Back to Reality

By: Martin | February 18th, 2011

Yesterday was great, wasn’t it? Basking in the glow of a great win over a fantastic side, in what was a tense, entertaining match, it doesn’t get much better. Honestly, for those of you on Twitter, if you had a drinking game requiring you to take a drink every time someone claimed they were “buzzing” yesterday, you’d have died of alcohol poisoning relatively early in the morning. And we earned that celebration day. But that day is over. This reminds me a bit of that win against then-defending champions AC Milan at the San Siro in 2008 — that was fantastic and we were all “buzzing,” etc., but three months later, we didn’t have a damn thing to show for the season but memories, as we ended the season trophy-less. And as great as last night was, I don’t want to be looking back at it as the highlight of the 2010-2011 season, because so much more is within striking distance.

And to that end, I’m more or less declaring this blog a “Barcelona-free” zone the next couple of weeks (NOTE: I will probably still mention Barca from time to time, and I’m not going to ban commenters or anything silly like that. But just, you know, a general ethos of looking forward instead of backward, you get the drift). The return leg is March 8. We have 4 matches between now and then, including a cup final and two key league match-ups. That should be the team’s focus, and that should be our focus as fans as well. Because as good as we were on Wednesday, this is still the team that lost at home to Newcastle and West Brom when we lost focus, and has had trouble knocking lower division sides out of the domestic cups. We’re capable of beating the best team in the world, but we’re also capable of losing to Ipswich, and the difference, as far as I’m concerned, is down to focus.

And focus is what is needed the next couple of weeks. Next up, of course, is Leyton Orient away in the FA Cup. They’re a third division side, so it should be a good transition back into domestic play for us, but they’re on a good run of form, they’ll be at home in front of fired-up fans, they’ll be treating this as their cup final, and, like I said, our record against lower-division sides hasn’t been that great — we needed a replay to get past Leeds, only beat Huddersfield 2-1, lost in the first leg of the Carling Cup semifinal to Ipswich, etc. So it could be trickier than we think.

Then midweek next week we have Stoke City, a team that’s given us a lot of problems, both in terms of dropped points and broken bones, over the past few seasons. After that it’s what will hopefully be the first of several trips to Wembley this season, for our first cup final in 4 years, against a tough Birmingham side that is getting players back from injury and has already committed to rotating players to make sure they have their strongest possible squad rested for the cup final. Like Stoke, we’d dropped points and suffered broken bones at their hands, as well, so that won’t be a pushover. And that’s not even mentioning our history in the League Cup final — we lost to Luton Town in 1988 and Swindon Town in 1969, so our track record of failing to beat inferior opponents on this stage isn’t the most inspiring.

After the cup final, we get a week off before we welcome Sunderland, a team that has taken points off us each of the last 3 seasons, to the Emirates. And then it’s off to Barcelona that week. If there’s a silver lining, it’s definitely that we don’t have to leave London for 3 weeks. And I know you’re probably saying “there goes Martin, being a contrarian dick and raining on everyone’s parade again.” But it just seems to me having watched this particular group of players the last couple of years closely that our achilles heel is failing to get the results we need from teams we underestimate. And we just are not in a position where we can afford to do that right now. So we need to buckle down, get to the FA Cup quarterfinal, win the Carling Cup, pick up 6 points from our two league games to hopefully close the gap on Manchester United, and be riding high, trophy in hand and still very much alive in all 3 competitions heading into Barcelona 3 weeks from now. There will be plenty of time to think about Barcelona after we play Sunderland, for now we need to focus on what’s in front of us. And so we shall, at least on this blog.

In terms of news today, there really isn’t very much. The players have all given interviews, and generally said the right things about how great the win was but how we’re still at half-time and it will be disappointing if we don’t get the result we need in Barcelona. All as it should be.

Finally, this isn’t specifically Arsenal-centric, but you may or may not have heard that American soccer journalist Grant Wahl, who writes for Sports Illustrated and is probably America’s most prominent writer on the sport, has launched a tongue-in-cheek campaign to become FIFA President. It struck me as a good column idea, but once you read it (and see his campaign video, posted below), you just think “Damn. He’s right about pretty much everything, that’s all common sense.” So I am officially endorsing Grant Wahl for FIFA President. Obviously he won’t get nominated, but if there’s enough internet buzz about his “candidacy,” it could give FIFA members a pretty clear idea that we like the ideas he mentions. See for yourself:

Leyton Orient preview coming up tomorrow. Until then.

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Category: Arsenal News

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Perry S.

Chelsea has just been dropped from FAC via Everton...haaaa!
Darren_V

So yea... so much for a Barca-free zone blog. You all failed Martin, and should be ashamed of yourselves!
Momoney

Sorry Martin but disagree whole heatedly about grant wahl. Absolute idiot in my opinion and I have been reading his columns for years.
Bertrand

Nothing can be worse than Blatt..
Momoney

agreed that change is needed but wahl ha no answers...
Sairax

I know it's verboten and all, but I just wanted to say a couple things.
1) Both goals on Wed were fantastic
2) Szczesny, Kos, and Djourou were all great and deserve so much credit for our win.

