Arsenal Cave to Blackburn Bullies… Fabianski NOT To Blame
Posted by Sonuvagun
Most headlines today will be blaming Fabianski for another disastrous Arsenal result, this time a 2:1 loss at Ewood Park, which has left us in real danger of letting third place slip as we approach the final day of the season. It would certainly be the easy (not to mention lazy) option to blame the keeper for the two Blackburn goals, both conceded at corners, however I am pretty pissed off on his behalf – and not only am I going to absolve Fabianski of blame, but I’m going as far to say he had a decent game.
For my money the two goals we conceded were a result of Arsenal’s complete crapness rather than the Pole’s ‘inability to deal with crosses’, and to say otherwise is to belie the truth that we have been disappointing for the umpteenth game in a row. It was clearly Blackburn’s strategy to test Fabianski from the start, and as a result the Arsenal keeper had already had to come and claim more aerial balls than most 90 minutes would demand when another corner (Blackburn’s delivery was spot on all game it must be said to their credit) was looped into the dangerzone at the back post. As with every corner they had, Blackburn did their best to surround Fabianski with bodies and make his life nigh on impossible, but nonetheless Fab did manage to get a half-decent punch on it, despite the tactics of the Blackburn players. As the ball was controlled by a Blackburn player on the far side of the penalty box, it certainly didn’t look like a goal-scoring opportunity – but in the following seconds the Arsenal players moved as quickly as pillars on the Parthenon as the loose ball made its way through around eight red-and-white shirts to David Dunn on the opposite post for a goal he couldn’t miss. There was plenty of opportunity for the defenders to clear in my opinion, not to mention the fact that Blackburn’s leading scorer was left completely unmarked. My verdict: Fabianski innocent.
The second Blackburn goal was something more of a black mark against the Pole, although perhaps understandable given the pressure he was under. It was a devilish delivery very close to both him and the goalmouth, but as he was completely penned to his own line by Blackburn bodies, it only took the tiniest of pushes by Samba – whilst Fabianski was in the air – to stop him from being able to make contact with the ball. It looked like a classic case of flapping, but what could he do? Blackburn had chosen their base tactic and I’m pretty sure that if they’d swung that amount of crosses at any keeper boxed in like that most glovemen would eventually have missed one. For me the questions have to be asked of the defence. Especially Sol Campbell. I would have expected someone of Sol’s experience and stature to immediately see what was happening and put himself between the 6′4″ Samba and his keeper for every corner so that he could actually move. Fabianski was offered almost no help at all by his defence, and in fact I can barely remember them heading out a cross all game. It was literally left for the keeper to do everything – and for the most part he actually did it very well indeed. In my opinion, we cravenly allowed Blackburn to bully our keeper plus didn’t give the ref nearly enough stick about Rovers’ dirty tactics – and I’ll be damned if I lay the blame on the stand-in when there was enough experience on that back line to do something about it.
The rest of the team meanwhile didn’t help things either by being utterly shite for large parts of the game. Blackburn bossed us in the second half and it was their constant pressure that led to the goal as much as anything. Whilst Robinson had one easy save to make all second half, Blackburn had corner after corner, plenty of free kicks and loads of time to play in long balls. As it was Fabianski had to make four decent saves to keep us in the game – one from a freekick which he read beautifully, another fingertips save when our backline was mugged, and two decent parries. I lost count of the number of high balls he came for and collected.
The truth is we’ve been playing like shit for a while now. And the absences of Clichy, Bendtner, Rosicky and Song further added to our absurd injuries situation. The team resembled a Carling Cup eleven, and you know you’re in trouble when even Carlos Vela has been selected for a starting slot. He started by missing a sitter, and didn’t get any better. It’s hard to lay the blame on crap players for being crap, but eight of the players on the pitch are decent back ups or super subs at best. Of the three starters, Sagna, Van Persie and Nasri, one is right back and one is centre forward – two of the positions least able to dominate a game, and the last is 22 years old. I’d like to see Nasri take on more of leadership role but I’m not going to have a go at him for not being able to take charge of game at that age.
So there we have it. There were penalties waved away for both sides, but ultimately Blackburn deserved the victory, albeit won in a typically crap Sam Allardyce style way. If we’d had our starting team out Fat Sam’s men would barely have touched the ball and Fabianski wouldn’t be getting a mauling that he doesn’t deserve. His howlers against Porto and Wigan were downright errors for which he deserves much criticism, but today he simply wasn’t given the protection any keeper needs to keep a clean sheet.
