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……
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:
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!
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.
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.'
"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!
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:
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.
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
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.
