Reality Cech

Clayton Beerman weighs up the aftermath of defeat in the Community Shield and poses questions ahead of the new season…

So it has started, the doom the gloom, the general despondency and yet remind me when the season starts. OK so it was not a meaningless friendly, playing Arsenal can never be that. All the blasé waving away of any significance is in my opinion wrong. We all wanted to win if for no other reason than to wind up the graceless knob who is their manager.

For me the problem wasn’t losing it was the manner of the defeat a completely limp and ineffectual performance from an almost full strength side. One does not say it often of a Jose team but Arsenal wanted it more than we did. I think they were at least a week ahead of us in terms of preparation but I am not entirely sure why.

First let’s get the Cech thing out of the way. Well done to all who went and applauded him. He is a true Chelsea legend but now he’s an Arsenal player. The booing of both Cesc and JT allows us the moral high ground. What a farce, why waste your Latte breath, completely childlike although that does a disservice to children. Bottom line is yesterday he made very little difference as the Arsenal goal was barely under threat. Yes, he will give them more stability but he was a virtual spectator with the Oscar free kick his sole save and to be fair I would have been disappointed to have let that in.

But let’s concentrate on us. As I said above I thought we were poor but had Ray Mears scored that relatively easy chance I suspect we would not have lost. It is beyond irony that Arsenal did to us what we have been doing to them for years. They sat back and hit us on the break. Apart from right at the end when we were chasing the game and offered nothing offensively. In many ways our performance was similar to Jose’s first season back, where we struggled to break teams down. We did however create two very good chances and in a couple of weeks’ time those sorts of chances will be taken.

It is dangerous to read too much into yesterday but it is fair to say there were a few causes for concern. I thought that both full backs were average and the general crossing of the ball from the flanks pretty poor. I did not think that Cesc had one of his better games but he was man marked. His free kicks and corners were average but notwithstanding still produced the ball of the game to Falcao who was easily brushed aside.

There are many who are questioning the contribution of both our centre forwards but to be fair they were not given a sniff. I have seen people slagging off Remy saying it he can’t do it in big games. Really? Well for a start yesterday was not a “big” game and I did not see one opportunity created for him. Yes the number of times he was given offside was disappointing but he was trying to create an opportunity. The awful Michael Owen continually slagged him off but when Falcao made the same mistakes according to Mickey that was because he was trying to create his run.

Yesterday may have been a different story had Eden turned up. He was surprisingly quiet. Stifled by close marking and the usual fouls he did not appear to get started. Interesting and worrying that without him we looked fairly toothless. The whole attack lacked a presence and we know what his name is.

On the positive side though, Willian and Matic were both excellent, the two central defenders and the goalkeeper looked solid and I thought that Oscar and Zouma looked good when they came on although I thought Ray Mears was unlucky to be taken off as he was having a decent game. I think it is safe to say now that Willian is our engine and will now be one of the first names on the team sheet. With all due deference and respect to the wonderful Walter Otten, I do hope we can get a new song for him.

I am however completely mystified by what is happening with the squad. By common consensus the squad is “thin” and because of the managers insistence on using very few players we visibly tired at the end of the season. So why have there been no additions? I do not think that it’s because of the impending stadium move. So what is going on?

If we genuinely have any hopes of competing in the Champions League we need to add to the squad with more players Jose trusts. I am sure he is a very nice guy but you are not going to win things by bringing back Victor Moses. For me there are worrying echoes of the season we brought in Sidwell, Ben Haim and Pizzaro for no money. The time to improve is when you are ahead of your rivals and if nothing else any additions will “freshen” a squad.

All of that being said I saw nothing of Arsenal yesterday which caused me huge concern other than they now have a goalkeeper. The Manchester United spending spree is interesting but they have no centre forward and no centre half to speak of. Interesting way to build a team but they have brought in some interesting players. City still have Pellegrini and Liverpool still have Rogers, nuff said.

We will know a lot more at the end of the Transfer window but I cannot imagine that Jose is “happy” with what’s going on. Personally I do not think that spending £70+million on Pogba is the answer in the same way I do not think that Falcao is the answer (not sure what the question was!). I do think we need back up in attack and it appears from rumours that we are lining up another left back.

Let us not forget though we are the champions and have the best manager in the modern era so there is still a lot to be positive about.

Clayton Beerman

@goalie59