NBM's Tequila-induced Thoughts

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2010-08-10T19:59:00.001+01:00

Just testing out a new blogging app for the iPhone, hopefully it'll encourage me to update this more!

Anyone else concerned about Sunday? Yeah, me too....

Hello?

2010-08-10T11:18:00.001+01:00

When did I last touch this? Early October? Ah, I remember it well, things were looking good in the league, RvP was on a fine vein of form and there were no reasons we couldn’t sustain a strong title challenge.

DAMMIT!

Right, the blog is coming back I think. Might not be regular, might not be every game, might not even make any bloody sense, but something may happen!

Brace yourselves people…..

A generic headline involving the number six……Sixy?

2009-10-05T12:43:00.001+01:00

So, that was a bit of a drubbing wasn’t it!

Beating any team 6-2 is enjoyable, but erasing a team containing c**thammers like Diouf and managed by that fat walrus t**t Allardyce with the style of football we played yesterday is the kind of stuff that requires a change of pants.

The official site is currently showing the highlights for free here, the commentary is awesome!

Negatives, well the defending was questionable at times, we seemed to take the Brazilian approach to defending again, give it a shot but aim to outscore our opposition through sheer number of goals rather than preventing them. The first goal was a bit of a freak header but you’ve got to be disappointed that we succumbed to the long ball so easily, likewise the defending for their second, with both the left and right backs being caught upfield.

Ok, positives! Coming back from two early setbacks to pulverise a side, shows the character and belief in the side at the moment (starting to sound like Wenger now!), great to see. One comment I picked up on Saturday during Gillette Soccer Saturday was, I think from Merson, that we didn’t have another 15-20 goals a season man other than RvP. Well yesterday we had 6 different goalscorers, while 15 different players have gotten on the scoresheet so far this season. Why rely on one man like Liverpool when you can share the goals about! Notably our leading scorer so far this term was on the mark again yesterday, god I love Thomas Vermaelen. To think he’s not just a quality centre back but can strike a ball like he did yesterday is frankly scary. What a purchase.

Theo Walcott also made his first appearance of the season yesterday, and marked it by finishing a great flowing move from left to right with a well placed side-footed strike. Even better news is that he wasn’t included in the England squad for next weekend so will be nice and fresh and hopefully injury free for the visit of Birmingham City in two weeks.

The biggest positive for me was Cesc’s performance. After the Fulham game I stated he was going through a poor run, before looking more like his old self midweek against Olympiacos. Well yesterday we got the whole Cesc. The glorious passes, dictating our forward play and pulling the strings like a midfield maestro. The goal, a sumptuous left-footed volley from the edge of the area, left Robinson (oh how we love scoring against him, although anyone think he looks like an extra from Star Wars in his new kit?) totally stranded. The badge-kissing celebration, which I’m usually dubious about, looked heartfelt, as did the explanation in his post-game interview.

The only pisser is that now he goes on international duty. DAMN YOU INTERNATIONALS, DAMN YOU!!!!

Post game the Walrus was wailing about the penalty that they should have had and it being the turning point of the game. Ok, yes, it was a penalty. Probably wasn’t the red card that the chunky fish-muncher was also asking for. But the thing was if they’d have gotten that, we most likely would have scored seven, we were in that kind of mood, not to mention the penalty we should have also had for a foul later in the second half. So shut it tubby, the reason you lost wasn’t, the debatable penalty, it was the SIX goals against! Take some responsibility rather than try and look for an easy scapegoat!

Anyway, that’s that for two weeks. The w**ky international football is on next week so I’ll update this if anything significant happens…..

‘Till then!

Oh, and we won both our hockey games yesterday, 4-3 and 11-2, and I’m still averaging a point a game with 2 goals and 2 assists for the season. Just made yesterday better!

Technorati Tags: Blackburn,Fat Sam,Walrus,Cesc,RvP,Theo,Thomas Vermaelen,International Football is s**te,Farnborough Arrows

Smashing!

2009-10-02T11:53:00.001+01:00

Supposed to be a reference to Greek Restaurants? Geddit? Oh, never mind.

So, the other night we delivered the performance we’d been looking for, total dominance and some slick passing football against an Olympiacos side who never really turned up, if they did it was to only park everything in front of their goal and prey to Zeus that we wouldn’t score.

For 78 minutes I couldn’t help think of anything but the CSKA Moscow game a few seasons back, which despite 20 odd shots on target and this horrific miss, finished 0-0. Then Wenger dragged Diaby off, who despite showing some good turns and nice bits of skill, continues to run up blind alleys and can’t work out what kit we’re wearing when he passes, for Vela. Minutes later Eduardo worked his way down the left, and crossed low for RvP to slot home from close range. A few minutes later we wrapped up the tie, Arshavin with the cute backheel flick following a sweet interchange of passes. And that was that really. 6 points from 6 and a healthy position in the group.

I just wrote a whole load of stuff and my w**ky computer crashed and deleted it, so the next part of this blog will be sub par because I can’t be arsed….it was damn good stuff too, c**t!

Olympiacos manager Zico decided to focus more on xenophobic conspiracy theories about the officials being French and allowing the second goal, which was just offside, rather than focus on the fact that his side were pretty gutless in their performance. The fact the referee also didn’t give a penalty to us for a blatant handball in the box also f**ks up his theory. Tw*t

The game also saw a welcome return to form for Cesc and Arshavin. Both of whom were literally everywhere. Arshavin using his low centre of gravity to bamboozle the Greek defence, and while he ran at them tirelessly for the whole game he tracked back twice as hard. Awesome effort. Great to see Thomas Rosicky is nearly back to his best with another strong performance. Slowly but surely he’s lasting longer in games so it can’t be long ‘till he lasts a full 90 mins, gets injured and is ruled out for another 6 months. Realism, not optimism people!

Another great effort was from Eboue, who provided a good alternative route of attack down the right wing. However in games against, how shall we say, opposition that aren’t this sh*t, I’d prefer the defensive capabilities of Sagna. Ideally I’d like a player with combined powers of both, but we don’t seem to have that. But yeah, fair play to Eboue, he’s gotten his head down since “Eboooooooegate”, upped his work ethic and played well.

Bwahaha, loving the save button at the moment. F**k you computer!

Right, this week, actually yesterday to be precise (or Thursday 1st Oct if you’re not reading this today) saw Arsene Wenger become the longest serving manager in the club’s history, overtaking the legendary George Allison. To say that the changes to the club with Wenger at the helm have been massive is an understatement. New stadium, new training complex, a couple of doubles, the Invincibles and some damn fine football as well. So thank you gaffer, and lets hope your experiment of developing a title winning team of 13 year olds works and doesn’t taint our wonderful memories of you that we currently have……..

Right, so onto this weekend. Blackburn and their massive c**t of a walrus manager Fat Sam roll into town. I hate him, the f**king massive horrible, bile spitting c**t of an anti-football preacher that he is. Team news is that Eduardo is injured AGAIN after aggravating a thigh strain he had previously against Olympiacos. Almunia is nearly fit so “Don” Vito Mannone continues in goal, aiming for a consecutive 3rd clean sheet. Theo Walcott is in the squad for the first time this season which is always good to see too. Blackburn themselves are coming into this after a good home win over Villa, and they’re scoring a few goals at the moment, so here’s hoping we have Sagna at right back rather than the more attacking option of Eboue. But realistically, on paper, we should be looking for 3 points. I know, football isn’t played on paper and this won’t be easy, but well, that’s the expectation.

I can’t watch the game as I’ve got two hockey matches on Sunday, cunningly positioned to keep me at the rink the majority of Sunday. Bas**rds!

Anyway, have a good weekend and COME ON YOU REDS!

Technorati Tags: Olympiacos,Blackburn,RvP,Cesc,Arshavin,Eboue,Fat Sam,Walcott,Eduardo

Winning badly is still winning….just!

2009-09-29T12:41:00.001+01:00

Indeed it is. So another crap performance away at Fulham, but a decent result for a change as RvP’s excellent strike with his chocolate leg from a fantastic through ball by Cesc, coupled with some sublime work by Vito Mannone to keep the home side out, sees us win 1-0.

Before the game about 200 of us cruised along the river Thames from Westminster, out east before turning around and heading for Putney. The sun was shining, songs were vocal and the beer was flowing resulting in a quality pre-game for all!

Right, so, the plus points. Mannone was awesome with some fine reaction saves from close range, while the defence did a decent job limiting Fulham’s chances. Song also had a relatively good game, helping to protect the back four and winning the majority of tackles in the middle of the park. The negatives? Well we looked quite lethargic at times, struggling to find any rhythm or indeed our own players at times. Diaby was probably the most guilty of losing possession cheaply, how he is starting ahead of the likes of Vela and Ramsey is beyond me. Rosicky will, i would imagine, replace him in the starting lineup once fully fit, but Diaby continues to blow hot and cold too regularly to be taken as a starter.

One of those blowing more cold than hot at the moment is Cesc. Aside from his killer ball to RvP for the goal on Saturday he was practically anonymous, as was Arshavin. It’s hard to say if there’s something legitimately wrong there and that they’re genuinely not happy (suggestions from others about Cesc’s body language showing that he’s regretting not moving during the summer are probably a tad OTT), or if they’re simply just out of form. They’re human and it happens, but no doubt we’ll get all the bollocks about Barcelona resurface soon!

The club published their financial results yesterday, showing healthy profits, much to many people’s annoyance following our lack of activity in the transfer market and areas in the squad that need addressing. Peter Hill-Wood delivering the news with all the tact and guile of Prince Phillip! Interestingly though he stated that funds were, and always have been, available for transfers, and for the first time stated that it was Wenger’s belief in his project that prevented us bringing in players in the last window, the boss added that one of his objectives, aside from making winning teams, was to ensure that the club made money.

Now, don’t get me wrong here, but shouldn’t the business side of the club not lie with the board rather than the manager? Otherwise you have a conflict of interest. You may want to buy someone like Yaya Toure as he would improve an area of the squad that needs addressing, so you shouldn’t be also trying to crunch the numbers working out when your next gas bill is due! If the manager needs cash to make a winning team then he should be fighting tooth and nail to get it if its available. I’m not asking for us to live beyond our means here and do a Leeds, but a little outlay from the highest ticket prices in the country towards squad improvement would be nice. I guess he still believes that Song, Diaby, Eboue can win us the league. Hmmm……..

Anyway, Olympiacos at home tonight in the CL.Team news is Bendtner is out after crashing his car on Sunday, nothing serious but enough to rule him out for one game. Denilson’s back injury is worse than initially feared, turns out to be a fracture similar to the one that ruled Gilberto out for most of the season a few years back, he’s expected to miss 8 weeks. Eduardo is back in the squad after missing Fulham for whatever reason it was, while Theo is in/out of the squad depending on what you’re reading!

Tonight won’t be easy, Brazilian legend Zico, who did great things getting Fenerbache onto the CL scene, is now at the helm of the Greek outfit, while familliar faces will feature, namely Matt Derbyshire formerly of Blackburn fame, while ex-Villain Olof Mellburg is marshalling their back four, which has only conceded twice in their opening ten games this season. Plus we’ll no doubt make things hard for ourselves as usual. But here’s hoping for a win and an improvement of recent form.

COME ON YOU REDS!

Technorati Tags: Fulham,Booze Cruise,Cesc,Arshavin,RvP,Olympiacos,Eduardo,Bendtner

WBA get a Dirty Sanchez in the Beer cup & Fulham away

2009-09-25T10:54:00.001+01:00

Apologies for the lack of updates, been doing a bit much recently and consequently I’m half asleep most of the time now!

So, Tuesday night saw the Young Guns make the 4th round of the beer cup with a 2-0 victory over WBA. Those expecting an easy night like the 6-0 demolition of Sheffield United were somewhat over expectant given Albion’s form going into this match, as the first half proved with both sides going close.

The tuning point of the game came shortly after half time, with the sending off of ex-Gunner Jerome Thomas for bitch-slapping Jack Wilshere. Roberto Di Matteo has criticised Jack for saying something to instigate the slap, but at the end of the day, if you raise your hands to a player then you’re going to get sent off.

Following the red we dominated play and went one up, Dirty Sanchez Watt, who made an impressive first team debut, was first to a parried Carlos Vela shot, before Vela himself turned poacher, taking advantage of a monumental defensive cock-up after a Mark Randall lob from distance came back off the bar to kill the tie. Great to have King Carlos back, lets hope he can transfer his awesome Carling Cup form from the last 2 seasons into the Premiership and Champions League.

Right, so, it’s Fulham away tomorrow. Not a happy hunting ground in recent seasons, and especially last season when a lightweight and toothless Arsenal went down 1-0. Arshavin is back in the side, RvP faces a fitness test while Wenger was coy on Theo being involved:

“He has only played 45 minutes since June so he lacks a little bit of competition. He was short for the West Brom game [on Tuesday] but he's available again. He needs match practice. I don't know [if he could figure this weekend] He is still a bit short because it's the week he's back to full, normal training. But the good news is that he's available again.”

So probably the bench for Theo, maybe. Almunia is definitely out, and with Szczczczczczczesny impressing midweek against WBA Wenger hinted that there may be competition for the nod this weekend, saying that it would “normally (be) Manone” getting the start. We shall see.

One thing for certain is I will be hammered as REDaction are running their boat trip to Fulham, starting at midday from Westminster, going out to the Thames Barrier before turning around and heading for Putney, plus the Italians and the mental Croatians that we met in Austria are over too, so don’t expect any sense from me until Wednesday at the earliest!

Anyhoo, have a good weekend and COME ON YOU REDS!

Technorati Tags: Fulham,WBA,Wilshere,Vela,Arshavin,RvP,Almunia,Szczesny,Manone

Ah, so, blog…….

2009-09-22T12:30:00.001+01:00

Right, this is my lunchtime so I’m typing quickly.

Wigan at the weekend was a piece of piss. We didn’t really get out of first gear against a poor side and worse support than our own. I actually think the reason we didn’t make the away section smaller is because it physically couldn’t get any smaller, and they still couldn’t fill that. At least we still get a whole end at their place.

The concerning thing about the weekend was that it was just another exercise of papering over the cracks, much like the Portsmouth game, although that did pose a few questions about Almunia that has arisen since then. While we cruised to a simples 4-0 win we were still pretty average, play like that against a vaguely competent side and we’ll get found out, like City away the week before for example.

Tonight the nippers are at home to West Brom in the beer cup. Apparently Vela is back from injury so could feature (yay!), while Senderos will feature in his “fresh start” to his Arsenal career. That's the fresh start he’s been granted since Djourou got injured. Expect to see Sanchez Watt, Jack Wilshere, Aaron Ramsey, Kieran Gibbs et al feature as well.The bad news is Silvestre is also in contention……

It won’t be a walkover, WBA are coming off of a 5-0 demolition of Boro at the weekend, going well in the Championship and playing some good football under new manager Roberto Di Matteo so it should be a good game tonight.

As much as I like to see the nippers do well in the beer cup, I shan’t be too annoyed if they fall short.

One more quick thing, managed to get a few pics of the Arsenalisation courtesy of a few people from the Online Gooner Forum (Basil and Josh, cheers guys), looks like the club have done a good job so far:

Starting to look like home!

COME ON YOU REDS!

Technorati Tags: Wigan,Vela,WBA,Arsenalisation,Watt,Silvestre,Senderos,Beer Cup

Return to winning ways and classy displays

2009-09-21T16:27:00.001+01:00

That’s what I’d be talking about if I had the chance, but I’m a bit busy, so talk amongst yourself (note singular!) and I’ll put something up soon…….

Shut up Ctybayct and Wigan at home

2009-09-18T11:29:00.001+01:00

Seriously, he’s starting to take the piss now.

I know he’s an attention seeking c**t and the best thing would be to ignore him, but Greedybayc**t’s latest comments on his antics last weekend have really gotten up my nose.

"There is only so much abuse a man can take until he reaches breaking point," the c**t says in the Sun.

That’s indeed true, but this is a two way thing. Us Arsenal fans took enough of the bloke abusing the club last season, holding the club at ransom last summer before playing like a total c**t for practically the entire season while we all paid through the noses to see him not give a toss. That after watching his two faced antics the summer before as he told us he was staying, then whoring himself to half of Europe an hour later. Then the c**t has the balls to claim that we showed a lack of respect for not shaking his hand before the game.

"My friends, like Eboue, were fine, they are decent people. But I could not understand some of the players being disrespectful towards me.”

Probably because you’re an epic, whale sized c**t and everyone can see this but you, and Eboue, but I’m sure he was just being polite.

'It wasn't my fault I left, it was Arsene who wanted to accept the offer for me. I wasn't making any comments in the press about wanting to leave or being unhappy. It was the club who wanted to sell me yet I am being abused by the fans who once cheered me.”

'I think, in terms of class on the pitch, we [City] have overtaken Arsenal and that was a reason for some of the hostility.'

Seriously??? What the f**k???? He didn’t want to leave and the club wanted to sell him???? City have overtaken us for class on the pitch?? With THAT c**t running around in a City shirt stamping on ex-teammates left right and centre before claiming it was THEM who were disrespectful????? He didn’t want to leave but was quite happy selling himself to Milan, Inter, Real, Barca et al at any given opportunity??? What f**king planet is he living on???

So yeah, to wake up to that lot on Sky Sports News this morning was rather entertaining to say the least.

Anyway, away from all things c**t for now and onto Wigan tomorrow. Injury news is that Mannone will continue in goal in absence of Almunia, AA is only 10% likely to play (which is 10% better than before I might add), Denilson’s back injury will keep him out a few more weeks while RvP should be our only returnee from midweek. It would be nice to see a convincing win and maybe, maybe a clean sheet, but the chances of us keeping a clean sheet are pretty slim, so I’ll take a couple of goals instead.

The Arsenalisation of the Grove continues, apparently the cannon in the seats in the Lower East has been modified to look less sh*t (apparently the size of our seats is causing trouble with adding detail but they’re working on it). The first exterior core has been done and will get its trial run tomorrow on the exterior opposite the North Bank Bridge (or that’s where the cherrypicker is at the moment looking at the Grove’s webcams), expecting it to be that retro-soviet legends design I posted a while back, while more work has been done on the lower concourse. I won’t be there to experience it tomorrow as I’m doing Fulham away instead so won’t get to see it all till the Scum visit in October.

Anyway, lets hope for a return to winning ways in the league.

COME ON YOU REDS!

Technorati Tags: C**tybayc**t,Arsenalisation,RvP,Denilson,Arshavin,Mannone,City,Wigan

Brazilian defending is killing us

2009-09-17T12:59:00.001+01:00

Game of two halves. Jekyll and Hyde Arsenal. we’ve heard it all before and saw it again last night in Belgium.

I didn’t see any of the game until this morning when I caught the highlights on ATVO, only listened to the first twenty minutes on the radio while driving to the rink for training. My journey consisted of lots of swearing, some highly erratic and aggressive driving, and whatever c**t who was on 5live last night reminding us that we were two down every minute and a half as well as calculating Liege’s goal total if they carried on their scoring rate from the first 5 minutes. And to think my licence fee pays for these t***ers!!!

Again, like the City game at the weekend, we looked good in possession and going forward, but my god are we lacking at the back. Simple mistakes like Eduardo’s, poor marking (like for Bellamy’s goal at Eastlands), not helping protect the back four (any game with Diaby playing) is causing us to haemorrhage goals, nine in our last four games to be precise.

While we acquired the impressive Tommy Vermaelen over the summer the same problems remain. Clichy is error prone and often left exposed and we still have no competent and consistent defensive midfielder to win the ball and protect the back four.

On the plus side from last night, Bendtner played well and I suppose coming back from two down away from home in a hostile atmosphere shows the character of the team. Yes, we got lucky with Song’s offside handball before Vermaelen’s goal, but we’ve had some pretty crappy luck go against us in the last few weeks, so its swings and roundabouts there. Plus Eddy proved that “divegate” is well and truly behind him, poaching the winner with his knee with nine minutes remaining.

However, at the end of the day, it should have been easier against Standard, right?

Technorati Tags: Standard Liege,Vermaelen,Eduardo,Clichy,Bendtner

Lots of stuff going down

2009-09-15T10:23:00.001+01:00

Right, we all know what happened on Saturday, and the uber-sh*tstorm that it has created on many fronts.

First of all, I don’t actually have a problem with Greedybayor’s celebration. Yes, it was provocative, and yes, it was utterly retarded like the player himself. But we all had a chuckle when Henry did this to the Spuds didn’t we?

Actually, I prefer the photoshopped version of that:

I mean, ok, it’s not like Henry played for the Spuds and had an acrimonious departure after a season of getting paid a lot of coin for doing f**k all before trying to take one of their strikers’ head off, scoring and then taunting them, not like that utter c**t.

My main gripe is that the pillocks in the media seem to be more obsessed with the celebration that the true crimes, the stamps on Cesc and RvP (images pinched from Gunnerblog).

While the Cesc incident could well be an accident, the RvP ‘face rake’ certainly was not. Greedybayor’s claim that he was trying to get the ball is utter tripe was the ball was well gone by the time he attempted surgery with his foot. It was a malicious attempt to harm, made all the more shocking by the fact that referee Mark Clattenburg as no more that 4 years away from the incident and looking right at it. You could argue that if he’d not bottled it and shown Greedy the Red that he will no doubt get retrospectively, then we would have gone on to win the game.

Take nothing away from City though, their counter attacking play was masterful and highlighted the need for a quality DCM. Quite why Wenger brought Song off I don’t know, but it’s a position that has required addressing since Flamini departed for Milan, no more “If I bring someone in it will kill X Y and Z’s development” it needs doing, bite the bullet.

In other news, Eduardo has been cleared of diving after the club’s appeal was upheld last night. Apparently we proved that there was contact. I’m still not convinced personally but glad that Eddy is available for Liege away tomorrow night, as game that we’ve not got to win just to get the CL off to a good start, but to give us some momentum that’s been lost on two jaunts up north.

