Mailbox

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Here's The Only Man Bored By This Season...
Why and how can the Premier League be considered so good? Just explain to me how when the top team can beat the team in the third so comfortably and yet that team in third have a two-win cushion (effectively) over fourth and those playing for fourth can't win for s**t. Wheres the competition? What we have is the most competitive league for fourth! Fourth!! Since when did fourth get to be so good? We know the Champions league money made fourth valuable but what sort of rubbish system do we have when so many clubs can get all exited about fourth! It's like the Olympics starting to give out tin medals. FFS.

All of the teams fighting for fourth would currently get spanked out of the Champions League in any case. Liverpool already have been and can you see Villa or Spurs do any better? It's pretty certain that Arsenal will get chucked out of the Champs next time out. Can anyone see the teams vying for that tin medal, sorry fourth, doing any better? Villa can't actually see the goal or get the ball far enough up field to have a shot and Spurs haven't worked out how to hit the back of the net. Oh and forget City. Any side which loses to the rubbish that is Hull and claim to be a great side in the making, please.

It's a s*** state of affairs and there is NO competition when eighth, a Birmingham team being hailed for doing so well, are 21 points off the top at this stage of the season! 21 points! Yeah, ok, mathematically they could win all their remaining games, but what are the odds that Man U or Chelsea are actually going to lose the next 13 of theirs? And, apparently, Birmingham are doing well?! Doing well doing f*** all maybe.

I'm too depressed to look at the stats, maybe this is now the norm, doesn't mean I have to like it.
Carlton, Cambridge


Don't Give Arsenal Stick For Playing Like Barca
It's interesting to read all the hyperbole after Arsenal's loss to Chelsea, you'd think Wenger and his team had brought the EPL into disrepute. How different was yesterday's performance to that engineered by Barcelona in their 1-0 win in the CL back in May? Arsenal kissed the ball to death and enjoyed 60% of possession but flattered to create goalscoring opportunities. Apart from Iniesta's match-winning goal Barca had hardly any other chance. Barca were then lauded to the heavens for their magic football but Henry Winter et al slag off Arsenal and infer they are a busted flush. I've never read such nonsense, by all means criticise the slack marking at the corner for the first goal and the ease with which Drogba scored a quite brilliant breakaway goal but I don't think this warrants Fleet Street to scribble their obituaries on Arsene's experiment.

If Arsenal had had an outlet up front yesterday they'd have breached the Chelsea defence, the Blues weren't particulary brilliant in defence as Arsenal stretched them repeatedly in the second half.

I'm no Arsenal fan but they should be applauded for what they have served up, in a PL that is easily the poorest I have seen in years they have at least tried to play the game the right way. How many teams are using 4-5-1 as an excuse to retreat behind the ball, play turgid football and pelt long balls up front and rely on the Rory Delaps of this world for their 'set pieces'(apparently he had 18 long throw-ins on Saturday). If more teams play the Stoke, Blackburn, Wolves and Hull way we will in time have a crap league and a s***e national team.
Remy Guly, Walton upon Thames


A Big Question
With Arsenal fans once again bemoaning a lack of quality in their midfield, is Wenger's refusal to take Alonso to The Emirates (for a reported £12-13m) the biggest transfer mistake since Houllier decided Ronaldo was too expensive back in 2003?
DF, City Hull


Defending Wenger
While I understand and feel the disappointment and frustration of another defeat of my fellow Gooners, I feel we need to put this into perspective.

As normal we get the 'Get rid of Wenger to get rid of all our problems' crowd. Well if you are one of these people I would like you to go face the nearest mirror and what you'll see staring back at you... is a moron.

Wenger is doing an amazingly fantastic job at the Emirates. Because we haven't won anything for the past five years people see his 'experiment' as a failure but I disagree. He has assembled a squad together for around £70 million compare that with the costs off the United and Chelsea squads that are in excess of £200 million. Arsenal could never compete with that even if they hadn't built a new stadium and have no chance to do so with a new stadium to pay for.

