Tag Archives: Abou Diaby

Is Diaby about to bid us adieu?

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Reports out in the last few days suggest that Abou Diaby may have already made his final appearance for Arsenal, with rumors of a Diaby retirement making the rounds. Should the rumors prove true, it would sadden me a great deal as the man has done his level-best but, through circumstances largely beyond his control, have fallen so far off the radar that it might just be time to move on.

In the case of Abou Diaby, the travesty is of course the injuries that have bedeviled him. In his eight years with the club, a span of time that might have seen him accrue some 400 or more appearances, he’s only managed 178. His career tells a cruel story, one reminiscent of Samuel L. Jackson’s character in the film Unbreakable. Like Elijah Price, Diaby seems especially fragile and prone to injuries at any moment. He’s suffered 35 significant injuries during his time with the club, the latest one an especially cruel rupture of the ACL that seems to have ruled him out the rest of the 2013-14 season. He’ll turn 28 before the end of the season and would need quite a bit of rehabilitation and recovery before he could see first-team action. Given his history, though, the next injury could yet again lay him low only a few matches into his comeback. When he’s been fit, he’s shown flashes of a kind of dominance that is comparable to Vieira’s, an ability to dominate from endline to endline, his lanky length allowing him, almost like a spider, to reach out and snatch the ball from any direction and launch a counter-attack almost single-handedly. Just as he was set to reclaim the kind of form that saw him demolish Liverpool back in September of 2012, his ACL rupture in March 2013 laid waste to those hopes, and we’ll be without his services for the remainder of the current campaign.

When he does come back, if ever, he’ll find a midfield even more-crowded than he left, and chances for action even fewer and farther in-between. Of course, Arteta and Flamini are no spring-chickens, but a defensive midfield of Ramsey and Wilshere would leave Diaby languishing on the bench. Given his history of injury, this might be a good thing, as the rigors of playing 80-90 minutes a week might be more than his brittle body could bear, but would such a role suit him? Most of the talk around Diaby’s future with the club has centered around whether or not the club should keep him or move him on. However, the severity of his latest injury, the long recuperation time, and his advancing age may have changed the terms of the debate, maybe even to the point that Diaby himself would bow out rather than being cast off.

I’ve agonized over the man’s plight, here and here if you care to dig deeper into the archives. Simply put, he’s literally put his body on the line for the club, and, sadly, his body has paid the price. Years from now, he may struggle to walk unassisted, get out of a chair, or simply sit comfortably, as the aches and pains he’s accumulated in these eight years marinate and get ornery. Much as I have wished to see him return with a clean bill of health and run amok on the pitch, I worry that those days are behind him. Much as I hope that I’m wrong on that score, I’d rather he choose his destiny rather than let the cold hand of fate lay him low one more time.

The poet Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote these lines, lines that seem to imbue Diaby’s plight with deeper significance:

My candle burns at both ends;
It will not last the night;
But, ah, my foes, and, oh, my friends—
It gives a lovely light!

So it goes with Diaby. He has been burning the candle at both ends, producing moments of that “lovely light”; sadly, however, it couldn’t and hasn’t lasted long. I hope we haven’t seen the last of this man, but it’s increasingly difficult to cling to such hopes. What might have been seems to loom larger than what could be…

Will Abou Diaby be swept up in the summer clear-out?

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Full disclosure: I write as one who has himself recently torn his own ACL and even before that was a strong believer in the idea that Diaby would throw off the awful plague of injuries that have bedeviled him since Sunderland, 2006. That he came back from that injury at all, even if he’s had to endure setback after setback, one tantalizing return after another dashed, each more cruelly than the last, was once cause for joy. However, when he tore his ACL in March, it  looked like a career long on promise but short on delivery had been derailed once and for all.

