Arsenal Pass (Latic) Acid Test En Route To Final

Posted on November 30, 2010 by admin

Posted by Sonuvagun

Is that the sweet smell of silverware wafting on a wintry breeze towards North London? Well with two games still to play and our marked ability to self-destruct at any given moment maybe not just yet, but even pessimists would have to agree that tonight was a big step towards finally ending Arsenal’s much publicised trophy drought. And before you say anything, I really couldn’t care less about the Carling Cup being a nothing trophy – I’m just f@cking fed up of hearing from every pundit, commentator and journalist the exact amount of years, months, days and seconds it has been since we won an honour, like every other team in the Premier League has had to order five new trophy cabinets to contain their own vast collection of cups and winners medals.

Anyway I’m not in the mood for a rant so let’s move on to the game itself. It wasn’t a classic. Despite Arsene’s assertions, before the match, that he has 25 players at the same level that clearly wasn’t true: very few of Arsenal’s second string made any case for more minutes in the big games. Bendtner started the match by missing a free header, seeming to jump about a minute too early to connect with RVP’s excellent free kick, whilst Vela had a frustrating afternoon of good and bad moments, but mainly bad… even his famed chipping ability let him down when through one on one with the Wigan goalie. (To be fair to him we weren’t four-nil up, which is historically when he prefers to score his goals). Meanwhile Eboue was given a torrid time by a 19-year-old called Moses (who thankfully for the Ivorian went off injured after a bright start) and later did his best to set up a Wigan goal with one of the laziest backpasses I’ve ever seen. Theo too spurned his chance to shine. He looked dangerous but dragged his best chance of the match wide and did little to suggest he is better option than Nasri on the right. Only RVP – with a series of well-delivered set pieces and clever flicks – made a serious case for inclusion, although with Chamakh flying the Dutchman will probably see his chances restricted. Gibbs too played well I thought, although he only had to get through the game without a moment of inexplicable madness to stake a good claim at being the club’s best left back.

Despite our rather languid approach (I’m not going to criticize as we won, but there was a definite training match vibe about proceedings, partly due to the lack of any threat posed by Wigan) we eventually got the break through when Theo delivered a decent corner which Alcaraz turned into his own net. Later we added a decent second when RVP fed Vela who played a sublimely weighted ball across the defence for Bendtner to slide home. A little bit of redemption for the latter two who hadn’t covered themselves with glory until then.

The important thing of course was the victory (especially on the back of two home defeats!) and with the number of changes and weakening of personnel a vintage performance was unlikely to be on the cards. Even if the likes of Theo, Big Nick and the Mexican didn’t shine they at least got some valuable minutes under their belt, whilst – Eboue aside – the defence looked solid. Wilshere too had a fine game and Denilson was, well, Denilson. With Man U amusingly thrashed 4-0 by West Ham only a complete tit will be complaining, especially as the biggest team in the competition now is Aston Villa.

AW himself had this to say after the match: “We are in the semi-final, and did the job on a cold night when we did not give chances away. We wanted to qualify and give some competition to some players who needed it, so we achieved both targets.”

As a final thought, does anyone else think that Szczesny bears an unfortunate resemblance to Ron Perlman?

The next Hell Boy?

The next Hell Boy?

Wojciech's biological father?

Wojciech's biological father?

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After 21 Years, I Finally Get Why We Hate Tottenham

Posted on November 25, 2010 by admin

Posted by SmartArse

It is no exaggeration to say it’s been a fairly depressing week to be an Arsenal fan. I was heartbroken on Saturday, sat like everyone else at the Emirates in shell-shocked horror watching the Spurs fans almost explode with joy. Then Tuesday went and slapped us all in the face with its sheer limp-wristedness.

As many, particularly this excellent article have pointed out this week, we’ve had worse runs in the past. In fact we’re still in a remarkably good position; second in the league, still very likely to qualify for Champions League knockouts and have a Carling Cup quarter final to look forward to on Tuesday. Let’s face it, we’re hardly Liverpool.

So why has this run in particular felt so god-awfully shit? It certainly has something to do with the fact that we have some serious worries; the defence, a lack of leadership, Denilson, but more than anything else it’s because while it’s all gone a bit pear-shaped for us, it’s going rather swimmingly for Tottenham.

And for the first time in my life that’s really bothering me. At just 21 years of age, my actual memory of Arsenal football barely stretches beyond Arsene Wenger. I was only just 8 when he joined the club. In that time Tottenham have been second class, a footnote to our masterful years of dominance. So, strange as it may seem to any old timers, I’ve never really got the hatred. I know plenty of Tottenham fans, but even their blind idiocy couldn’t annoy me that much, because they were so utterly and repeatedly wrong. They were a pitiful joke. They were, if you will, the Audley Harrison of football.

Now, things are a little bit different. We’ve lost two consecutive North London derbies in the league. Even their inevitable comeuppances are becoming rarer. The Champions League humiliation I expected evaporated after one half in the San Siro while our own campaign has wilted against opposition Wigan could probably handle.

So now I’m starting to really, really hate Sp*rs – the deluded fanbase, their sycophantic media following, the disgusting abuse of Arsene Wenger, the lot. But you know what, I’m actually kind of enjoying it. There’s something immensely exciting about having a proper rivalry. It makes the derby games so much more special. The atmosphere in the first half on Saturday was as good as any I’ve experienced as an Arsenal fan. And of course, despite the fact that the sky feels like its falling in, it’s not. We’re still streets better than Tottenham, bad as we have been in our last 135 minutes of football.