People scream for signing this player or that player but this is just seeing the situation now, at this moment. Were as Wenger is well into his long term plan of developing a young side while still keeping the club solvent, while paying off the debt of the new stadium. Okay at the moment we are coming up a little short but he is only falling short against two of the three best sides in Europe.

The squad meanwhile is still developing, yes one or two players look like they may need replacements (Denilson, Almunia etc) but that is achievable while still staying in budget.

It can not be argued that Wenger is taking the club in the right direction, the club is growing year on year. When Chelsea's and Man City's sugar daddies have decided they don't want to support their clubs anymore and the clubs spiral into decline. Arsenal will still be there as a force to be reckoned with, providing we stick with Wenger's masterplan, providing we stick to our guns.
Mally (Keep the Faith) Smith


Why On Earth Would They Sack Wenger?
The simple truth is that Arsenal are currently not as good as Chelsea and Man Utd but better than the rest of the league.

In response to JD, Irish gooner: The reason the board say nothing is that shareholders want returns not trophies. Why on Earth would the board want to sack Wenger or get someone else in? He has delivered increased revenue through the stadium and training facilities, turns over a profit on player transfers and enables the club to make a profit every year, at the same time as being the single most attractive reason for some of the best young talent in world football wanting to sign for the club.

As long as Wenger continues to prove that you can fill a 60000 seat stadium every week, qualify for the knockout stages of the Champions League and get the team to at least look like competing for the Premier League every few seasons without buying (and paying) players who are already considered among the best in their position in world football, and therefore cost significant amounts of money, then he will continue to generate the profit that will keep him in charge of the club.

The only thing that might cause them to remove him is if, as you seem to be advocating, the fans suddenly turn on him or if we don't qualify for the Champions League. Neither of which I can see happening in the near future.
Andrew Knight, Arsenal fan exiled in Cov


Some Arsenal Points
* Almunia isn't a fantastic keeper, Arsenal could easily do a fair bit better, even in the lower echelons of the Premier League, Schwarzer, Jaaskelainen. However I don't think any keepers would have really done much better over the last couple of games, even that Nani cross was pretty difficult to deal with. They would have needed a ridiculously good keeper a la Buffon or Casillas to have had any chance of keeping out the goals in the last couple of games. Which leads me on to...

* The defence, soft as you like. Simply, because Arsenal keep so much possession, the reality is that they do not have to do very much against most Premier League sides. They buckle against any sides with thrust, Drogba murdered them.

* For all Alex Song has been talked up, he was pretty poor against Chelsea.

* As was Diaby, at the start of the second half he consistently lost the ball around the edge of Chelsea's box. I've seen him being great and being pretty poor, he was awful yesterday.

* As brilliant as Cesc is most of the time, I cannot remember him really controlling the game, as a great central midfielder should do, at the highest level games. To give him credit, he pushed Arsenal on second half but still coudln't have enough of an impact to get them really going. He's undoubtedly a great player but when it comes to the big games where Arsenal fall behind, he doesn't drag them back from the brink as I've seen Lampard and Gerrard do countless times in the past. He simply puts on that face like when you tell your 13 year old that he has to do chores instead of being allowed out to go and play.

* Arsenal's midget front line is woeful, Walcott is so poor that I almost forgot he was playing and hence almost forgot to slaughter him. He remains a footballer who doesn't have the ability to play football. All he has is pace and that one great night in Croatia. Arshavin is, at the moment, equally dire. I've always thought that he does very little and then contributes a couple of bits of magic to a game. Sometimes it has a massive impact, a la Anfield, at the moment, he's hitting corner flags with swiped shots you'd slaughter your 10 year old kid for hitting. For Nasri, see the morning mailboxer.

