Vote: Your Transfer Targets

Xabi Alonso and Andrei Arshavin.

Arsenal need to score a transfer window double.

Arsenal Targets Reported in the English Tabloids

Manchester City midfielder Stephen Ireland
Everton’s Mikel Arteta
Liverpool’s Xabi Alonso
Andrei Arshavin of Zenit St Petersburg
Shay Given of Newcastle
West Ham's Matthew Upson
Torino's Alessandro Rosina

Outgoing
William Gallas
Kolo Toure
Nicklas Bendtner

These transfer stories are at least 90 percent made up. Fiction.

Wenger State of the Side: "We're a bit short everywhere"

Arsene Wenger, in his post-FA Cup Match comments, assessed the state of his Arsenal side: "We are a bit short everywhere."

Concerns:
1. Fabregas Injury
2. Walcott Injury
3. Short Defenders (Fragile at the back)
4. Kolo Injury
5. Midfield
6. Silvestre Out

Good News:
1. Clichy could play against Bolton
2. Evolved Van Persie is banging in goals

Happy 2009!

Happy new year to all who visit Wicked Deflection! I wish you and your family a very healthy and prosperous year with lots of exciting football action.

A Theory Emerges over Gerrard's Arrrest

The Guardian believes they sorted it out:

 "The alleged victim was the club's 34-year-old DJ."  Further down, "One report suggested Gerrard and a group of his friends were involved in an altercation after the man refused to allow them to choose the songs played on the venue's sound system.  Gerrard is a big fan of Phil Collins and counts the singer's greatest hits as his favourite album.  He is also partial to Coldplay."

Credit to Red Scare for finding this pearl.

Liverpool look worthy of The Title

Readers whose appetite for the Beautiful Game remains unsatiated after watching their club over the weekend would do well to watch Liverpool's trip to Newcastle on the replay.  Liverpool's one-touch passing, attacks from the back, and total dominance of two (lower class) opponents in two days time makes for very enjoyable viewing.

Steven Gerrard, not sure that his brace would be enough to capture the week's news, has been forced to rely on midnight tomfoolery in order to steal headlines away from Xabi Alonso, Wicked Deflection's player of the half-season.  Alonso has earned praise in the past months, a shining star in a team of exciting players.  Switching play from left to right with pinpoint accuracy is commonplace, and his role this season has been more of an attacking one than in previous seasons.  He's yet to score from his own half this season.  Arsene Wenger is a known admirer and likely to be shopping for an impact player in January.  The exceptional pre-game on Setanta (treat yourself to Setanta if available in your region) before the Blackburn game included Steve McManaman and Robbie Fowler, who had nothing but praise for the influential Spaniard and couldn't understand the motivation behind the pursuit of Gareth Barry.  Fowler, dazed and vacant, came into sharp focus on the question of transferring Alonso, "His passing is second to none, he's as good as any player out there."  He continued, "No one is saying Gareth Barry is a bad player, but I'd prefer playing with Xabi Alonso."  No further questions, your honor.

Watch for Emiliano Insua in upcoming matches, who has been blowing the doors off left back.  This 19 year old defends, passes, crosses, attacks, and is treated by teammates like a seasoned veteran.  He was selected in the last two matches and was anxious to show that he's top class.  Dossena is now available in the transfer market.

Hyypia is back to top form.  You've got to love that guy.  Mascherano, last season's key figure, is reliable as ever.  Babel can't pick out a pass but still loves to run at defenders.  Riera is back into the form he started the season with, and will keep Babel from a starting position.  Benayoun drifts in from the right beautifully, Kuyt is tireless and produces (a new feature this season), and Keane has even started to show his 20M Pound worth.  We're expecting Torres back any day.  We'll get through the small matter of the captain in the clink, having allegedly pulled a Joey Barton.  Lucas Leiva has been starting to show what Rafa has seen in him at practice.

Three points clear.  Stoke, Everton, and Wigan up next.

Go, you Reds!

