Arsenal on a Run – Cruise Past Nottingham Forest 4-0 in League Cup

Arsenal appeared in trouble after dropping five points in their first two games of the young season. Wenger must go chants were ringing through the virtual hemisphere and “splash the cash” rants as ubiquitous as Rooney critiques online. Since then, they have won four and drawn one, a respectable 1-1 draw at PSG in the Champions League. In fact, in the past 10 days, they have beaten a decent Southampton team 2-1, secured a point at PSG, even as they were arguably outplayed for large portions of the match, crushed Hull City on the road 4-1 and then cruised to a 4-0 victory over Nottingham Forest today, with a team largely comprised of reserves.

It has been an impressive stretch, punctuated by the new hope that comes with the signing of players at the end of August that filled two necessary positional holes. Mustafi has slotted in well since his arrival, showing mettle and good positioning while contributing some quality passing from the back. He has been shaky on a few occasions, but seems like the perfect replacement for Mertesacker, arguably better in every category at the moment except height. Perez, after an inauspicious start to his Arsenal career with an uninspiring start against Southampton (subbed on 66 minutes) and a cameo late against PSG, came to life in the League Cup today, chipping in two goals and an assist in an easy win that progressed the Gunners to the final 16 in the only domestic crown Wenger has failed to campture.

So what has changed? Arsenal have firmed up at the back and seem to have solved the problems in the deep midfield. The combination of Xhaka, Coquelin and Elneny give the Gunners a depth in the DM position they have lacked for many years now. Cazorla has returned and looks as strong as ever, serving as the fulcrum of not only the attack but the buildup as well. Sanchez has started strongly after a decline in form in his second season with the North London squad and even Walcott has chipped in. Iwobi has also continued to impress, building on his impressive performances during the second half of last season. Ironically, the Gunners are still suffering through the first half injuries that seem to consistently

Some thoughts on the five game unbeaten streak:

1.  New Boys Impress: As argued above, the new signings have largely impressed in their incorporation into the team so far. Perez has been blooded slowly, but one assumes he will get more chances after the performance today, even if it did come against lesser competition. He scored his penalty with poise and accuracy then went on a solo run past two defenders and the goalkeeper to get his second, while sending in a pitch perfect pass to assist Ox late on. Xhaka has shown an impressive range of passing so far, cut off the attack with some acumen and now chipped in with two long range goals in the past four days. One should not underestimate this threat, though aberrant with his career to date, as Arsenal had the fewest shots outside the box of any team in the league last season. That added threat could push defenders out from camping in the box, providing more space for their intricate passes. And Mustafi has made a strong case for a starting berth even when the aging Mertesacker comes back from his long term injury. On top of these three, the youngster Holding has acquitted himself well since arriving and is clearly a promising prospect for the future.

2.  Sanchez Back on Track? Alexis Sanchez will never be faulted for lack of effort, but it is clear that that effort is bearing more fruit in the early season, as it did back in 2014. He already has four goals and an assist in 6 appearances (one coming off the bench) and has contributed to several other goals over the first five weeks of the season. While his best position is arguably still on the left wing, he has played better through the middle in his last two appearances, and might be returning to his favored position soon, as Giroud nears full health and Perez just made his case for another start in the league (though Chelsea might be a bigger risk than Wenger is willing to take). Assuming he is rested often enough and avoids any serious injuries, he has the chance to have another great season with the Gunners, reiterating his position as one of the most exciting wingers in world football.

3.  Papering Over Some Cracks? While Gooners should be bolstered by the success in recent weeks, it is important to acknowledge both that the competition has been a step below the top level, including a PSG team struggling so far this season, and that they have been assisted by some poor finishing from their opponents over this stretch – none more that PSG after their early goal. Arsenal are defending better, no doubt, but oppositional wingers do seem to be getting behind the defense a little too often for comfort. Monreal has clearly been a level below his best, Cech has been a little slow getting across goal and even Bellerin, after his breakout season, looks a little below his best. Where the Gunners are stronger is through the middle of the defense and in the spine in front of them. And if they are willing to cede possession on occasion, they can take full advantage of one of the better counterattacking threats in the league.

