Gervinho

Am I the only one who just doesn't care how he is doing? Really not my favourite player.

Jenks1981 wrote:Am I the only one who just doesn't care how he is doing? Really not my favourite player.

Haha...no I agree not mine either...but if he comes back in a bit of good form I am all for it...

He scored a brilliant goal in last year's ACN, how did he come back? Shattered! I just want him to win the thing so that he can stay away from us for as long as possible. I'd rather have Gnabry and Arshavin coming off the bench. At least you can have 1% hope that they might be capable of doing something.

I have more faith in Gervinho to do something off the bench than Arsharvin.

Jonathan Prendergast wrote:I have more faith in Gervinho to do something off the bench than Arsharvin.

I cannot understand why we still have arsharvin.....I mean for one his wage is what 80k plus...and he never plays....take the loss and get rid...

No one's willing to pay the estimated 80k a week for a fat, unmotivated player and he isn't going to willingly give up his bumper contract and cushy London lifestyle. And because he's been badly man-managed the last 18 months or so, when we are desperate enough to throw him on he's clearly not up to it from a physical standpoint.

Does Arshavin's contract not expire this summer? Or did we give him a 5year contract when we signed him back in '09...

On Gervinho, I don't care how well he does at AFCON (littered with shit defending and goal keeping anyway), I've given up on him completely, sure he can get past players now and then, but he's more likely to "dribble" it out for a goal kick, and his basic game for a forward, like control, shooting and finishing (from 5 yards infront of an open goal) is simply atrocious and not the " super quality" that Wenger is always rambling on about. I would love him to prove me wrong, but hey I would also love Arshavin to prove me wrong, but i know he simply won't...

Michael Foster wrote:

Jonathan Prendergast wrote:I have more faith in Gervinho to do something off the bench than Arsharvin.

I cannot understand why we still have arsharvin.....I mean for one his wage is what 80k plus...and he never plays....take the loss and get rid...

Always thought Arshavin was at 90K...fucking useless player, and he's one of our highest earners.

Whilst sex-god Giroud was at it against Brighton, the other sex-god in our squad was at it again in South Africa.

Gervinho with another goal and an assist in Ivory Coast's 3-0 win over Tunisia. The highlights here - http://www.101greatgoals.com/goals/world/live-video-updates-ivory-coast-v-tunisia/

Is he the competition top scorer?

When Gervinho scored the winner for Ivory Coast against Togo with two minutes to go on Tuesday, his team-mates celebrated with surprising intensity. Yes, they had just won a game they had looked like drawing, and spared themselves an awkward postmortem, but there seemed something more. Didier Zokora held Gervinho by the shoulders and shook him, clearly saying something to him of some profundity. It's difficult to be sure, and the players subsequently revealed nothing explicit, but the body language suggested his was a huddle of encouragement, as though senior players were saying to Gervinho something along the lines of, "See, we knew you could do it…"

Gervinho's goal was a reminder of what a gifted player he is. As the Togo goalkeeper Kossi Agassa missed Yaya Touré's deep free-kick, the ball fell to Gervinho just below waist height, at a narrow angle to a gaping net. It was easy to imagine him, given how he has played for Arsenal recently, being unable to decide whether to head or volley it and ending up falling in an ungainly heap as he tried to do both.

Instead, though, he flicked the ball firmly with the outside of his right foot to secure a win Ivory Coast seemed to have surrendered by conceding a soft goal from a corner on the stroke of half-time.

Being gifted, though, is not enough. It's one thing to own a Stradivarius, quite another to be able to play it properly. Gervinho went into the Cup of Nations in 2010 hyped as the player who would add dash, sparkle and imagination to a Côte d'Ivoire side based largely on pace and power. He would, we were told, give them something unpredictable. He did that, all right, although perhaps not necessarily in the way Ivory Coast would have hoped. Gervinho began that tournament well, scoring a tap-in and sparkling in a 3-1 group-stage win over Ghana in Cabinda, a game that was understandably overshadowed by the terrorist attack on the Togo team on their way to the city a few days before. He was as guilty as anybody, though, of losing his head in the quarter-final against Algeria, when Ivory Coast lost despite taking the lead in the 89th minute.

Last year, in Equatorial Guinea and Gabon, the wildness, the occasionally bizarre decision-making, was clearly in evidence. Yet his team-mates clearly have great fondness for him. Didier Drogba was frequently petulant in his time at Chelsea but in an Ivory Coast shirt he becomes almost statesmanlike, the oldest player of the so-called golden generation and very much the leader. There were times in Malabo and Libreville when you could almost see Drogba suppressing his temper, making himself be encouraging. Gervinho is 25 – was 24 then – but still seems to be treated as the baby of the squad – in part because he is younger than the rest of the golden generation, perhaps not even fully part of it.