The one thing I have noticed is that everyone has gone from having us as title runners to struggling to finish top 6 in the space of 2 games, something of a kneejerk reaction. The simple fact is, while we’ve lost away to both Manchester teams, we’ve got 3 difficult away fixtures done and dusted and have a game in hand. Assuming we win the game in hand, we’re in the same state as Liverpool but having played tougher fixtures. Plus we’re only 4 games into the season! This is a marathon not a sprint, a good run in what are, on paper, winnable matches before the Spuds visit at the end of next month should see us looking healthy both on the pitch and in the table.

Pre-Standard thoughts tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: Greedybayor,RvP,Cesc,Manchester City,Standard Liege,Eduardo

“The Project” away

2009-09-11T11:28:00.001+01:00

So, the crappy football is done and only one injury to report so far ahead of our trip to Manchester “The Project” City.

“Arshavin has come back injured (Groin) from the Russian game last night. We are upset because he should not have played. He was not in a condition where he could afford to play 90 minutes. We took him off against Manchester United because he was injured already at half-time. He will be out for Saturday, Wednesday and certainly next Saturday.”

So AA is out for the next three games for sure, and while Wenger is correct to feel aggrieved, Russian manager Guus Hiddink did make it clear before the game that it was the players decision to play, so some of the blame has to lay with AA. Either way, Wenger isn’t happy!

Sky are saying the Cesc and Rosicky are likely to sit this one out, BBC are suggesting otherwise. Walcott is still a week away according to the manager while for “The Project” Tevez is ruled out while Robinho is doubtful.

Oh, and they’ve got some lanky pr**k up front who can’t work out the offside rule, who Wenger thinks isn’t obsessed by money.Yeah, and I prefer being sober!

Chances are the lanky tw*t will score against us this weekend, lets hope we can bag 3 in response!

COME ON YOU REDS!

Technorati Tags: Adebayor,Man City,Wenger,Arshavin,Cesc,Rosicky,Walcott

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz & sh*t happens

2009-09-07T09:57:00.001+01:00

Internationals are crap

This is crapper, and typically comes just after the poxy transfer window happens. At least we know why Senderos wasn’t sold then, yay! Fingers crossed Song will cover if when injuries happen and that we buy another CB or two in the January window so spare us from the SAS partnership from hell.

Of course, that would be something wouldn’t it!

No other injury news so far, although we do have more lovely exciting international games on Wednesday for all our players to get crippled. Yippee!!

Wake me when the proper stuff starts.

Technorati Tags: International football is s**te,Djourou

Boycott Play.com and Amazon (who will actually sell anything apparently!)

2009-09-01T10:40:00.001+01:00

Morning all,

I’ve been away in the Cotswolds all weekend, totally cut off from the world aside from the occasional text, so I’m not going to touch Saturday night with a bargepole.

Ok, one thing. “That” chant by the United scum towards Wenger.

After going unchecked by the FA, MUFC officials or the media for the best part of a decade, it’s finally gone too far:

That's right, it’s now available from Play.com as a download.

There have been some calls to revive certain chants relating to Munch in retaliation. However, before we stoop to United’s level, how about bringing this filth to the public eye? Simply copy this email below (courtesy of Fuse from the Online Gooner forum)

To whom it may concern

I am writing in relation to this product: http://www.play.com/Music/MP3-Download-Album/4-/7944338/Manchester-United-Chants/Product.html. In particular to track no.4.

I am a fan of Arsenal Football Club and I have heard this vile, disgusting chant has been sung at the manager of our club. I believe that paedophilia is one of the worst things that any human being can do and to accuse someone of it just because of a dislike of another football team is disgraceful.

Therefore, I was in disbelief when I found out that this "chant" was on sale on your highly respected website. I request that it is taken down now and a complaint is brought to the manufacturer of this CD. I and many other Arsenal supporters will not use your site again until this is dealt with.

I look forward to hearing from you in the future.

Then sent to these select addresses below:

To: play@hillandknowlton.com; customercare@play.com
Cc: marketing@arsenal.co.uk; membership@manutd.co.uk;footballforall@thefa.com; info@premierleague.com; lma@lmasecure.com;richard.bevan@lmasecure.com

Use this form to contact Amazon.

An email sent to Amazon in reference to the same got this, frankly stunning response:

Dear Customer

Thank you for writing to Amazon.co.uk with your concerns about one of the titles we list in our catalogue.

This is an issue we take very seriously and we wanted to share with you our goals with respect to our catalogue.

Our goal is to support freedom of expression and to provide customers with the broadest selection possible so they can find, discover and buy any title they might be seeking. That selection may include titles, which some people, may find distasteful or otherwise objectionable.

Amazon.co.uk believes it is censorship not to offer for sale certain titles with repugnant or distasteful content, and we would be rightly criticised if we did so. As a result, we will continue to make controversial works available in the UK and everywhere else, except where they are prohibited by law.

Furthermore, because we strongly believe that the appropriate response to distasteful or repugnant speech is not censorship, but more speech, we will continue to allow readers, authors, and publishers to express their views freely about the books and other products we offer on our website. It is important to note that we do not endorse any opinions expressed by individual authors, musical artists, or filmmakers.

We value all feedback from our customers, and I thank you again for taking the time to send us your comments about this issue.

We hope you will allow us to continue to serve you.
Please let us know if this e-mail answered your question:
If yes, click here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/rsvp-y?c=euttxrbg3389003203

If not, click here:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/rsvp-n?c=euttxrbg3389003203&q=ukff

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I’m not sure whats more stunning. The fact that Amazon are happy selling this, citing ‘freedom of speech’ or the fact that they ended it with “warmest regards”! Utter tossers!

That’s my custom gone, c**ts. If this hasn’t been dealt with by the powers that be by the time of United home, then come here for some ‘select’ songs for the match.

Technorati Tags: Amazon,Play,United,Wenger

**UPDATE**

Play have since removed the downloads, Amazon however…….

Luck of the draw

2009-08-28T09:56:00.001+01:00

Well, you’ve got to be happy with that, haven’t you!

We’ve been paired with Dutch Champions AZ, Greek Champions Olympiacos and Belgian Champions Standard Liege, with the Greek side the only one with any previous appearances in Europe’s premier competition.

It won’t be a total cakewalk, AZ play some good football and Standard ran Liverpool close in the qualifiers a few seasons back, while Greece is always a tough away trip. But when you look at some of the teams we could have faced then you’ve got to be quite content.

Official site has the fixtures here. AZ at home a day after the old man’s birthday and the night before mine, could be a good night that!

In other news Eduardo has actually been revealed as the cause of cancer, imagine that! Also every c**t in Scotland has called for UEFA to bad Eddy, which they’re now looking into. I can’t argue, it was a dive. But the next time Gerrard, Rooney, Lumpard, Drogba et al go down cheaper than a bad hooker can you see a member of the FA calling for UEFA to ban them? Can you f**k! It’ll be brushed under the carpet as it usually is or they’ll be labelled as ‘clever’ for winning their side a penalty (like Ashley Young last night for Villa apparently). So, I propose this, ban our players for diving, do this to the others. Although come to think of it, if the referee had seen it then it would be a yellow card, so why does it now warrant a bad equal to the length of a straight red?

News ahead of United away, Cesc has a fitness test on his hamstring today, as does Ramsey on his knee, while Rosicky won’t feature. I’m predicting a score draw and Owen’s knees exploding, that’d be sweet.

Have a good weekend.

ALLEZ ARSENAL.

Technorati Tags: Champions League,Cesc,Ramsey,Rosicky,United,Eduardo

Battle of Britain???

2009-08-27T10:38:00.001+01:00

“A battle is a conceptual component in the hierarchy of combat in warfare between two or more armed forces, wherein each group will seek to defeat the others within the scope of a military campaign, and are well defined in duration, area and force commitment.”

That there my pedigree chums is wikipedia’s definition of a battle. It involves two sides going hammer and tongs at eachother. The tie against Celtic only saw one side compete, the other was pretty damn poor and only had 2 shots in 180 minutes of football (although they did score with the second.)

Match reports here and here.

Most of the press today isn’t about how we cruised our way past a side that has given AC Milan, United and Barcelona troubles in the past. Oh no, Eduardo took a dive and now he’s more of a c**t than Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi!

Now I don’t condone diving, it’s s**t. But it’s happened to us many a time in the past and no-one has given a flying f**k. Remember when the granny shagger tripped over his own knuckles in front of the Stretford End to end our invincible run, and the media we’re practically giving him a knighthood! The gaffer also speaks of swings and roundabouts:

"We got a penalty two years ago in the quarter-final of the Champions League at Liverpool that made the difference when Ryan Babel dived,"

"Nobody ever apologised to us. It was a blatant dive and nobody spoke about it."

Reading through the Wenger diplomacy you get the message “f**k you”, and I like that! He went on to point out another fact from last night:

"I must still say that we were likely always to score the first goal because Eduardo had a great chance before the penalty. We always looked in control of the game."

Yep, this wasn’t an 88th minute dive to win the tie, this was a tie that we were in full control of and, lets be honest, we would have scored last night regardless. It wasn’t 5-1 on aggregate for no reason, something that Celtic manager Tony Mowbray pointed out too:

"Over the two legs, Arsenal had more quality and deserved to go through."

So yeah, diving is s**t and needs to be stamped down on, but lets have a bit of consistency when we do eh (and not hunt down Johnny Foreigner while pretending those that represent Iiiinnggguuuurrrrrrrrrlund are whiter than white.)

Massimo Donati, who scored with a good strike at the death last night, has called for Eduardo to be banned for two games. I call for Massimo Donati to f**k off and be used as a sex toy for a herd of Rhinos.

There’s the sound of nails being hit firmly on heads over at Arseblog today on Eduardoisadivingc**tsomustbepubliclyhung-gate.

Another standout issue last night was that of workrate. It was brilliant, and has been for all the games so far this season. But last night there were a few players that just ran ran and ran. And you know what, then they ran some more! It was awesome to watch, but one stood out more than the others

That’s right, stand up Emmanuel Eboue.

A workrate that would have made the Terminator break sweat was rewarded with a well taken goal at the end of a slick passing play, last night the guy was sublime and there’s a real danger that one of last season’s scapegoats will be a fan favourite this time around. Love it.

So, we’re in the draw for the group phases of the champions league, for the 12th year in a row, which should take place around 5pm tonight. More importantly, it frees up £30million for transfers. Lets see if Wenger gets the chequebook out and prepares for the injuries that we’ll no doubt get en masse.

‘Till tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: Eduardo,Celtic,CL qualifier,Eboue

Credit when credit’s due

2009-08-25T13:51:00.001+01:00

I won’t to a match report from Pompey, I hate writing them.

Then this happened

Then that happened

It’s Tuesday, you’ve all had several days to digest it from elsewhere! Scarves looked good though.

One thing I will write about is those cretins on Match of the Day. We stuff Everton 6-1 away, no mean feat. MOTD chalk this down to Everton being appalling and Lescott’s head being elsewhere. Ok they were pretty damn bad that night. Next up, Portsmouth at home and a comfortable 4-1 win. MOTD explain that Portsmouth “are a club in turmoil” and that’s why we scored four. Nothing to do with the new formation, Gallas’ quest to score with every single body part this season other than his feet, our revived work rate off the ball, goals coming from a variety of positions (except forwards, Eduardo aside) or some pretty smooth finishing, oh no! Our ten (yes, TEN) goals scored in two games have come simply because the opposition have been sh*t.

Wenger said we’re going to improve, can’t wait to see what these prize pillocks come out with when we do:

“Well you see Garry, it was obvious Bolton were going to concede 7 because of the interplanetary alignment at the moment, it’s causing Jaaskelainen all kinds of problems and he can’t find the correct position. Arsenal were actually quite average and certainly not as good as United, Chelsea or Liverpool.”

Pffft, c**thammers the lot of them. Would love to hear Alan Hanson’s take on Liverpool’s capitulation last night.

Celtic tomorrow, Cesc won’t play but might make United on Saturday (a game I can’t watch as I’m going to be in the Cotswolds getting hammered at a mansion, bittersweet is the phrase I think)

More tomorrow, maybe.

Technorati Tags: Portsmouth,MOTD,Celtic,Cesc

Pompey home (yeah, I couldn’t think of a creative title either)

2009-08-21T12:03:00.001+01:00

So, yeah, Pompey at home tomorrow.

I love the first home game of the season. The sun is always shining, it’s good to see the lads again (mostly) and the beer tastes better.

Pompey are a bit of a mess at the moment, their potential takeover hasn’t gone through yet and as a result they’re having to shed players left right and centre. They’ve lost both games so far this season and are yet to find the back of the net.

So, 1-1 then!

Team news for us, Eduardo should be back following his late groin injury before the Celtic match. Theo has gone a bit Rosicky on us with his back injury and should be back sometime before the end of days. I would expect Cesc to be rested as well following his tenderising at Celtic midweek.

Erm, that’s about it really. Enjoy your scarves tomorrow!

COME ON YOU REDS!

Technorati Tags: Portsmouth,Cesc,Eduardo,Theo

One foot in the groups & The Arsenalisation continues

2009-08-20T12:34:00.001+01:00

Apologies for no blog yesterday, the gaffer was in and I was busy. Not that anyone reads this anyway!

So, a competent performance on Tuesday night saw us come away from Parkhead as the first team to win there since 1983 and with a 2-0 lead in the tie.

While the goals were lucky and we didn’t quite click offensively we looked confident and settled at the back, Thomas Vermaelen looking exceptional again. I seriously like this guy, looks like Vidic, jumps like Cahill and defends like Adams/Bould/Keown. He’s putting his good start down to another guy who has started the season well, William Gallas, who is probably playing his best football in 2 years at the moment (and has scored in each game so far this season!)

Celtic offered little, and while they had a decent shout for a penalty the only other threat of note was a shot from a corner in the first half which Almunia gathered despite seeing it late. The much-hyped atmosphere seemed to last all of 5 minutes as well as you could only hear the away fans who made an excellent din, a bit like the Grove really!

So, one foot in the group stages, but I think we’ll see more fight from Celtic in the second leg next week as they look to score first and revive the tie. This isn't over yet!

In other news the Arsenalisation of the Grove continues with the introduction of a big cannon in the seats of the Lower East.

Ok, it’s just the one, opposite the cameras for show and will probably be painfully visible once people start leaving in the 80th minute to “beat the rush” (tossers), but its a start. Love the way its facing the away fans too!

Rumours that Bendtner has signed a new contract, nothing to back this up yet.

Righto, Pompey at home on Saturday, thoughts on that tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: Celtic,CL qualifier,Vermaelen,Arsenalisation

Another generic Battle of Britain headline

2009-08-18T09:28:00.001+01:00

Right, Celtic away tonight in the first leg of the CL qualifier, and the team news isn’t great.

Theo is out for sure while Cesc, Denilson and Sagna face fitness tests. To make this even worse Diaby is fit.

Ok, a little harsh, but to lose two of our best players at the weekend to be replaced by a man who has one foot and uses that to run around in circles before being injured for 2 weeks with a “niggling knee” isn’t fantastic news.

Celtic defender Danny Fox says that the home fans can roar them to victory.

The boss says’ we need to silence the crowd.

Granted, its going to be an intimidating atmosphere tonight. Parkhead on a European night is one of the greatest atmospheres in the world and they’ve got some awesome results there in recent years against United and Barcelona amongst others, but lets not forget what we did the last time we went on a European trip to a hostile ground where the home side had an impressive record.

None the less, this will be a tough task tonight, we’ll have a real battle on our hands and I don’t expect Celtic to give us any time on the ball and to fight for everything, as they should have learnt from Everton at the weekend that you’ve got to get in our faces or we can run riot, but I can’t see them playing any other way.

COME ON YOU REDS!

Technorati Tags: Celtic,CL qualifier,Cesc,Diaby,Denilson,Sagna

Sixy

2009-08-17T11:07:00.001+01:00

Ok, anyone who predicted that would happen is clearly mental!

I’m a bit pushed for time this morning so wont do a full review of the game as well all know what happened and have probably seen it. If you’ve not then allow me to point you to the Arsenalist who can enlighten you.

Thoughts from the game. It was a bit retro 2004 wasn’t, especially the 4th goal. The way we moved the ball upfield with quick passing and movement was superb and has been sorely missed the last few seasons. Was anyone else a bit scared by Bendtner’s effectiveness on the wing? I was. Other surprises were basically Song and Denilson. Song just won everything, Denilson wasn’t far behind him, plus some of his distribution was fantastic, a totally different player from last season. And as for that goal, wow!

I thought RvP and Arshavin were pretty quiet apart from setting up Cesc’s first and Eduardo’s goals respectively, however if they can have a quiet game and we still notch 6 goals that can only be a good thing! Plus we can add Theo, Nasri and Walcott and hopefully some potential signings to the mix over the next few weeks and months.

Vermaelen looks like a tower of power, granted one of those towers where the first two floors are underground, but a tower none the less. There was one moment, with Jo running at him, he literally just stopped and the ball arrived at his feet before he looked up and set Arshavin away on another attack down the wing. The guy has a top footballing mind to go with some obvious strong defensive capabilities. Oh, and he can also nail a header! Think this guy is going to be a fan favourite pretty damn quickly.

Ok, Everton were pretty poor, their biggest mistake being that they let us get the ball down and play rather than getting in amongst us, although you could probably argue not tracking Vermaelen and Gallas from the 2 free-kicks was also pretty big on the mistake scale too, but lets not take anything away (yeah, Alan Hanson, just get over Anfield ‘89 ok!) we did play exceptionally well.

However, it’s important to keep our feet on the ground, one swallow does not make a summer (although I’ve seen films that might disprove that!) Lets see if we can keep this going during the run at the end of the month and into September before we start talk of being legitimate contenders.

Anyway, closer on the horizon are Celtic tomorrow night at Parkhead, who will have no-doubt learnt a few things from watching us at the weekend. But more on that tomorrow.

Hoşça kalın (that’s goodbye in Turkish y’know!)

Technorati Tags: Everton,Celtic,Vermaelen,Cesc,Eduardo,Song,Bendtner,RvP,Arshavin

It begins…

2009-08-14T10:28:00.001+01:00

Yes, after much waiting and the infinite joy of a summer of transfer speculation the season gets underway tomorrow…………………….and predictably we already have some injury problems! What, it wouldn’t be the same if we actually started a season with a full squad would it?

So, we have:

Walcott: Out (back)

Djourou: Out 1 month (knee)

Fabianski: Out (knee)

Nasri: Out 3 weeks+ (broken leg)

Rosicky: Out 2 weeks (~~Hamstring~~ Rosicky)

But don’t worry, I’m sure they’ll be like new signings when they return!

So not ideal for Everton tomorrow, and leaving us pretty damn thin at CB for a month, that is assuming that we don’t make a move for Brede Hangeland, who has said he’s only focused on Fulham but would consider a bid in we made one (if that's not a come and get me I don't know what is!). Offensively there isn’t too much of a concern as we’ve got quite a few options up there.

So yeah, I’m guessing the lineup will probably be something like Almunia, Sagna, Gallas, Vermaelen, Clichy, Song, Fabregas Denilson, Arshavin, RvP and Bendtner (going for size rather than the pace of Eduardo). That way Wenger can switch between the mooted 4-3-3 he’s employing this season or the 4-5-1 that Wenger tends to employ in Europe. Everton have a few injury concerns themselves, as well as the giant, green, money-infested vulture of Manchester “The Project” City circling over Joleon Lescott as a bit of a distraction.

Anyway, fingers crossed we start the season with bang and get a win under our belts early doors.

COME ON YOU REDS!

Technorati Tags: Everton,Injures

Vieira, Hangeland, atmosphere, not long now…..

2009-08-11T10:27:00.001+01:00

A few snippets of news about at the moment.

Looking like the Vieira story was all Wengerbluff as Sky Sports are currently believing that he’s going to stay at Inter, however I always question it when people “Understand from their sources.” Who are these sources? Are they real? Do they have tentacles with dildos on the end*? Who knows….

Brede Hangeland says he’s in no rush to leave Fulham. I’ll take that as a “come and get me” plea then!

REDaction are placing 57,000 red and white scarves in the ground for the Pompey game in a bid to improve atmosphere. I know its a bit fake and the idea of having scarves in August is a bit mental, but we at least its a start. Lots of people say “our atmosphere is sh*te” and it is, but when someone tries something that’s also branded as sh*te. This may not be the best idea, but at least its a start. They have also revealed designs to “Arsenalise” the exterior of the Grove with a series of images depicting former legends.

Personally I like it, and the retro-soviet style will make Arshavin feel at home, although I can understand it not being everyone’s cup of tea.

Speaking of tea……

*Apologies, Leanne is away so I have no morals……

Technorati Tags: Vieira,REDaction,Hangeland

An afterthought

2009-08-07T11:49:00.001+01:00

You lucky people you, 3 posts in one day!

Something my old man mentioned to me regarding a Wenger quote.

"Usually the transfer market only speeds up from August 26 up to midnight on August 31 – and especially in the last two hours."

9:30pm on August 26th is the time we’ll know if we’re in the group phases of the CL or not. It’s at that point we’ll know if we’ve got the ludicrous money from Europe’s top table, or if we’re £30mil down.

So you’ve got to ask, if we stumble against Celtic, is the money available for transfers and from the sale of Kolo, Greedybollocks and potentially Senderos going to fill that gap?

Food for thought.

Technorati Tags: CL qualifier,Celtic

Celtic

2009-08-07T11:15:00.001+01:00

Anyone shocked? Course not……

Technorati Tags: CL Qualifier,Celtic

Rosicky, Vieira and the CL qualifying draw

2009-08-07T08:54:00.001+01:00

Anyone remember when this used to be the qualifier, and has now been “Americanised” into the ‘Champions League Playoff!’ Pffffft.