* All in all, Arsenal fans should really accept that this is not a team on the verge of achieving something brilliant. Utd have had an admittedly poor season and have only seemingly got going over the past few weeks, yet they still remain a fair bit ahead of Arsenal. Chelsea are what Arsenal should be aiming for, powerful and most importantly, effective. The tippy-tappy football looks wonderful against the smaller sides but rarely succeeds against teams of a similar or slightly better level than Arsenal. Those fans praising yesterday's performance are living in cloud cuckoo land. All that Arsenal did was pass it nicely around the box without really threatening massively. Nice to watch but if i were an Arsenal fan i'd be tearing my hair out watching that. Chelsea might not play massively pretty football but they make chances and they score goals, simple really.

* Wenger needs to have a look at himself, his ethics are stopping Arsenal from becoming a force again, they desperately need different options from the pass-pass-pass model. The invincibles were, as much as I disliked them, incredible, this team are a million miles off of that.

* Drogba is bloody ace.
Dave, Glasgow


Nasri And Nostalgia
Mike (Y is for Nasri) Hall asks an interesting question. It's interesting because Samir Nasri is technically a superb footballer. His touch is outstanding, his work rate is good, he has vision and intelligence, he can pass, and he has even been known to put in the occasional tackle. About 17 years ago Arsenal fans would have given anything for a midfielder like that. But right now, there's no denying that he looks a bit pointless. What's going on?

The problem is that he doesn't have the pace or power to be anything more than neat and tidy. So when the team's playing well, he can be a very effective cog in the wheel. But when the team's lacking a cutting edge, he's not the man to provide it. Sometimes I look at Nasri and I see the next Robert Pires - but watching the Chelsea game all I could think was how much I'd give to have Pires in his prime again. (And - much as it hurts to say it - with Ashley Cole behind him. I thought Cole was Chelsea's best player, whilst Clichy was Arsenal's worst - none of the commentators seemed to notice that Drogba's first goal was Clichy's fault - he was stationed on the far post and in a perfect position to clear Terry's header, but had inexplicably wandered all the way to the other side of the goal just to point at someone).

So being an Arsenal fan at the moment is to be permanently attacked by a wave of wistful nostalgia for Pires, Henry, Vieira, Cole, Keown - hell, someone even mentioned Gilles Grimandi in today's mailbox. But you do wonder if the person Arsenal are really missing is David Dein. There seem to have been quite a few occasions since Dein left where a transfer has not quite happened. It may or may not be true that Dein was always the 'closer', but he was certainly a bit of a smoothy-chops. Maybe if he were still there, Arsenal would have had a different goalkeeper and a back-up striker.

But even then you can't legislate for apparently good players just playing badly and making a series of crucial mistakes. I don't think any Arsenal fans would have said at the start of the season that we were weak at left-back (Clichy, Gibbs, Traore). But failings in that position have been primarily responsible for our season falling apart. It's really getting dull...
GP, London


Clichy Out!
I have read with interest on the discussions about our last three games i.e. Villa, Man u and Chelsea. I'm surprised no one has come up with some sizeable amount of critism about our left-back that is Clichy. Against Villa, Young took him to the cleaners and against Man U, he made Nani look like CR7 and all three goals came from the left.

Now I'm short of words to describe his defending for the Chelsea first goal. He moves from his post (where the goal was scored) and goes jollying even past Nasri on the right post doing completely nothing and seeing none of the ball leaving Drogba with the simplest of tap-ins. If Clichy was on his post, that wouldn't have been a goal. And then Drogba catches him out of position again (what he was doing in midfield for the second goal baffles me) and takes him to the cleaners for their second.

There is a pattern forming here as both Chelsea goals came from the left and all the Man U goals - same story.
Kaimbi (Wenger please put him and Almunia out, else you yourself should be put out) Kaimbi


Wenger Out!
In response to Joe Rice's email asking not to publish the 'Wenger out' emails I almost agreed with him, until he said that Arsenal were the more threatening team. That is where Joe lost it. As he is clearly a delusional and myopic idiot. Arsenal were not threatening, in fact other than the great save from Arshavin, I don't think that Cech had to make a real save - if he did there really weren't many. Suffice to say Joe, that having the ball 20 yards from their goal when no one will shoot is not threatening, nor were we really threatening after bendtner came on as by the time we got into the box there were 8 Chelsea players in the way of goal. There was no chance Arsenal were going to score - much as it pains me to say it.