Better from Arsenal, against Portsmouth at home, 1-0

The match commentators bemoaned Arsenal under-performing - perhaps they haven't been watching all of Arsenal's recent matches. They complained that Arsenal were keeping the ball too long without creating chances to score. I was grateful they were able to keep the ball so long.

Portsmouth did hit the post with a Crouch header, but luck was with Arsenal, so by playing keep away, they kept Portsmouth from scoring, and Gallas bundled in a header from a Denilson free kick late in the game. 1-0 to the Arsenal, and 3 points that were water for the thirsty.

Bendtner stood out for me. He looked like a real footballer. Starting upfront, then switching to the left, where he looked useful, and then switching to the right.

Diaby was fairly decent in central midfield. Based on that performance, if I were the manager, I might be choosing Diaby ahead of Song. It's very difficult to know what to expect from Diaby, but for Song, there seems to be a limit to what he can do. Diaby, on the other hand, can look great in patches, but hasn't been able to play well for anything close to a full game. Maybe, given a chance, he can improve. I really don't know what to make of Diaby. Ideally, we'd have a player in there who's consistently good.

Eboue, again, for me, contributed fairly little.

Adebayor didn't get his goal, but I really like him.

Nasri was a bit in and out of the game, but I like him too.

Denilson plays well a fair amount of the time, but then he'll pass the ball right to the other team. It's a worry.

Clichy was getting forward pretty well. Silvestre looked ok in central defense. Gallas too, and he scored the winner. Sagna continues a spell of good form.

Sagna is playing now, over the last couple of games, like he did when he first joined Arsenal and we couldn't believe our luck at getting such a good player. Against Boro a few games back, he was being run ragged by Stewart Downing - maybe he was short of fitness, or maybe he can't match the pace of some wingers. If so, it's one of few weakness in his defensive game. At his very best, he gets behind the opposing full back and sets up goals. I think that might be coming.

Vela and Ramsey both came on, and both looked pretty good. They're great players to watch, so hopefully they'll be able to integrate quickly - maybe even keep Eboue out of the side.

There are enough signs of players showing decent form to expect Arsenal might be able to win a few upcoming games. Of course I'd still like to see 10 in a row, 30 points from 30; but 3 in a row would go some way to lifting the gloom brought on by this season's underachievment so far.

Arsenal surrender 2 goal lead

Arsenal have completed their league matches versus Aston Villa. Having lost at home 2-0, Arsenal took a 2-0 lead today in Birmingham, but conceded twice to drop 2 points. Aston Villa are 3 points ahead of 5th-place Arsenal in the league at the midpoint of the season.

In the first half, Aston Villa nearly ran Arsenal over: hitting the goal frame 3 times, and having a goal saved brilliantly by Bacary Sagna. Near the end of the 1st half, Denilson, who had been playing well, scored a great goal. I think the halftime stats showed 7 Aston Villa shots on target, and only 2 from Arsenal; but Arsenal led 1-0.

At the beginning of the 2nd half, it was like the seas parting as Diaby and Eboue combined down the right, leading to a cracking Diaby goal. It felt like everthing was going Arsenal's way, and they looked like scoring more.

Gallas conceded a penalty a bit later, and it was 1-2.

Arsenal couldn't add to their lead, and conceded an equalizer very late.

It was brutal. I've been sick since the equalizer went in.

I'm among the Arsenal faithful trying to come to some reasonable expectations for the team.

When I think in terms of wanting to see Arsenal challenge for the title, a performance like this makes my head cave in. If I were to think of Arsenal as a side with a decent shot of finishing in the top 4, and qualifying for champions league football, a point away from home wouldn't cause as much anguish.

Right now, for whatever reason, I still think of Arsenal as a team that could challenge for the title, and I'm suffering for it.

Rating players is good fun when everyone plays well, but not so much recently.

Diaby - Great goal, and some other decent stuff, but not quite the standard over a full match that Supporters would like to see in a top side (6).

Eboue - Great assist for the 2nd goal, but was mostly invisible (5).