Anywho, we find out who stands in our way of making the group stages of the CL at sometime after 11am today, once the tools at UEFA have finished poncing about with opening ceremonies and rimming eachother. We can face one of the following:

Fiorentina

Athletico Madrid

Celtic

Anderlecht

FC Timisoara

Personally I’d prefer Anderlecht as they’re easier than Fiorentina, Athletico Madrid and Celtic and not an unknown quantity like Timisoara so we won’t underestimate them. However I expect we’ll get Celtic and probably f**k it up and wind up getting knocked out of the Europa League by Fulham. God I miss the times when we could be pretty much guarantee we’d get someone like the champions of the Isle of Wight and know we’d make the group stages! I’ve got a bad feeling about this, I can feels it me me’s loins, I tells ye!

In other news, Thomas Rosicky’s period of fitness has ended at the 3 weeks mark with a hamstring injury. Not a surprise considering Eduardo had a similar problem after a lengthy period out. The club think it’ll be 6 weeks until he’s fit again, we’ll see!

In transfer news, Wenger confirmed that he’s thinking of maybe bringing in one offensive and one defensive player, and that he’s keen on Fulham’s Brede Hangeland but the club haven’t been in contact. He also said any deal to bring Patrick Vieira back isn’t on the cards at the moment. It’s good to know that Wenger realises we’re a bit short of experience and quality at the back and I would welcome those two in with open arms frankly.

Anyway, a spot of breakfast and a meeting before the draw. Fingers crossed!

Technorati Tags: CL qualifier,Hangeland,Vieira,Rosicky

The hit of the whole fruit

2009-08-04T12:36:00.001+01:00

Plenty to write about at the moment, which makes a pleasant change!

First off, Emirates Cup. The first game wasn’t really much to write home about. We looked comfortable but not overly threatening and it was only after Arshavin put us one up with 8 left on the clock that the game got exciting. However the entertainment did increase significantly at half time with the midget footballing genius that is Jack Wilshire, more on him later. Anyhoo, Athletico beat our offside trap with worrying ease to equalise just minutes later, before Arshavin scored from a ludicrous angle shortly after that to win us the game.

The next day was Rangers, who were dismantled with brutal ease, Wilshire finishing off a nice passing move inside 2 minutes, and Eduardo applying a good finish after 8 mins. Wilshire made it 3 towards the end with a nice left footed volley as we re-gained the Emirates Cup.

Since then it’s all been about the boy Wilshire, who got man of the match in both games yet somehow didn’t get player of the tournament (AA did, got to be a sponsor thing I guess). Responses have ranged from the red-tops calling for Jack the lad to be in the England squad for the next qualifiers, to Wenger saying that he wants to protect him and use his sparingly. Wenger obviously speaking more sense than the tabloids, as well as Wilshire played at the weekend, had they been competitive games there wouldn’t be a hope in hell the Rangers players would have given him as long on the ball as they did! Still, the future looks bright.

Arseblog and Gunnerblog announced that Senderos to Everton was a done deal, confirmed this morning, by the Swiss FA, that talks had begun but so far nothing from either club or the player, who incidentally is training at the members day even as I write this. In fact Sky Sports News are now reporting that Everton have confirmed talks are taking place with us for Senderos. The rumour elsewhere is that this will be part of a 3 way transfer (kinky) of Big Phil going to Everton, which will then see Lescott leaving them for Citeh who in turn will sell us Micah Richards. Probably all b****cks but I’d take Senderos out and Richards in!

Marouane Chamakh isn’t a happy bunny, saying that his current employers Bordeaux are blocking his dream move to Arsenal, this after Wenger saying he won’t improve on the alleged £6 million offer that has been rejected.

The Vieira thing has gone quiet, although he’s been dropped from the French national side after Domenech stated that he needs to play regularly. Le Boss has said he wants all his transfer business to be concluded by the time we play Valencia on Saturday

So, here’s hoping to a busy end of the week!

Technorati Tags: Pre Season 2009,Rangers,Athletico Madrid,Emirates Cup,Valencia,Vieira,Senderos,Everton,Chamakh,Richards.

Farewell to the last of the Invincibles

2009-07-30T09:43:00.001+01:00

So, after 7 odd years of sterling service, Kolo leaves for a big old paycheque and a few less games a week.

To be honest, you can see the reasons behind the move, he didn’t look the same player since the last African Cup of Nations and the Malaria at the beginning of last season seemed to have made his arse swell. This coupled with the fact that we had 7 centre backs at the time (well, Kolo, Gallas, Vermaelen, Djourou plus the bit parts of Song, Senderos and Silvestre) means that something had to give. And at an alleged £15 million it made good business sense that it was Kolo.

When my uncle stalked him last week, Kolo said that he wanted to stay. There was something about the delivery that made it sound like things were afoot to sell regardless. And with sales of the Highbury Square development struggling it’s more than believable that the board would want to cash in when a big, OTT offer comes in.

The only concern is that some of this and the Ade fee isn’t re-invested into the squad. You don’t buy a defender for £10mil and have him sit on the bench, so Vermaelen had to start with Gallas. Djourou looks encouraging. But if when one of those gets injured you’ve got one of Song, Senderos and Silvestre to replace them. It’s a case of pick your poison. Either Arsene has a master plan, or his hand is being forced by finance.

But anyway, reasons aside, Kolo was one hell of a servant and we can only wish him well, and that he boots that big streak of piss we sent oop north up in the air in his first training session.

In other news we beat Hannover 96 1-0 last night, Cesc finishing off a nice passing play. Cheers to Arsenalist for the highlights. Next up its Athletico Madrid in the Emirates Cup, not sure my liver can cope with this.

I’ll put some odds and sods about Austria up at some point.

Technorati Tags: Kolo Toure,Pre Season 2009

Back from Austria and Hungary

2009-07-29T12:57:00.001+01:00

A decent report will appear here soon. Here’s a few pics to whet the whistle (inc one of us with Slaven Bilic!)

Technorati Tags: Pre-season 2009

Don’t want to jinx it

2009-07-16T10:17:00.001+01:00

I don’t want to jinx anything, so I’m staying silent ‘till it’s a done deal…..

Hartson’s next battle

2009-07-13T09:52:00.001+01:00

Cancer is a c**t. Thankfully it’s not yet touched my life directly aside from a couple of cats having to be put to sleep because of it, but chances are it probably will. Anyway, getting to the point, ex-Arsenal striker John Hartson has been diagnosed with testicular cancer that has spread to his brain.

He seems upbeat in his interview with the S*n, so lets hope he can do to this what he did to Berkovic!

Puts things into perspective really…..

Technorati Tags: John Hartson

Purgatory

2009-07-09T15:14:00.001+01:00

There’s been a bit off stuff going on:

Jabba has said some stuff

As has Ivan

RVP has declared his love and put pen to paper

Melo: Will he/won’t he?

Pre-season games announced. I’ll be at the first two.

TV has begun it’s fixture tampering for the season. See how the changes f**k up your travel plans.

The Ashes have started, it’s looking tight.

I could write a proper blog

But I can’t really be arsed

***insert motivation here***

Technorati Tags: Pre-season,Fixture Changes,Jabba,Ian Gazidis,RVP

Valencia away?

2009-07-02T09:45:00.001+01:00

I loves me football shirts I does. Well, apart from our w**ky third kit which I’m still seething about. But anyhoo, I often mooch about on FSC to check out who is bringing out what, and stumbled upon Valencia’s new offering, which included a rather awesome 90th Anniversary kit.

I then read the description:

“The Valencia kit with the names in the shape of a bat commemorates the 90th birthday of the club, and pays tribute to all men who have defended the team on the pitch.

Valencia will wear this kit against ~~Manchester and~~ Arsenal in the pre-season and in the big matches of the Spanish League.”

Valencia away pre-season in the Mestalla? News to me. So I checked their official:

“This summer, Valencia CF will face some other great European teams. Tough opponents such as Werder Bremen, ~~Manchester United or~~ Arsenal, as well as Borussia Dortmund or Sevilla FC, will be a perfect test for our team. Valencia CF will start the official campaign on 20 and 27 August with the previous play-off of the new UEFA Europe League.

August 8th Official Presentation - Trofeo Naranja at Mestalla. Valencia CF – Arsenal”

Camp de Mestalla – Awesome (and soon to be gone)

Not sure what the “or” bit is about, I mean given the choice between us or Manure we all know what the correct one is, right?

So, keep them locked as we could have a pretty sweet pre-season game on our hands.

Technorati Tags: Valencia,Pre-season

Well done Nike

2009-07-01T09:10:00.001+01:00

Well, the new 3rd shirt has been revealed. A glorified white polo shirt and blue shorts? Someone needs a f**king slap…….

If you’re sick in the head this abomination is out on Thurs 23rd July. I’m going to spend the rest of the day trying to find out which c**t at Arsenal approved this.

Technorati Tags: 3rd kit

The Sun…….

2009-06-30T09:49:00.001+01:00

W***ers. Arseblog says it best.

In other news I’m going to Austria in a few weeks for our pre-season training camp and a friendly against SC Colombia Foridsdorf (cheers Peter, top man!), some amateur team on the outskirts of Vienna who play at what looks like a training pitch with a bar behind one of the goals (bliss). Will I be giving you exclusive updates? Will I f**k, mobile roaming isn’t cheap!

Technorati Tags: Arshavin,Useless excuse for the 4th estate,Austria 2009

Hello….

2009-06-22T08:50:00.001+01:00

So, while I was coaching kids hockey on Friday, we made our first signing of the summer as defender Thomas Vermaelen signed from Ajax for a reported £10million.

So, we’ve actually made a signing early doors in the transfer window! Lets hope there’s a DCM following….

Technorati Tags: Thomas Vermaelen

Brace Brace Brace!

2009-06-19T11:17:00.001+01:00

Yeah, we’re about to make a signing apparently. Everyone, grab an oxygen mask. Pulling in down will start the supply of O2 to the mask. Parents and Guardians, please ensure you fit your own mask before helping others.

Thomas Vermaelen will have his medical today according to penniless Sultana. He sounds quite excited about it as well:

“On Friday I will fly to London to undergo a medical. Then I hope to sign. I feel so proud. Arsenal is a fantastic club, and as a child I watched them play.

On Friday, if I go to Emirates Stadium I will be seriously impressed, this will be a big change in my life, next year I will suddenly be facing the best strikers in the world. This does not scare me, I will give everything my body has.

This is one of the best days of my life.”

So, he’s as happy as Larry. I don't know who Larry is or why he’s happy, but I suspect its probably drugs. You can probably tell which is Larry’s house as the roof wont have any snow on it when it snows due to the cannabis factory in his loft. I love that “I will give everything my body has” bit too, as I just get images of him all skinny and empty at the end of the game, with his skin just hanging off his skeletal frame.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t hear about how the story progresses instantly though, remember the Nasri and Arshavin transfers and how long they took? That Arshavin one was on a snow day too, I spent 8 hours clinging onto Sky Sports News’ every word that day, so thank god I’ve got a relatively busy weekend to distract myself from it! So fingers crossed we’ll get this one in the bag and everything will be like Bruce Campbell; Groovy.

Groovy!

The official season review DVD is out soon, don’t all rush to get it…..

Theo assisted James Milner’s goal in England’s 2-0 victory over Spain in the U21 Championships. Check out the video, Theo lights the afterburners at about 2:05 in, toasts his man before threading a perfect pass for Milner to place the ball into the net. Awesome assist, more of that next season please Mr Walcott.

In other news……………erm……………………………………there isn’t any, so I’ll bid you good weekend.

Technorati Tags: Vermaelen,Theo

If you’ve not seen them….

2009-06-17T10:37:00.001+01:00

Here’s the fixtures (until Sky f**k about with them)

August
Sat Aug 15 Everton A
Aug 18/19 UEFA Champions League N Play-off round 1L
Sat Aug 22 Portsmouth H
Aug 25/26 UEFA Champions League Play-off round 2L
Sat Aug 29 Manchester United A

September
Sat Sep 12 Manchester City A
Sep 15/16 UEFA Champions League Matchday 1
Sat Sep 19 Wigan Athletic H
Wed Sep 23 Carling Cup 3
Sat Sep 26 Fulham A
Sep 29/30 UEFA Champions League Matchday 2

October
Sat Oct 3 Blackburn Rovers H
Sat Oct 17 Birmingham City H
Oct 20/21 UEFA Champions League Matchday 3
Sat Oct 24 West Ham United A
Wed Oct 28 Carling Cup 4
Sat Oct 31 Tottenham Hotspur H

November
Nov 3/4 UEFA Champions League Matchday 4
Sat Nov 7 Wolverhampton Wanderers A
Sat Nov 21 Sunderland A
Nov 24/25 UEFA Champions League Matchday 5
Sat Nov 28 Chelsea H

December
Wed Dec 2 Carling Cup 5
Sat Dec 5 Stoke City H
Dec 8/9 UEFA Champions League Matchday 6
Sat Dec 12 Liverpool A
Tue Dec 15 Burnley A
Sat Dec 19 Hull City H
Sat Dec 26 Aston Villa H
Mon Dec 28 Portsmouth A

January
Sat Jan 2 F.A . Cup 3
Wed Jan 6 Carling Cup Semi-Final (1)
Sat Jan 9 Everton H
Sat Jan 16 Bolton Wanderers A
Wed Jan 20 Carling Cup Semi-Final (2)
Sat Jan 23 F.A. Cup 4
Wed Jan 27 Aston Villa A
Sat Jan 30 Manchester United H

February
Sat Feb 6 Chelsea A
Tue Feb 9 Liverpool H
Sat Feb 13 F.A. Cup 5
Feb 16/17/23/24 UEFA Champions League Knockout Round 1L
Sat Feb 20 Sunderland H
Sat Feb 27 Stoke City A
Sun Feb 28 Carling Cup Final

March
Sat Mar 6 Burnley H (F.A. Cup 6)
Mar 9/10/16/17 UEFA Champions League Knockout Round 2L
Sat Mar 13 Hull City A
Sat Mar 20 West Ham United H
Sat Mar 27 Birmingham City A
Mar 30/31 UEFA Champions League Quarter-Final 1L

April
Sat Apr 3 Wolverhampton Wanderers H
Apr 6/7 UEFA Champions League Quarter-Final 2L
Sat Apr 10 Tottenham Hotspur A (F.A. Cup Semi-Final)
Sat Apr 17 Wigan Athletic A
Apr 20/21 UEFA Champions League Semi-Final 1L
Sat Apr 24 Manchester City H
Apr 27/28 UEFA Champions League Semi-Final 2L

May
Sat May 1 Blackburn Rovers A
Sun May 9 Fulham H
Sat May 15 F.A. Cup Final
Sat May 22 UEFA Champions League Final

To be Arranged
Bolton Wanderers H *

So a real tough start to the season, but on the plus side it’s two tough away games put to bed early doors. End of January/early February looks to be the real judgement time for us

Wed Jan 27 Aston Villa A
Sat Jan 30 Manchester United H

Sat Feb 6 Chelsea A
Tue Feb 9 Liverpool H

Ouch! Lets hope we’re there or there abouts by that point. The Liverpool home game concludes our games vs the other ‘Big 4’ sides, which means the run in isn’t too bad. Out games against the scum are:

Sat Oct 31 Tottenham Hotspur H

Sat Apr 10 Tottenham Hotspur A (F.A. Cup Semi-Final)

Other important time is the Christmas period:

Sat Dec 19 Hull City H
Sat Dec 26 Aston Villa H
Mon Dec 28 Portsmouth A

Fingers crossed that’ll be at least 7 points. Might even try for a Pompey away ticket as well.

Anyway, I’ll leave you to work out which games will move about!

Technorati Tags: 2009/10 Fixtures

Has anything happened yet?

2009-06-16T09:26:00.001+01:00

Yeah, I’ve not posted much. Three reasons:

1) I’ve been on holiday

2) It’s been really busy at work

3) Absolutely f**k all has been happening.

Well, not entirely true. Lukasz Flappyhandski signed a new contract last week, and considering he’s only 24 that’s probably a good thing as he’ll hopefully improve. Plus there’s the will he/wont he RVP contract story, the will he/wont he bit depends which red-top rag you are reading. He’ll sign.

Plus there’s the Cesc thing, which is all utter shite fabricated by los putos, the Spanish press, so this is all the time of day I’m giving it!

The old man has sent me an email copied from Gooner Talk, who claim to have the next season’s fixtures leaked by Sky:

After completing their pre-season campaign, the Gunners’ start off with a tough trip to West Ham at Upton Park, Saturday, August 15, 2009.

Following that game, there are some tricky home ties against newly-promoted Burnley and FA Cup champs Chelsea.

In September, Arsene Wenger’s men travel up north to face Bolton on the 12th, before 4-goal magician Andrey Arshavin returns to Anfield against Liverpool.

They finish the month with a home match versus Manchester City.

They even have a pic taken from SSN seemingly confirming it. If correct it’s not great. Primarily as that’s a bloody tough start to the campaign, plus I’m away the bank holiday weekend and would miss Chavski at home. F**king boo!

One thing that did develop while I was on holiday before petering out like Herpes was the potential move of Ajax centre back (and can also cover left back….bye bye Silvestre!) Thomas Vermaelen. I missed the whole thing, but it’s gone from “it’s a case of when not if” to total silence. So chances are, like herpes, it’ll re-emerge when you least expect and we’ll get our man, but probably only at 23:59 on 31st August as usual!

Anyway, back to the grindstone for me. Got my first nets session at Cricket tonight. Could be highly entertaining, but not for me I predict.

Adios!

Technorati Tags: 2009/10 Fixtures,RVP,Cesc,Vermaelen,Cricket,Fabianski

All quiet on some front somewhere…..

2009-06-01T11:46:00.001+01:00

I’ve not posted in a while. Two reasons: One, there’s not been a great deal to post about, and two I’ve been super busy at work, and couldn’t be arsed to do a blog once I got home.

So there!

I’m off on holiday in a few days, so you wont get anything then either. So, erm, just talk amongst yourselves for a bit I guess……

Stokey Stokey Stokey Stoke

2009-05-22T11:32:00.001+01:00

First things first, I’ve just got tickets to see these bad-assed mo-foes at Brixton on November.

Skunk Anansie MOTHERF**KER!!!

Oh yes, 9 years after they split and 10 years since I last saw them, the legendary Skunk Anansie are back! I for one am moist. If you don’t know them then youtube them now. Now, NOW MOTHERF**KER!!!!! Or use the links below for some choice cuts:

Skunk Anansie – All I Want

Skunk Anansie – Weak

Skunk Anansie – Brazen (Weep)

Skunk Anansie – Twisted

Skunk Anansie – Selling Jesus

Anyway. Sunday is the last game of the season (booooooo) with Stoke visiting the Grove. Team news is that Almunia and Nasri are out, Fabianski is 50/50 so we may see young Vito Mannone make his debut in goal. It’s a dead rubber so not too bad a way to make your bow. Other than that it’s the same squad as last weekend. Adebayor apparently still has a groin problem that ruled him out of the trip to Old Trafford last weekend, read into that what you will. Thinking about it he’ll still have to do the lap of the pitch with his team mates at the end of the game, so we’ll know if he’s really injured then. Should be an interesting reception if he shows!

Comedy moment now. After all the evidence, all the truth and absolute proof from Hull that dirty dirty Johnny Foreigner Cesc Fabregas spat on/near/towards/inside Hull Assistant ~~Liar~~ Manager Brian Horton on the pitch/in the tunnel/on the deck of the Mary Rose, the FA have cleared Cesc on both charges he was faced with (spitting and improper conduct on the pitch at the final whistle), citing, surprise f**king surprise, “insufficient evidence”.

Couple this with the fact that Hull ~~Liar~~ Manager Phil “Son of Sam” Brown spent several days in the aftermath of the game making an absolute tit of himself, talking himself into an FA charge, as well as the fact that Hull could get relegated this weekend, makes the whole thing quite amusing.

Lets take a minute to piss ourselves with laughter. In fact, f**k it, lets take three.

"For their club captain Cesc Fabregas to spit at my assistant at the end of the game shows you what this club is all about. I was there and witnessed it, he spat at my assistant manager down the tunnel, that's their captain. Hopefully he's proud of himself. He spat at his feet." – Phil Brown

“It just shows how we've got up the noses of the Arsenal hierarchy.” – Phil Brown

"He wouldn't shake my hand when we beat them fairly 2-1 at the Emirates, he wouldn't shake my hand when they beat us, fairly, 3-1 at the KC Stadium." – Phil Brown

Done? Excellent. Now lets hope Arsenal release the lawyers and really turn the knife, make that orange pr*ck eat his words.

One more thing on the new away kit, apparently we had blue away shirts as early as 1918. Oh, ok then.

Big Phil Senderos (la la la la laaa) has said he’d like to make his stay in Milan permanent. Personally I’d be interested in having him back and seeing what he’s learnt from the likes of Maldini. I mean, if you can’t learn how to defend from a legend such as him and in a league famous for being defensively minded, then you’ve got no hope. But it’s not down to me, if it was then things would be different, oh yes! Adebayor wouldn’t have any kneecaps for a start.….

Monaco defender Cedric Mongongu admits he is flattered to be linked with Arsenal. Really? Excellent, but who the f**k are you? One of the most promising defensive talents in Ligue 1 according to Sky Sports, so I’ll take their word for that.

AA has called for Wenger to spend spend spend! in the summer, saying that we’re only two or three quality players away from being “f**king awesome”. His words, not mine, honest!

That’ll do for the weekend, I’m going to get thoroughly destroyed as Leanne is away. So enjoy the long weekend and, for the last time this season…

COME ON YOU REDS!

