No bonuses to take from Hull game

By JimC Published: 20th December 2009

by JAMES CURTIS Give the bankers back their bonuses and allow the politicians their benefits because compared to Arsenal’s first-half performance against Hull yesterday, they deserve it. When bankers and politicians underperform, society calls for their heads. Sometimes those in high powered jobs are sacked.

Arsenal’s stars are among the highest paid people in the country and their level of work for 45 minutes was so below standard, so undeserving of their astronomical salary, that even Fred Goodwin would have been turning.

The first-half entertainment at the Emirates yesterday was appalling. It broke the game of football down to its simplest and barest, so low was the quality that no way could this be called a profession.

For a moment it was possible to understand those wretched people who say of football, ‘it’s just a game’ because that is all it was. Aside from Denilson’s nicely bent in free-kick from 25-yards on the stroke of half-time, there was little pride or care in anything Arsenal did.

Seeing such a woeful first-half put everything into perspective. Referee Steve Bennett also earns a nice wage, but really all he does is blow a whistle and flash a plastic card around, and he still couldn’t do it well.

Then, just before the interval, Samir Nasri trod on Richard Garcia’s foot causing a pitiful mini-brawl, where Stephen Hunt was like a scrappy dog wrestling with players. It was primary school stuff and an embarrassment for the name of football. From the bench Theo Walcott, Lukas Fabianski and Carlos Vela watched on with red blankets around their laps.

Pleased to say the game picked up after the intermission. Hopefully Wenger reminded the players of their duty to justify the large sums of money they make with another assault on their egos, lack of desire and jaded attempts to win the game.

Abou Diaby was a brand new player in the second half, driving forward, linking with attackers, assisting one and scoring another, helping Arsenal to the eventual 3-0 win. Before, he had been like the kid in PE who needs constant encouragement to get involved. The Frenchman looked so uninterested it wouldn’t have surprised me if he had forgotten his boots and was wearing shoes.

Arsenal’s passing was quicker and more incisive and proved that when they concentrate, the Gunners can still get behind a team defending with every body behind the ball. Hull had a negative game plan which to break down, simply required more hard work and slicker one touch football.

Song played a one-two with Diaby after 59 minutes, then the gangly central midfielder slid across for Eduardo to tap in. After 80 minutes, Diaby dumped a ball off to Andrey Arshavin and made a direct run into the box. The Russian returned the favour and Diaby slammed home. Pass and move, the first rule.

Most of the hard work though came after Almunia saved from the spot after 55 minutes. Silvestre was adjudged by Bennett to have pulled Chris Fagan’s shirt in the box after a nothing cross had whizzed over both their heads.

Before Giovanni fluffed his penalty, visions of Arsenal collapsing like in this fixture last year were flashing across the television screen. Instead, Almunia anticipated correctly and Arsenal went on to punish Phil Brown’s men. A ruthless Arsenal was welcoming to see and in the end Arsenal responded well to take an encouraging three points.

With injuries in all departments and players like Emmanuel Eboue and Eduardo making starts, the win is as valuable as Liverpool away. Stronger opposition will test Arsenal’s nerve further but there is no arguing with 3-0 against any Premier League outfit, just don’t expect any performance bonuses.{jcomments on}

JimC

Passenal

What a miserable git you are. Arsenal won, a supporter would be glad of that.
Sue

Have to agree with Passenal there.
7CHP

Yeah this was a bad post. Trying your hardest to paint a bad picture of a not very good half is the wrong focus imo. What about 2 hard games last week, tired legs but battling out a comfortable win against a hard working side by instead of falling down and taking the easy way out – like your blog post did.
dsd

shocking post
CheDDar

Shocking Post indeed……..
thenry

i bet the guy who writes this shit blog is a spuds fan.
get over yourself you wanker the team played well and won the match.
i hate these fuking jonnycumplatelies who think they know it all.
fuk off we dont need arsenal fans like you though i seriously doubt that you are a gooner.
Topcat79

That’s embarrassing on so many different levels-what a knob!
Jim

come of lads/ ladies, give something more than just shocking post.

i suppose when denilsons freekick went in it covered up one of the lamest halves of football ever seen. the passing and the touch was so bad i was speechless during the break.