Song - He's limited going forward. He's a fairly average player. The idea seems to be that he'll grow in confidence and get better and better. It's hard to be patient (6).

Ramsey replaced Song, and wasn't much better. He hasn't played a lot, and today, I thought he didn't really look up for it, so I can't beat on Arsene as much for not using him (6).

Denilson and Sagna were the players I liked today - 8s for both.

Gallas was doing ok, until he conceded the penalty. Maybe it was a bad call, but he could have done better, and was a bit shaky after that (6).

Kolo looked ok (7). Update: I've read from reliable sources that Kolo was awful.

Silvestre was fair. I was hoping he could do more going forward (6).

Almunia looked ok, he could be better at coming for crosses, but he seems pretty steady, for the most part (7).

Van Persie and Nasri weren't at their best. Van Persie had chances to score and didn't convert. Nasri was in and out of the game (6s).

Arsenal 1, Liverpool 1

Arsenal's Van Persie scored an amazing goal to open the scoring, and Liverpool's Robbie Keane broke the offside trap later in the first half to score quite a good equalizer.

Cesc was injured right at the end of the first half; Diaby replaced him, and played wide left to start the second half (Nasri switched to the right and Denilson joined Song in the middle).

Adebayor was sent off for a 2nd yellow fairly early in the second half, so Arsenal were with no Cesc, no Adebayor, and 10 men; and they really outplayed Liverpool, but didn't get a winner.

Nasri was the star man for Arsenal in the second half. Van Persie's goal was out of this world, so his contribution can't be understated - It was Nasri who passed it long to set up that goal.

When Arsenal went to 10 men, it gave Nasri space to play his game. Another player who seemed to enjoy playing a man down was Alex Song - he looked fairly useful. Denilson was playing well when he moved to the center. Diaby didn't quite have it in him to make a big impact, and it's too bad, because he had the ball in positions where he could have had a pop at at goal, and on another day, if he was playing with more confidence, he might have.

The back 4 needs to play itself into form. It's a promising group, they just need to tighten up a bit, and close teams down for a full 90 minutes.

Behind them is Almunia who looks like he is full of confidence.

Two more dropped points is a pain, but the performance was really encouraging.

Arsene Wenger often says that he has confidence in this group of players, even if the fans don't, and based on the performance when Arsenal were down to 10 men, it looks like that confidence might be justified. The concern, then, is how woeful Arsenal can be in some games, despite the talent of individual players. Can Arsene do anything about that?

Boro 1, Arsenal 1

Arsenal were gifted a goal to open the scoring against Boro, and conceded the equalizer shortly after.

Arsenal scored from their first corner (Boro had already had several corners). Boro's defending from the corner kick was shocking, and Adebayor had a simple header to score.

Aside from that, Boro controlled the first half, and Arsenal old-boy Aliadiere scored an equalizing header from open play, Gallas losing out, after Clichy couldn't clear.

Arsenal were better in the second half, but couldn't score. It was frustrating.

It's hard to say much about this Arsenal performance, or the look of the side right now without having a proper moan, and making oneself vulnerable to the accusation of being "a whiny bitch."

Arsenal are missing Walcott and Nasri. Fabregas was great, but his midfield colleagues Denilson, Song, and Diaby were not up to par. Diaby and Denilson as the wide midfielders were uninspired.

Boro's wide midfielder Downing looked great. Watching Downing, like watching Aston Villa's Ashley Young, puts my mind to wondering how they might come to be Arsenal players.

It wasn't too long ago I was calling for Diaby to be given more playing time. More recently I proposed a strategy to use him in a limited role as a substitute. Now I'm thinking it might be best if he moved on. He had that one really good game in the Champions League this season when he played as the support striker, but he's been poor more often than not.

Denilson and Song are fairly decent players, but it'd be nice if there were better options available to fill out the Arsenal midfield, so these players could be held in reserve until they get better.

The Arsenal midfield with Diaby and Denilson out wide was pear shaped. They caused Boro very few problems.

The beautiful game this was not. I tuned in wanting to see Champagne football, and I got Coors Light in a can.