Technorati Tags: Son of Sam,Stoke,Senderos,Adebayor,Skunk Anansie

Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

2009-05-21T10:05:00.001+01:00

God I’m tired. Just 6 of us at training last night so no matter how laid back I tried to make the session it was always going to be hard work!

Anyway, all quiet on the Arsenal front, apart from new pics of the away kit and ‘keepers kit, as modelled by the skipper, Almunia, Theo and Arshavin:

Like I said before, smart kit, but not Arsenal. Apparently the design “Celebrates the sartorial excellence of the Club’s London birthplace”. After watching the promo video on .com I’m still none the wiser how the hell it does that! And what's the deal with the ‘registered’ symbol to the bottom right of the crest. Ok, do it on other products, but on our shirts? Pffft, makes it look crappy.

Eduardo had “simply ankle revision surgery” yesterday and will be back for pre-season, nothing too major by the sounds of things.

Something that totally went under my radar last week was the return of Thomas Rosicky to first team training. Will be good to have him back but I’ll believe it when I see it!

Young Gun Rui Fonte has returned to parent club Sporting Lisbon. Basically we had the lad on a three year development contract with the option to buy at the end, which we’ve decided not to take.I only saw him play a few times in online reserves highlights and he didn’t look to bad, but there you go. Probably end up scoring against us in the CL in a few years, sods law!

Adebayor’s agent has said something of insignificance I can’t be bothered to comment on.

Right, time for a hardcore caffeine injection to the face. Laters.

Technorati Tags: Eduardo,Away kit,Rui Fonte,Cesc,Almunia,Theo,Arshavin,Rosicky

The Wenger love in threatens to get stickier….

2009-05-20T11:07:00.001+01:00

So, according to the Mail he’s definitely staying:

‘There's nothing to worry about, it's not an issue for me. I'm staying here. If that changes I will let you know, but don't worry about that. It's not an issue.'

Bob Wilson also agrees:

"Knowing Arsene as I do, I don't think he would ever walk out on a contract.

When you sign a player like (Andrey) Arshavin for that amount of money, when you get a player like Cesc Fabregas to agree to a seven-year contract, the player and their representatives are surely going to say along the way 'where do you feature in this boss?',"

"Unless there was 90% or 80% or 60% or 70% of people against him, I don't think he would ever walk out on a contract because he was such an honourable guy."

To be honest, it’s all been a storm in a teacup. He made one comment last Thursday night and the entire media has suddenly made a mountain out of a molehill. The Spanish have, as they always do that this time of year, leapt upon this mountain and tried to whack a giant flag on top through the “traditional” use of carefully selected sound bites designed to unsettle their selected target. To them I say:

F**K OFF C**TOS! Your TAPAS ARE BURNING!

Sunday is promising to be a bit of a Wenger-love-in with a variety of banners being paraded over the internet in support of Le Boss as well as a plan to sing his name for the first twenty and last ten minutes of the game, and probably some chunks in-between. That and the usual cry of “give the lads our support, even Adebayor!”

Part of me thinks “excellent, everyone is going to sing and I wont get as many odd looks when its just be and my cousin giving it both lungs at the back of block 98”, however there’s another part of me that is cringing a tad.

Yes, lets give the lads our support, its been a long season and a hard last few weeks of it that's tested everyone linked to the club. To go from one point looking like we’re certs to miss out on CL qualification to cruising into the top four again is certainly an effort worth applauding (although we should be bloody singing every week if you ask me!) But there’s another part of me that's thinking “is this just going to be a celebration of mediocrity. Well done, we finished 4th again, shoop-da-woop,” and send out the wrong message? Granted we made two semi finals as well, but lets get a bit of perspective, this season has been the absolute minimum we should be looking for. We’re still a country mile behind Man United and Wenger’s team selection in both of the cup semi finals have got to be questioned.

The good ship Arsenal isn’t sinking or even listing dangerously, she just needs to learn from her shortfalls this term and have her course adjusting slightly.

So lets get behind the team on Sunday, show that we are one behind Wenger and the team. But lets not forget that there have been failings that need to be addressed over the summer and without that happening we may lose sight of land.

I’ll stop with the sailing references, that got a bit surreal!

Technorati Tags: Wenger,Madrid,Stoke

WTF did I do this weekend?

2009-05-19T10:37:00.001+01:00

Hmmm, so basically getting blind drunk on Friday, then topping up on Saturday for our early kickoff and drinking the rest of the day and deep into the night has totally killed my memory.

I vaguely remember going to cricket (Surrey lost, again), apparently I got steaming and performed a victory dance with my pants around my ankles after winning on Wii bowling later that night. I may have also ended up in a hedge……

This means that when I started back on the beer at Scott’s for the Arsenal game it just increased the drunken haze I was already experiencing, so here’s my memories:

Lots of possession but few shots
Same for them but with less possession
Song played well at CB
Gibbs played well
Arshavin is awesome
Ronaldo is a diving ladyboy c**t
Mike Dean is a c**t. They kick us = Freekick. We kick them = Freekick and yellow. Come again?
We played well but I got this niggly feeling that with them only needing a point to secure the league they weren’t overly adventurous.
But saying that we played well and worked hard
Mmmmm, Pistachio nuts….

So yeah, in the ~~cold~~ sober light of day, we played well and worked hard and deserved at least a point. But you could tell that United weren't overly concerned about getting the win if that jeopardised a point or any injuries ahead of the CL final. In essence, we were allowed to play.

Interestingly, an Adebayor interview was screened on football focus before the game. Not had a chance to check it but the general gist of it was he criticised the fans for booing him. He then was ruled out of the match with a groin injury. Coincidence?

This post has now taken me 2 days to write, during which time AC Milan president Sylvio Berlusconi has made his interest in the Togolese striker known, shortly followed by Inter, although the lack of quotes suggests a bit of bandwagon jumping and assumption by the Telegraph for the Inter piece.

Oh god, while I’ve been on the lash the whole Wenger thing has blown up at the Shareholders Q&A. Apparently there were a few heated exchanges from disgruntled shareholders, Wenger criticising the fans for a negative atmosphere.

Referring to Manchester United's Champions League semi-final win at the Emirates, Wenger added: “There is a massive difference between the away fans, who are absolutely fantastic, and the home ones.

"It is always that negative way of thinking, that the players do not care.”

The difference was one set of fans was watching their team being humbled at home by a much better team, while the others were taking a significant step to achieving an unprecedented quadruple! Of course they’re going to be louder, we conceded 2 quick goals to stun the fans, team, and effectively end the season! After suffering that shortly after the bizarre episode at Wembley it basically knocked everyone for six.

He does have a point though, if you look throughout the season there’s always been a scapegoat. Eboue, Song, Bendtner and Adebayor. The only difference is the criticism of Adebayor has been constant, partially due to last summer and partially due to his poor form. Eboue, Song and Bendtner have come back stronger for it, got their heads down and grafted, the latter two especially. I can’t see Adebayor staying and personally I hope he goes, he got his bumper pay last summer and hasn’t reached those giddy heights since, his form and workrate has been effected and the fans have had enough. I don’t care if you’re not technically brilliant, look at Bendtner, like I said, he’s knuckled down and was still running his nuts off when we were 4-0 down on aggregate against United. I can’t remember many occasions that Adebayor has done the same, only Villarreal away when he was threatened with substitution perhaps?

Peter Hill-Wood has come out with his bit following the Q&A:

"Frankly, some of the questions were quite disgraceful," he told the Daily Mirror. "There you have the most successful manager in our history and two or three of the shareholders made the most negative and somewhat hostile and sarcastic comments, which I think were completely out of order."

I think we all need to take a time out with this one now!

Other Wenger news, well, the Madrid thing, I won’t give it the time of day because we always get this utter s**te at this time of year from either them or Barca. Put simply:

Wenger at Arsenal: Total control over everything

Wenger at Madrid: Dictated to by the President, sacked unless he secures a La Liga and Champions League double.

What do you think Wenger would do?

One final thing, I put up the leaked pics of our new away kit last week. Release date for his is June 25th. Interestingly FSC have a list of 09/10 shirt releases, and according to this we’ve got an “international” away shirt coming out on July 23rd as well. Could it be the green effort? One thing’s for sure, they certainly know how to milk the fans for every f**king penny!

That’s your lot today. More gibberings later this week.

Technorati Tags: Man United,Wenger,away shirt,International shirt,Madrid,Milan,Inter,Adebayor

Busy

2009-05-14T11:05:00.001+01:00

Super busy here today, so I’m reduced to a linkfest:

Arsenal blow the Rice rumours out the water

Gazidis looks forward to next season, saying 4th isn’t good enough and that money is available.

Sky are reporting that we’ve got a young Argentine keeper on trial with a deal already on the table.

The purple-nosed one has said this about us re: Saturday

"We'll approach the game the way we always approach a game. We still have a job to do.

"It is against a very good Arsenal side - I don't take any notice of what is written, they are a very good side."

I don’t like it when he’s nice, it means he no longer sees us as a threat.

You might get some more later from me once I’ve escaped my meetingfest. If not then it’ll be silent running ‘till Monday as I’m at the Oval tomorrow for Surrey v Durham. Thankfully the weather has improved and we should get a game.

Laters

Technorati Tags: Rice,Gazidis,Man United,Surrey

Once again Nike take a steaming dump on our tradition

2009-05-13T11:01:00.001+01:00

This looks like it’ll be our away shirt for next season, leaked pics courtesy of Football Shirt Culture.

Sadly this seems to tie up with the current promotional material on the official site, right down to the pinstripes.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s a smart shirt, but we’re Arsenal. Home shirt is red shirt with white sleeves, away is yellow with blue. Not all blue, not white, yellow with blue. At least the leaked re-hash of the green and navy 82-83 away shirt had some roots to our past. This one goes back as far as 1995 when Nike replaced Adidas as our kit manufacturer. I’ll probably still buy it as it is a nice shirt and I’m a bit of a kit junkie, but can someone at the club please sort this out when our next kits are due? Home shirt is red shirt with white sleeves, away is yellow with blue. Got that? Nice one.

In other news, the Times is reporting that Pat Rice is considering retiring. No quotes to support it but if changes are needed then certainly bringing in a new number two to help guide Arsene’s hand wouldn’t do any harm. Many people, including myself, think that he’s got too many “yes” men around him and needs some checks and balances to point out his errors.

One final thing, yesterday was the 30th anniversary of the 1979 FA Cup Final victory over United, dubbed the “Five Minute Final”, a day that seemed to have haunted Steve Coppell since and fuel his hatred of Arsenal. So nice to see this happen last night, followed by this.

Rightyo, I’m off to prey to the gods for the rain to f**k of by Friday so I can enjoy the Cricket at the Oval.

Technorati Tags: Away shirt,Pat Rice,Coppell,Surrey

Uhhhh, so…..yeah!

2009-05-12T12:35:00.001+01:00

Not a great deal going on. Why the hell would you inflict this on your child?

RVP feels sorry for the fans. Rightly so, nice to see one of our overpaid mercenaries realise that someone actually suffers for their drudgery.

Silvestre says that next season’s title tilt starts at Old Trafford this Saturday.

“All the players now have to fight for their spots and show the boss they deserve to be there and have the will to defend Arsenal's colours.”

Wow, if there’s an article to inspire you then this probably isn’t it. So, NOW they have to fight for their spots and defend Arsenal’s colours? What about the last ten months then?? Shut up and learn how to defend, puto!

As you can tell I’m getting a little pissed off with modern day footballers. Talk is cheap and they are not. All good talking about how they’re going to do this that and the other, but cross that white line and you’ll see quite a few not give a flying f**k and just happily collect their millions while the rest of us slave away for the “privilege” of doing it all again. I actually now prey for a salary cap, bring football back onto this planet and give the players a dose of reality. Speaking of doses, I hope Adebayor gets a dose of anthrax.

The Emirates Cup will see Athletico Madrid, PSG and Rangers visit the Grove on the weekend of 1st and 2nd August, with it already confirmed that Rangers will have their support segregated. All MET leave has been cancelled for that weekend as North London braces itself. Will be a great atmosphere thats for sure for the Arsenal v Rangers game on the Sunday (we play Athletico on the Saturday which should also be good) but lets hope it’s all kept in good spirit.

Interesting how Adebayor isn’t being used to advertise the tournament!

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the “5 minute cup final”. Happier times.

Arshavin is “baffled” by Wenger playing him wide on the left.

"Sometimes I feel I can do well here but other times I don't - and that's probably because I am playing as a left midfielder.

"I still can't get used to the idea that I am capable of playing there and, frankly, having to do it keeps me baffled.

"I don't know if I can play so well as a left winger or if it is just God taking care of me."

Has Wenger gone mental, like some mad professor of football? Possibly. That would explain Adebayor, transparent bolts in the side of the neck y’see. A self conscious and fashion aware monster. Still can’t understand the offside trap though, tw*t.

Matthieu Coutadeur has said that there’s “nothing concrete” in our interest in him and that he’s eyeing up a move to PSG from Le Mans in the summer. Oddly enough I signed him by chance on PES and he turned out to be quite a good DCM. However then Diaby became world class and edged him out of the squad while we captured our 3rd consecutive Champions League title and 4th consecutive Premiership title to go with the cup and giving us a 3rd treble in as many seasons, so maybe PES isn’t the best thing to base our summer transfer activity on!

Right, I think that’s enough of a linkfest for today. Oh, and apparently Kronke has upped his stake in the club to 28.3%, just 1.7% below the limit where he’ll be forced to bid for a takeover. Got this emailed from the old man, not sure of the source:

Stan Kroenke has purchased a further small amount of Arsenal shares, with the American billionaire's total holding remaining at 28.3% of the Barclays Premier League club, it has been confirmed.

Kroenke, who last year accepted an invitation to join the club's board, acquired two more ordinary shares on April 30, at a price of £6,750 each, a statement released on Tuesday morning on the PLUS market said.

The Kroenke Enterprise Group are the largest shareholder in Arsenal, ahead of Uzbek tycoon Alisher Usmanov, after a recent £42.5million purchase of stock from director Danny Fiszman and then increasing their stake with another 4,839 shares from members of the Carr family, also at the end of April.

Under financial regulations, were any single shareholder to reach a 30% threshold, they would be obliged to make a takeover bid. However, it is understood Kroenke has no intentions of any such move....just yet!

As opposed as I was to a takeover it’s starting to look inevitable, and with the squad needing investment to push on for honours this guy looks the lesser of two evils. I’ll probably talk more about this tomorrow. Maybe.

Anyway, that's your lot. Adios.

Technorati Tags: Adebayor,Kronke,Usmanov,Emirates Cup,Arshavin,Silvestre,Coutadeur

Stop the season, I want to get off…..

2009-05-11T12:00:00.001+01:00

So, another thrashing in our own back yard. I can pretend I’m bothered by this but for some reason I’m pretty chirpy this morning, so I wont really let this spineless display get me down.

I played hockey yesterday so haven’t seen anything of the game. And after speaking to the old man I decided to give Match of the Day 2 a swerve as well. But the general impression I’m getting is that we started really, really well, conceded against the run of play after the ref bought a Drogba dive, went at them again, conceded to the f**king Mercenary (well, one of them!), went into halftime two down instead of three up and promptly stopped giving a toss. Interestingly Arshavin didn’t feature against the Chavs for the second time, flu apparently the reason. I love a good conspiracy theory me, and personally I can’t look past the whole dodgy Russian owner/Russian national manger/Kittens and AK47 theory behind the situation!

We entered the game with a vague hope of finishing 3rd, but as I stated last week realistically this game was a dead rubber, with 4th assured we’re just playing out the season. Unfortunately with yesterdays game and United away next weekend it could be a painful week before our final game at home against Stoke, a side that also has nothing to play for. I’m honestly expecting United, who may only need a point to secure the title against us, to put five away.

But, one massive positive that slapped me round the face like a live Salmon yesterday was that the humbling that we’ve received in the past week, and will probably get again next weekend, is that it will hopefully, hopefully open both Wenger and the Board’s eyes as to what must be done this summer. The side is full of potential but we desperately need one, probably 2 quality, ESTABLISHED (and not Mikael f**king Silvestre, a proper player) centre backs and a decent centre mid. The trouble we had this season was the lack of the latter and so kept trying out different players (Diaby, Song, Denilson, Nasri) with little joy. Wenger has noted this and has said he will strengthen in the summer:

"We'll look to sign one or two players. We are prepared to spend the necessary money to get the players we want."

Ok, that's encouraging, but I’d say its more like three or four players rather than one or two. It’s a view echoed by Jabba Usmanov:

“At times it was a bit like men against boys (us v Man United). Does the club need to take a step up? Of course. To be first in the world, to be first in Europe, you must have a much stronger bench.”

"Look at United on Tuesday night. They had at least £100m in talent sitting on the bench."

Hate to say it, but the chubby one has it bang on the head. We’ve had a horrific time of it with injuries, and when fit our first team is pretty awesome (minus Adebayor). The trouble has been those coming in aren’t yet the required quality to maintain a bid for any silverware. Wenger has said he doesn’t want to “kill the kids” by signing big players, but we’re now at the stage where the fans do actually want to “kill the kids” literally, enough is enough.

However, is the money available? I guess we’ll find out one way or another this summer. Either the manager has the cash but wants to keep the faith with his experiment, or there actually isn’t any finance available to bring the players required in, his hands are tied and the board has lead the fans on a merry dance with empty promises that we can compete. And if the latter is true then the board could find themselves in a spot of bother.

One thing that certainly also doesn’t help is when the manager keeps f**king with the side and resorting to playing players out of position. Stop c**ting about with 4-4-1-1 or whatever the hell formation we’re trying, stop playing Nasri as a holding midfielder with Diaby of all f**king people on the left and Bendtner on the right. Nasri is a attacking winger, Diaby is a defensive midfielder who jumps up to attack occasionally (no matter how much he thinks he’s Maradonna or whoever, that’s what he is) and Bendtner is a big, f**koff centre forward. That’s what they are, PLAY THEM THERE! Yes, it worked against Boro, but they’re utter sh**e and probably going down, THAT’S WHY IT WORKED! We then used the same “masterplan” for two games against United and one against Chavski. The result: 3 defeats, 8 goals conceded, 2 scored and humiliation. GO FOUR-FOUR-F**KING-TWO!!!!!

Anyway, this is now a rant, it’s been that kind of week. I’m in two minds weather to actually watch the United game next weekend, I’ll probably decide on the morning if I want to torture myself further.

But on a happy note, my hockey season finished yesterday with a thorough dismantling of University of Portsmouth, we won 18-0 and I bagged a brace to finish the season with 10 goals, 5 assists and 4th highest points scorer on the team. Can’t actually remember the last time I scored double digits in a season, but I’ve got the feeling it may have been when I was 15, so I’m happy with that!

Anyway, I’m going to have a Pink Floyd-athon. Adios muchachos.

Technorati Tags: Farnborough Arrows,Pink Floyd,Chavski,Wenger,United

He’s an Englishman at Arsenal…..

2009-05-08T11:40:00.001+01:00

So, Theo has signed a new, long term contract. Good times.

Ok, so he’s got a dodgy shoulder and was played out of the 2 semi finals against United, but the kid’s only 20 and is going to only get better, so to secure his services for X number of years more is a great move.

Arseblog gave the initial heads up on this article, but just in case you’ve not read today’s Arseblog (why the hell not??) here it is again. I usually hate the Mirror, but John Cross hits the Adebayor nail on the head. I wish someone would hit Adebayor on the head. With a lorry. Repeatedly.

Chavski on Sunday in a battle of two teams that are 3rd and 4th and will probably finish in those positions too. Although it’s a London Derby I can see it being a bit of a non-event which they’ll probably win. I don’t think any of our injured players are scheduled to return, Clichy is out for the remaining 3 games with the boss not wanting to rush him back. Arshavin has a bit of the flu but should feature.

It’s looking like we may have to watch United be presented with the trophy when we go up there next weekend. Could be a long week potentially.

I won’t be watching Sunday, the old man is heading to the game and I have my last hockey game of the season vs University of Portsmouth which some ignorant t**t decided to put at 16:20 on Sunday afternoon, as if my hockey fixtures weren’t bad enough to them make them clash with Arsenal is disgraceful! Skulls will be crushed, oh yes!

Finally, The Who will be playing an acoustic set at the “Legends and Youths Ball” at the end of the season in aid of the TCT. The idea of meeting Arsenal players while watching a Who live set is a pretty awesome one, but at £1,200 for a pair of tickets probably just a little out of my price range!

Have a good weekend, lets hope Arsenal can put some smiles back on our faces.

Technorati Tags: The Who,Adebayor,Theo,Farnborough Arrows

Feeling Fine….

2009-05-07T11:17:00.001+01:00

Well, I’m not actually. I’m still pissed off and the only comfort I can have that we were so far behind United in terms of quality that you can’t really complain with the result. And if that were a physical comfort, it’d be a teddy bear lined with razorblades and a mace for a head. Pretty s**t comfort!

I find Chavski’s result a bit better. Yeah, celebrating our rivals shortcomings is something that lot from the swamp would do, but f**k it, when we’re down, lets mock those that fall also!

I’ve not seen any of last night, but heard about the Chav’s behaviour at the end, surely some serious bannage will come? I doubt it, money talks.

Speaking of money talking, Adebayor has pledged his future to the club. Not just twisting the knife, but pissing on the open wound at the same time. Not sure about you but I was planning on which Defensive Centre Mid and f**koff scary Centre Back we were going to purchase with the cash we got from getting rid of Greedy. Bollocks. Lets hope its reverse logic like last summer, when he said he was off then stayed…

Another striker behaving badly is Nicklas Bendtner, who was seen being escorted out of a nightclub seeming a little worse for ware and with his trousers round his ankles. A Bendtner Bender! Anyway, he’s issued an apology. Ok, it’s not the thing you’d expect or want a professional footballer to do, but I think most of us wanted to go drink ourselves to oblivion on Tuesday night so I can kinda feel for him, he seemed to be one of the few that really cared, unlike a certain Togolese striker WHO I CAN’T BELIEVE HAS SAID HE’S STAYING. WHY??? F**KING WHY??????