That is all.
Homey_Mills

Martin's ban on Barca talk never really got off the ground, did it?
Sairax

He gave it a valiant effort
Gunnerlurker

We will not be silenced by reality
Homey_Mills

Well of course in reality, we still haven't won anything yet. :-|
Sairax

Reality's fo suckas yo
Gunnerlurker

I really hope the players are listening to the "back to reality" message because you are so very very right that their focus is absolutely essential. Now as far as the focus of your devoted readers... WE BEAT BARCELONA! Sorry, as far as I am concerned until the Leyton Orient preview is up, I am still wearing my t-shirt with a picture of me smiling while pondering RVP blasting shortside and Cesc to Nasri to Andre one timing ...aka my "not back to reality" shirt. I will put on my t-shirt with a picture of me with a serious game face saying "let's not under-estimate the opponent remember Ipswich" after your pre-match post tomorrow. In case you have forgotten, WE BEAT BARCELONA!
brenton

I'm getting a shirt made with a picture of me watching the game cheering.
Casimir

Can we make this go on forever? Like a double mirror effect? You know - a t-shirt of you wearing a t-shit cheering from the crowd as Arshavin scores celebrating wearing a t-shirt of you cheering from the crowd as Arsha scores with him lifting up the shirt.. oh boy this will keep going on.
brenton

I refuse to consider reality today. I'm living off this feeling for a couple more days.
SJGgumby

So you wouldn't want me to point out that the Arshavin goal reminded me of a vintage Pires goal - midfielder arriving late to tuck the ball in from the center of the box with a smooth, curving shot?
Gigi_man

Sorry for violating the Barza free zone, but its huge over here: the 3 major newspapers and the 2 major gossip newspapers in my country had our win over Barza in the front page! Of course I ran to buy them all :)

Aside from that I fully agree with all comments I read from players and yours also. Lets put this behind because theres a lot we have to be focused for, and frankly it is so foreseeable: everybody wanted to beat us, well, now that we have beaten Barza they will go after us like it was the last day of their lives!
Gigi_man

:) havent read the post yet but...great title!!!!!
Martin

Today in Twitter adorable-ness:

Cesc tweeted this a few hours ago:

@jack_wilshere can't believe i had to go to get Messi's shirt for u. U were so scared. You were MOTM so next time please ask urself!

To which Jacky Boy just responded:

@cesc4official you are the skipper mate you should look after your players ;) Thanks though and next time in going after your mate iniesta!
Andylowe14

i think theyve deleted those posts off twitter cos i cant find them.. there is now a picture of jack with his shirts though.. did i mention i met jack wilshere at the emirates and got a signed mini football!!?!?! best day of my life. not really. it was a pretty good little visit though. He and gibbs both looked a bit bored and I was the very last person in the que, but the girl i was with asked him to write 'congrats on your 5 kick ups!' which jack did, it brought a rare smile and a chuckle, gibbs however thought it was a pretty serious thing he was like 'keep practicing..' ahaha!
russianfan

what do they do with these shirts afterall? after 2-3 years of prof football career you'd have a closet full of smelly used clothes
Darren_V

I've seen a picture of (either RVP or Theo, cannot remember) and they had framed a ton of the jerseys they had received from players and hung them on the wall. It was pretty cool.
Martin

It's a good question. I know Jack tweets pictures occasionally of what he's doing, and you can see in the background that he has a number of framed shirts on his wall, so I imagine he'll do more of the same.
Benjamin Dockter

That video is great. It's really sad that all these problems that seem so obvious to fix are still lingering on after nearly every other sport in the world has modernized in ways that improve them.
Martin

Oh, and best news of the day, from Wenger's press conference -- apparently Djourou's back injury is better than expected, and he will be available for Sunday's match. I still think we'll see Koscielny & Squillaci start, but it's good news as it means it's not a serious injury and Djourou should be fully fit for the Stoke match.
Gigi_man

Man, THAT should be a new title in a new post hahaha. Great news, but I hope you are right and he gets some rest. As much as I dont want to see Squizz blow it, I d hate even more to over-use Djourou and blow him
Martin

Well, that last part sounds like a conversation you should maybe have with Mrs. Gigi . . .

But yeah, I think Djourou needs rest -- he's on a good run of health, but there's no need to push our luck with it. He's been a titan for us all season, and you'd have to say that this is probably the least meaningful game we will have this season (assuming we don't let United pull away from us -- trying to be positive), so if there's ever a time to use Squillaci to spell someone, this is the match.
Gigi_man

hahahaha, good catch, guess thats when it shows I speak Spanish as 1st language :P
Nonetheless, Mrs Gigi is convinced I secretly love all the Gunners but she still loves me
Martin

Haha, no worries. It was an opportunity to make a cheap joke, and I took it.

My fiancee is the same way -- she thinks I talk about some of the Arsenal players (and Arsenal in general) way more than is normal and healthy.