Get off Carl Jenkinson's back

The new scapegoat for the clueless

I was able to make a rare appearance at the game last night. Sadly my presence didn't bring the best out of the players in the way it had against Chelsea and Basel. The performance was slow almost from start to finish from Arsenal. There was a ten minute period at the start of the second-half where we moved the ball at pace and genuinely attacked PSG. The fans were up and Arsenal were on top. Then we got the fortunate own-goal, though our attacking play merited some reward, and the team stopped playing again. We sat back, became lethargic, and eventually Paris got a much deserved equaliser. The fact is that they should have won the game, as they should at Parc-des-Princes a couple of months ago. Arsenal's season to this point, while only including one defeat, has largely been succoured by last minute winners against Southampton, Burnley and Ludogorets. Take those away (and you won't score too many last minute winners across the course of the season) and you would have a more accurate reflection of what the performances have actually deserved. The game against Chelsea, the first-halves against Basel and Watford, and the last twenty minutes at Sunderland are about the only examples of this side actually playing well this season. I know they beat Ludogorets heavily at home, but don't forget the saves Ospina had to make in the first-half that night, or the fact that the Bulgarian side were basically a pub team in comparison to Arsenal.

I suppose we're indebted again to Edinson Cavani for the point last night. He might have opened the scoring again but he makes Kaba Diawara look like a finisher at times. We didn't create a proper chance really all night. The penalty looked dubious from where I was, and from only one angle I've seen from TV pictures does it look like the bloke takes Alexis out. Giroud's execution of the penalty, however, was very good. It's a shame that, for the rest of the game, he received nothing even resembling service from his team mates. The Manager sent out a team without wingers to supply Giroud yet again - did he not see what happened when we finally got someone on the pitch who could cross the ball last Saturday? 

That brings me nicely on to the lad pictured at the top of this piece. Jenkinson actually did put a couple of dangerous balls in to the box - one of which led to the own-goal to put us ahead, and one in the first-half that saw only Alexis in there at the time. On the opposite side we had Kieran Gibbs (of whom I'm a huge advocate) failing every single time to get the ball past the closest defender. It is so easy to cross a football but actually Jenkinson is the only full-back we have that can do it. Tell me why, then, he got howls of derision from the crowd the first time he failed to get the ball in? We had watched Alexis put three balls from wide either out of play or straight to the goalkeeper, Gibbs was wasteful as noted, Iwobi a waste of space whenever he got the ball, yet Jenkinson gets the crowd abuse! There was a bloke behind me telling him to "go back to West Ham" and the bloke who sits next to me kept calling him a "donkey". This annoys the hell out of me. There seems to be a move for Jenkinson to be slagged regardless of what he does. Is he good enough to be a regular in the Arsenal side? No. Does he realise that? Of course he does. The Corporal is the reserve player for his position and is in the side because Hector Bellerin is injured. Is that his fault? I really think the issue with Jenkinson is born of jealousy - people envy him because he is the Arsenal supporter who has been able to live the dream we all wanted for ourselves. What he will never lack is effort - unlike our superstar German international who once again did his Invisible Man impression for 90 minutes last night. Scoring the odd goal against rubbish opposition is nice, but how about showing us you're genuinely World Class against a decent team? Give me a Jenkinson heart over an Ozil one any day, thanks very much. And, no, I'm not excusing Jenkinson for losing his man for the equaliser - it was his fault that Lucas (the best player on the pitch by a mile last night) got a free header at our goal. Iwobi obviously lost his bearings completely and took the ball out of Ospina's gloves to score the own-goal, but then he shouldn't have been out there himself if the Manager had picked the right players from the off, or made the sub he'd been waiting five minutes for before the corner was taken!

While I'm on about players getting stick it seems more and more are coming round to my way of thinking where Aaron Ramsey is concerned. Again, his presence in the starting line-up last night was not merited and made little sense. However, I thought he was probably our best player on the night. He kept the fancy stuff to an absolute minimum, covered the ground well, made a number of very good tackles (especially before half-time) and was generally very disciplined in his positional play. I was shocked therefore (I wasn't really) to see him getting so much stick from supporters online after the game. Maybe it looked different on TV, but the things I would normally level at him with regards to slowing the play down and giving the ball away etc were not criticisms you could make of him last night. It was bizarre to read that he was being accused of those very things. I suppose, as Jimmy Greaves used to say, it's a funny old game.

I'm at the game again this Sunday and I have been dismayed by Jack Wilshere stating he "wants Bournemouth to win" as he is currently a Bournemouth player. Big mistake Jack. The correct thing to do in those situations is to not answer the question when it's asked. But then he let himself down the other week when he revealed he had wanted to get away from Arsenal after he was left out of the England squad by Allardyce as he was only a sub in our first two games. Leaving aside that letting him have his wish (as we now know it to be) was damn stupid of Arsenal, he would have been playing by now every week as Santi is out and he is the only player we have who can do the same thing. That being the case, I'd love to see us totally smash Bournemouth at the weekend. It will need a far better performance for that to happen though.