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Cheers Fatmando. Don’t worry about Le Prof, he’s just a sore loser – once he gets over disappointments he’s as magnanimous as they come!
Like many others, I’ve admired Martinez for a long time, but Monday night’s game really did seal it for me: it’s no mean thing to get a team motivated and organised enough to execute a gameplan like that, based it was on lots of movement with and without the ball. I also saw him spend a lot of time briefing Conor Sammon before he came on, which suggests to me a very careful and tactical mind.
Gooners and all those plastic Reds who schlep up to Salford from Surrey, the Midlands and Cornwall share one thing: a nagging doubt about the succession plans once our increasingly aged managers finally retire. Names get kicked around amongst Arsenal fans, from Pep Guardiola to Dennis Bergkamp, but I left the game on Monday feeling I really had seen our next manager. I know that sounds arrogant, presuming to think we’ll be able to nab your guy, but I guess that’s the way it is!
As for Moses, we shall see! He’s been very impressive for the past few months, and I can definitely see there being clubs this summer who’d be keen to make him the next Antonio Valencia. I hadn’t realised till yesterday that he’d decided to play for Nigeria – gutting, having him pile down the left wing for England would’ve been great.
And Legolad, don’t worry about having declared your true colours, Arsenal fans are a pretty meek and accommodating bunch, as long as you’re not supporting Spurs, Chelsea or Stoke.
Wotcha, friendly Gooner here. I didn’t get a chance to do this yesterday, work being a bit of a mission right now, but I wanted to repost a long comment I posted on my favoured Arsenal blogsite, Arsenal Arsenal:
“OK, this is the first chance I’ve had to think about last night’s game, and before reading everything that’s been posted already, just wanted to jot down a couple of thoughts:
1. Bloody well played Wigan, for me that was the best performance of any visiting team at the Ems this season, perhaps only approached by Marseilles back in November. Turns out it wasn’t just Ferguson’s mind-games. Definitely a better performance than when United and Liverpool won. The intensity and concentration, as well as skill, that Wigan displayed was very, very impressive. I thought Victor Moses was absolutely tremendous up front (I really would love us to try to sign him this summer), and Caldwell marshalled his defence superbly. The way Wigan switched formation seamlessly, and constantly denied our players time on the ball, was really excellent. Without doubt, our guys contributed to their own downfall, but make no mistake, to a great extent, Wigan made them play badly. Pretty much the only really pleasurable moment I had the entire evening was staying to applaud the Wigan players off at the end (my seat is near the tunnel).
2. There are silver linings: for football generally, it’s got to be good that a side with as much quality as Wigan are three points closer to staying up; we’ve made life harder for ourselves but it is still recoverable, we are still ahead of the other three in the race for the two CL spots; we may well have seen the best job interview for Wenger’s successor – the level of Wigan’s performance has so much to do with the coaching, Roberto Martinez is most certainly the real deal.
3. I can’t remember Alex Song playing a worse game for a long, long time, he was woeful, sluggish and immature last night. Theo Walcott and Bacary Sagna almost as bad, and the rest, bar perhaps Vermaelen and Rosicky, were poor. I thought we were bad in the first half, but the performance in the second half was terrible, Al-Habsi had barely anything to do. But a defeat like that should be an invitation to any serious sportsman to prove themselves, to show that they can do better. Big game on Saturday now.
OK, back to the top of the page now.”
Best of luck to you guys for the remainder of the season, I’ll be rooting for you!