all this time spent on passing and all i saw was bobbling, misplaced, weak, over-hit, meaningless passes.

tiredness is no excuse at this stage of the season.

i pointed to some positives which came in the second half, which was the pass and move game, the one touch game. it made hull look the poor team they are.

of course im pleased with the win. im just as much a supporter to be concerned that the attitude wasnt right for half the game.

fringe player, playing out of position, i dont care, but show some attitude please.

im glad to see you all have attitude
Jim

i am a gooner. i doubt you are thierry herny …
mid

whats all that about? do ur players get more money then chelseas nanures? NO. have u seen their displays vs portsmouth and fulham respectively? it was a 3 nil win against a scums team and beautiful ref, because u dont seem to bother to make that point.the FA want chelsea champions this season.so hat off to the lads. diaby? just another dimention man. keep it up and goonerish
Jim

henry*
Antonis

Shocking Shocking Shocking!

Don’t give up your day job and do us all a favour and stop writing blogs. So negative, I’m surprised you don’t go jump off a bridge.
Slice

Sorry but I agree and am def not a jonny-cum-lately I’ve been home and away for about 20 years since my early teens. Why on earth should these players need a talking to at half time in order to galvanise themselves?? Isn’t a lack of success, added to their emperor lifestyles, alongside constant media fingerpointing about their lack of desire enough to make them want to win for this great club? The fact that they played in the first half as badly as they did against liverpool just shows that they haven’t got enough desire or confidence. At half time on the concourse every one was saying the same, that basically the team aren’t good enough. Walcott was embarrassingly bad, so was Eduardo, in fact all of them were in the first half apart from Verm n Song.
Michael

I saw things differently, right from the off Hull were obviously playing to the ref looking for cards to alter the game. Giovanni tumble with the look of death over a harmless brush. And Hunt managed to get away with the bump on Almunia.
Nasri’s inarticulate step on Garcia was seen by nobody except Hunt who turned it into a slugfest.
Arsenal were fortunate that Denilson scored as that had the impact of changing Hull’s playbook and they actually had to go for a goal.
Even after the game Brown was pining about the referee which confirmed my view that they were looking for some help from that source.
Ian

You must realise your wrong for posting this by the fact that nearly every response has pointed out what a shambles of an article this is. You represent a new breed of arsenal fans who probably do love the club, but let yourself and the club down with your astonishing lack of knowledge on football which results in the spouting of nonsense such as this article. I’d advise you up your footballing knowledge before you think about blogging, as that was truly awful
USG

Incredible nonsense.

Do you realize that in the second half we had more space as Hull came out? Do you realize that not every attack in a football match yields a goal? I am watching Chelski against the hammers right now and this game is not going anywhere.

Do you have a job? Show this post to your boss and you might just get the sack even if he/she is a spuds fan. No one would want such an incompetent clueless employee as yourself.
Stew

EXACTLY – Not lack of passion for Arsenal….just a total lack of intelligence of perspective…

Come on SUPPORT OUR TEAM, I am a seasonb ticket holder and I am embarassed by many of our fans….
Slice

Nothing to do with knowledge so don’t be so patronising, and I’d like to point out I sang for 90 minutes so the SUPPORT OUR TEAM comment is offside. See what i did there. I watch every game with the same guys and they’ve been going for 30 plus years and there was about 15 of us at half time who all said that that first half was embarrassing. If Cesc himself admitted that Wenger’s rant changed the game, surely that must worry every fan, that taking everything into account, they needed a rant from their manager to make them REALISE what was at stake. And I’m sorry but that’s not acceptable and never fucking will be.
Jim

haha jobs? i write a blog, but if anybody wants to have a whip round for me id be happy with that.

im watching west ham and i tell you that is desire from the home team. could we have played like that before we lost 3-0 to the blues?

my football knowledge is as good as anybody here because i watched the game. id say though, any first timer could have watched yesterdays first half and never have come back, or realised that is was crap.

as slice pointed out earlier it is recuring with arsenal. another slow start to game that needed wengers words at half-time.