I have never criticised Arsene Wenger as I think he has done magnificently with the club, but I believe that he has taken the club as far as he can and at the end of the season we need fresh blood. We need someone who can coach a defence - or hire a decent defensive coach. Someone who will see that our Keeper is useless and needs to be gotten rid of, hell just someone who realises that playing a game without a f**king striker is a bad idea would be nice.

So here it is, Arsene, do the decent thing and move upstairs at the end of the season. Please.
Mark D, AFC


Etherington For England
The final mail in this morning's mailbox, whilst clearly completely facetious in its intent, has set me thinking. Now I'm not about to champion the cause of Kevin Phillips on the back of a two late goals in one game, but I thought to myself that there must be other unfancied English footballers playing well and coming into form as we approach the final few months before this summer's World Cup. And as I pondered this, one name suddenly sprang into my head.

Stoke's very own Matthew Etherington.

First things first - I am not a Stoke fan. In fact, as a fan of a club who were two victories instead of two draws against them away from winning the league last year, I pretty much hate them. Here is a guy, however, who, amongst all the long ball s***e that his team put forth every week, can actually get it down and play a bit. He's 27/28 and in the peak of his career, is a skilful, direct left winger (one of England's problem areas in recent times, albeit not in the latest qualifying campaign) and is averaging a goal every five games from that position this season. In fact, he reminds me a little bit of the equally unfancied Trevor Sinclair who, on the back of a surprise inclusion in the 2002 England squad, got his chance in the team (at left-mid no less) and was one of England's best performers at that final tournament.

Am sure I will get shot down for suggesting this (I can hear the Arsenal fans' indignation at having a Stoke player(!) in an England shirt now) but I do think that the odd surpirse inclusion for the England squad could yield good results, playing as they sometimes do with a greater level of freedom and fearlessness than other England regulars, particularly those coming back from injury (e.g. Joe Cole). Anyone got any similar radical suggestions for late inclusions?

I'm off to put a bet on it now. I bet Etherington's beaten me to it though.
Matt H, LFC London


A Simple Plan For England
Today's Premier League 'winners and losers' asks whether Rooney's 'promotion to the elite' presents Fabio with a selection poser as Rooney has achieved it as an out-and-out centre-forward rather than as a second striker, as he has played for England (behind Heskey). It also asks whether Capello can change England's shape to fully utilise Rooney or keep faith with a system that has provided a platform for Rooney and Gerrard.

Here's an idea: as much as I like Emile, how about we allow Rooney to play in his club role of out-and-out centre-forward, and then allow Steven Gerrard to play in his club role as second striker? The left midfield role could then be filled by Joe Cole/James Milner (whoever's fit/on form at the time) on the left?
Matthew Rees


Rio v Hyppia
I don't normally feel compelled to involve myself into the absurdity of the mailbox, however last night an un-resolvable debate with a friend left me with no other option.

We somehow got to talking about the best centre0halves at which point i stated that i believed Rio Ferdinand to be thebest of his generation. My friend took offence to this and said it was a biased opinion based on my being a Man Utd fan.

I have no problem with his disagreement, it is perfectly legitimate to say that Rio is not the best. The real problem arose when I asked him to name someone better and he came out with the name Sami Hyypia.

I found this unbelievable firstly because in my humble opinion it simply isn't true and secondly because he showed the exact same bias toward his club (Liverpool) that he accused me of showing.

I was wondering how many people shared his or my opinion or even if they could name a center half better than bot (I don't think it would be too difficult to think of one better than Hyypia).
Marios Papaloizou


Villa...Eurggggh.
It must be awful being a Villa fan if that is the kind of football they pay to see. When the likes of Hull and Stoke choose to play negative football you find yourself having to grudgingly accept it; they are teams of very limited resource attempting to keep pace with the surrounding billionaire playpens, and are forced to adopt a suitably-workmanlike approach. But when a CL-challenging team - a team funded by a billionaire investor - decides upon the same tactics, it is all rather distasteful. And it's no one-off; the same misery was inflicted in the tie at Villa Park earlier this season. It's pathetic. You will hear claims that a lack of firepower forces them into such a God-awful style; if so, perhaps the £12m spent on an injured left-winger would have been better served on another striker? Even so, surely the repeated inclusion of Heskey suggests that this is a specific choice on the part of the manager - Carew has a far better scoring record, after all.