With an injury set to keep him out of action until January 2014 and a contract set to expire in June 2015, he and the club face some hard questions. On one hand, he’s 27, an age at which many players start to peak. Will he peak a little later due to all of the time he has missed through injury? We could see him return to the pitch late in the upcoming campaign rejuvenated, completely rebuilt and recovered from this and various other injuries that have beset him. We don’t have to look far for examples of such resurrections. Here in the U.S., the American footballer Adrian Peterson returned from ACL surgery to reclaim his status as one of the the sport’s most electrifying athletes. He was 26 when he tore his ACL. He came back for the 2012 season and earned the league’s Most Valuable Player award and finished second for Comeback Player of the Year. Had he rushed for nine more yards, he would have broken a 28 year-old record for rushing yards.

On the other hand, Diaby has never made it through a complete season in the Prem.

I offer the American football stats as a suggestion that Diaby could come back just as good if not better than he’s ever been. Go back to his performance against Liverpool back in September and tell me you wouldn’t want that man back. He was everywhere in an effortless yet dominating performance. At full-strength, he would solve quite a few dilemmas. Arsene has been mocked (and rightly so) for announcing each of Diaby’s returns from injury as being like a “new signing”, but to some extent that’s true. Diaby hasn’t played more than 20 games across all competitions since 2010-11. Even Tomas Rosicky, similarly beset by injury, has bested that mark five times in seven seasons. When he does come back, he shows what he’s capable of. However, in the process, some injury or another inevitably arises.

Therefore, the question then becomes, at what point do we cut our losses? After all, the pressure that the club and player have felt to rush back from injury has no doubt been immense. With each setback, the cat-calls have grown in strength and number, as has the urgency to prove those critics wrong. It’s a terribly vicious cycle. Arguably, the pressure to deliver for a club of our ambitions may have forced the man to short-change his rehabilitation, rushing back and overdoing it when a longer break may have cured his ills. Therefore, as much as I would love to see him come back to terrorize teams in January or February 2014, I find myself wondering if it’s finally time to cut our losses. Loan the man out to a smaller club, a mid-table club, and let him take his time feeling his way through his recovery. If that doesn’t work, he will have had a chance to showcase his skills enough to earn a decent transfer next summer.

He’s taken some stick for his injuries, but he’s not a loafer content to cash a check each week. If anything, his problem may be just the opposite. Perhaps if he had had just a touch more of the Arshavin in him, he’d have let his body heal properly before charging back into the fray.

What do you think, then? Does the man have a future with Arsenal, or has that ship sailed? Should we save a spot for him, or look to palm him off on some other club in need of a languid yet potentially dominant midfielder?

Dr. Lewandowski or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Transfer

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Okay. Apparently, barely 24 hours after losing to Bayern Munich, Robert Lewandowksi may have pulled a van Persie and joined one of his former club’s biggest rivals, a move that comes weeks after Mario Götze did the same. I’m sorry, but these moves have crossed a line for me. There’s no other word for it than betrayal. Sure, both Lewandowski and Götze have known for quite some time that Bayern would win the Bundesliga. I get it. I don’t understand how one and then both men rats could be counted on to give their best effort on Dortmund’s behalf while at the same time entertaining talk of a transfer to a team that they would soon face on football’s biggest stage. If either one can look us in the eye and honestly say, “yes, I can separate my future desires from my current obligations”, I may have to offer apologies. However, my anger and, yes, despair at these moves make it heartbreakingly difficult to take anything these mercenaries say at face value.

It’s enough to make me look at van Persie’s move to Man U with magnanimity, with understanding, and maybe even sympathy. After all, Man U had come in second place last year and only on goal-differential while Arsenal lucked into third. For as much as we’ve vied with Man U, it’s been a while since we can truly say we’ve gone head-to-head with them in the Prem. I can almost, almost, accept his move as one of a player nearing the end of his career. It still seems like the desperate gambit of a graying man. It paid off for him, so good for him, I guess. I still believe that staying at Arsenal might just have led to a similar result for us this year, but what do I know? By contrast, Götze’s decision to move to Bayern, and that of Lewandowski should the rumors prove true, lay waste to the competitive ideal. Pardon my French, but where the f*#@ would sport be if each team’s best player simply crossed over to join the best team in the league? Götze is 20. Lewandowski is 24. They have plenty of time to achieve. What the hell ever happened to looking at your rival, at the champions, and saying, “eff you. We’re knocking you off next year”?