Rumours are flying about at the moment that both Wenger and Theo have signed/are close to signing/will sign new contracts. Just rumours at the moment.

One massive this that was highlighted by the United defeat is that it was men against boys and Wenger needs to re-assess his methods to achieve European glory. We needed established players a few years back but the team has gotten younger. Half of this is probably down to the manager, the other half is that no-doubt his hands are tied by the board with regards to finance because of the stadium loan. While thinking of the latter one interesting point I read online that is bang on the money was with regards to his scouting network. Why look at youngsters at the moment when if we re-focused attention to areas such as eastern Europe there are probably players with the quality, age and experience that can be bought cheap (ish) i.e. Vidic when United got him. Are the scouts too obsessed with age or are we just looking for the wrong needles in the wrong haystacks? It’s a great point. Unearth developed talent rather than potential.

Anyway, that’s enough for today, Surrey are about to start their second day vs Middlesex and Ramprakash is on 126 not out, so I’m going to listen to that.

Enjoy.

Technorati Tags: Fallout,Wenger,Theo,Bendtner,Surrey,Scouting,Adebayor,Ramprakash

Numb

2009-05-06T09:05:00.001+01:00

Men against boys. Says it all really……….

BELIEVE!

2009-05-05T12:02:00.001+01:00

A quality long weekend with muchos muchos cerveza will ensure that this is a short post.

Good win at Pompey at the weekend, quite easy really and it could see them being dragged back into the relegation scuffle if they’re not careful. We put out a second string and did the job in style.

Now, important matters. Tonight. The Mancs. A place in the final up for grabs.

I still think we can do this!

RVP is in the squad, I believe Silvestre is as well, so no new injuries following Pompey, which makes a nice change!

Going to be an awesome atmosphere tonight, the Grove will be rocking and the club has dished out 60k Arsenal flags to improve the atmosphere. Personally I think that’s tacky as hell, especially after mocking that lot from the West End for their artificial atmosphere. But sod it, its a one off and we need a kick up the arse.

Lets hope my hazy and pissed up blog tomorrow will be one of unconfined joy.

COME ON YOU REDS!

Technorati Tags: Believe,Champions League Semi Final

Pompey away and beer on a sunny day

2009-05-01T10:32:00.001+01:00

Pompey away tomorrow, bit of a non-event this is expect.

We know that Clichy is out and wont make the game on Tuesday either, good thing we have Wonderboy Gibbs.

Yeah, put that ladyboy c**t on his arse!

Also injured are Silvestre and Eduardo (again), both with groin injuries and both doubtful for Tuesday.

Tomorrow is pretty much a dead rubber, they’re pretty much safe, a win and we’re guaranteed 4th, we’ll still be guaranteed 4th if we lose and Villa fail to win, I think. I’m expecting a score draw and lots of rotating players. I don’t mean literally spinning in circles, I mean chop and changing, all that, you know…..

Anyway, I’m off to the Reading Beer Festival to get royally c**ted and eat my bodyweight in pork scratchings (and that’s a lot).

Enjoy the long weekend and COME ON YOU REDS!

Down, but not out

2009-04-30T10:25:00.001+01:00

First things first. United were the better team last night, no bones about it.

So, lets pick at the bones. We went 4-5-1 but without the one. Well, I say without, Adebayor was on the pitch, but to say he was going through the motions is an understatement of gargantuan proportions. There were only "token" efforts to run for the ball, challenge or win a header, a piss poor first touch and an inability to pass or hold up the ball. the guy was total waste of space last night. God only knows why Wenger waited until the 80th minute to drag his sorry arse off the pitch and replace him with Eduardo. With that clown up front, we were impotent as an attacking force.

He needs to go in the summer.

Diaby was also equally shocking last night. Poor first touches, an inability to pass and a love for turning into trouble in vulnerable areas made him a liability, while Theo Walcott struggled throughout with poor form, no real will to attack his man with pace and Rooney tracking back to double team him with Vidic, and not in a sexy double team kinda way either.

In a game when we couldn’t afford passengers, we had 3 in key positions.

F**k me I’m writing like Miles Palmer.

Wenger’s team selection was also poor. Playing Song ahead of Nasri and pushing Cesc into the hole? Might have worked against Boro, but they’re sh**e. Nasri proved in November that he’s a potent attacking force, why not use him as one? And having Bendtner on the right wing crossing to Adebayor? That a guy who can’t cross trying to cross to a guy who refuses to jump for headers! Madness!

Ok, enough of the negatives. Lets put some positive spin on last night. Almunia kept us in the tie with an astounding first half display. Kieran Gibbs is getting better and better, the lad doesn’t look like a 19 year old with just 5 premiership appearances to his name, he’s got maturity beyond his years. He frustrated the Ladyboy all night, who had to resort to diving (shock horror) and then promptly throwing all of his toys out of the pram. It was only when the tranny switched sides that he got a little more joy, that good was Gibbs last night.

In the second half we established ourselves a little more, and while because of that useless c**t up front and Theo’s shocker we offered little in attack ourselves, the Ladyboy’s howitzer off the bar and Giggs’ offside goal were all that the Plastics could offer. Defensively a massive improvement from the game a week before at Anfield.

But vitally, as little as we offered last night, we could have been out of this in the first half hour. But you know what, we’re not, it’s only one nil. We’ve got a second life, another bite of the cherry, another ride of the whore (is that a real saying Francis? Seriously? Fair enough…) Yes, one goal for them on Tuesday and we’ll need three, but I honestly believe, hand on heart, that last night was their chance to take this tie and put it to bed,and they didn’t.

I believe, next week, we’ll do them.

Sod logic, there’s a sense of destiny about this. Eighteen days shy of the 20th Anniversary of that night at Anfield (yeah, I’ve got goosebumps too), and we’re in the same position. Facing the champions of England and needing a two goal victory.

This isn’t over. This is just the beginning. Where we go from here, is up to us.

Sorry about the Matrix references!

Technorati Tags: Believe,Champions League Semi Final

Gametime!

2009-04-29T13:08:00.001+01:00

So, this is it. Ground Zero.

I’m an absolute shambles this morning. Can’t think straight, restless, irritable, excited, and I decided to drink a few coffees and listen to ACDC, Sabbath and Metallica.

I’m concerned for what I may do to my workmates….

Team news. Vela is in the squad despite being quarantined following a visit from two friends from Mexico. Eduardo makes the squad despite being AWOL the last few weeks for reasons only the club knows. Gibbs and Silvestre had fitness tests this morning apparently so we’ll know later if we’re either screwed, royally screwed or Howard Webb screwed. If Gibbs isn’t fit I’d prey that Sagna switches to the left and Eboue plays right back. We shouldn’t fear, Eboue is up for it:

"To play in my second Champions League semi-final is fantastic. I never dreamed about that in my suburb in Abidjan called Nouveau Quartier Yopougon.

"We will be ready for Manchester. They are a great team, they are the cup holders, they have got some amazing footballers, but we will be ready for them.”

You hear that United, Eboue is ready! F**king run ya b*****ds!

It’s now the afternoon, just 6hrs and 45 minutes from kickoff, I’m wearing my lucky pants which have a big hole in them, so if I were to sh*t myself the result would be apocalyptic.

Lets hope tonight’s result isn’t

COME ON YOU YELLOWS!

Technorati Tags: Champions League Semi Final,Gibbs,Sagna,Vela,Eboue,Brown Trousers

Just over 24 hours to go

2009-04-28T13:09:00.001+01:00

And I can’t think of anything else.

It’s doing my head in, biggest game of the season, a defence maimed by injury, a potent attacking force taking on the European and Premiership Champions.

We could either pull off an unlikely result or be destroyed.

Logic says it should be the latter. As good as Gibbs has been since he was thrust into the starting line-up he’s got to keep the twinkle toed ladyboy quiet. If Silvestre plays they may as well play the retired remains of Ole Gunnar Solskjær up front, that bad is Silvestre. Rooney on a good day would be a handful for Adams and Keown. Fingers crossed Djourou is fit to give us some hope.

But hope we do have. The history of Arsenal is littered with great victories as the underdog:

Anderlecht 1970 at home in the Fairs Cup Final.

Juventus 1980 away in the CWC semi final.

Liverpool 1987

Anfield 1989

Parma 1994

Old Trafford 1998

1-0 in the Bernabau 2006

2-0 home to Juventus in 2006

2-0 in the San Siro 2008

We’ve done it before, can we do it again?

Technorati Tags: 24hrs to go,Man United,CL Semi Final

Cescy!

2009-04-27T14:58:00.001+01:00

Uuuuurrrrrggghhh. I should probably write a proper blog here but I really cant be arsed. Yesterday’s “few pints in the pub during the game” ended up turning into a session. I blame you Burnie, you and my lack of ability to say no.

So, that was quite easy really wasn’t it, and Wenger’s first win over Gareth Southgate who apparently was the only manager in the Premiership to have never lost to Wenger until yesterday.

Boro had few chances and it’s quite obvious to see why they’re going down, and with a whimper too from yesterday’s performance. I was surprised how gutless Boro were, especially given their situation. Looked beaten once the first went in and showed no fight after the second. Not that that's a problem for us as it provided a good opportunity to rest a few players once the job was done with an eye on the CL semi on Wednesday night. Oooh, getting goosebumps just thinking about it!

Anyway, other news. The FA have predictably charged Cesc over gobgate, once for the gob which everyone/the whole world/Jesus saw and once for coming onto the pitch. Smacks of a witch-hunt to me against the dirty horrible foreigner, boo talented migrant workers! They’ve slapped the second charge on there so they get their pound of meat either way. Will be interesting to see if that charge is applied in other games, can see there being real issues at Craven Cottage as both sides have to walk across the pitch between the dugout and tunnel! Typical FA, can’t get the ticket allocation of a cup final right but can punish us for something no-one/everyone/Jesus saw!

Monday afternoon brutality, provided by Pepe of Real Madrid.

Adios!

Technorati Tags: Boro,Cesc,Gobgate

Boro home = Goalfest?

2009-04-24T11:41:00.001+01:00

Ok, so, Boro at home on Sunday lunchtime. I’m not going so the pub it’ll be for me and no doubt a Olympic swimming pool of Stella shall be consumed.

Team news is that Adebayor, Almunia and Djourou could all feature. My god we need Djourou back to plug the hole. RVP is out until probably Pompey next Saturday while Clichy could feature in the Champions League Semi Final second leg vs the Plastics. So slowly but surely we’re getting close to a full squad, nearly, maybe…..

Boro will scrap this weekend as they’re knee deep in the cack, so this wont be easy. However, they’re second bottom for a reason, mainly because they’re crap. So one all? Aliadiere? Probably, knowing what we’re like. However you’ve got to hope with Arshavin looking so so so f**king good and the rest of our attacking options you’ve got to expect three points regardless of how shite our defence is playing at the moment. Fingers crossed we can get the job done early so players can be rested ahead of Wednesday night’s massive massive game that will no doubt make me consume copious amounts of beer. But we’ll think about that next week.

Enjoy the weekend and COME ON YOU REDS!

Technorati Tags: Arshavin,Adebayor,Djourou,Almunia,RVP,Boro,stella

Fourplay!

2009-04-23T14:01:00.001+01:00

Apologies for not blogging yesterday, busy day and after a game like that I really didn’t know what to write!

So, what a game. On the plus side we didn’t lose, played well on the counter and scored four at Anfield, no mean feat. Although when I say that you could just apply that to our Russian Dynamo Andrey Arshavin! The negatives, we conceded four, the defence looked ragged all night and we coughed the lead on three occasions, twice shortly after taking it, very similar to our CL quarter final at the same ground a year ago.

You could look at that and say that the lessons from that game, and indeed the home game against the scum this season, haven’t been learnt. However the defence last night wasn’t even close to first choice. Silvestre looked further away than ever from the quality we require and just makes you wonder had we had Djourou or Gallas available for that and the Semi final where we’d be now, especially as Chavski drew last night. Gibbs learnt a few things as well, at times showing his inexperience. But this is an 18 year old who has only played a handful of first team games against the likes of Torres, Kuyt and Babel and was getting little help from midfield. Most established defenders would struggle with players of that calibre, so the lad done good in my eyes. Song also did exceptionally well, especially as he had to carry the slack for the poor Denilson. Actually I don't think Song misplaced a pass until the 75th minute, that's got to be a record! Fabianski also played well despite conceding four goals, pretty much single handedly keeping Liverpool at bay and us one up in the first half, and going some way to erase memories of his performance at Wembley.

Someone else who was ok I guess was some Russian bloke we bought in January. I mean, 4 goals isn’t that bad is it. Why the hell he didn’t play against Chavski only Wenger knows, but Arshavin’s performance at Anfield can only fuel the feeling of “what if”. Since the game, Andrey has announced that he wishes to end his career in the Red and White. Oh, ok then, if you insist!

Last thing on the Liverpool game is this clip. I love it, sums it all up! YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING, BECAUSE THATS 1000 MILES PER HOUR! ARSHAVIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINNN!

Finally, well done to the Young Guns, who made the FA Youth Cup Final by beating holders Man Citeh 4-1 on the night and 6-2 on aggregate. They’ll probably face Liverpool in the final, which I think is over 2 legs, so no-doubt they’ll get another impressive attendance at the Grove to watch that one.

Thoughts on Boro tomorrow, enjoy the sun.

Technorati Tags: Arshavin,Silvestre,Liverpool,Young Guns

Can Arsenal topple the Kop?

2009-04-21T12:58:00.001+01:00

Liverpool away, always a big game but this is vital for both sides in pursuit of a title and CL spot (obviously only one of the two applies for us, sadly).

Team news, RVP and Adebayor are out with groin and hamstring niggles respectively. Eduardo and Sagna are back however Wenger isn’t sure if the right back will start. Personally I’d go for this tonight:

Fabianski

Sagna/Eboue Toure Silvestre Gibbs

Walcott Fabregas Song Nasri

Arshavin

Bendtner

However after the weekend’s formation and lineup controversy god knows what the hell Wenger will do. Possibly Diaby for Arshavin? Arshavin for Cesc? Mannone for Bendtner? Another concern is that it’s out of the frying pan (Drogba) and into the fire (Torres) tonight. The Scouse Spanish Talisman is in top top form at the moment, whereas Silvestre, well, erm, f**k……..

One thing we do know that this has the potential to be an absolute blinder. Two good attacking sides looking for a result, a decent surface and a loud atmosphere. Only thing that could ruin it is that Howard Webb is refereeing, so expect the usual decision in front of the Kop, probably a winning penalty in the 98th minute after Rafa trips over a water bottle in his technical area (oh yes, I’m still bitter after last season’s trilogy!)

Another thing of mention tonight is there will be two collages held up by the sets of fans before the start, honouring former Kop and North Bank legend Ray Kennedy, who sadly suffers from Parkinsons. Rumour is that he may be in attendance as well, fingers crossed. Please visit the Ray of Hope appeal site, which aims to raise enough funds to purchase essential equipment and services for Ray. Ray's illness has deprived him not only of his health but of his livelihood as he was robbed of the chance to make a living through the media or coaching following his retirement.

Obviously we’ll be in yellow tonight, we all remember what happened twenty years ago at Anfield. Lets hope for another Micky Thomas moment tonight!

ALLEZ ARSENAL!

Technorati Tags: Liverpool,Up for grabs now,Ray Kennedy,Torres,Silvestre,Eduardo,Sagna,Arshavin

Confusing team selection costs dear

2009-04-20T12:51:00.001+01:00

Before the game we were all wondering if it was Arshavin or Nasri starting. Wenger decided it would be neither.

Much has been said about that move, especially as we really had to have a proper go straight from the off to have a decent chance of winning, so leaving out two of our better creative players and opting for Denilson and Diaby was controversial to say the least. My only thought as to why is that Wenger saw the form Essien is in and decided to go for height and strength to subdue the threat from midfield. Either that or he decided to de-prioritise the FA Cup and focus all attention on 4th place and Europe, an unpopular decision to say the least if true!

However I never thought we’d see the day we’d come away from an FA Cup Semi Final wishing that Wenger had started Song instead of Diaby. Strange times!

The day itself was awesome, in Silverspoons club from 1:30, many many many beers consumed on a sunny afternoon, some quality tunes (Madness, Specials et al) and all the Gooners in great voice.

Thoughts on Wembley itself, it is an awesome stadium with regards to views. We were in the gods but the view wasn’t as bad as we’d initially feared, apart from the sun in our eyes (typical British, never happy!) The pitch cut up a hell of a lot too as you may have read elsewhere! After seeing previous Finals and Semi Finals there in recent years that's not much of a surprise as it’s been ripped apart on each occasion.

You’ll have all read about the game. It was pretty much a carbon copy of the 2007 Carling Cup Final. Started well, dominated possession, went one up through Theo, let them back into it and finished the first half second best, with a repeat of the same in the second half minus the Theo goal and with their goal 4 minutes from time. Neither team was at their best and played as if they were more afraid to lose than anything. Diaby had an especially poor game, leaving us longing for Song (I know, I can’t get my head around it either). On the plus side, Gibbs and Theo caused all kinds of problems down the wings, Walcott especially giving the Rent Boy a torrid time.

We all knew what our problem would be, Drogba vs. our makeshift defence, and the big Ivorian didn’t disappoint. As Fabianski did midweek vs Villarreal he provided a “sweeper” role to compensate for Silvestre’s lack of pace. Trouble was his decision making midweek was a hell of a lot better than Saturday! Gibbs saved his blushes early on but it was merely a matter of time, and as Drogba easily burnt off Silvestre after getting on the end of a Lumpard hoof (which has been built up into a masterful ball from god by the press since the game) you knew what was coming. Not one of the keeper’s better games. He should have done better with the first as well, especially with the shot beating him at his near post. News today is that Almunia could well be fit ahead of schedule, potentially even for Boro at home this weekend.

If we’d gone with either Arshavin or Nasri and just gone for a bit more pace and creativity down the wings I still think we’d have done them, just that Wenger decided that a fresh Diaby instead of Song and attempting to outwork and outmuscle them in the middle of the park would do the trick. Hindsight is a wonderful thing I guess! But they were there for the taking, aside from the goals they produced very little in terms of serious attacks, and that’s the most irritating bit!

Wenger has said he would like revenge in Rome, wouldn’t we all!

Anyway, no time to moap as it’s Liverpool away tomorrow night. RVP apparently has a strain so I’d expect him to be out and it was confirmed that Gerrard would be missing for the hosts, but more on that tomorrow.

Technorati Tags: Chavski,Wembley,Drogba,Fabianski,Silvestre,Song,Arshavin,Liverpool

Is there a game tomorrow? Wembley you say?

2009-04-17T11:14:00.001+01:00

Oh yes, my hairs are standing on end, I can’t sleep properly and my bowel movements, well, they’re not good. Must be a big game tomorrow then!

Team news isn’t great. Gibbs and Sagna are struggling to make the squad with a groin injury and virus respectively. If they’re both out then the only realistic option will be to play Song at CB with Silvestre (hopefully equipped with rocketpack) at LB. Not ideal when we’re facing Drogba, a man with a history of doing bad things to our defence. On the plus side, Eduardo isn’t fully match fit but is in the squad while Diaby is fully match fit and will probably start while obviously Arshavin is eligible. So lots of attacking options, not too many defensive ones. Full squads are overrated anyway!

In other news, Emmanuel Petit is on the BBC questioning our transfer policy:

"In the summer transfer market I see Chelsea, Liverpool and co spending millions to buy new players to build a stronger team, but when I look at my club they are spending almost nothing on new players and letting some key players go.”

Ok, so that’s two teams owned my million/billionaires spending money while the team that isn’t and is paying off a new stadium doesn’t. Shock bloody horror! And while Petit was at Chavski they nearly went to the wall anyway. 4 days I think they were from going under totally (god, just imagine if that had happened) until the Russian got on board and bought Whitebeard out, so perhaps Petit isn’t the best person to be giving economic advice. That and he wore shiny gold tracksuits.

Shiny Gold tracksuits, not all bad….

Other former players in the press today are, of course, Robert Pires, who says he was pleasantly surprised by his ovation Wednesday night.

“It shows how great the Arsenal fans are and that they don’t forget their former players. I was really touched and moved by their ovation and the fact that they were singing my name.”

Absolute legend, my throat is still sore from singing his name.

So, semi final tomorrow. All those going, make sure the whole of our end is decked out in Red and White and you’re singing nice and loud. Lets show the Chavs that there truly is only one team in London.

COME ON YOU REDS!

13-10-3

Kings of London

Technorati Tags: Chavski,Pires,Wembley,Petit,Sangna,Gibbs,Diaby,Eduardo

Good times, happy days and sore throats!

2009-04-16T11:07:00.001+01:00

So, United it is in the Semi Finals! I’m that happy I’m listening to Reel Big Fish, the happiest music you can get.

Last night was a relative walk in the park. Once we found out that the rumours on twitter about Sagna being out were indeed true it was obvious the only way we were going to defend was to just go at them from the off, and my we didn’t disappoint.

Cesc’s perfect flick-on put Theo in, who masterfully lobbed the keeper to make it one nil on the night. A goal of absolute quality. Adebayor made it two with good finish across the keeper after latching onto RVP’s great pass. Until that point he’d (Ade) done his usual, half arsed-always offside pisspoor display and the majority of fans, myself included, were calling for Bendtner. It was a good finish and after that he really upped his workrate, but my god, before that he was f**king dreadful! I mean seriously, if you can’t be bothered to run/stay onside (I counted 7 offsides before he scored, 5 in 4 minutes) in a crucial European tie then what the hell are you doing out there?

