Same Old Arsenal: Set Piece Troubles

Oh what a season it has been for Arsenal.

From the lofty heights of beating Barcelona, Manchester United and Chelsea, to the depths of losing to Stoke, West Brom, Newcastle, Shakhtar, Bolton. It typifies all that is great and all that is mighty frustrating with this team. And today’s lackluster performance against Stoke, hot on the heels of one of our best performances last week against United, is enough to tell the story of the season.

In my last article I touched on how this team is a pleasure to watch once the pressure is lifted from their shoulders, and that point was driven in today. With 9 points to catch up with United, the title was lost, and the players came out just to play for pride and enjoy themselves and we saw how they dominated a United side that just beat Chelsea 2-1 to clinch their record 19th title. But what that win did was give Arsenal an outside chance of maybe getting back into the race, and that pressure showed on the players again in an insipid display. I would be willing to wager a 100 bucks on the fact that had this game been after the United-Chelsea game, and United would have won, eliminating us from the race, we would have turned up and in all probability turned this game around and even won today. Why you ask, no pressure! :)

Onto the game itself, they say a picture is worth a thousand words, well in that case, this would sum it all up.

The same problems showed their ugly heads again, set pieces. Two against Bolton, and then again today. Wenger said pre game “If you look at the numbers, we conceded less goals from open play than any other team in the league” which roughly translates into we have given up an astonishingly high number of goals from set pieces. It would be fair to say that over 50% of the goals we have given up this season have been from set pieces. In fact having read Wenger’s post match interview, he clears it up saying we have concede 21 goals fro set pieces and only 17 from open play in 36 games. That is less than 1 goal every 2 games from open play but almost 2 goals every 3 games from set pieces, which is much too high for any team wanting to compete for the title.

As a Gooner, it’s been especially difficult this season because this year we were much closer to winning something than ever before but also because there are 6 teams Gooners hate after everything that has happened over the last 2-3 years. Those teams,in no specific order, and the reasons for the hate are as follows:

• Stoke City- Shawcross, Pulis, anti football and what not
• Bolton- Bogey team from since the Big Sam era though ‘hatred’ has gone down considerably since said Fat Sam left.
• Manchester United, need I explain?
• Birmingham City- Eduardo, Taylor
• Chelsea- London rivals who spend tons to ‘earn’ trophies
• Barcelona- Henry, Fabregas, RVP red in CL.

And here is where the sickening part of it comes in. These teams, bar Chelsea are responsible for EVERY elimination from every competition this year.

Birmingham beat us in the Carling Cup final, taking away our best hope for the trophy.Barcelona eliminated us from the Champions League.Manchester United finished off our FA Cup dreams.AndBolton and Stoke put in the final two nails in the coffin as far as the Premier League was concerned.

Maybe its best all this happened this season as there is only one way to go now, uphill, well atleast the eternal optimist in me thinks this way.

As for right now, we have to try and get that 2nd place from Chelsea and hold off Manchester City in 4th. Chelsea currently have a +7 goal difference over us, apart from being 3 points up, meaning they will either have to drop points in both games, or they have to lose one and we have to score 5 unanswered against one of either Aston Villa or Fulham to get back on terms based on goal difference. Whats more worrying is Manchester City in 4th, who are currently 5 points back but with a game in hand, meaning they could be just 2 points back with 2 games to play. It’s mighty important to finish in the top 3 in the table, as the difference between 3rd and 4th is that the former gets a direct spot in the Champions League proper while the latter has to start their pre season preparations early in order to go through a Champion’s League qualifying round.

But knowing this Arsenal team, now that we are mathematically out of the title race, we may see two outstanding performances from the team. And on a slightly more positive note we may get to see some fringe players get their chances like Frimpong, Lansbury and even get to see Vermaelen back in action for the last 2 games! That and looking forward to what we expect to be a decently busy summer with a few quality additions, especially in defense and some experience,cleaning of the deadwood. Couple that up with the 125th anniversary of the club which is next season and the possibility of a new owner, Stan Kroenke, and it all seems a little better than the doom and gloom in Gooner forums everywhere.