Сегодня в рубрике «гостевой пост» своими впечатдениями от посещения матча с Фенербахче делится гунер Ugur Zeynalli. Как вы уже поняли по цвету шапки, Угур написал свой текст по-английски.

Dear Ivan,

I am currently travelling and have very limited time. So, please bear with me, in order to be quick, I prefer writing in English rather than in Russian. My apologies…

Here are some observations that I would like to share with the users of arsenal-blog.com. I have very limited internet access currently, so I haven’t yet listened to the latest Arsenal podcast, recorded immediately after the Fener game. I hope my impressions will not drastically differ from the ones of Ivan and his counterpart. 

Watch #1

Atmosphere in Sukru Saracoglu stadium was amazing. Fener supporters are real fanatics. It was very difficult to get a ticket for a match. The prices in black market varied between 150-500 Turkish Liras (75-250 USD). The atmosphere before the kick off was just amazing. The supporters didn’t keep quiet even for a second. When Arsenal players entered the pitch, the supporters whistled them so strongly – it was difficult to stand it.

Watch #2

After the teams greeted each other, Fener players stood for a group photo. But Arsenal players gathered on their half of the center circle and made a strange ritual – they kicked each others hands kangoroo-style. I saw it for the first time. Arsenal never had a group cohesiveness/group expression under Wenger – especially the last 5 years. We even noticed that the goals were not celebrated as a group. But seeing them to gather, to motivate each other, quite evidently gave me a signal that Arsene had an ‘unusual’ preparation for this game. He took this game as the decisive one in his career (we all know why). On that moment – I already thought that Arsenal will win the game.   

Watch #3

Fener was awfully bad. They have a new coach (a person with not so good track record), some of the players left the club, they had shock start to the domestic leage, they have few important players sidelined due to the injury, etc. So, Fenerbahce entered the match in a very bad shape. But the tactics, physics were never the best sides of the Turkish teams. Only the strong motivation, mental strength and dedication historically led them to a success. They always played with their heart. But yesterday they lacked their ‘heart’. They lost the majority of the 50-50s; they were very slow, they lacked the idea. They lost the middle of the park completely. I think any EPL team could beat Fenerbahce on that night. So, today’s Fenerbahce is not the right test to evaluate the capabilities of Arsenal. 

Watch #4

The game in general seemed quite slow. You could feel the speed only when Walcott was on action. Besides him, all other movements on the pitch looked as in the ‘slow motion’. In general, I would say Walcott was the best on the pitch. I was surprised how unusually good were his first touches. He had many intelligent actions.  

Watch #5

Giroud is a complete miss. He was not effective, he was neither doing his job as a striker, nor supporting his defenders. It seems very unrealistic to count on the ‘title’ (4^th place) at the end of the season having him as a main striker.

Watch #6

Middle of the park was completely overdominated by Arsenal. Somebody wrote on the comments that, even Ramsey looked as a ‘giant’ on the background of Fener players. This is true. But what was pleasing to see, is the performance of Jack. I never had a feeling that he will lose the ball. He was very confident. He had the best vision on the pitch. His long balls were quite creative, however the team mates are not as fast thinkers as he is, this is why there were no link-ups.   

Watch #7

When Ramsey was with the ball, usually Fener players didn’t attack him. He, in his old mode, was doing needless turn-arounds, back passes, etc. There was a feeling that Fener players got an instruction not to worry when he is with the ball. Maybe this was the reason for the second goal of Arsenal?

Watch #8

Arsene looked quite confident and arrogant. After the first 10 minutes, after overcoming the home crowd pressure, it was obvious how short is Fener and I think nobody on the stadium believed that Fener can win the game. When the penalty was given, you could easily feel how self-satisfied Arsene was. He already started to pick the words to be told during the post-match interview. 

Watch #9

There were 30-50 fans in away sector. It is very small for a club like Arsenal. But it is the reflection of the policy that the club (=Arsene Wenger) has been realising since the last 10 years. It has become an object of humilitation to confess that you are an Arsenal fan. Almost all the players hurried to the dressing room after the final whistle, but Mertesacker and Giroud (especially the latter) went the closest to the away fan’s sector and gave thanks applause to them. So, it is quite understandable why the fans like Giroud so much. 

Final watch

Turkish support is a fanatic environment. So, I and my son were quite careful not to show that we belong to Arsenal (we got a seat among the home fans). But to be honest, I was wishing to see Fener to beat Arsenal — as Ivan wrote — for the goodness and for the future of Arsenal, the win of Fener was more important. But whatever you do, you can not give instructions to your heart! How strong ever I dislike (I don’t want to say I hate) Arsene, I can not stop myself to be happy when my beoved team scores. I could somehow hide my joy when the goals were scored. But my son, couldn’t from time-to-time. Fener supporters around us were looking at us quite strangely. I knew that it is risky to show them that we belong to the opposition team – but as I know the Turkish language, I hoped we can survive.

30 minutes before the kick off and the first 20 minutes of the game, the crowd was awesome. They were very loud and they hardly sat down. In fact until the second goal Fener fans were the only positive, that Fener had on that night. They were pushing their team very hard to attack, to fight and to compete. But the team was very weak and all their support, chants, noise gave no result. After the 2^nd goal the fans started to boo their own players and the trainer – which is also quite usual to Turkish way of support. All the heros have now become the ‘zero’s. The strangest thing was to see how they booed their captain – Emre. Definitely, he was not the worst on the pitch on that night, I didn’t see any wrong action from his side that could lead the supporters to boo him so loudly. Also the insulting chants are the typical way of Turkish support. It was quite unusual for me to see 30000+ people to chant together insulting their own players. There was a man, his teen daughter and his son sitting next to me. It was quite unacceptable to see him expressing vulgar insulting comments in the presence of his daughter. Turkey is quite a conservative society and with a strong religious confession and it is not accepted to pronounce vulgar/unlicensed words in general, but if you do it in front of the women – it is even a disgrace. But I know how the derbies are played in Istanbul – Fener vs Galatasaray. What happened last night is nothing in comparison with domestic derbies.

Thanks Ivan for giving us a chance to share the thoughts, feelings and impressions with your readers – our fellow gooners. You do a good job and as a result, our blog was the 3^rd most visited Arsenal blog on Onlinegooner’s survey. Let’s keep it going…