Thursday, August 13, 2009
Hleb speak with forked tounge
Aleksander Hleb, in my humble opinion, was one of Arsene Wenger's worst signings for the Arsenal. As he was leaving Germany where he had starred with VfB Stuttgart, Franz Beckanbauer, who knows a thing or two about football, decried the loss of the best dribbler in the Bundesliga.
So he arrived at the Arsenal with a reputation and what an inovater he proved as he introduced English football to dead end football. We'd seen the glory game, flashes of total football and of course the long ball but Hleb gave football new meaning with his eye for the impossible.
My abiding image of the Belarus international is of him outside the penalty area surrounded by defenders. He would spot the run of a colleague into the penalty area, a penalty area packed with defenders, and play through a slide rule pass for his mate to run onto.
It's the kind of move that works perfectly on paper where movement is replaced by arrows and defenders are blobs that don't move. But on grass where football tends to be played those defenders have this annoying ability of moving. And once they sussed Hleb was little more than a one trick pony they were on to him.
For an attacking midfielder he was reluctant to shoot and reluctant to create too many clear cut chances, instead preferring his own intricate game of chess which, to be fair, could run rings round the likes of Reading but was actually useless against teams who could play a bit.
I celebrated last season when he moved to Spain and joined Barcelona. Being a Gooner of 40 years I knew the old adage. Leaving the Arse does not improve your career.
But Hleb knew everything. Rather like some backpacker arriving in Thailand for the first time he was seduced the percieved glamour of his new surroundings and the people with who he mixed. Frequently he would be interviewed in the media and would use the opportunity to tell his former team mates like Cesc Fabregas and Emmanuel Adebayor to come and join him.
Reality soon crept in as the Barca coaches soon realised what a crock of shite they had signed and he spent more time on the bench than the physio.
By the end of the season where Barca had ruled the roost Hleb was like Private Spong in Dad's Army; always hanging round with the stars but really just there to make up the numbers.
And now he's back in Stuttgart and now his whines take on a different tone. He should never have left the Arsenal, he says, he was working with one of the best managers in the world. We of course knew all this. But I for one was happy to see him leave and am now happy to see he fucked up.
So he arrived at the Arsenal with a reputation and what an inovater he proved as he introduced English football to dead end football. We'd seen the glory game, flashes of total football and of course the long ball but Hleb gave football new meaning with his eye for the impossible.
My abiding image of the Belarus international is of him outside the penalty area surrounded by defenders. He would spot the run of a colleague into the penalty area, a penalty area packed with defenders, and play through a slide rule pass for his mate to run onto.
It's the kind of move that works perfectly on paper where movement is replaced by arrows and defenders are blobs that don't move. But on grass where football tends to be played those defenders have this annoying ability of moving. And once they sussed Hleb was little more than a one trick pony they were on to him.
For an attacking midfielder he was reluctant to shoot and reluctant to create too many clear cut chances, instead preferring his own intricate game of chess which, to be fair, could run rings round the likes of Reading but was actually useless against teams who could play a bit.
I celebrated last season when he moved to Spain and joined Barcelona. Being a Gooner of 40 years I knew the old adage. Leaving the Arse does not improve your career.
But Hleb knew everything. Rather like some backpacker arriving in Thailand for the first time he was seduced the percieved glamour of his new surroundings and the people with who he mixed. Frequently he would be interviewed in the media and would use the opportunity to tell his former team mates like Cesc Fabregas and Emmanuel Adebayor to come and join him.
Reality soon crept in as the Barca coaches soon realised what a crock of shite they had signed and he spent more time on the bench than the physio.
By the end of the season where Barca had ruled the roost Hleb was like Private Spong in Dad's Army; always hanging round with the stars but really just there to make up the numbers.
And now he's back in Stuttgart and now his whines take on a different tone. He should never have left the Arsenal, he says, he was working with one of the best managers in the world. We of course knew all this. But I for one was happy to see him leave and am now happy to see he fucked up.
# posted by Me @ 6:18 AM 
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