am i only to write good things when we win and bad things when we lose?
mid

chelsea r 1 nil down halftime come on hammers fight 4 ur lives like u did against us earlier
Jim

cheers slice, completely agree with you. its only so long before everybody turns on the players if they continue to start games like this.
Jim

so far it seems to me that the people who went to the game were wtiness to the same comments. that arsenal were laughable first half.

iv pointed out that the second half was good because they actualled put some effort in.
GoonerTom

The thing is, the kind of football we play, things sometimes click wonderfully into place, and sometimes they don’t. It’s always the same – we start well, playing great football and destroying teams in August and September, then around November it gets cold, we get some injuries and we can’t find our fluency. Then gradually we sort ourselves out and play well again in the spring. It’s been the same every season for the last 12 years, even the years when we won the league.

If we can play against a negative team, struggle to find our game but stick at it and get ourselves a 3-0 win in December, I reckon that’s a reason to be cheerful.
rafi

THIS IS TYPICAL WRITING A POST TO GET SOME HITS. LUCKILY WE WATCHED THE GAME AND NO AMOUNT OF PEN MANIPULATION WILL CHANGE OUR APPRECIATION OF A GOOD JOB BY OUR LADS. YOUR LOVE OF MONEY GETS IN THE WAY OF REASON.
Rabie Hassoun

I dont understand why people are sending u direct insults lol.. but ya i do not agree with u. We won despite having our best stars out. Liverpool are 8th cause they didn’t have their best players all season.

At the end of the day you should be glad we got the 3 points and appreciate what denilson and diaby did last night.
Tommo

WTF? Are you a fan? I was there and yes the first half was as dull as dishwater. But come on! We won! Cheer the fuck up!
ClockEndRider

All,
Go to news now arsenal, click on the title of rubbish websites like this and select “hide publication”. Voila! You’ll never have to read such execrable nonsense again. You can’t stop the fifty cent bloggers, but at least by not having to acknowledge their existence, you don’t have to provide them with the oxygen of publicity.
Jimi

Chealse again droop point isin’t agood news
Jim

yea, must get in the christmas spirit. but im sticking by my words, that first half was a joke.

overall great weekend for arsenal. must up it for villa.
gil

your not a fan at all !
thirdEYE

Go get a life
trying to be against the tied to be different well it dont work with all the loyal arsenal fans.
Ok so we played a bad half but that doesn’t mean all the lads gave their best and fought till the end. and i was proud form the players more than ever cause for the first time i saw the spirit and will to fight even if physically.
so in the end i hope u learned ur lesson GOING AGAINST THE TIED DOSNT MAKE SMART
editor

For F*ck sake everyone is entittled to their opinion that’s the idea of a blog. Somethings you will agree with some you will not.

We aim to bring you many different views from different Gooners from around the World, we are not stupid we know that not everyone will agree with everything that is written.

If you don’t like a post, say your piece and move on my friend it’s not the end of the World!!!
Jim

that +1 could only be from me boss
Seng7

Why does everyone have to focus on the negatives in life? Why don’t you apply for a job as a director at Man City? They seem to know a lot about football.
Joe

I think you’ve missed the game, we scored at the end of a first half when they (a team who should have been fitter due to less frequent games over the past week) sat deep and to their credit harried us at every attempt, never giving up what looked like a lost cause. The Denilson goal forced them to come out more and made gave our players more confidence and their players less belief. Try to think BEFORE you start writing and it gets a lot easier to get it correct.
messi

didnt watch the game will watch it now on the arsenal website and will let you guys know, and ill be real with the pos and neg.
MistaKen

Ok, we did not play well in the first half, but we did in the second and run out rightful winners. What happened to Diaby? How can a PL player play as well as he did in the second half then play so poor for the next 6 or ever more? Cant understand him at all
Jim

Hull did not play much differently from half to half. What happened was Arsenal began to knock the ball one touch which brought around the second goal and make more purposeful runs which brought around the second.

In the first half players didn’t offer for the ball, they hid behind men instead of moving into new spaces, they were pedestrian and got caught on the ball by taking to much time or needing a second touch to control the ball.

For people who seem so concerned with my football knowledge I have coached in California with Uefa and run training sessions for Chelsea, QPR, Brentford and Fulham kids.

