What a brilliant game of football. Joel Campbell has arrived at Arsenal. By Galen Sona
This has been a crazy midweek of football which has made me to think of telling the FA to scrap the weekend games and change to midweek. I feel disappointed as we missed an opportunity to extend our lead against Manchester City. I would like to use this article to assess the 5 big talking points of the game.
1) Joel is the new Coquelin – or should I say he is the new Ozil. I love Joel Campbell. If Ozil did some of the things he did today twitter would have broken. But because it is Joel Campbell who cost almost nothing he gets no media attention. In 3 months he has done more than what The Ox has done in 3 to 4 years or so. This is a kid with huge potential who has been very unlucky in his career. I am talking about not gwtting a work permit for 3 years. He went on loan for 4 straight seasons. He went to France, Greece, Spain but never gave up. Some of the passes from Joel today are things you expect from Ozil, Silva, Cesc, Cazorla type of players. I am so proud of Joel and how far he has come. He never gave up even after 4 years of being kicked to the side. Joel’s price has just gone up to £40 million. I think Joel Campbell has arrived at the Emirates. It’s going to be so unfair for him to lose his place.
2) Ramsey and Flamini. The bad marriage. While Coquelin and Cazorla is a marriage made in heaven, Ramsey and Flamini is one of the worst midfield partnerships I have seen at Arsenal. Ramsey is a typical box to box midfielder who has got great lungs and plenty of energy to go up and down the pitch. Flamini is a limited Defensive midfielder who enjoys staying in front of the back four. There is a huge gap in the middle of the pitch and it looked like the gateway to heaven for Liverpool. Jordan Henderson and Emre can couldn’t believe what they were seeing. They had so much space to run into. I hope Elneny is good. If Elneny is not good, then it could just be the end of Arsenal.
3) Arteta the captain? Come on give me a break. Wenger really disappointed me with this substitution. We knew Liverpool would go long. You either bring on Calum Chambers or Gabriel Paulista. How tall is Arteta? He has no legs. He should be playing for a team like Aston villa. That’s his level to be honest. I know I may sound disrespectful but Arteta is not an Arsenal player any more. He is a has-been and I can’t wait for the summer to tell him Thanks and goodbye. I hope he takes Flamini with him.
4) Per? is about time the manager gets bold and give Paulista a run of games. If we don’t have faith in Paulista then we should buy a new CB in the summer.
5) Olivier Giroud. What a man he is turning up to be. Wenger always uses the word mental strength to describe Giroud. But today I was thinking he is exceptional. Yes, he missed a sitter and it turned out to be comedy on Twitter but he fought really hard and scored a beautiful goal. When you look at the likes of Benteke going to Liverpool for 30 million then you know difficult it is to get a striker. Giroud may not be Suarez, Lewandowski or Aubameyang, but there are not many strikers out there way better than Giroud. Look at guys like Jackson Martinez who we were linked to. He couldn’t hit a cow’s backside with a banjo.
That said we go home sad to have lost two points. I would like to think a draw was a fair result and all in all it was a great game of football. We are top of the league and we shouldn’t be too heartbroken.
Enjoy the rest of the week.
By Galen.