4.  The Underachievers So Far: While the new signings, Koscielny, Cazorla, Iwobi and Sanchez have impressed, some others seem below their best so far. At the top of the list might be Ozil, who seems sluggish and uninspired so far this season, after a falloff in production late last season. In five appearances (four starts), he has a goal and no assists. Sure, the vagaries of the game ensure that even the best players could go more than a few games without an assist, watching Ozil play, there appears to be something wrong. He is losing the ball more often than in the past, failing to get in the pinpoint passes we have become accustomed to and seems to disappear from the game for alarming stretches of action. It could just be fatigue after a long season and summer at the Euros, but one hopes he approaches his best soon, as it is his talent and vision that is vital to keeping the Gunners attack productive. Both Monreal and Bellerin have taken a step back as well and need to improve their positional sense given the number of speedy wingers that now stack the EPL from top to bottom. Theo Walcott, while chipping in two goals and an assist in five starts, seems to have taken several steps backward from his best form of a couple of season ago. It appears, at least to my eyes, like he fears another injury and is quitting out of too many 50/50s and even chasing down passes when confronted by a charging defender, as well as missing far too many passes and crosses. Maybe the recent goal will bolster his confidence and lead to a rennaisance in form, but if not, there are certainly options to replace them, among them Oxlaide-Chamberlain, who has been less than impressive himself until today.

5.  Looking Forward: Ramsey and Giroud are days away from returning to first team training, and both will be important to keeping up the momentum. Ramsey, in particular, after an impressive Euros, needs to build on that performance to return to the midfielder of a few seasons ago who was arguably among the best in the world. Giroud faces more competition today than at any point of his spell with the club, but still provides an aerial threat and fulcrum of attack that none of his competitors have been able to match. Mertesacker is still out for another two months, but his absence might have been a blessing in disguise, forcing Wenger to pay for a top-quality CB for the long run. Less of the blessing is the continued absence of Welbeck, gone for at least another four months. His return for the second half could be huge, though, as it could inject some further impetus and directness into the attack at the very moment the Gunners have tended to fade.

Next up for the Gunners is Wenger’s albatross, Chelsea, though their London rivals have certainly looked less solid defensively in recent weeks. An early goal for the Gunners could be the difference between victory and yet another dropped three points. Next they have a run of winnable fixtures: at Burnley, Swansea and Boro at the Emirates and Sunderland on the road before the first North London Derby of the season. In between, they host Basel in the Champions League, before away and return match-ups against Ludogorets. If they can beat Chelsea, it could be the continuation of a nice run that could see them move even further up the table. A defeat would not be deadly, but the moment seems ripe to reverse recent results against the now Mourinho-less Blues. 

Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire x 2

Apparently, both Clinton and Trump are not scoring terribly well on the popular "truth meter," with only about 1 in 4 finding Trump "honest and transparent" and about 1 in 3 saying the same for Clinton (CPI). On the flip side, 58 percent of the respondents in the Center for Public Integrity poll found Trump dishonest and about half said the same of Clinton (the full results by category are available at the link above). Of course, much of the discourse around Clinton is based on innuendo, half truths and, well, outright lies themselves. It all goes back to the Bill Clinton presidency and the millions of tax dollars spent on investigations that never bore fruit; unless we count that inconvenient blow job. 

With Trump, the truth is a very complicated subject indeed -- or maybe that is an exaggeration if we are speaking of his own opinion on the matter. It appears Trump simply says what he likes and hopes that supplicant media personalities like Matt Lauer won't call him out on his lies (NYT). To a large extent, they have not so far -- with several critics going as far as saying Trump is being "graded on a curve" (WP). This appears to be the case, much as it was with George Bush in both 2000 and 2004. Lest us forget that his questionable service during the Vietnam War did not become a big campaign issue, except in the eventual pushing out of Dan Rather, while the war hero Kerry was savaged by a media that failed to even check the legitimacy of the Swift Boat Veterans for Lies. 

At its core, one could argue that the problem lies with the media struggling so vigilantly to keep hold to the rather absurd call for neutrality, objectivity and balance in their reporting. It not only manifests in the he-said she-said style of reporting so popular today, or the even less democratically resonant horse race coverage, but in a complete disregard for the truth and the actual policy positions of the candidates. Trump can lie, fill up the news cycle and then hedge his position later, if necessary. The media does little to dispel his house of cards and so he continues onward toward relative parity in the race.

One wonders if much of the mainstream media really cares if Trump is elected and whether they might actually believe they will benefit from his victory with higher ratings. Much like the callow and soulless characters in the brilliant film Network, satire appears to have fully entered the realm of the hyperreal as American media continues to abrogate its responsibility as the fourth estate of government. In fact, it might be better to call them the first estate of corporate governance, reaffirming the rather obvious, but never reported, reality that corporate greed knows no bounds. For the cynical American public of today, one could argue they are simply mirroring the popular mood. The danger of course, is this cynical stance allows an extremely dangerous man to rise to the most powerful office in the world.   

A Trump Victory ...