Three things

1. Pure speed: running from A to B
2. Mental speed: making quick decisons
3. Technical speed: making a quick pass/ shot, cross, whatever

Arsenal showed none of that in the first half and it really let them down. The second half proved they have it, so my concern is why it took so long …

Overall this season, these are the things people have been most critical of.

And if Arsenal want to win this title without a strong centre forward and play the passing game, then they are gonna have to start making some runs and getting the blood flowing.
Jim

i do this for free
GoonerGaz

Jim any team that runs around breaking up our play and forcing us to play at a pace that removes skill from the game always makes us look like we are struggling.However teams that play this anti football create few chances and merely spoil the game.Look at Liverpool this season,running around at 100 miles an hour stifling the opponents at times but generally creating very little.In short it is easy to kill a game but harder to overcome an opponent with this mentality.The game changed at 1-0 because they had to come out and thankfully their spoiling tactics got them precisely what they deserved.
MistaKen

Abu Diaby! Please tell me why he confuses me
Jim

goonergaz some good points, especially on teams with anti-football on the brain.

but remember, hull understand they cant compete with arsenal playing football and can only work with their resources. so defending becomes the best tactic.

its up to arsenal to break them down and in the first half im not convinced they tried everything they could. there seemed a lacked of concentration that didnt seem to fit with the pass and move matra arsene has blessed arsenal with.

its going to have to be like the second half every moment of the season.

also, thanks for a decent reply, this is the type of discussion the website likes to get going.
Jim

also insiders, there are plenty of good writer on this website.

we dont make up opinions to gain hits. we like to be different sometimes to get alternate angles of the game looked into.

this blog is here for your benefit and by the number of people on today, there is good scope to get interesting debate going, not for the sake of my name on a computer screen, but for arsenal fans.

keep reading, keep constructively commenting please.
Arsenal General

I suggest you to stop writing blog because you surely can’t appreciate the win and the effort put in by the team. Yes they was poor in the first half but at the end they won the game and that’s what it counts. Period. Fans like you always have stuff to complain, kids..
MistaKen

I watched him yesterday and though, is he being controled by someone on Xbox? Where did the quick thinking come from?
michael

and what expert are you to make comments like that?the second half was no different to the first, the goal caused hull to have to attack more with opened up space so we could take advantage.ur a sad git….wank…prop a spud
Merse-10

Bonuses from the Hull game;

3 points
Clean Sheet
Points mae up on Man Utd
3 goals
3 different scorers

We won without playing that well. I’d rather that than play well and lose (Man City and Man Utd away).

We were without Fab, Nic and Robin. Add to that Gael and Tom. It was our 3rd game in a week – 3 games that gave us 7 points from a possible 9, a good return on 2 away games and one home.

Plenty of positives for me. Over that same time period Man Utd picked up THREE points and that’s including 32 ome games. Chelsea can only picked up 5 from 9 and they had 2 home games too.

We need to keep grinding out results while the players recover from injury and hopefully we can have a strng finish and see where it takes us.
messi

wow mate i told i was gonna make my opinions after the game, no i agree with the rest of the people here, how can you criticise our players like that. Your second paragraph itself shows how much you know about the club and our players because the arsenal stars who earn the most are only cesc, gallas and van persie and then you mention “among the higest paid players” WOW so basically your compplacing their earnings between the likes of chelsea, united and city who most of the stars there earn an a minimum of 80 thousand, because thats what among means. secondly i agree the first half wasnt the best but is every game from the best clubs in the world perfect, example barcelona, real madrid, united, considering that the weather werent your typical everyday weather not using that as an excuse by the way. Second half Hull had more chances than the first so what are you talking about, you clearly need to go back to the locker room and do some thinking because if your thinking so negative like that WOW, arsenal have always had problems in the winter times but what club hasn’t look at the present day today, liverpool at portsmouth, united at fulham an chelsea today at west ham, be happy mate, wasn’t the best performance but second was a step closer to it diaby, song and vermaelen ran the show simple as. silvestre and eboue both had very good games really did, the penalty was wrong vagan pulls silvestre towards him. clearly first half hull players wanted to get physical and we showed them that second half, i agree with (thethirdeye, and you tried to be like the sun newspaper always criticising but it didn’t work because everybody here understood the performance today, weren’t the best but key players did their jobs well, very well.
good game from the boys men of the match were DIABY AND VERMAELEN clearly had the game in their hands, as for you like i said go back to the locker room and THINK!
Steve D.

