Kitchee FC 2-2 Arsenal (Asia Tour)

Arsenal drew 2-2 with Hong Kong’s Kitchee FC earlier today. The game kicked off at 10am UK time and was played in the impressive Hong Kong Stadium. It was the final game of the club’s Asia Tour. The Gunners have one friendly left, which is to be played on August 12th against FC Cologne.

Woeful defending from the Gunners, Ignasi Miquel in particular, lead to Kitchee taking an 8th minute lead. It was only early, but Arsenal had already ridden their luck, with Kieran Gibbs looking half asleep in the opening minutes. Arsenal eventually got themselves into the game and in the 24th minute Theo Walcott levelled things up having been played in by Abou Diaby. It is good to see the Frenchman back in action after a series of long-term injuries.

Arsenal’s joy was short lived though, Kitchee again exposed weaknesses in Arsenal’s defence and 5 minutes after Walcott’s leveller, they regained their lead.

The Gunners looked much better in the second half following a host of changes. Gervinho was persistently causing Kitchee’s defence problems with his dribbling skills. The Ivorian has had an impressive pre-season, both at Southampton for the Markus Liebherr Memorial Cup and during the club’s tour of Asia. His creativity finally paid off in the 77th minute after his cut-back lead to substitute Thomas Eisfeld slotting the ball into the empty net. The German has scored twice during the pre-season, his goals may well put him into Arsene Wenger’s plans for the first-team.

Arsenal were given a good test today, but what worries me is the depth in defence. Sagna is injured and Jenkinson is adequate cover. Gibbs got caught out a lot today and Santos cannot defend. He is good going forward, but defensively is disappointing. They have tried him as a left winger in pre-season and he has been fairly successful in that role. The pairing of Laurent Koscielny and Thomas Vermaelen is great, but apart from that we have Mertesacker who is very slow, good in the tackle and will be fine as cover. But then it gets worrying. Djourou, Miquel, Squillaci, Bartley. Djourou and Squillaci simply aren’t good enough. The other two may develop into Premier League standard players one day, but need more experience. Miquel would benefit from a loan spell out. Arsene should look into adding defensive cover. Santi Cazorla and Nuri Sahin are being linked with moves to the Emirates. Both would be good additions to the midfield for sure, but we need an extra right-back in honesty and another left-back. Wenger will say Jenkinson at right-back and Santos / Gibbs / Vermaelen even at left-back is good enough, but I would say we need a top class left back, someone along the lines of Baines. We have missed that since Cole went to Chelsea in 2006, Clichy was hot and cold when he was at the club.

I do think Wenger definitely has some work to do defensively. Hopefully Steve Bould will help make them a meaner defence and one that can concede less. Give him time to work on that. But it could definitely do with some fresh faces and stronger depth. They do need to get rid of deadwood like Squillaci and Djourou. Squillaci in particular just sits on his arse for about 50 grand a week, which is disgusting. We have the likes of Bendtner up front doing the same too, it’s not good for the wage bill and it’s not good for the club. It holds us back on signing top class players. Knowing Arsene, I’ll be sitting here on deadline day typing the same things and we’ll be doing our shopping late again. If reports are to be believed, Cazorla is coming for a medical this week and Sahin will sign on a season-long loan deal too in the near future. Good, but defensive improvement needed. It will cost us points again and again if we don’t change things, just like it has done for the past 8 years or so. Even when we were good we had players like Pascal Cygan and Igors Stepanovs at the club, getting paid good wages for being very average players. If anything, this friendly is a wake up call to show how much shite we still have at the club. A lot of good players going forward, not a lot in defence though.

I still believe Arsenal can have a good season and can even end the trophy drought this year. There’s just a lot of work to do and business needs to be done off the pitch in order for it to happen.