Michele Bachmann Sounds Terrifying Warning … Unless She’s Right, Of Course

Michelle Bachmann is back in the headlines, now serving as an advisor to the Trump campaign on religious and foreign policy issues, by warning this will be the “last election.” Is she speaking of the coming apocalypse? Not exactly, though I’m sure she and her supporters see it that way. Bachmann proclaimed that a Clinton presidency would forever change the demographics of the country, making it impossible for Republicans to reclaim the highest office in the land. This is, of course, because Mexicans and South Americans are Godless liberals that despise America – or at least the America sold by Trump and Bachmann! Her exact words:

“I don't want to be melodramatic but I do want to be truthful,” the evangelical Christian said in an interview on the Christian Broadcasting Network’s “Brody File.” “I believe without a shadow of a doubt this is the last election. This is it. This is the last election.”

“It's a math problem of demographics and a changing United States,” she said. “If you look at the numbers of people who vote and who lives in the country and who Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton want to bring in to the country, this is the last election when we even have a chance to vote for somebody who will stand up for godly moral principles. This is it.”

Bachmann said that if Clinton were elected, she would offer “wholesale amnesty” to undocumented immigrants “so that Republicans will never again have the chance at winning Florida or Texas” and therefore be unable to secure the White House.

"She's going to change the demographics of the United States so that no Republican will ever win again," Bachmann insisted. (Daily Kos).

Beyond the obvious demagoguery here, Bachmann is employing a series of rhetorical strategies and coded phrases her worth considering. The first, obviously, is to stir up white panic around the changing demographics of the country, placing Obama and Clinton as the source of those demographic changes, even though they have been going on for several decades. The racist undertones are clear here, as they are so often with Trump, now actually leading in one national poll (Business Insider), though an electoral college victory still seems firmly within the Democrat’s reach (Politicos USA).

The second strategy here is to speak to the religious right with a rather suspect claim about morality and godlessness associated with Latino/a immigrants. The reality, of course, is that the vast majority are practicing Catholics, but this only amplifies the white panic of the aforementioned racial coding – reshaping it as white moral panic.

The third strategy used here is a tried-and-tested one of creating a “crisis dynamic” around a particular issue or vote. We are forever in a crisis in international competition, shaping the nature of our economic and educational policy. We are forever in a crisis of economic competitiveness, again heaving skewing our economic and educational policy. And it seems, almost every election cycle, this is THE election of the past century, one that will define our collective future more than any before. That might have been true with George Bush in the negative and was certainly the case over the eight years of Ronald Reagan, but the real “crisis” in this election is arguably the opposite of the one Bachmann is citing – the very real possibility that Donald Trump could have four years in office to screw up the country and its global reputation almost beyond repair.

A fourth point worth at least deconstructing is her rather odd proclamation that this is the last election that will allow anyone to vote for somebody “who will stand up for godly moral principles.” This encompasses all three of the aforementioned strategies, but goes further by claiming that no Republican nomination could again support these principles. Given the original slate of candidates for the GOP nomination, this is a real headscratcher, as it seems hard to fathom all of these losers (of the nomination process, to avoid any confusion) failing to take another shot at the presidency. This is particularly true of the scarier radical, Ted Cruz, who the media seems so enamored with as to ignore his far right platform and policy recommendations.


In any case, one does hope that Clinton does win the election and Bachmann is right, as that could mean the building of a long term trend toward more labor friendly, environmentally-conscious, income inequality abating Presidents who take on the asymmetrical power corporations currently yield over the political and economic spheres. Sing on, sister woman, sing on!

We Are the Lions

Trump Flip-Flops on His Flip-Flop

Republicans have long been fans of calling out Democrats for their “flip-flopping” on issues. I have always, admittedly, had a problem with this notion, as politicians should be able and willing to change positions as the public attitude changes. This is particularly important in a democracy, as our representatives are supposed to represent our interests. The GOP, at least since the Gingrich “devolution” have instead signaled that changing one’s position is a sign of weakness, a failure to hold steadfast to the conservative principles of militarism, lowering taxes on the wealthy and corporations, cutting social services and deregulating. A story from the early 2000s demonstrates this point, as George Bush reportedly asked why they were pursuing further tax cuts for the wealthy after the first round of cuts and being immediately admonished by Dick Cheney at the time. Since then the penchant has only strengthened, with teabaggers in particular adept at taking a hardline stance on any issue they believe shows their conservative cred.