What has happened to the Insider – this is such negative crap. I thought I’d logged on to Le Grove by mistake.

We won FFS, with a whole team of first-choice players injured. Just get behind the team and AW.
Th14

Stop being so bloody negative! What a shocking post, you’d think that we lost the game! I hate our new breed of ‘fans’ always critical of the team and picking holes in players performances! Maybe if you stopped moaning and got behind the team they’d actually give that little bit extra! Everyone has off days in any profession, three games in a week is not easy! 7 points from a possible 9 is not a bad return at all! Mate get real and start supporting the lads, because that’s what they need! Not your whiny pathetic blogs about who deserves what and so forth! If you’re so displeased, there’s a whiny bunch of scumbags who support the other north London team, feel free to join them!!!!
hmm..

what do u mean players like eduardo and ebuoue…….eduardo is a class act he was scoring goals for fun last season when he got injured, eboue is one of the best rb in the business so much that wenger wants more out of him….are u really an arsenal fan????????
ozgunner

i swear half the people on this website are brain dead. Good post Jim, i agree 100% with what you said. We were woeful in the first half! There is no passion in the squad atm,and we will not go anywhere if it takes wegner to give the players a spray at half time constantly. The players should be fighting with their all to win and show pride for their uniform. That is one of the main reasons i would have loved to seen lorik cana come to the club, because that main is passionate and we need someone to spur on the team at times.

Some players in the squad at the present are well below par, especially eduardo and walcott. We cant keep using the excuse of eduardos injury forever, nor can we keep saying ‘theo is still young and learning ect’, they need to pull their finger out for the team because we all know they can be great players!

For those who have attacked Jim for expressing his opinion need to grab a brain, its a bloody open forum used to express opinions. You either like it or you dont, and if you dont you reply listing points as to why you think hes wrong ect, not just abuse him. We all love arsenal to death, but blind faith and thinking everything is perfect leads to complacency and mediocrity.come on arsenal, the title is in our grasp

Good post Jim, and keep up the good work to all the other bloggers on arsenal insider
TJ14

Just a couple of things Oz. Did you see Chelsea yesterday? John Terry, Carvalho, Cole, Drogba, Ballack, Joe Cole and Lampard and Ivanovic. All these big ‘passionate’ leaders that we supposedly lack. They were shocking for an entire 90 minutes yesterday. At least we responded at half time.

You also fail to see that Hull came with a formation of 4-6-0. When teams play like this, it will always take time to break them down. And we were missing 3 of our most creative players from the side so this was going to hurt us.

I was at the game and in the first half, it was nothing to do with passion, more to do with lacking creativity in the final third.

Walcott and Eduardo are lacking confidence and sharpness at the moment and if we had a fully fit squad, they would be being introduced gradually from the bench. but needs must and they are playing alot more than they should be. They need to give us more and hopefully over xmas they will.
Steve D.

Well said TJ14 – I wish people would understand that teams will always have the energy to close us down in the first half, but will always tire eventually. I also think people should lay of Eddy and Theo until they have at least five full games under their belts.
Jim

i said “the highest paid earners in the country”, im talking about everyday people and everyday jobs. people work hard to support their lives and it makes me shudder when footballers can give a woeful performance like that and get paid so much. the way ot was in the first half was simply kicking a piece of leather around for no apparent cause.
saif

the guy who wrote this post is an ass
hhhhhhhhhhhh

fucking idiot
John in Norfolk

I have to agree with the majority of comments regarding this post. It is almost entirely negative with not a single concession as to the absence of first choice players or to the fact that Hull City lacked any ambition to attack.

Everybody has a right to their own opinion and to express that opinion but to do so at such length and with such vitriol shows a severe lack of judgement.

Might I suggest that you re-read your post and then, on reflection, consider an apology to both the team and the supporters.
Clueless

What a numpty.
Coomparing economy ruining bankers to footballers.
Go away mate, you sound like a football novice who’s only been around in the bSkyb era.

Idiot.