I mean, good God. I now find myself wondering if Götze’s injury is legitimate or if it was some implied contractual term: “now that he belongs to Bayern, I’m afraid we must insist on protecting our investment. Therefore, I’m sorry to say, he mustn’t unduly exert himself in the closing weeks. That’s a good boy.” As to Lewandowski, he hardly distinguished himself against Bayern on Saturday, earning a Gervinho-esque 6.58 from whoscored.com. How much of that average rating comes from him all but knowing that he’d soon be switching sides? How do his teammates feel after that loss (assuming that the rumors are true)?

Look. I know that players have a preciously short window in which to win trophies and earn money, but there’s a limit. I still remember the Chicago Bulls of the late 1980s who, year after year after year, crashed out of the playoffs against the Detroit Pistons. No matter how transcendent Michael Jordan was, no matter how much his teammates improved, it seemed that the Pistons were always better. However, instead of switching sides, Jordan came back each year more determined, more ruthless, more skilled, until he and his teammates broke through, sweeping the Pistons out of the playoffs and winning the championship. Tell me that that trophy doesn’t taste sweeter than the one that Lebron James “won” with the Miami Heat or the one that van Persie won with Man U or the many that Götze (and Lewandowski?) is/are sure to win with Bayern.

Come on. Really? If trophies are that easy to buy, what are they really worth? It’s ridiculous. With enough money, you can amass enough players to win whatever the f@)# you want, but for what? When it gets that easy, how satisfying is it, really? How much of it can you really claim to have earned?  It’s a crock of shite for all I care, and I don’t care if I completely misused British slang just now. These lazy, self-indulgent bastards who believe that they’re owed a trophy in their lifetimes can take a flying leap, for all I care. You got a trophy? Great. Good for you. Did you earn it, or would the team still have won it without you? Were you a great white, or were you a remora?

These short-cut taking simpletons have convinced me of at least one thing: I never wanted them wearing the Arsenal kit in the first place. You want the cheap and easy? Go play for Man U or Man City or Chelsea or whichever club is willing to rent the flavor of the month. I want players who are willing to dig in, get grimy and dirty, and get a little dirt under their nails instead of a weekly manicure and to look at the success of a cross-town or league rival and say, “They don’t deserve that. That is mine. They may have it this year, but we’re knocking them on their arses next year.” Any player who is willing to take the path of least resistance is not a player I want in Arsenal red, trophies be damned.

In America, we have a folk-singer by the name of Utah Phillips. At one point before his death, he said to a room full of 16-year olds, “they’re going to clear-cut your best thoughts for the sake of profit unless you learn to resist, because the profit system follows the path of least resistance, and following the path of least resistance is what makes the river crooked.” I worry that too many players are following the path of least resistance, choosing the quick and easy. Yeah, they get to where they want to go, but what have they become in the process?

I don’t want the quick and easy. If it’s true that Lewandowski has signed with Bayern, I never wanted him in the first place. He might then lack the grit and tenacity that I look for in a player. I want guys who look at the successes of others not with envy but jealousy: “you have taken what is mine, and I have no choice but to dedicate every fiber of my being to taking it back”. Van Persie lacked that. Nasri lacked that. Götze lacked that. Perhaps Lewandowksi lacks it as well.

There was a time when I extolled the virtues of Borussia Dortmund (or at least of its players). They seemed to remind me of Arsenal of a decade ago, populated and led by young and hungry players looking to knock off the Titans. Now, however, I look at Dortmund’s best and brightest and find myself doubting their character thoroughly and completely. If Götze or Lewandowski is eyeing greener pastures, I guess I shouldn’t begrudge them too harshly for seeking some gratification. However, they’ll still earn more in a few years of footy than I will in a lifetime of toil, so I have my limits. To some degree, sure, I owe these players a debt for their skill and their artistry, but that is not the same as saying that I should accept, part and parcel, their ease in displaying all of the consistency of a weather-vane.

