I want to discuss Mathieu Flamini yet again. I know what you’re thinking, surely you’ve said enough for us to believe that he is a good signing? While that may well be true, I want to use a visual aid to improve your understanding further and not just taking my word for it.
The video is of his solid performance against Marseille on Wednesday evening. Arsenal ran out 2-1 winners in the end. Anyway, his peformance featured everything I mentioned yesterday plus much more.
In the first five seconds we can see him already winning a crucial header to keep the pressure on the French side. At eight seconds we can see a perfect use of sliding interception which is sort of what I discussed yesterday about not seeing a better sight in football than a slide tackle on a wet pitch – Sol Campbell-esque. He timed his interception perfectly and interrupted Marseille’s attack.
Between eight seconds and 21 seconds into the video we can see a perfect example of how well he retains possession. Nothing elaborate or exciting, just simple passes that keep Arsenal ticking over. The pass at 35 seconds in shows how good his awareness is because he was able to pick out the midfielder alongside him with one touch, if he didn’t know where he was then perhaps the extra touch needed would have slowed down play. 39 seconds in shows his passing range as he was able to pick a player out accurately on the wing, allowing the Gunners to go forward.
57 seconds in and we properly see the first use of his hand gestures as he orders the player he passed the ball to, to find his team mate on the other side of the pitch. Again, at a minute and seven seconds we see more hand gestures thrown about.
That’s the video summed up in a few paragraphs. Not a spectacularly outstanding performance but neither was it a bad performance. He was good, solid and stuck to his duties.