9 comments
Glad to see someone actually analyse the game and Blackburns tactics rather than just lay all the blame on Fabianski.
It was funny, the commentator was critisizing Blackburns tactic of simply lobbing every possible ball near Fabianski, saying they needed to get more creative as it wasn’t working. How wrong he was! Then he laid all the blame for the goals on Fabianski. Wrong again.
I have never seen a keeper put under so much pressure as Fabianski was under during this game. As you said, you would expect more support from the outfield players.
Completely agree with your assessment of fabianski. He actually did very well, but its almost as if everyone was just waiting to blame him for something.
On the 2nd goal btw, dunn actually pushed campbell into fabiankski, who knocked him to the ground. If sol could have held his ground against the blackburn player, fabianski would have had a clearer path to the ball and one would hope he would have been able to knock the ball from samba’s head.
Really it should have been a foul called against dunn, but still sol should have held his ground better against someone half his size. Whatever the case, I really couldnt see what fabianski could do to avoid the huge arsenal defender and still have the time to jump above samba to get the ball.
This is more scapegoating from arsenal supporters, and they were so willing to do it right from the first whistle. They want this keeper to leave because of those errors you mentioned, but he has shown in past performances that he does have talent, but to be fair, most young players are inconsistent. Ive always though of him that he can either look like a world-beater or a complete amateur. Over time you’d expect the former to become his consistent form, but arsenal fans are too impatient and want to chase him out.
[...] an all round game that would really lift our midfield. You wouldn’t catch him wandering round half-arsedly against Blackburn that’s for sure. Wouldn’t come cheap but could be considerably less costly than some [...]
[...] been the nightmare everyone says he has. Fabianski on the other hand has. I don’t blame him for what happened at Blackburn, but if he isn’t sold he needs a season on loan, where he can practice catching crosses at [...]
Completely agree with your assessment of fabianski. He actually did very well, but its almost as if everyone was just waiting to blame him for something.
On the 2nd goal btw, dunn actually pushed campbell into fabiankski, who knocked him to the ground. If sol could have held his ground against the blackburn player, fabianski would have had a clearer path to the ball and one would hope he would have been able to knock the ball from samba’s head.
Really it should have been a foul called against dunn, but still sol should have held his ground better against someone half his size. Whatever the case, I really couldnt see what fabianski could do to avoid the huge arsenal defender and still have the time to jump above samba to get the ball.
This is more scapegoating from arsenal supporters, and they were so willing to do it right from the first whistle. They want this keeper to leave because of those errors you mentioned, but he has shown in past performances that he does have talent, but to be fair, most young players are inconsistent. Ive always though of him that he can either look like a world-beater or a complete amateur. Over time you’d expect the former to become his consistent form, but arsenal fans are too impatient and want to chase him out.
[...] an all round game that would really lift our midfield. You wouldn’t catch him wandering round half-arsedly against Blackburn that’s for sure. Wouldn’t come cheap but could be considerably less costly than some [...]
[...] been the nightmare everyone says he has. Fabianski on the other hand has. I don’t blame him for what happened at Blackburn, but if he isn’t sold he needs a season on loan, where he can practice catching crosses at [...]
Completely agree with your assessment of fabianski. He actually did very well, but its almost as if everyone was just waiting to blame him for something.
On the 2nd goal btw, dunn actually pushed campbell into fabiankski, who knocked him to the ground. If sol could have held his ground against the blackburn player, fabianski would have had a clearer path to the ball and one would hope he would have been able to knock the ball from samba’s head.
Really it should have been a foul called against dunn, but still sol should have held his ground better against someone half his size. Whatever the case, I really couldnt see what fabianski could do to avoid the huge arsenal defender and still have the time to jump above samba to get the ball.
This is more scapegoating from arsenal supporters, and they were so willing to do it right from the first whistle. They want this keeper to leave because of those errors you mentioned, but he has shown in past performances that he does have talent, but to be fair, most young players are inconsistent. Ive always though of him that he can either look like a world-beater or a complete amateur. Over time you’d expect the former to become his consistent form, but arsenal fans are too impatient and want to chase him out.
[...] not sure about a few years ago… it was only a few months ago that Blackburn completely bullied us off the park, and on the surface not much has changed in our line up since then. If anything we have a got a bit [...]
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