It's indefensible. Credit where it's due: they defended very well indeed on Saturday. But perhaps such a desperate rearguard battle would have been unnecessary had they turned up and actually considered trying to win the game? Their current non-scoring run can come as no surprise to anyone who has seen them play this season; it's hard to get goals when you're not trying to score. Short passes, long passes...it's irrelevant. But the facts are simple: Villa are a boring, negative and dull football team. I'm just pleased that we don't have to meet them again this season. I don't think I could face the despair again (and that's just the faces of the Villa fans).
Thayden


...Iain Jones's whiney little mail in this morning's mailbox just sums up why it would be disastrous for the Premier League if Aston Villa were to make it into the Champions League.

In the face of criticism for their boring, negative style of play, Jones responds:

'Please realise that we don't have the players up front to do any damage consistently so we have to play to our strengths which this season is in defence', and

'In the case against Spurs with that in mind we never had the capability of having a go at them constantly throughout the game. When you go away to a difficult place like that you can't simply go and attack them as they'll pick you off easily so you play to your own strengths. It isn't our fault that Spurs and Arsenal couldn't break us down is it? Get over it and shut up.'

Good god, these sorts of excuses are the preserve of Stoke, Hull and Bolton, not a team with Champions League ambitions whose manager has spent tens of millions of pounds. You have Ashley Young, James Milner and Stewart Downing, and yet you still moan that you 'need one quality Paul Merson type midfielder'?

Your manager spends like it's going out of fashion, yet 'we don't have a goalscorer which is where we're severely lacking'?

This is absolutely pathetic. Maybe Martin O'Neill should have actually spent some money on a striker. But he didn't. He simply bought a good defence, and instructed it to lump the ball up to your crap strikers. This is the reason everyone is criticising you. Your side has the financial backing to buy decent creative players, and play a brand of football that doesn't make you want to gouge your eyes out. Yet you eschew the chance to do this. Fine, do it, but don't write whiney little emails into the mailbox when nobody finds your impression of Wimbledon attractive.
Shaun (altogether now... 'HOOOOOOOOF!!') Livingston


Was Dunne Deal The End Of Hughes?
I'm just wondering, after the latest defensive shambles from Man City, does anybody else think that Mark Hughes got sacked simply for selling Richard Dunne? Dunne was brilliant against Spurs, while Toure et al were rubbish against Hull. The fact Arsenal let Toure go was telling. He's a great 'attacking' centre half but I'm sure his manager would prefer if he could mark his man and show some willingness to get hurt. He leapt out of the way of the ball at one stage. Compare this to Dunne and also Ledley King who made an awsome block on Ashley Young at the end of that game. Commitment counts for a lot with any player but especially with defenders and you can't buy that.
Alan Keane


Some Other Non-Arsenal Stuff
- Jermain Defoe's dive was judged by both the BBC commentator and the MOTD pundits as 'definitely a penalty'. Really? He was in the air and falling forward well before any contact was made. It was nearer a yellow for Defoe than a penalty. Just because there's contact doesn't make it into a penalty, no matter how many times the pundits tell us otherwise.

- Stoke have re-invented themselves in recent months. There's still the long bomb throw-ins and tightly organised set-pieces, but alongside it is some very tidy and exciting football. Sidibe and Etherington were once again excellent. The cynical anti-football first season followed by a more creative and flexible second season may be a blueprint for other promoted clubs to follow.

- Why does Andy Gray persistently refer to Steven, Wayne and Frank but to Aquilani, Berbatov and Ballack? Is it just me that finds it incredibly annoying? To paraphrase Roy Keane, you're not even English, you Scottish person.
James Syme, London