Anyway, that was two, and the night was rounded off when we were awarded a penalty for a foul on Walcott, RVP dispatched expertly. Looking back at the replay its a poor decision and you can see why Villarreal were so annoyed, so much so that Eguren talked himself into a second yellow card and an early bath. I’d be more sympathetic, but after all the diving, playacting etc from our guests it was a little karmic.

The final ten minutes was pretty much all about one player in yellow, Robert Pires. Standing ovations, constant singing of his name and applause as he continued to spray 40 yard pinpoint passes to his team mates. It was a class sendoff to one of the finest players to ever pull on the Red and White, with many not ashamed to admit singing his name one final time with a tear in the eye. Merci Bobby, merci.

Other things of note, Eboue reminded us why he was regarded as one of the best right backs in Europe a few years back with a great display deputising for Sagna. Another play who has been on the receiving end of my vitriol, Alex “Renaissance Man” Song, totally dominated the midfield last night. And when I say totally, I mean totally, hard working, hard tackling and fluid passing. Many have compared his performance last night to those of Flamini last season, a terrier. Fingers crossed he can play as well on Saturday!

So, United in the semi finals. Could be seeing a lot of them in the coming weeks. But in the nearer future, a menace from the west looms. Chavski preview tomorrow.

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Villarreal,RVP,Adebayor,Theo,Cesc,Pires,Song,Chavski,United

Beginning of a big week

2009-04-15T10:31:00.001+01:00

So, the season-defining week starts here. Villarreal. Home. Champions League quarter final second leg. Nervous?

Too right!

Ever think that Arsenal as a whole speak too soon? Many occasions we’ve talked ourselves up only to have it blow up in our faces. Wenger says he won’t take the congratulations for the team’s turnaround. Congratulations? Nothing has been achieved yet lads, lets leave that for late May shall we?

Team news, as we already knew Clichy is out (although this happened while I was away, so not sure if I mentioned it, but you all knew already!) as is Djourou. No news on Eduardo so fingers crossed, but Diaby is back, and that’s got to be good news, especially with Senna out for Villarreal. The back four could be interesting to say the least. If Le Boss senses that Gibbs may be vulnerable then perhaps he'll play Song CB and Silvestre LB, otherwise it'll be Silvestre and Gibbs. Or he could throw a curve ball and put Eboue right back with either Silvestre or Song in the middle with Kolo, which I wouldn’t mind too much as he’s a better defender than midfielder. Either way it's not great, but lets hope with Senna out Diaby and Fabregas can keep the ball away from the back four as we dominate midfield.

I can’t see tonight being scoreless, and both teams will go for goals. So it could lead to a pretty entertaining game, although hopefully not with the 4-4 scoreline that the Chavs and Scousers served up last night. AW has called for a red-hot atmosphere at the Grove tonight, we’ve had a couple of really great games at our new-ish home so far; United one three occasions, Chavski at the end of the first season to deny them the title, Scum this season had an awesome atmosphere and The Scousers just before Christmas was one of the most hostile atmosphere’s I’ve ever heard an Arsenal stadium produce, so we can do it!

So, destiny awaits. Let ‘ave it!

COME ON YOU REDS!

Technorati Tags: Villarreal,Wenger,Diaby,Clichy,Eduardo

Post Easter Weekend thoughts……

2009-04-14T11:13:00.001+01:00

Hope it was a good long weekend for you. I had a nice chilled out one in Devon, sunny all weekend and as we took Leanne’s car I spent most of it drunk. Ahhhh, joy.

I caught all of our 18 seconds of highlights on MOTD on Saturday night, why do those cockhounds insist on putting us on at the end of their programme I don’t know. Pretty certain Villa were on earlier when they were in 4th.

Overall I thought we looked good. Common consensus was that Gibbs was lucky not to go on half time to taking his man out. While I agree that he should have gone, I’m not entirely sure that he man got ahead of him by legal means anyway, looked very 6 of one, half dozen of the other to me. But there you go.

We punished Wigan for sloppiness with our first and third goals, Silvestre contributing for the second by putting Cesc’s good pass away, but goal of the game had to be Song’s effort at the death for the 4th. Speaking to the old man I compared it to a “Batistuta” type of goal, using strength to hold off his man before drilling in a well placed shot. Yes, I’m still talking about Alex “Renaissance Man” Song here! The lad deserves it for really upping his game recently, long may it continue.

Only real negative was the injury to Djourou. No news yet on how severe it is, but lets hope he makes a return in this utterly vital week of the season with the CL quarter final second leg and the FA Cup semi final.

So, Villarreal tomorrow night. This has the potential to be high scoring. We were lucky not to be out of the tie by half time at El Madrigal. Potentially we’ll only have Kolo as our only first choice Centre Back, so we wont be too convincing at the back I’d think. The Yellow Submarines lost again at the weekend, 2-0 home to lowly Malaga. Crucially for us, first leg goalscorer Marcos Senna is definitely ruled out of the game with a hamstring injury while Cani and Mati Fernandez are also concerns for our visitors. Nice to see its not only us losing players at this vital stage (although a few injuries to Drogba, Essien et al would help ahead of the weekend. Note to self: Learn Voodoo)

More on Villarreal tomorrow, I’m probably meant to be doing some work

Bye bye me luvvvveerrrrrrr!

Technorati Tags: Song,Cesc,Silvestre,Senna,Villarreal,Wigan

I knew I forgot something……

2009-04-09T12:16:00.001+01:00

Pack, yup. Tie up loose ends at work, yup. Do blog…….crap!

Erm, Wigan. Only team news that I’ve heard is that Almunia is out for 2 weeks after aggrivating the ankle injury he got from that c**t Diouf. Obviously Gallas is out, not sure about RVP, Diaby and Eduardo. I imagine they wont be rushed back for this one with the 2nd leg and semi final coming in the following week. Arshavin will be back in the squad following his ineligibility midweek.

As for Wigan themselves, erm, has Zaki returned from international duty yet? Not seen anything recently about this and he didn’t face Everton last weekend. It’s a potential banana skin this one, we played out a dreary 0-0 on a quagmire of a pitch last season and with Everton facing Villa this weekend a win for us could put a huge gap between ourselves and 5th.

Ok, I’m off to Devon, enjoy the long weekend and COME ON YOU REDS!

Technorati Tags: Wigan,Almunia,Zaki,Gallas,Arshavin

Two stunning goals, two costly injuries?

2009-04-08T10:02:00.001+01:00

So, honours even after the first leg.

A wonder goal from Marcos Senna from 30 yards put the hosts up within ten minutes. A great goal but, like at Sunderland this season, really really should have been shut down before he shot.

The hosts dominated the first half with some good first time passes and high tempo. In contrast our passing was poor, our tackling was poor and we had no outlet up front as Adebayor put in one or the laziest, half arsed performances I’ve ever seen. Constantly offside, token efforts to run for balls once they were out of reach and never bothering to jump for crosses or even getting the correct side of his man.

Seriously, bringing him off wouldn’t have been enough, there’s a danger he might do it again another game. I’d have shot him, the lazy c**t. Nasri was pretty anonymous as well, but this can probably be chalked down to still having the flu to be fair.

I also mentioned this week about Song’s rejuvenation recently and wondered if this was down to lower standard opposition. Well he didn’t exactly excel last night, his work rate was good but he just seemed a little out of his depth last night. Guess we’ll see again next week depending on Diaby’s recovery.

However as someone once said ~~“Get away from her you bitch”~~ “Its a game of two halves” and whatever Wenger said at half time worked wonders as we looked a different side. Walcott began to penetrate the hosts’ left flank, Cesc came alive and began to spray the ball around with ease, including one brilliant ball over the top that was chested down by Adebayor, who then produced a stunning volley to give us the vital away goal. (Cheers to Arsenalist for the videos).

Senna fizzed another pile driver just over the bar towards the end but we held on, better second half, good result but still work to be done next week. Remember Chelsea in ‘04?

However, to put a dampener on it, we picked up two injuries to seasoned campaigners. Almunia went off after about 20mins with an ankle injury he picked up from a challenge with Rossi. Looked to be the same ankle that Diouf kicked a few weeks ago and he’ll probably be out of Wigan this weekend and maybe the second leg. More seriously, Gallas damaged his medial knee ligaments when a Villarreal player landed on him awkwardly from a Song tackle. Initial reports are saying that his season is over.

While Djourou is a more than capable replacement the loss of Gallas could be huge, especially as domestically he had formed a formidable partnership with Toure at the back since the turn of the year, shipping just 4 premiership goals this calendar year.

So, it’s finely poised, we have a slight advantage. Fingers crossed for next week. Will do a Wigan preview tomorrow as I’m off to the West Country tomorrow afternoon to visit the outlaws for Easter.

Enjoy!

Technorati Tags: Villarreal,Cesc,Adebayor,Gallas,Almunia

Showtime!

2009-04-07T10:57:00.001+01:00

“And so, this is where the sh*t gets deeper” – Winston Churchill

I’m pretty sure Churchill didn’t say that, but it’s quite appropriate as Arsenal enter the most crucial phase of the season, beginning away to Villarreal tonight in the CL 1/4 final.

Team news, we’re still without Eduardo and Diaby, RVP’s groin has also ruled him out. I think it held its own press conference which was quite spectacular, and as we all know, Arshavin is ineligible.

For our hosts, they head into the tie off of a 3-0 defeat at Almeria. Bobby Pires was sent off while midfielder Santi Cazorla broke his leg, ruling him out for the remainder of the season. So not idea preparation for tonight but expect a tough game. El Madrigal is an intimidating ground and the locals will be up for a spot of revenge after this from our last visit.

Of course, this will also be the first time we’ve had to face Arsenal legend Robert Pires since his departure, I’m sure he’ll get an awesome reception from the travelling supporters. He’s probably the only one of the players that have left under Wenger that I’d take back without even thinking about it. He may only be able to last about 70 minutes but the skill is still there, which is why he’s probably been singled out by Wenger as the one to watch. Saying that, he’s also said that Cygan is as well, reports that Wenger was seen smoking from an Opium pipe before that comment was made are yet to be confirmed.

So anyway, I’d take a 2-1 defeat tonight as long as we get the away goal, but I think we’ll get something our in Spain tonight, 1-1 is my prediction.

ALLEZ ARSENAL!

Technorati Tags: Pires,Cygan,Villarreal,Wenger

Two good

2009-04-06T12:32:00.001+01:00

So a sunny Saturday in N5 saw many a beer consumed and, more importantly, 3 points for the Arsenal.

Citeh never really turned up as we dominated from beginning to end (despite what the MOTD highlights may have suggested). They were poor, if they play like that every time they go away it’s not hard to see why they’ve experienced little joy on their travels.

Ade put us one up after ten minutes with a well placed header from a Fabregas cross. The same pair combined on 59 minutes, Cesc’s sublime ball over the top of the Citeh defence saw Ade latch onto it, round Given and roll it into the open net.

Ade had a good return from injury, Citeh provided the perfect opposition for him as he was given time on the ball. Saying that, he worked hard as well and I can’t really remember his strolling offside or not tracking back hard enough. Well played.

He was a midfield colossus, won every ball he went in for and made a few good passes, including a deft back heel. Yes, while it was good to see Cesc play 65 odd minutes in his return, I was actually referring to Alex Song. Yes, you read that right.

In the past few weeks Song has been a revelation. His work rate has risen, his passes are hitting the target and he’s an animal in the tackle. The metamorphosis is frankly staggering from the useless lump we had to endure at the turn of the year into a legitimate midfield anchor, merciless and grafting hard, a pitbull! So, has the penny dropped or has the standard of opposition been more to his level? I guess with the run of games we’re about to embark on we’ll find out if it’s the latter shortly.

Post-game Wenger revealed that Theo took a knock to his knee and was a slight doubt for Villarreal away on Tuesday night. To be honest I’m not surprised, the lad took about 5 “tackles” from behind as Citeh systematically took him out. To be honest, that was probably the most productive thing Robinho did all afternoon, looked as if the long flight back from South America was taking its toll. There’s also hopes for RVP returning tomorrow night as well as Nasri providing he’s over his flu (poor little mite), however Diaby and Eduardo will be short and won’t feature. More on Villarreal tomorrow.

Yesterday Villa lost 3-2 to Man United, leaving us 6 points clear of them in 4th and starting to look comfortable, however the next 20 odd days will be vital, some big, big games coming up for us!

One final thing, well played Cesc for blowing Barcelona’s favourite method of signing a player; the Spanish Media, out of the water in the matchday programme:

“Once more, there have been stories in the media recently talking about my future, I’m very happy at Arsenal and have said it many times – but I cannot control what the newspapers say or stop the press.

When they speak for me, I don’t understand it because only my friends, family and the boss know what I think.

It’s just a story that will go on and on, even if I was to say I would stay and retire here!

I’ve said many times I’m proud to be captain of this club and I see my future with Arsenal.”

And on that note, good day!

Technorati Tags: Citeh,Adebayor,Song,Cesc,Villarreal

Back to the good stuff!

2009-04-03T09:54:00.001+01:00

Ahhhh yeah! Fridays are even better when you’re up the Arsenal tomorrow!

Straight into it, I asked who would join Diaby, RVP and Bendtner on the injured list. Well, add Eduardo (groin) to that list. Seriously, Eddy, is it something I’ve said?

Bendtner apparently texted the boss yesterday to say he was fit, however Nasri has the flu and Vela is f**ked after flying back from Mexico (who incidentally sacked Sven last night). Adebayor is also back from 2 months out, Theo is back, but most importantly so it this guy:

Ahhh yeah, lets get Cescy! Personally, I’d be surprised if he started, but stranger things have happened and to see Cesc, Theo and Arshavin in the same team will be pretty awesome.

Citeh won’t come to defend, no siree. Not sure if they’ll have Robinho as he was in action for Brazil midweek, being withdrawn after 45 minutes, may have been for the weekend, may have been an injury, not sure, but one thing is certain, I’ve used a sh*tload of commas in this paragraph so I’ll stop.

Obviously it’s not all about Robinho. There’s Steven Ireland, Micah Richards, Shaun Wright Philips (although he’s doubtful after picking up a knock with Ingerrrrlund.) They’re a good side as we found out at Eastlands, but they have a poor away record.

Lets hope that continues.

COME ON YOU REDS

Technorati Tags: Citeh,Cesc,Arshavin,Theo,International Break,Nasri,Eduardo

Bring on the proper football!

2009-04-02T10:00:00.001+01:00

It’s ok, you can come out now, it’s over.

Another ~~thrilling~~ gash round of international matches are behind us and decent football returns on Saturday with the visit of Man Citeh, I’ll cover that tomorrow when we have an idea on casualties. So far we know that the following three picked up injuries from the first round of matches:

Diaby, RVP and a comical picture of Bendtner!

Hip and Groin injuries kept Diaby and RVP out of their matches last night respectively, while Bendtner made the bench for Denmark despite his knee injury. We don’t know the extent of the injures but I’d be surprised if 2 of the 3 made the Citeh game.

Also apparently Samir Nasri dropped out of the French squad at the 11th hour with a virus. F**king boo.

All of which means we could see a bit more of Cesc than first thought, and maybe a bit of Rambo (Aaron Ramsey, not Stallone, although the latter would be awesome!) should injuries force Wenger’s hand. Adebayor could also play a part following his goalscoring return from injury for Togo. Another goalscorer internationally was Eduardo who got Croatia’s second against Andorra last night.

That's the internationals over, lets not speak of them again………

Citeh preview tomorrow, will the body count rise before then?

Technorati Tags: Bendtner,RVP,Diaby,Adebayor,Eduardo,International Break,Citeh

Ok, I jinxed it…

2009-03-31T09:06:00.001+01:00

I knew I spoke too soon! Sky Sports have confirmed that RVP has a groin injury and is returning to Blighty, it was almost too good to be true. Fingers crossed that it’s not too serious and he’s ok for the weekend and the vital period following it.

In other news Hull have submitted their account of “Gobgate” to the FA. Woo! Apparently they “Want the truth to come out.” After hearing 6535416346846 different versions of events from their manager so would we!

Finally Stan “The Man” Kronke has increased his stake in the club, purchasing 5000 shares from Danny Fiszman, giving him a 20.5% shareholding in the club. Fiszman, who now has just over 16% after the sale, insists that he’s not selling any more shares. I suppose that given the fact that Kronke is on the board already the move doesn’t suggest radical change at Arsenal, and keeps shares out of the hands of the Uzbek and in the hands of another friendly director. But its now all eyes on Lady Nina and Jabba.

Busy day today so that's your lot. F**k you International football, f**k you!

Technorati Tags: Gobgate,Hull,RVP,International Break,Fiszman,Kronke

Happy Monday!

2009-03-30T11:19:00.001+01:00

Well, that’s a lie, but it’s not an unhappy Monday. The sun is shining, I feel better than yesterday when I spent the day sweating out Desperados beer. Mmmm, tequila beer.

Erm, news from the weekend. Bendtner got injured playing for Denmark, apparently its his knee and he’s returned to the club but no further news. RVP scored for the Dutch against Scotland, a well taken header (I think, was pretty hammered by this point on Saturday!) and isn’t injured, so far…….f**k, I’ve jinxed that now havent I! And 22 people were crushed to death in Kolo and Eboue’s game for the Ivory Coast. Seems to be a case of too many people in a decrepit stadium which has resulted in a tragic waste of life.

In other news Hull’s “evidence” is due at the FA today, I’m hoping that Arsenal have the lawyers on standby should they fail to meet the deadline (again), although the Fa will probably give them another week to grow more witnesses, a-la the Judge Dredd Movie or the baby Raptors in Jurassic Park.

Hull’s evidence reaches Soho Square

Speaking of Cesc he’s announced he’ll make his return on Saturday at home to Citeh, no doubt as a substitute.

I wonder who else will survive international week to join him!

Have a good one.

Technorati Tags: Gobgate,Cesc,Citeh,Bendtner,Hull

Kill me…….

2009-03-27T09:51:00.001Z

If the International football over yet? Whaddya mean it hasn’t even started yet? Oh, for f**ks sake……

Very little news, the Sun reports that Hull are going to use the case of Doncaster midfielder Richie Wellens, who was charged for spitting at a Swansea player despite no witnesses. Not entirely sure how that works, but it’s the FA so I can believe it. They’ve also changed their story for the 1984369546th time, and apparently ALL the Hull coaching staff now saw Cesc spit on/at/near/above/inside (delete where applicable) Horton, so I’m not sure how they can cite the Wellens case when they ALL saw it!

I f**ked Lucy Pinder alone in my room, no witnesses, so it must be true!

Pinder – Her word against mine!

Saying that though the fact the FA haven’t let it drop/laughed in Hull’s faces probably means that Cesc will end up getting done regardless of any evidence/proof/logic/Pinder and we’ll probably get 80 points deducted for good measure. Not that I have no faith in our Football Association, no siree!

I really wish there was something else to write about rather than this utter farce, but there isn’t, other than Almunia maybe applying for his British passport so he can maybe play for Ingeeeerlund, and Milan maybe making a move for Adebayor in the summer, to the tune of £35mil. I’d rip their hands off if true!

Please Hull, f**k off back down the leagues.

Have a good weekend.

Technorati Tags: Almunia,Cesc,Gobgate,Pinder,International Break,Hull,Adebayor

International breaks = pain

2009-03-26T09:13:00.001Z

Bored bored bored. Seriously, what’s the point of cheering players that you want to die the majority of the season?

A bit of Arsenal news today. Apparently Adebayor will play “some part” in Togo’s World Cup qualifier vs Cameroon. Suppose it helps with the fitness.

Amaury Bischoff's agent claims a couple of clubs are interested in the midfielder as his contract is up in the summer, so usual agent trying to force the club’s hand, although pretty disrespectful to the Arsenal medical team that have got him back to fitness. Like giving someone a turd as a thank you present. No really, you shouldn’t have!

And OJ Gimpson is flapping his gums again, insisting that “the truth will come out” over Gobgate. Hull missed yesterday’s FA-set deadline to provide evidence and have been given an extension until Monday to ~~fabricate~~ collate it. Apparently this is because Horton and the players that saw the “incident” are away on international duty (not Horton, he was last seen popping into a tanning salon to try to catch up with Gimpson). Now, not being funny, but how many of the Hull players are full internationals? Giovanni and Kilbane are the only ones I can think of, makes witnesses rather limited. And I’ve got to ask the question, why the hell didn’t they get statements from the players in the week before they went away, when the “incident” was fresh in their minds? I still think that if this comes to the conclusion we expect it to then Arsenal and Fabregas should unleash the lawyers on Son of Sam, they’ve got a stronger case against him for libel and defamation that he has over Gobgate.

Anyway, I’ve got work to do. Enjoy the rain!

Technorati Tags: International Break,Fabregas,Son of Sam,Adebayor,Bishoff,Gobgate

Got my ticket, have you?

2009-03-25T09:50:00.001Z

Just looking at a picture of it gives me a semi!

Yes, we got lucky! Thanks to my uncle for putting in the work we got our semi final tickets yesterday, so it’s a big knees up on April 18th when hopefully we’ll book a return trip in May.

Arsenal news is thin on the ground, thinner than my old man’s hair. Adebayor has been selected for Togo after 6 weeks out but won’t play apparently. I suppose anything that’ll improve his fitness, like when Eduardo was called up by Croatia before playing for us again, is a good thing. 15 other Gunners have also been called up, I doubt they’ll all return in once piece (f**king international breaks).

Silvestre is now fit and raring to go. Don’t all go getting excited at once.

Villarreal are charging a whopping £72 for a ticket for the CL quarter final first leg at El Madrigal. Good thing there isn’t a credit crunch on. You what? Oh…….

Arseblog linked this too, made me chuckle.

That’s pretty much for today. Christ knows what I’m going to write about between now and next Friday. You might be getting updates on my Chilli plants at this rate. Yeah, you’ve been warned!