Ambition is one quality; nihilism is quite another. Give me a one-club man, one who is dedicated to and believes in the club itself. It’s not the name on the back of the jersey that matters. It’s the name on the front that matters. Lewandowski has signed with Bayern? Fine. I never wanted the likes of him anyway. Jovetic wants to switch from Fiorentina to Juventus? Good for him. Give me a guy who’s willing to lay it all on the line over the guy who sees each club as a stepping-stone to the next.

I’m not so naive as to expect every player who dons the Arsenal kit to be a die-hard Gooner. That would be ridiculous. I simply want a squad of players that show up each day bound and determined to do their damned-best without calculating how their performances affect their market value. Is that too much to ask?

Do it For Diaby

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Sorry, John. Well, no, but it’s polite to say so.

Now  that the dust has settled on our destruction of Reading and Gervinho has had some time to bask in the glow of MOTM-worthy performance, we can take a more-somber look at the cruel injury to Abou Diaby, who was just learning how to more artfully manage his body until a torn anterior cruciate ligament ended his season, effectively closed the door on his 2013-14 season, and has convinced a fair number of people that his time with Arsenal is now up, ruing that we’ve kept him a few months too long and perhaps should have unloaded him in January, if not before.  Obviously, just a week after the actual injury, it’s too early to make any kind of prognosis for his recovery or return, but I also believe it’s premature to write him off as a lost cause. When fit, he’s one of the more dynamic, aggressive, and versatile players we have, and, regardless of his many injuries, I still feel like he will be a valuable asset to this team. “Do it for Diaby” seems like a fitting tribute for the closing weeks of the season. Rather than worrying incessantly about points and table position, why not just fight like dogs to win for Diaby, a man how has quite literally put his body on the line for the team?

It’s well-worth remembering that Diaby, unlike quite a few other men who wear or have worn the Arsenal jersey, has always put forth his best effort. When he’s fallen short, it can be marked up to lingering mental and physical obstacles. Can the same be said of Squillaci, Arshavin, Chamakh, Bendtner, Denilson, Vela, or others we’ve signed only to see them fail to perform, shirk their duties, or otherwise sponge off the team? Some of those players simply suffer from a lack of quality; others, a lack of passion, whether it be for Arsenal or for the sport itself. We’d be better off unloading players such as these, dead wood that draw a salary but undermine the team’s purpose and progress. With Diaby, however, the man seems to want desperately to play and seems genuinely disappointed in himself when he can’t. It’s that kind of passion and desire that we should uphold and admire, even if he so often falls short of delivering on his potential and his flashes of brilliance end up as tantalizing morsels of what could have been.

This notion of “what could have been” overlooks the fact that, at 26, Diaby still has a future as a footballer. Sure, all of those injures take a toll and undermine his speed, his power, his pace. All of that missed time surely has blunted some of his development. On the other hand, it’s also reduced the daily wear and tear he might have ordinarily faced playing every week. By comparison, think of a basketballer like Grant Hill who, like Diaby, has dealt with injury after injury, but who has returned each time, somewhat diminished, but still possessing class and skill enough to make meaningful contributions. Hill is still playing at the ripe old age of 40, a time at which most athletes are lucky to still be able to walk without a cane.

All of the time that Diaby has missed, then, might similarly prolong his career. He now has a year in which to focus on rehabilitation of the knee, not to mention various other ailments. Let him come back as did the Minnesota Vikings’ Adrian Peterson, who suffered a similar injury, tearing his lateral cruciate ligament in his rookie season but has since emerged as one of American football’s best running backs. I look forward to Diaby making a similar return ’round about February 2014, at which point he can make a triumphant return against whoever we might be playing in the UCL. Or Sunderland. Whichever.

