wenger, tactically the Portuguese had changed the game too. Indeed, just as United’s dominance had helped shape Wenger, Arsenal’s Invincibles campaign helped shape Mourinho.
He won the Premier League title with a greater emphasis on defensive solidity than any previous champion, conceding a mere 15 goals that remains a record unto this day, and the use of Claude Makelele behind the midfield in a new 4-3-3 formation directly counteracted the possession-based fluidity that had made Arsenal so imperious the previous campaign.
The dynamics of the Premier League drastically changed; whereas the Invincibles had previously established themselves as the template to follow, Chelsea offered an alternative path and soon enough, 4-3-3 was adopted by practically every club in the Premier League. Wenger wasn’t only being outfought and out-thought by Mourinho personally, but also the countless managers who sought to replicate his tactics – especially against the Gunners.
Wenger’s attempts to innovate only really made the problem worse. As the Premier League became quicker, more powerful and more athletic than ever before, Wenger’s focus turned towards the kind of technical talents being produced at Barcelona. Perhaps that was a bid to overcome teams like Chelsea with pure quality, but it actually took away one of the two aspects that once made Arsenal so great – their unrivalled attacking flair, combined with a dogged and savvy physical core.
Even today, the Gunners still lack that physicality, and it’s probably what Arsenal fans expect their next manager to bring back to the team as soon as he officially takes the reins from Wenger.
But management is often a generational thing; one great innovator comes along and topples the old guard, before becoming the old guard himself and having the same done to him. Wenger’s ultimate failing is that he couldn’t quite keep up.
His vision was either too far removed from the realities of the Premier League at that time – only now is Pep Guardiola producing the kind of football he tried to achieve in the late 2000s – or not executed with the same meticulous degree as the Invincibles. Consequently, we reach a point where Wenger’s time with Arsenal is being drawn to a close.
In turn though, that serves as a warning to Mourinho, who himself has become part of the Premier League’s old guard. In fact, he’ll be the oldest manager in the Big Six when Wenger officially leaves – albeit depending on who replaces him – and Mourinho’s pragmatic style of football is being cast as old-fashioned with increasing recurrence.
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Pep Guardiola and Jurgen Klopp’s lightening-quick attacking football just makes you feel like you’re looking into the future of the Premier League, a future that could soon enough leave Mourinho behind. Compared to his heyday of the mid-to-late 2000s, the consistency and calibre of trophy wins is already on the decline.
The truth is that we don’t quite know if this will be Wenger’s last meeting with United or Mourinho, for the next stage of his career – if there is one – remains unclear. But for ninety minutes on Sunday the future will feel largely irrelevant anyway. Manchester United and Arsenal’s Premier League clash is recognition of what has been, the many battles won and lost, and what these glorious rivalries have given to the Premier League.
They’ve been at loggerheads for their whole careers, once even shoving each other on the touchline, but there will be an inevitable obligation of respect when Wenger faces the club that helped build him and the man who begun to pick him apart this weekend.