Adios!

Technorati Tags: Adebayor,Wembley,Arseblog,Silvestre,International Break

Back!

2009-03-24T12:46:00.001Z

Back from Norfolk, had a good time but now, super busy at work, so super quick post.

I’m happy with the CL draw, delighted with the 3-1 win at Newcastle and I’m preying to God/Allah and Keith Moon I get a cup semi ticket.

Will update you later this week, it’s not like we’ve got any proper football for a week or so is it!

Good times!

Enough, Phil Brown!

2009-03-19T10:26:00.001Z

Super short blog today as I’m snowed under.

Phil Brown has metamorphosed from a respectable up-and-coming manager into an uber-c**t with verbal diarrhea. Arseblog covers his unstoppable attempt to destroy his reputation, and I hope, his career. Like I said yesterday spitting is the lowest of the low and if Cesc is guilty then they should throw the book. Thing is the more the Son of Sam talks (and that’s a lot at the moment) the more he changes his account of proceedings, from being told by his assistant that it happened on the pitch, to seeing it with his very own eyes in the tunnel. And the more he changes his account the more it seems the story is fabricated, the fantasy of a sore loser, and isn’t helped by his other claims, such as the “Arsene never shakes my hand” (blown out of the water by Arseblog and other blogs) to the ludicrous “I had issues with Fabregas’s clothes”. If it is proved that he’s telling porkies then I hope that not only the FA take severe actions, but also Arsenal and Fabregas on grounds of libel.

It’s a big hole that OJ Gimpson has dug himself, and he keeps making it deeper.

Ok, I’m away as of tomorrow morning, long weekend away exploring the Norfolk Broads, so won’t be blogging till Tuesday, although it’s not like anyone will notice!

So for Newcastle, I haven’t seen any injury news following the Hull game, so expect a similar squad, hopefully boosted by a returning Eduardo. Fingers crossed we play more like the second half from Tuesday than the first!

Oh, one final thing, well done to Steve Bould’s Young Guns following their own come-from-behind win last night in the FA Youth Cup semi first leg. Two goals in the last 20 minutes saw them beat Manchester City 2-1. Well done lads!

Right, enjoy the sun, speak next week, Allez Arsenal!

Technorati Tags: Son of Sam,OJ Gimpson,Hull,Young Guns,Newcastle

Never doing it the easy way

2009-03-18T10:06:00.001Z

So, we’re off to Wembley after a night I expect we’ll hear about for a little while yet.

After a piss poor start which saw Nick Barnby, a man old enough to be my Dad, put Hull in the lead via a massive deflection of Djourou, while the goal was fortuitous the defending to allow the shot was unforgivable. We really took our time to get going and there was no urgency for the first 30 minutes, it was pretty damn poor.

Hull, to their credit, really put us under the cosh for the first 20 minutes, Manucho causing us all kinds of problems.

And then it started. Once Hull had their lead every goal kick and throw in suddenly took the best part of a minute while Phil Brown laughed it off.

Before last night I respected Brown, a good English manager whose teams played good football. But the Walrus factor was evident last night by the bucketload. But more of that in a bit.

From the half hour mark we began to turn the screw but without really troubling Myhill, Arshavin came closest with a stunning volley that fizzed past the post.

Into the second half and we started to really threaten, RVP, who I thought had a poor game last night, went close with a couple of free kicks, both well saved by Myhill, we had an effort cleared off the line before Song put the rebound wide, and RVP hit the bar with a header. Eventually the breakthrough came when a slick passing move ended up with RVP putting the ball into the roof of the net. From then on there was only going to be one winner.

At this point I had to go out, so I only had crappy medium wave radio to tell me what was going on. But with 7 minutes to go, a Nasri freekick caused havoc in the Hull box, Myhill missed his punch and Gallas nodded home from 3 yards. From watching the replay this morning he looks offside, you’d be angry if it was you conceding, but thankfully the officials remained consistently poor throughout and we won 2-1. We’re going to Wembley to face the Chavs.

Arsenalist, as always, has goals and highlights.

I’d love it if that’s what last night was remembered for, but sadly it wont be. Come the full time whistle Phil Brown was pointing the finger left right and centre, looking for someone to blame. Some say Wenger was waiting to shake his hand but gave up, others say Wenger just avoided him. One this is certain, Hull’s assistant manager has accused Cesc of spitting on him. Initially the accusation was that it took place on the pitch when it seems Cesc was at least 20ft from the Hull coaching staff whilst congratulating his team mates. Then this morning that’s changed to in the tunnel. Hmm!

Cesc has denied the altercation took place:

“I categorically deny that I spat at anybody after the match. I have never done this in my whole career on the pitch, so why would I do it when I am not even playing? I can understand the frustration of losing a game to a dubious goal, that has happened to me many times in my career as well. But this is not the fault of me or any of the Arsenal players.”

It’s true, after conceding a goal like that to cost you a place at Wembley, you’re going to be pissed off. Brown pulled no punches:

"For their club captain Cesc Fabregas to spit at my assistant at the end of the game shows you what this club is all about."

Brown felt Riley "succumbed to local pressure" in the second half after his players were jeered for time-wasting.

"Mr Wenger decides to join in and the result is my goalkeeper getting booked in the second half.

"Arsene Wenger got my goalkeeper booked. You call that good management? He was complaining about time-wasting. It's an absolute disgrace."

Asked about Wenger's failure to shake his hand at the final whistle, Brown said: "He never does."

Brown insisted: "We haven't been beaten by Arsenal, and they are fourth top of the Premier League. We have been beaten by a linesman's decision and a referee's decision for Gallas' goal." – Quotes from BBC and Sky

Here comes the Walrus link. It reeks of Allardyce, it truly does. Shows what this club is all about? F**k off, we clapped them off in September, and rightly so! And speaking of that game in September, Wenger never shakes hands?

Hmm, looks like a f**king handshake to me Tangoman Phil! Porkie pies methinks! Your goalkeeper was booked in the second half because he’d been f**king about and taking an age to take goalkicks since the 20th minute! He was timewasting and was rightly booked! And as for local pressure, isn’t that something northern teams pride themselves on, a decent, partisan atmosphere? Usually we’re f**king silent at the Grove so perhaps it was shock that persuaded the officials to book him? Beaten by a linesman’s decision and a referee’s decision, well, yes, it was the wrong decision, but the officials were poor throughout the game for both teams, the “handball” against RVP when it hit him in the chest for example. Only one person got that one wrong, and it was old Ma Riley (as usual), that’s standard for him, he’s incompetent yet somehow still a top flight referee!

Brown seems to be having a pop left, right and centre and ignoring the fact that in the second half only one team was going to score, and it wasn’t one who’s striped shirts matched his suit and perma-tan! Yes yes yes, the winning goal was controversial and I’d be seething if the boot was on the other foot, but to badmouth everyone but your own side after being outplayed, come on!

If Fabregas is found guilty, please, throw the book at him. Spitting is the lowest of the low and has no place in sport or indeed society. But if this turns out to be nothing more than uber-sour grapes (something Wenger is apparently an expert in) then Brown and his cronies will have much more than egg on their faces you’d hope. Thing is, if it’s a tunnel altercation it’s going to be very very hard to get to the bottom of it unless spotted by an FA official. No TV footage (so far!) to prove/disprove anything so it’s just Brown’s word vs Cesc’s word. I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see us get punished though, regardless of there being no evidence.

Still, sod it, casting sour, fake tanned grapes aside, it’s Chavski in the semi final on April 18th. Let the quest for tickets commence!

Enjoy your day, unless you’re Phil Brown!

Technorati Tags: Grapes,Hull,Wembley,Gallas,Arshavin,RVP,Cesc

Happy St Paddys – Time to tame the Tigers

2009-03-17T09:30:00.001Z

Top of the morning to ye!

I’m not Irish, but have drunk enough Guinness so that’s all that counts!

Brief one today as I’m busy. Team news for tonight. Arshavin should feature despite suffering a gash in his right foot during the Blackburn game, Fabianski in for Almunia as usual, although the Spaniard is doubtful for Saturday as he has an ankle injury (I wonder how he got that!), Gibbs for Clichy and apparently Ramsey is tired so will be rested. Not exactly sure how he’s tired as we’ve not seen him for a few weeks, poor little mite! Eduardo apparently still isn’t fit so probably wont feature.

Game is on Setanta so I’ll probably watch online to avoid getting as hammered as I did during the Roma game last week!

Fingers crossed for a repeat performance from Saturday, Hull are really in the mire in the league at the moment and their form isn’t great, so lets hope they’ve got their minds on survival more than the cup and we can book our date with the Chavs on April 18th at Wembley.

COME ON YOU REDS!

Technorati Tags: Hull,Chavs,Arshavin,Guinness

Arsenal 4 – 0 Bolton Mk. II

2009-03-16T11:15:00.001Z

I said we’d know in ten minutes if Arsenal would win on Saturday, we knew in 75 seconds as we stuffed the Walrus’ Circus and Freakshow comfortably.

Goals and highlights as usual from Arsenalist.

The performance was one that we’d been waiting for in the premiership for a long while as we dominated from beginning to end. Fat Sam’s play, as usual, was to prevent us from playing through any means, so it was good to see that go up in smoke when Ooijer put through his own net under pressure from Arshavin within 2 minutes.

Blackburn then seemed to mimic their Lancastrian neighbours Bolton under the Walrus, shirt pulling, niggly tackles and the downright filthy, which was provided with much aplomb from El-Hadji Diouf (who else!) when he took out Almunia with a disgrace of a tackle. The ref bottled it, and the spitter escaped what many felt was a straight red. Odd how the media haven’t really said much about the “tackle” since as well!

It wasn’t until halfway through the second half that our second game, Arshavin with some nice moves on the touchline to beat his man and rifle the ball past Robinson at his near post and into the roof of the net. Truly a goal of pure quality. But until that point Bendtner had missed 3 or 4 very good chances, and was met with sarcastic applause when he was substituted for Vela. Perhaps a tad harsh.

Bendtner really is a confidence player, as we saw at WBA. If he starts well he tends to continue that way. The trouble is, especially at home, the moment he makes a mistake or fluffs a chance the crowd gets on his back and his confidence goes, it’s a vicious circle. He gets in the right positions but fluffs his lines with worrying regularity. The potential is there, maybe, but we rarely see it blossom as Bendtner has more cold days than hot.

Things got a bit scary in the last three minutes when Emmanuel Eboue scored a brace. Yeah, you read that right, he bagged two. The first tapping in a rebound from a Arshavin shot Robinson could only parry, and the second a well dispatched penalty after Vela had been upended. He’s been better the last few games now and is, I say this quietly, developing a bit of a cult following at the Grove now. Granted he’ll f**k it all up by diving theatrically or just simply looking like he’s not trying, but until that happens fair play to him.

Another player who gets plenty of criticism, especially from me, is Alex Song. On Saturday, Song had possibly his finest game in an Arsenal shirt. He was first to every ball, came out of every tackle with the ball and his distribution was fine. Coupled with the 2 assists against Burnley and it could be possible that the penny has dropped!

So, an Arsenal win that took us 4th was followed yesterday by the scum doing us a favour and beating Villa 2-1 at Villa Park, and therefore keeping us in the top 4 by virtue of a better goal difference. But more importantly, this Arsenal side is starting to gather momentum and Villa are doing the opposite. Lets hope it continues and we can put some daylight between ourselves, the Brummies and Everton, who are still in with a shout of the top 4 after a 3-1 win over Stoke.

Hull in the FA Cup quarter final tomorrow night, will deal with that tomorrow morning!

Have a good Monday y’all.

Technorati Tags: Blackburn,Walrus,Arshavin,Song

Looking back at Roma and forward to Blackburn

2009-03-13T10:54:00.001Z

Morning. I now feel that I can blog properly, mainly because I’m not still off my face from the night before. Extra time and penalties are dangerous when your half of the pub is quiet! The other half of the pub on Wednesday was like walking into Salford (although ironically I bet it would have been the other way around up there, poxy Surrey Mancs).

Anyway, woo! We’re in the hat for the quarter finals again and that was our first penalty shootout win in Europe since Sampdoria in the Cup Winners Cup semi final in 1995.

The game was piss poor and we never looked like scoring in the whole 180 minutes, RVP cut a lone figure up front, saying that I don’t remember them having too many clear cut chances either, and I personally thought Diaby and Bendtner had decent games. At the back it was schoolboy stuff for the goal. Just one of you put your f**king boot through it! Clichy had a torrid night as well, but sod it, in a cup tie only the result matters, and we got it. Ideally I’d like Villareal in the next round to give Bobby Pires a proper send-off, sods law says it’ll be United as Blatter and Platini ensure the English teams all play each other.

So, Blackburn tomorrow, team news is obviously Arshavin is back, Eduardo has a groin strain so is out. I’m starting to think he’s avoiding me every time I visit THOF. And he doesn’t ring, he doesn’t write. Why Eddie, why? Expect the side to be rotated from midweek, Theo probably starting, Vela too and probably Djourou and Song.

I said last week that this is the game that we’ll know if Arsenal are back, A bit more pace inserted into the attack in the form of the returning Walcott and getting at them from the start is the way forward, and again, we’ll know within the first ten minutes how this one will pan out. I can easily imagine Wenger using the fact we had extra time and penalties as an excuse for another sub-par performance though, lets hope we got a boost from midweek and continue with the momentum we’re generating.

I’m hoping for a 2-0 win tomorrow, one because it’ll put us fourth until at least Sunday, and secondly because Sam Allardyce is a big, fat, walrus look-a-like c**t and I loathe him with a passion. So come on Arsenal, lets turn them over!

Have a good weekend, keep an eye on my tweets in the top left of this blog as I’ll probably update it with drunken ramblings during the game.

COME ON YOU REDS!

Technorati Tags: Arshavin,Theo,Blackburn,Roma,walrus

Kick ‘em in/out

2009-03-12T08:50:00.001Z

I feel like I should write something, but am still unable to cover last night adequately. That’ll come later as I’m suffering right now.

First of all, SHOOP DA WHOOP!

Second of all, because of Totti and Motta, the pair of diving, fannyburrowing c**ts who should be in ballet rather than football, and more so because of the Roma scum who ambushed an Arsenal minibus on the way to the game, take the final away from Italy, they don’t deserve it and haven’t done for a while. Italian football is the gutter. Scum.

Celebratory post once I sober up!

ALLEZ ARSENAL!

Technorati Tags: Roma,scum,Italy

Roma, la la la la, Roma, la la la la, Romaaaa

2009-03-11T10:25:00.001Z

To the tune of Lola by The Kinks, but sounded better in my head Ah well.

Roma away tonight, our hosts are depleted while the squad that flew out last night is full of freshly fit attacking options:

Arsenal squad for AS Roma
1 Manuel ALMUNIA (GK)
2 Abou DIABY
3 Bacary SAGNA
5 Kolo TOURE
8 Samir NASRI
9 EDUARDO
10 William GALLAS
11 Robin VAN PERSIE
12 Carlos VELA
14 Theo WALCOTT
15 DENILSON
16 Aaron RAMSEY
17 Alex SONG
20 Johan DJOUROU
21 Lukasz FABIANSKI (GK)
22 Gael CLICHY
26 Nicklas BENDTNER
27 Emmanuel EBOUE
40 Kieran GIBBS

As I said in a previous post, this and Blackburn are the two games on which we should judge if Arsenal are back, although I’d still say Blackburn will be more of an effective marker as we tend to be more “up” for the bigger games.

I expect Le Boss with go with the 4-5-1 we’ve been using in European matches, probably with Bendtner starting like in the first leg, so lets see how his confidence is now following his salvo vs WBA last week. Roma will be a different animal tonight and certainly no where near as poor as they were in the first leg, however with their injury crisis I’m expecting us to nick one tonight and go through, or at least that’s what I’m hoping! Wenger insists that we will attack and has laid down the gauntlet to the players:

“What we are playing for at the moment is the destiny of this team. How much do we want to be the best? That is what is at stake. But I am confident. I feel the quality is there and the mental desire is there. It is down to us to show it.”

Big words from the boss, lets hope he’s right, we aren’t left to rue those missed chances in the first leg and advance to our second quarter final this week.

COME ON YOU REDS!

Technorati Tags: Roma,quarter final,Bendtner

Pooped!

2009-03-10T12:35:00.001Z

Ok, so last night’s friendly with the Southampton Jaguars turned into 2 friendlies. One against their A squad, and one against their B. Not usually a problem.

Except we only had 7 players, whereas they seemed to be multiplying as the games went on.

Anyway, we only lost 5-2 to their premier league team, yours truly putting us one up in the opening 13 seconds, and drew with their B’s 4-4, where I notched another goal, sliding one under the keeper on the backhand.

One thing we noticed last night is that we were all playing with smiles on our faces, and a result our play benefitted. Hell, we were even able to keep a high tempo for an hours hockey with only 7 players! But we kept it simple, played well and had great fun.

Anyway, as fun as last night was, I’m seriously paying for it today!!

In Arsenal news, Kolo is in the squad for Roma tomorrow, as Totti probably will be for the Giallorossi but that’s yet to be confirmed. I’ll have a proper preview tomorrow and probably a bit on Adebayor’s latest comments, if I can be arsed. It’s like the old man says, the crapper the player the more they spout off in the media!

Oh, and I’ve activated the comments on here, so feel free to leave some, I disabled the signing in thing as I’m interested to see if anyone actually reads this.

If anyone finds me slumped across my desk, wake me before my boss comes!

Night!

Technorati Tags: Roma,pooped,Adebayor,Hockey

Arsenal 3 –0 Burnley, 1 game from Wembley and new away kit?

2009-03-09T10:40:00.001Z

Song
Set up
Eboue
Who scored..........

.......I'm sorry, I still can't get my head around that.

So, a stroll in the spring sun (and rain, lots of rain) for the Arsenal yesterday as we thumped Burnley 3-0 to book an FA Cup quarter final with Hull. Win that, and it’s the Chavs at Wembley for the semi final!

All three goals were of the highest quality. Vela pulled out his favourite finish, the cheeky chip, after turning well and holding off the Burnley defence to lob Jensen, looks like he learnt from the Carling Cup game at Turf Moor earlier in the year. The second has to be a contender for goal of the season.

Alex Song (yes, SONG) crossed the ball from the left wing, Eduardo popped the offside trap and vollied home with the outside of his left heel. Absolutely sublime.

The third, as you may have guessed, couldn’t have been in anyone’s wildest dreams, even if they’d dropped a bucket of acid.

A good passing play found Song (yes, him again), who BACKHEELED the ball into the path of Eboue (yes, him!), who took a few touches and rifled the ball into the bottom left of the net. Whilst others in the pub celebrated, I sat there and checked the sky for flying swine.

Arsenalist has the goals and highlights.

Song, to Eboue…….seriously, this has messed with my head!

So all in all a good performance but Burnley were poor and a shadow of the side we faced in the Carling Cup, so again, I hate to say it, but lets see how we do against Roma and Blackburn before we start saying Arsenal are back. But it was great to see Eduardo and Theo back again, the former making it 3 goals in just 130 minutes of football since his return, staggering considering the amount of time out. You’d expect to see them play some part on Wednesday night in Rome.

In other injury news Cesc is back in light training apparently 2 weeks away from returning to full training, so that’ll be a month from being ready for matches then. The official site has some lovely pictures of him running, jumping and this one:

Is it just gas or a trip to the clubhouse? Hmmm. But seriously, it’s looking like the team will be back at the crunch period of mid-April when we face Liverpool, the Chavs and the Mancs as well as the cup semi (hopefully) as well as the Quarters of the Champions League (hopefully), giving us a massive shot in the arm at a crucial time. It ain’t over till its over kids!

Looking ahead to Roma on Wednesday and they seem to be experiencing the opposite to what we have, with players dropping like flies left right and centre. According to the Times, Pizarro limped out of their game with Udinese at the weekend with a thigh strain, Menez and The Beast have the Flu (bless), Vucinic has a back problem, Perrotta and Cassetti are long-term injury problems, Daniele De Rossi is suspended, Christian Panucci is not in their Champions League squad while the latest to drop out is Cicinho, who apparently sustained a season-ending knee injury in training yesterday! But more on Roma on Wed.

Finally, these surfaced on the OGF over the weekend (Cheers to Tony Saunders) and seem to confirm the CGI’s that emerged earlier in the year of the identity of next season’s away kit. While I’m a firm believer that we should be in yellow and blue away, these have a certain something about them (mainly because I liked the original ‘83 away kit it is based on)

So yeah, that’s your dollop of all things Arsenal today. One final mention that the Arrows went down 4-2 to the Southern Jets last night. While I felt fitter it was one of those were I came away feeling I could have played better, and I hate that, it gnaws away inside of you like a small, irritating rodent. One that needs to be crushed, fingers crossed I can do that in tonight’s friendly with the Southampton Jaguars, although they’ll probably spank us. Ah well……

¡Roca en, hombres!

Technorati Tags: Green away shirt,Burnley,Roma,Hockey,Eboue,Eduardo,Wembley

The sun is shining, but I’m not going to football

2009-03-06T09:56:00.001Z

It’s a lovely sunny day here in Surrey, but it’s fecking freezing as well! Actually it’s been cold since I got my hair cut last week. Sods law eh!

News ahead of Sunday’s FA cup 4th (are we in the 4th round, or is this the 5th? I’ve lost track now) round game vs Burnley is that I wont be there as I’ve got my only hockey game for 3 months that evening, sods law again! In fact, damn you, sod, damn you!

Real news ahead of Sunday is the return of Theo and Eduardo (again!), or at least potentially. The manager said:

“I will see how they [Walcott and Eduardo] look Friday and Saturday but they will certainly be in the squad, especially Theo,” Wenger told Arsenal TV Online. “We have to wait and see how Eduardo reacts and responds to his injury.”