The larger point here, however, is that, in his absence, Diaby can still serve as a rallying point for the whole team. Much like us, he’s been maligned, battered, and written off but keeps coming back again and again.  Like the club itself, it’s been suggested that his best days are behind him and that it would be best to move on. On the contrary, I can think of no better tribute to the man than to win out on his behalf, running the table on our remaining matches, just because. Sure, he’s been more promise than performance, but he’s earned it. Eight games. Eight wins. 24 points. Do it for Diaby.

The Diaby Debacle

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As news of Diaby’s torn ACL has made the rounds, I’ve cast about desperately for news that could convince me that he will in fact return in 10 months’ time. I’ve always been a believer in Diaby and hope fervently that he’ll not only come back, but come back in a form that comes anything close to what he showed us against Liverpool in September when he was more spider than man, leaping and bouncing about, pouncing on balls and tackling various Scousers left and right. Were it not for his litany of injuries—none so cruel as this—he’d be a world-beater, the kind of player we’d be lionizing and remembering for years to come. Instead, through no fault of his own, he’s ended up as Samuel Jackson’s character Elijah Price in Unbreakable, a villain so fragile that he can barely walk without fracturing something. Diaby could have and should have been Bruce Willis’s character in that same film—David Dunn, the titular hero who was impervious to illness or injury.

The ‘villain’ reference is deliberate here but in no way reflects this writer’s point of view. Sadly, there are a lot of critics out there who blame Diaby for his apparent fragility, as if he should just suck it up and play through the pain. On the contrary, I don’t think I’ve seen a player come back, time and again, from one injury after another, as well as Diaby has. When he’s in form, he’s a joy to watch, a languid, lethal midfielder who can single-handedly dominate a match. Perhaps that’s where the criticism comes in, albeit unfairly—we’ve built up our expectations of the man that no performance he puts on can quite live up to those expectations, and we leave ourselves balling our hands into fists over what could’ve been. His skill and potential have been so apparent, so effortless, that it’s been disappointing to say the least when he goes down with what appears to be the faintest of knocks. Let the torn ACL be the hammer-blow on those great expectations. There’s no second-guessing of the kind that has accompanied other strains, bruises, or muscle pulls. You tear an ACL, and that’s all she wrote. If anything works in Diaby’s favor, it’s the progress that medical science has made in treating such an injury. There was a time when a torn ACL spelled the end of walking, not to mention running, jumping, or changing directions. There is a chance, however slight, that Diaby could return towards the end of the 2013-14 season. There are many top-flight athletes in other sports who have torn their ACLs but have come back just as good as they ever were, if not better.

At the risk of sounding recklessly optimistic, this might just be what Diaby needs: a “real” injury, not just to dispel the doubts and aspersions cast about by armchair-warriors, but to give his entire body a chance to rest and rejuvenate. Instead of feeling the pressure to rush back to competitive football to prove those doubters wrong after a lesser, “phantom” injury, Diaby can finally claim the legitimacy of an indisputably terrible injury, the kind that has ended the careers of lesser athletes, and can perhaps have the time he needs to really and truly recover. In the past, his injuries have appeared to too many to be faint or superficial, leaving them with the ammo they need to question his fortitude or grit. Now, I rather welcome the possibility that Diaby will someday take the field against some unsuspecting foe, one that looks at him and blithely underestimates him, and we see him blister that foe and his critics with the kind of performance he’s been capable of all along. When he’s in form (and yes, I admit this has been all too rare), he’s a sublime talent.

What he brings is in many ways immeasurable—again, I admit that this is partially down to injuries, so stop thinking it as you read—not least of which because we have quite a few middies who have never had to duck beneath a doorframe or chandelier in their lives. The man stands at an indomitable 6’2″ (1.88m) and plays with steel and verve, going in for tackles, intercepting and winning balls, and creating chances out of nothing. I’m not promising that he’ll do the same upon his return, but I do hope to claim my place as first in line to shake his hand when and if he does. When he’s on, he’s a joy to watch, and I look forward to pointing that out much more often round about March 2014.