There is a recognition of his fragility. He scored a wonderful winner against Mali in the semi-final last year, running from the halfway line before finishing with surprising calm, but when it came to the shoot-out in the final, he snuck farther and farther back. At 7-7, Ivory Coast's coach, François Zahoui, ordered him to go forward; he refused, and Kolo Touré's penalty was saved. Rainford Kalaba fired over the bar, which meant that Gervinho effectively had to go forward.

Drogba hugged him – not a manly, darts-player hug, but tight to his chest like a father comforting his son. Gervinho, with sapping inevitability, missed.

His form since has got worse and worse. At Arsenal he has become almost a joke figure. There is a fan who sits in front of the press box at the Emirates who has an enormous quiff and habitually wears an orange overcoat who seems these days to attend games for the express purpose of abusing Gervinho. He may be an extreme case but it doesn't take much for fans to become impatient with Gervinho these days. And as their impatience has grown, so has Gervinho's confidence dipped – and he seems very much a confidence player.

A player that fragile will probably never be a consistent performer at the highest level. The very best players have a mental toughness that allows them to put mistakes behind them. Even if he did, his inability to pick the right option on a reliable basis is a major failing. But what is significant is the difference in attitude between Ivory Coast and Arsenal – perhaps between country and club. The Ivorians know that, for all his failings, he's the best they've got and so it makes sense to try to get the best out of him; at club level, the attitude – among fans at least – seems to be to highlight his deficiencies so that he's got rid of and replaced sooner rather than later.

The result is that Gervinho tends to play better for Ivory Coast than he does for Arsenal. In a largely pedestrian Ivorian performance, in which passes were too often misplaced, he added energy. He operated both to left and right but was more effective on the right, his dart into the box creating the space for Yaya Touré's opener, although the ball broke to the midfielder as Gervinho was tackled rather than from a deliberate cut-back. Even if his delivery can be unreliable, his tricksiness gives Ivory Coast an extra dimension.

Other 25-year-olds might feel patronised by the constant encouragement, but it seems to be what Gervinho needs to thrive. Arsenal's frustration with him is understandable but in a supportive environment, he can still be a dangerous player.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/blog/2013/jan/23/gervinho-arsenal-ivory-coast

Thought this was a good read.

Mikel Arteta has admitted that Gervinho has been affected by the weight of criticism directed at him this season, and says that the Ivorian – just like rap star turned actor, LL Cool J – needs love.

Having started the season with something of a flourish, scoring 5 goals in his first 7 games, the former Lille man hit something of a slump, characterised by some dreadful misses – not least of which saw him scuff wide from a couple of yards against Bradford in the Capital One Cup.

But Arteta believes there’s a ‘top player’ in there, and is hoping that he’ll contribute well between now and the end of the season.

“The big thing Gerv needed was confidence,” Arteta said in the programme for the Everton game. “He’s been playing in an environment where, sometimes, people were getting a bit frustrated.

“He was aware of that, and it’s not easy to play when you’re carrying that on your back. When he’s felt a bit of freedom and support from everyone, he’s shown his potential. He’s a very dangerous player, quick and mobile, and it’s hard to play against him.

“When he’s at his most accurate in front of goal, he’s a top player.”

The Spaniard believes that some players need a bit of an arm around the shoulder.

“Gerv is one of them,” he continued. “You have to get yourself on his side and talk to him in a positive way. He hasn’t found it easy with the language barrier either – it’s been tough for him to understand and speak English.

“Sometimes it can feel a bit lonely if things aren’t going right, so we have to give him love. With the way we play and attack, exciting players like him are exactly what we need.

“Now he looks full of energy and confidence and can’t wait for the next game to come.”

The Ivorian can probably consider himself unlucky not to have been involved against the Toffees last night, but after Theo Walcott’s ineffectual display may find himself back in the team for Fulham on Saturday.

Clearly Arteta’s words are meant to boost Gervinho’s confidence, and although it’s impossible not to be frustrated by him at times, it does seem as if the vocalisation of that has affected him in a negative way.

The flip-side of that coin, however, is that professional footballers should show more balls and play their way back into form and people’s hearts – Aaron Ramsey springs to mind – but that makes the assumption they’re all the same.

In conclusion, we don’t know, but we’ll hope for a few more Gervingoals between now and the final day of the season. In the meantime:

http://news.arseblog.com/2013/04/arteta-gervinho-is-like-ll-cool-j/?utm_source=feedburner.com%2Farseblognews&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+arseblognews+%28Arseblog+News+-+the+Arsenal+news+site%29

Everybody is different and we don't need as fans to understand this need for encouragement, he is an individual and if the players are getting behind him in this way its only right the fans do as well that attend games.