With Roma on the horizon and Adebayor still sidelined for both games you’d expect at least one of them to play a part, even if it’s only for 20 minutes or so. Kolo is also out of Sunday but Gallas should be back, which saves us the pain of Mikael Silvestre!

The FA Cup presents an awesome opportunity for some silverware, and we already know that if we beat Burnley and Hull at home then we’ve got a semi-final at Wembley, which would be great alone just to shut those c**ts from up the road after their 2 tin-pot finals there. So here’s hoping we play more like Tuesday Arsenal than Saturday Arsenal, and not like that Sunday Arsenal that we saw earlier in the year at Cardiff.

Actually, one final thing, as I mentioned those c**ts from up the road, well done to Steve Bold and his Young Guns for beating them 3-1 in the FA Youth Cup with two goals in the 90th minute to take the tie with apparently 2,500 Gooners at the sh*tehole, well played! Next up are either City or Norwich.

Ok, I’m off to take the car through it’s first MOT. Have a top weekend and COME ON YOU REDS!

Football, you’ve gotta love it!

2009-03-05T11:26:00.001Z

What do the two below have in common?

Well, they are one and the same.

At approximately 5:15pm on Saturday we were all nursing our pints and thinking of far-flung teams in Finland or the Faroe Islands that we may be visiting in next season’s EUROPA League, if we were able to hold off Everton.

Sunday afternoon saw Villa go 2-0 up against Stoke to confirm our fears on the race for 4th place, that it was over and we’d be 8 behind. What followed is what makes football great.

Stoke get 2 goals to draw 2-2, leaving Villa 6 points ahead.
We then win away to WBA to go 3 points behind Villa and level on goal difference and 5 ahead of Everton but having played a game more
Then last night Villa lost 2-0 away to Man City, swinging the goal difference in our favour, while Everton are held 0-0 at Blackburn.

From being 15 minutes away from being a dot on the horizon, we’re now right in Villa’s rear view mirror and with several key players about to return from injury.

How will this rollercoaster ride of a season conclude? Let’s hope there’s more ups than downs.

Rock On!

Technorati Tags: Villa,City,Rollercoaster,Everton

Well that makes a change from 0-0, doesn’t it!

2009-03-04T13:23:00.001Z

Ok, after my fruitless attempts of following last night’s victory at West Brom online I’m going to write this as I watch the highlights.

FIRST HALF

No club has ever drawn 5 top flight games 0-0 in a row, another record I guess! =)
As I said on my tweets before the game, with Song, Denilson, Eboue in midfield and RVP rested I really thought Wenger had thrown this one
Good movement from the off tonight
Oh, that’s class! Good work from Nasri to earn the corner, Denison does well to control the ball from the clearance and Bendtner, well, there was a first touch, a bit of dribbling and a sublime finish! Piss test please! 1-0 Arsenal!
EBOUE! IF YOU’RE GOING IN THE WALL DON’T MOVE OUT OF THE F**KING WAY WHEN THEY TAKE THE FREEKICK!!!! Just one step to his right and the ball goes where he was. Twat! 1-1.

Quite end to end this. Should we be end to end against a championship-bound club? Moving the ball well though.
Oh, you can see why WBA are heading back down. Great ball into the box from an Arshavin free kick finds Kolo Toure totally unmarked to head into the bottom corner. He’s not been great this season but since the turn of the year has steadily re-gained form, so great to see him score. 2-1 Arsenal.
Great finish from Bendtner! Can we have a piss AND DNA test please, I don’t believe this is the same guy we’ve been watching the last few weeks. A long ball from Toure finds Bendtner, who’s marker is watching planes in the sky or something, takes the ball well on his knee (First touch!! He’s developed a f**king first touch!) and lashes the ball in from a tight angle! Sublime finish. 3-1 Arsenal

SECOND HALF

Kolo off injured for Diaby, lets hope it’s not too serious.
Bendtner is playing really well! Sets up Arshavin who should have scored but Carson saves.
Gooners behind the goal making plenty of noise. Well played.
Bendtner, you’re not Bendtner. Seriously. Who the f**k are you? He’s gone past 2 players, a nice bit of footwork before playing the ball to Arshavin who missed the goal by a whisker. Actually, that’s a good save from Scottie Carson.
Diaby bursting forward as he’s been doing more recently, shimmy and shot but deflected over. Denilson did well to win the ball initially.
Bendtner hits the post after more good foot work on the edge of the area and cutting inside, his left footed effort comes back off the base of the upright. Please Nick, stop now, I fear this may be all the creative goodness in your body coming out in one game!
Good give and go between Bendtner and Eboue but the latter shoots straight at Carson. On target I suppose. How many times have I written Bendtner in this! 9 already? And none of them have had the words “touch”, “rapist” or “f**king donkey” near them? I’m scared…..
WBA spring our offside trap but the shot is tipped wide by Almunia. Done well when called upon tonight.
The Ole’s are ringing out now.
Arshavin forces a good save from Carson. Getting better with fitness for certain.
F**k me, I thought our place emptied out early but this place is deserted before full time!

FULL TIME: WBA 1 – 3 ARSENAL

So, what have we learnt from that? Well, Arsenal play better on Tuesday nights, that’s for sure. But more than that, there’s seems to be a decent, skilled and most importantly, hungry footballer in Nicklas Bendtner. Tonight he had pace, strength, movement, an eye for goal and a first touch (I still can’t believe I’m writing this). I’d actually say at times some of his touches and movement was akin to Henry.

Ok, I’m going to sit down now…..

Lets think about this more. Yes, Arsenal were good last night, straight from the off we went at them, got the early goal I mentioned a few blogs back (yeah, I called that one!), moved the ball around really well with some great one touch passing. It was like the Arsenal we all know and love.

But, as good as it was last night, it has to be taken in context.

This was West Bromwich Albion. We have to remember that this lot concede goals for fun, not as many as Derby but they’re having a good go at it. And without Jay Simpson in attack they were pretty toothless as well. This lot are probably going down and there’s a good reason for that, they’re not good enough for the top flight. As a result of their poor play we were able to take advantage and play our football, albeit with extra motivation and sense of urgency that has been so so badly lacking in recent weeks.

Sorry to piss on many bonfires, but lets see how we follow this up in the against Roma and Blackburn (sorry to discount Burnley but in terms of comparison they’re more akin to WBA than other future opponents) before we declare that Arsenal are back.

One final thing, I think we’ll all be Citizens tonight as Man City (minus Bellamy and Robinho typically) play Villa. Come on City, help us get the challenge for 4th back on!

Red Army!

Technorati Tags: WBA,Bendtner,context,Roma,Arshavin,Villa

And one more thing!

2009-03-03T11:10:00.001Z

Just to brighten your day!

FNM stick the knife in, and WBA away

2009-03-03T11:06:00.001Z

Just when things couldn’t get shitter one of my favourite bands who recently announced they were getting back together after 11 years, Faith No More, decide to kick me while I’m down:

Faith No More have confirmed that they are re-forming, and will headline Download Festival at Donington Park this summer.

Faith No More’s appearance at Download 2009 will be their ONLY UK date this year.

So FNM's only UK date this year is at a festival that a) You can only get weekend tickets for at £160 a pop plus booking fee and P&P and b) has Limp Bizkit.

Utter pish!

In football news, we’re away to West Brom tonight, a team at the polar opposite of our current defensive record. However they’re pretty handy up front, so thankfully Jay Simpson won’t be able to face us due to the conditions of his loan to the Baggies.

I’d give my soul for a 1-0 win, I’d give my balls for anything greater*. If we can’t score against this lot tonight then we’re well and truly f**ked.

Team wise, Gallas is out and will be replaced by Djourou, but otherwise expect the same side that forced 60,000 people into a collective coma on Saturday. Looking further ahead Le Boss has hinted that there’s an outside chance that Eduardo, Theo and Ade will be fit for Burnley. I’d expect substitute appearances from at least one of them in this match with Roma away in just over a week. Cesc and Rosicknote are about 3 weeks away, although the latter was meant to only be 3 weeks away a year ago, so I’ll believe that when I see it.

Please, God, Satan, Allah, Buddha and Keith Moon, end this poor run and give us 3 points!

Tonight, Arsenal, please just f**king win.

*This doesn’t mean I will actually give up either a) my soul if we win 1-0 nil or b) my balls if the margin is greater.

Technorati Tags: WBA,Faith No More,Pish,God

Booooooooooooooooooo!

2009-03-02T08:56:00.001Z

Like the Arsenal team on Saturday, I can’t really be arsed.

To be honest I’m still f**king livid from the game.The last ten minutes when we couldn’t even be bothered to chase their shadows were abysmal, and it actually got that bad before Wenger got off his arse and tried to motivate the players. It actually took things to get that low! Everything I said couldn’t and shouldn’t happen in my previous post did.

The thing that makes this even worse it that this was pretty much the same group of players that played Roma off the park just 4 days previously.

The blame lies with the manager……..

At least David Bentley and the Spuds brought a smile to my face this weekend. Couldn’t have happened to a bigger rat-faced t**ser!

Technorati Tags: Boooo,livid,Fulham,Roma,shite

Fffffffriday, and Fulham tomorrow

2009-02-27T09:47:00.001Z

Friday! Is there a better day? Well, yes, Saturday, but only when there’s football, otherwise Friday’s your man.

Straight into it, injury news for tomorrow. After a decent performance midweek Abou Diaby is, unsurprisingly, injured after straining his calf, however the Mighty Atom Andrey Arshavin will feature. And more importantly will have another week of fitness under his belt.

How this will affect Wenger’s team selection I don’t know. Ideally I’d like Eboue to start on the right and give him the chance to follow up his, erm, well, not great performance midweek, lets day not shit performance, play Denilson in the defensive midfield role with Arshavin the more attacking, with Nasri in his usual spot. I’m saying this because I’m now at the point where I’d rather anything, ANYTHING than seeing that f**ker Song in midfield. Nothing against the guy personally, but he’s just not good enough. And tomorrow is a game where we need to come out of the traps and get right at them, like we did with Roma midweek, Song isn’t they type of player that allows us to do that, he’s like driving with the handbrake on.

Fulham are shite away from home but have an awesome defensive record this season, whereas we haven’t scored in 3 PL matches. It’s a game that’s screaming draw, and not in a cool Clint Eastwood kind of way, in more of a painful, mind numbing rather eat your toes than watch kind of way. But we can’t let that happen! Surely, SURELY after midweek we’ve learnt that we’ve got to go at this lot straight from the off, especially with Villa playing Stoke which you’d expect them to get 3 points from.

I suspect we’ll know within the opening ten minutes tomorrow which Arsenal we’ll get….

COME ON YOU REDS!

Technorati Tags: Fulham,Handbrake,Arshavin

Interim financial results released

2009-02-26T15:37:00.001Z

Ok, you get a double post today, you lucky people you!

Arsenal’s interim financial results were released today, click here to see the full shabang from the official

I just want to analyse a few quotes from newbie Ivan Gazidis that Setanta have got their mitts on from Arsenal TV, just to see if they worry you as much as they do me.

“Arsene is very focused on building one of the best young teams in the world, and we’re in the middle of that process,” Gazidis told Arsenal TV Online. “This is a team that is developing game by game, and month by month.”

Ok, fair point. We’re in the middle so we’re expecting and experiencing a bit of turbulence.

“When you look at the ages of the players that we’re putting out onto the field and the level of performance that these young players are producing, the next two or three years look very bright indeed.”

Ok, again, it’s a fair point that the current group of players, if kept together, will improve together and in theory create a good, dynamic and tight team.

“We will not, and Arsene will not, make purchases just to make a splash in the newspapers. We’ll only buy and sign players that we think add something that we don’t currently have. If Arsene believes there are players out there that can help the squad, the board has always been behind him in that. But don’t forget that we believe in the young players we already have.”

Nothing new here. But this is where the sh*t gets scary (I’ve skipped a few para’s out here as the rest was a bit same old same old.)

“If (hypothetically) we were to miss out on the Champions League next year obviously that would have a negative impact on our finances. But the impact is not dramatic so while we’d rather be in the Champions League for a wide variety of reasons, if we were to miss out we’d be very solidly positioned to be able to invest prudently and come back the following year.”

Ok, as you know, I’m thinking that unless we win the European Cup (we can dream) we’re not going to be dining at the top table next season. So basically, what Ivan is saying is, if my prediction is correct and we finish outside the top 4, we’re not going to be active in the summer transfer window. Unless of course any transfers are funded by players being sold on first, so either clearing out the dead wood (Eboue, Adebayor Song) or asset stripping (Cesc, RVP, Theo).

Can we get £15mil for Eboue, or am I reading this wrong?

Ha!

2009-02-26T10:04:00.001Z

This gave me a giggle today….

You might get a proper update tomorrow, if you’re lucky!

One Nil to the Arsenal

2009-02-25T11:42:00.001Z

Been a long time since that has rung out at Highbury/the Grove, but a Robin Van Persie penalty midway through the first half was enough as we beat Roma.

I could do a full write-up of the game, but a) I wouldn’t do it justice and b) I can’t be arsed. Arseblog has done a good job of it as always, and there’s always the official site and BBC reviews.

Looking back, Wenger has stated that his primary regret on last night was that we were “wasteful”.

"That is the regret we have tonight, I'm happy with our performance but there was room to score more goals - we know we can create chances."

He’s bang on. Last night gave us a great opportunity to put the tie to bed and take the pressure off for the second leg. Glaring misses from Bendtner (who has the first touch of a mule) and Eboue (who frankly just shat himself when he realised where he was on the pitch) could have put us with a little more than a foot in the last eight. However, these are pretty much the only negatives from the night, aside from Alex Song who is in absolutely no way good enough for this club, can’t pass 4 yards and in a game where we actually finally started fizzing the ball around the park proved himself mentally and physically unable to keep up.

But, like I said, we actually finally started fizzing the ball around the park. There was pace, movement and attacking intent straight from the off. Its almost as if Wenger had read this blog! Na, course he doesn’t. In fact I only know of 2 people that do, and they’re family so that doesn’t really count I guess….

And even Eboue, yes, the f**king lovechild of Wenger, had a decent game last night. Granted some of his passing was a little erratic and there was a tiny bit of his usual playacting that we know ~~and love~~, but he drove forward well and added width to our play, something that had been missing recently (amongst other things), and his work rate couldn’t be faulted. Has the penny dropped?

So, the lead isn’t as big as it should have been, but it’s a lead and more vitally a clean sheet. Nick a goal out there and they need 3, it can be done but it won’t be easy, ask the Mancs and Chav$ki!

Fulham at the weekend, but as it’s Wednesday I’ll deal with that nearer the time. Work calls…..

¡Roca en, hombres!

Technorati Tags: Eboue,Roma,One nil

Roma & The Beast returns

2009-02-24T12:43:00.001Z

I love the big European nights. Sitting at work all day, thinking of nothing else. Hitting the pub early before getting the train up to town. There’s a buzz all around Arsenal and its great to be part of.

Tonight is no exception, I can already taste that first beer and I’m practically bouncing at my desk to get going. Trouble is, I keep thinking this may be the last time I get this for a while….

Tonight sees Roma come to town, with 2 familiar faces amongst their ranks. Riise, who I have always rated, and the very familiar Julio Baptista, who for those who have blanked out his time here in their heads, was a bit of a donkey in the red and white.

So sods law says he’ll notch one tonight!

From an Arsenal perspective Diaby is our only returnee, while the diminutive Arshavin is cup-tied. So you’re really got to be expecting our usual 4-5-1 with Bendtner playing alone up front and RVP playing in the hole behind him. I’m hoping Vela gets a start on the wing instead of the Love Child, but I’m expecting it to be the other way around.

Fingers crossed all goes well, enjoy tonight and lets make some f**king noise, we may not get another chance for a while!

ALLEZ ARSENAL!

Arsene Knows?

2009-02-23T12:27:00.001Z

I won’t go into Saturday as an actual report, primarily as I wasn’t there but also as it’s too depressing. But if the official site’s report isn’t as rose-tinted as usual then things must really be up! The man from East Lower gives a good write-up too

On the plus side, Arshavin started brightly, the boy looks class and will light up the league, but as his fitness faded as did our hopes of getting 3 points.

I caught the game on MOTD later Saturday night, I’d already spoken to my cousin and my old man who had already informed me it was, in unreserved terms “shite”. From the 4 minutes of highlights we actually looked creative, pressed forward well and created chances, forcing a few decent saves from Fullop.

Then I sat there and thought about it. 4 minutes of highlights from about 93 minutes of football. That’s pretty poor. The second half on MOTD started with a box saying that Arshavin had been replaced by Vela. That switch took place on 63 minutes. So what the hell happened in the minutes between 45 and 63? In fact, that highlight could have been the 67th minute for all we know. However I have a pretty good idea as to what happened, and it probably bears some relation to a crab. Sideways, sideways, sideways!

There’s the problem. I previous years we’ve started the game and really gone for the opposition lots of movement, overlapping runs and lashings of trying to get the early goal. Nowdays we rarely get this until the last 5 minutes when we realise that passing the ball sideways against the massed ranks of opposing defenders isn’t going to work. Why does this happen? Well, put bluntly, the players in the middle of the park at the moment aren’t good enough. Denilson is a squad player at best (at the moment) while Song just isn’t “Arsenal quality”, and don’t even get me started on Eb**e! However even the worst player in the world can understand the basics of attacking and ca

n be motivated. So Mr Wenger, here’s where I look at you. Jumping up and down in the last 5 mins and complaining about timewasting after giving moody gallic looks in the previous 85 minutes isn’t enough. This lot need motivation, be on your feet in the first 5 mins, prowl the touchline and let them no that this current malaise cannot continue. If we have got to watch sub-standard players, lets at least get them trying.

As for qualifying for the Champions League, well, lets just say that I’m preparing to have Tuesday and Wednesday evenings free next season.

Roma up next in what I’m expecting to be our last Champions League game at the Grove for a while, so I’m planning to get drunk and enjoy it while I can!

¡Roca en, hombres!

Technorati Tags: Champions League,Denilson,Song,Crabs

Arsenal 0 - 0 Sunderland - Thats all folks?

2009-02-21T20:21:00.003Z

I didn't go today due to financial reasons, I'll do a full write up on Monday (when I can get paid to do it!), however from what I heard it's probably a good thing I sat this one out as another mediocre (at best) performance potentially sees our hopes of Champions League football next season go up the swanny, although I'm now worried I'm repressing a lot of rage.....

Commit to get fit………or die trying!

2009-02-19T10:31:00.001Z

The one thing that I really regret during my hockey career to date is that my lack of fitness/speed/whatever has probably held me back from achieving more.

Some games I’m ok, stamina isn’t an issue and I can quite happily last a full game no problems. But some games, especially recently against Portsmouth, I’ve just had no energy from pretty much the moment I kit up. And I only get a kick up the arse early in the second period. I do wonder how many goals/assists/games won I’d have if I were fitter.

Part of it is probably diet. Mid morning games I tend to eat pretty light so go into matches on an empty stomach. Most of it is ~~probably~~ drink, which I did cut out at the beginning of the year and haven’t really gone heavily on since I got back off the wagon.

So for the last 2 weeks, Leanne and I have been hitting the gym and the pool on multiple occasions to lose weight and get fitter, although probably not on the same immense scale as Janne, who for some reason has started to quote Coldplay in his blog.

Will it have any effect, well, next game is on March 8th vs Southern Jets (our last game for 2 months!!!), I guess we’ll see then…..

Rock on!

Technorati Tags: Drink,Training,Swimming,Hockey

NBM's Tequila-induced Thoughts

Test

Hello?

A generic headline involving the number six……Sixy?

Smashing!

Winning badly is still winning….just!

WBA get a Dirty Sanchez in the Beer cup & Fulham away

Ah, so, blog…….

Return to winning ways and classy displays

Shut up C**tybayc**t and Wigan at home

Brazilian defending is killing us

Lots of stuff going down

“The Project” away

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz & sh*t happens

Boycott Play.com and Amazon (who will actually sell anything apparently!)

Luck of the draw

Battle of Britain???

Credit when credit’s due

Pompey home (yeah, I couldn’t think of a creative title either)

One foot in the groups & The Arsenalisation continues

Another generic Battle of Britain headline

Sixy

It begins…

Vieira, Hangeland, atmosphere, not long now…..

An afterthought

Celtic

Rosicky, Vieira and the CL qualifying draw

The hit of the whole fruit

Farewell to the last of the Invincibles

Back from Austria and Hungary

Don’t want to jinx it

Hartson’s next battle

Purgatory

Valencia away?

Well done Nike

The Sun…….

Hello….

Brace Brace Brace!

If you’ve not seen them….

Has anything happened yet?

All quiet on some front somewhere…..

Stokey Stokey Stokey Stoke

Sleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep

The Wenger love in threatens to get stickier….

WTF did I do this weekend?

Busy

Once again Nike take a steaming dump on our tradition

Uhhhh, so…..yeah!

Stop the season, I want to get off…..

He’s an Englishman at Arsenal…..

Feeling Fine….

Numb

BELIEVE!

Pompey away and beer on a sunny day

Down, but not out

Gametime!

Just over 24 hours to go

Cescy!

Boro home = Goalfest?

Fourplay!

Can Arsenal topple the Kop?

Confusing team selection costs dear

Is there a game tomorrow? Wembley you say?

Good times, happy days and sore throats!

Beginning of a big week

Post Easter Weekend thoughts……

I knew I forgot something……

Two stunning goals, two costly injuries?

Showtime!

Two good

Back to the good stuff!

Bring on the proper football!

Ok, I jinxed it…

Happy Monday!

Kill me…….

International breaks = pain

Got my ticket, have you?

Back!

Enough, Phil Brown!

Never doing it the easy way

Shut up Ctybayct and Wigan at home