Donald Trump has followed that hardline stance throughout the majority of his campaign for the Presidency, but many believed he would pivot to the center after winning the nomination. After a period where he seemed to waver in regards to the issue that arguably won him the nomination (538), and a day after visiting with the President of Mexico (ABC News), Trump has pivoted back toward his original position (NYT). In his speech yesterday, Trump reiterated the following points:

• Build the wall.
• End the catch and release policy for undocumented immigrants and instead return them to their country of origin.
• Have zero tolerance for undocumented immigrants who have committed a crime, and deport them.
• Triple the number of deportation officers at the department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
• Repeal President Obama’s executive orders that temporarily protected undocumented immigrants from deportation and authorized them to receive work permit.
• Stop issuing visas to any country where “adequate screening cannot occur” that might endanger national security.
• Ensure foreign countries take back deported immigrants from the United States (Mr. Trump said 23 countries refuse to do so).
• Complete a biometric entry and exit visa tracking system under development. “It will be on land, it will be on sea, it will be in the air,” he said.

Rage on sweet prince, rage on …

Arsenal Turn Corner with 3-1 Win and Transfer Business?

Arsenal started the season with a 4-3 home defeat to Liverpool after taking an early lead and then played out a relatively stale 0-0 draw at Leicester. And so, heading into last weekend, a victory at Watford was as close to a necessity as one could find so early in the season. The team responded with their best performance of the young season, storming out to a 3-0 halftime lead before finishing the job with a more defensive-oriented second half.

The scoring for the Gunners started early, as Sanchez was clattered in the box as he sought to head an excellent cross from Ozil. Santi Cazorla stepped up and scored his first league goal in 40 long games (9’). The Gunners were rampant, exchanging passes with ease and creating chances, though it took until the 40^th minute for the second, when a perfectly placed Walcott cross found Sanchez at the far corner, his clever chip from close in just crossing the line over the goalkeeper’s head. In the minute of extra time in the first half, they made it three as Sanchez turned from scorer to provider, sending in an excellent cross from the left that found a charging Ozil beat Watford’s defenders to the ball and head it powerfully across goal. Up three at halftime, it was not surprising that the Gunners put the brakes on a little in the second half, though a relentless Watford attack did provide several opportunities to get back in the game. Their sole goal of the afternoon came in the 57^th minute, when Roberto Pereyra finally got some payoff for an excellent performance by glomming on to a ball ping ponging around the box and slotting it calmly to the left corner of the goal. Watford tried to pull closer, but Arsenal gained some poise and passed the ball around without much forward momentum to slow things down and see out the victory.

Overall, the Gunners bossed 55 percent possession for the game, though Watford’s spirited second half display saw them outshoot Arsenal 14 to 10, with the Gunners both more clinical and on target scoring their three goals on seven shots on target to one in six for Watford. Sanchez, Ozil and new signing Xhaka were particularly impressive for Arsenal, with Koscielny solid at the back and Holding his own. However, Monreal seemed off his best form, Bellerin was beaten down the right side a little too often and Arsenal were lucky only to conceded one goal after a rather lackluster defensive display in the second half.

The signing of central defender Mustafi from Valencia might be just the remedy to some suspect defending in two of their first three league games, and the impressive performance of Xhaka will give Gooners hope that Arsenal have finally solved their defensive woes over the past several years. Mustafi and Koscielny should create a formidable core to the back line, backed by Monreal (one of the most consistent performers for the Gunners last season) and the speedy Bellerin. Xhaka should provide more cover for that back line, and they now have Coquelin and Elneny to create more stability from back to front. A hot streak from Ozil and Sanchez would help as well, particularly until some of the injured starters get back. On top of this, the cheap 2 million pound price for the promising young CB Holding could turn out to be money well spent a few seasons down the road, after two decent performances in succession.

The big disappointment was the failure to sign a world class forward, though they are harder to come by than they used to be. Perez could add some speed, guile and goals to the side, but he is certainly a step below targets like Lewandowski, Morata and Higuian (or even Vardy, though one does wonder how well he would have fit into the side). There is no question that Walcott is behind his best form from a few season back, but another option on the right is Ox, who appeared to be playing better before his latest injury. The season might ultimately again come down to the performance of Giroud, however, and one wonders if he can be expected to throw in the 20+ league goals necessary to a title winning side.

Wenger has spent over 90 million pounds this summer, plugging the three holes that have plagued the Gunners for a few years now. Whether Xhaka, Mustafi and Perez will solve problems of past seasons is still to be determined, but Arsenal are now a team that can certainly compete at the top. The fact he took longer to complete the latter two deals does see the Gunners already five points behind after only three games to their biggest competitors for the crown – the newly invigorated Manchester United, the Guardiola led City and the new-old Chelsea of Conte. Two weeks until we see how those pieces fit together.