Having watched the Barclays Asia Trophy and the Emirates Cup, I have to say Arsenal is looking very good.
The defence seems much calmer with Petr Cech in goal and the movement of the midfielders look very promising, especially the inter-play between Mesut Ozil and Aaron Ramsey.
The only area that needs improvement is in the attacker department. While Oliver Giroud and Theo Walcott had scored in both the tournaments, they too missed quite a few good chances, too many in fact.
The Gunners might be able to overcome this against weaker oppositions where they will create tons of chances but against defensive strong outfits like Chelsea, where chances are at a premium, they have to find the back of the net whenever they have a sniff of the goal.
And it seems like Arsenal is keen to address the issue and have been linked with a few strikers, among them, Karim Benzema and Fernando Llorente.
Benzema is believed to be the number one choice after been linked with Arsenal for a few seasons. Even thou Benitez had stated that Benzema is not for sale, it had not stop rumours of the Frenchman being unsettled at the Bernabeau.
It is believed that the Gunners are prepared to up their initial bid of £31 million to £35 million for the Real Madrid striker and if the deal fails to materialise, Wenger will turn his attention to Fernando Llorente.
Over the weekend, Arsenal were reported to offer Serie A champions, Juventus, £8 million for the 30-year-old.
Llorente had proved invaluable to Juventus' domestic and international success the last two seasons. Despite his age, it is hard to believe that the Old Lady will let him go for that sum of money.
But how does the Benzema and Llorente measured up to Giroud and Walcott?
Fernando Llorente - Played 25(6) / Goals 7 / Assist 1 / WhoScored.com ratings 6.70
Karim Benzema - Played 29 / Goals 15 / Assist 10 / WhoScored.com ratings 7.56
Olivier Giroud - Played 21(6) / Goals 14 / Assist 3 / WhoScored.com ratings 7.23
Theo Walcott - Played 4(10) / Goals 5 / Assist - / WhoScored.com ratings 6.61
Based on statistics, Benzema is an upgrade while Llorente isn't going to improve the squad much.
And to finally end their 10 years wait for the Premier League title, Arsenal have to go for only the best.
Showing posts with label Olivier Giroud. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Olivier Giroud. Show all posts
Tuesday, 28 July 2015
Wednesday, 29 April 2015
Wembley, here we come. Arsenal FC
After a nine years wait, Arsenal finally broke their run without a trophy when they won the English FA Cup in 2014. Many have predicted that this could be the start of a golden era but that was put in place after quite a disastrous start to their new season.
Out of the Champions League, Capital One Cup and out of the league title chase (thou they could still mathematically win it), FA Cup is their last hope of a silverware, if one exclude the “top 4 trophy” that manager Wenger so craved.
Like last year, they had a tough semi-final against supposingly lower quality opposition. But unlike last year, they settled the issue in extra-time without having to go through the lottery of a penalty shootout. They took the lead in the 40th minute only for Reading to equalise within nine minutes of the second half. Try as they might, Arsenal could not find a winning goal. It took a mistake by Reading’s goalkeeper, letting Sanchez shot slipped through his legs, to eventually settle the issue.
Aston Villa now stand in the way of Wenger of equaling the most FA Cup won by a manager. Many clubs would love to be in this situation of winning the oldest cup trophy, but for Arsenal fans, I suspect they would rather trade it for either the League title or the Champions League.
Without doubt, Arsenal will be favourites to retain the trophy, but this is Arsenal that we are talking about. A club that has the tendency to either screw things up at the big stage or make things difficult for themselves. Not to forget, the “strange” tactics of Wenger. In the semi final, he replaced both full backs, Debuchy and Gibbs coming in for Bellerin and Monreal. Both are able replacements, in fact, the first choices but they have not seen much actions lately. Also, he decided to start with Welbeck instead of the in-form Giroud. Puzzling indeed.
In any case, I am looking forward to a great final at the Wembley Stadium. While I am quietly confident, something tells me that the result might not be as what I have hoped for.
Out of the Champions League, Capital One Cup and out of the league title chase (thou they could still mathematically win it), FA Cup is their last hope of a silverware, if one exclude the “top 4 trophy” that manager Wenger so craved.
Like last year, they had a tough semi-final against supposingly lower quality opposition. But unlike last year, they settled the issue in extra-time without having to go through the lottery of a penalty shootout. They took the lead in the 40th minute only for Reading to equalise within nine minutes of the second half. Try as they might, Arsenal could not find a winning goal. It took a mistake by Reading’s goalkeeper, letting Sanchez shot slipped through his legs, to eventually settle the issue.
Aston Villa now stand in the way of Wenger of equaling the most FA Cup won by a manager. Many clubs would love to be in this situation of winning the oldest cup trophy, but for Arsenal fans, I suspect they would rather trade it for either the League title or the Champions League.
Without doubt, Arsenal will be favourites to retain the trophy, but this is Arsenal that we are talking about. A club that has the tendency to either screw things up at the big stage or make things difficult for themselves. Not to forget, the “strange” tactics of Wenger. In the semi final, he replaced both full backs, Debuchy and Gibbs coming in for Bellerin and Monreal. Both are able replacements, in fact, the first choices but they have not seen much actions lately. Also, he decided to start with Welbeck instead of the in-form Giroud. Puzzling indeed.
In any case, I am looking forward to a great final at the Wembley Stadium. While I am quietly confident, something tells me that the result might not be as what I have hoped for.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)