And it’s not just Tottenham either, we have loads of potential grudge matches. Consider La Liga, where everything boils down to two enormous fixtures between Barcelona and Real Madrid. Not many of the other games matter at all. By contrast, I hate half of the Premier League right now. I can feel genuinely fired up against the Lily White Cnuts, Manure, Chavski, Barndoor’s billionaires and of course, the Neanderthal thugs of Stoke City Rugby Football Club.

It’s a bloody odd season. We may well be lucky to still be right in the reckoning, but there we are and for now at least, on every front.

To paraphrase Le Prof, I’ve been raised on caviar with the success of the Wenger years. But let’s not exaggerate. We don’t resemble sausages just yet. I won’t care if we’re not as good as the teams of yesteryear if we can nick a trophy. I certainly didn’t when we won an undeserved FA Cup in 2005.

So heads up Arsenal fans, it’s really not that bad. If there’s a lesson I’ve learnt, it’s that hatred can really be rather good fun, especially when we put it to use taking rightful revenge at Shite Hart Lane.

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Arsenal 2-3 Tottenham: A Bitter Pill To Swallow

Posted on November 21, 2010 by admin

Posted by Andre The Giant

Oh Arsenal. Arsenal, Arsenal, Arsenal. I am not angry, just disappointed. Yesterday we had the opportunity to assert our authority on the title of best team in North London (and England) and for 45 minutes we did the job with aplomb. We totally outplayed Tottenham and the score reflected that. I retweeted a comment from @mattgoode that it was utter rubbish from Arsenal and they should have been 4-0 up. Whilst the first half of the statement was a little harsh, the second bit wasn’t unfair. Had it been the case perhaps we would have earned the right to take the foot so thoroughly off the accelerator in the second half. I should probably take a fair amount of responsibility for the loss as, having already tweeted about how typically stupid it was of football focus to do a pre-match feature on the useless Younes Kaboul, I then spent the whole half time break texting a mate about how overrated Gareth Bale is. Oops.

The mood of the game was set by Samir Nasri who refused to shake William ‘the Penis’ Gallas’s hand. He then played his socks off for the first 10 minutes, culminating in a delightfully acute angled goal from a Cesc Fabregas through ball and some blunderous goal keeping from Gomes. The start we wanted got better 15 minutes later when AA23 knocked a ball in front of Chamakh who got something on it and scored without realising. Spurs threatened very little, apart from a flick from an extra from Planet of the Apes, sorry I mean Bale obviously. Cesc had a good chance in the area and Chamakh was put through a number of times but looked like he didn’t really know what to do with it. Walcott or Van Persie wouldn’t have capitulated so but, still, probably the most enjoyable half of football we’ve seen so far this season.

As Jermaine Defoe pointed out in the post match interview, 2-0 at half time is not quite as far ahead as it seems. I ridiculed Andy Gray for saying that the next goal would be the most important. But sure enough, it was. Defoe used his full 3 foot 2 inches to out jump Clichy in the middle of our half, Van Der Vaart headed on and Sagna and Denilson sat back and watched while Bale flicked past Fabianski. That’ll get us going I thought. Boy, was I wrong. We tootled about a bit, assumed we’d score another few goals and generally played like arseholes. Mid way through the second half Modric went on a run towards the penalty area but Alex Song was too strong. He fell over and Dowd gave a soft free kick which, to be fair, was consistent with all the other soft free kicks he gave to Tottenham all afternoon. Van der Vaart took a fairly crappy free kick which hit a hand in the wall. Every single person I’ve heard comment has berated Fabregas for a moment of craziness in lifting his hand up in the wall. I disagree, I’ve watched it several times (courtesy of Arsenalist http://arsenalist.com/) and am now positive that it’s Chamakh’s arm that gives away the penalty. Fabregas actually holds Chamakh’s arm in an attempt to keep it down. Naïve either way and 2-2 it was.

Finally Arsenal were spurred into action. Cesc had two good efforts, the second forcing a superb save from Gomes and Konscielny missed a simple header to make it 3-2. But the writing was on the wall for this one unfortunately. Bale took the ball on the right, saw Konscielny coming towards him knowing full well that he would give away the free if he tapped it away. Clearly Bale’s paid far too much attention to the comparisons to Messi as every time he is challenged he rolls around at least three times too much. The free kick came in from VdV and Kaboul flicked on the inevitable third goal and it was done. The result that we really dreaded and one that allows Twitchface McTwitch to rant on about how, despite being comprehensively outplayed for 45 minutes, he’s closed the gap and is putting a league winning team together. Make no mistake, we deserved to lose the second half (whether we deserved to lose overall is debatable) but we did this all on our own. Tottenham did not win it. So very frustrating and I really don’t know what the answer is. It’s been so easy to blame injuries in the past but we have nearly a full squad now. We are still missing Vermaelen and that is beginning to tell in the organisation of the back four. Even at 2-0 up it feels like we can concede at any time. A strong Van Persie would be helpful because he’d have banged in a couple of the chances that Chamakh faffed over. It seems we’re going to have to adopt the tactic of just scoring more than the opposition.

As disappointing a defeat as it is, we must not dwell on it. We have an important 2 weeks coming up with 4 games (2 league, 1 Champions League and 1 Carling Cup). There’s no reason we can’t win all four games and that could potentially see us top of the league (assuming Chelsea’s dismal form continues), in the knock out stages of the Champions League and the Semi Final of the Carling Cup. Now if that’s not a good tonic I don’t know what is. We’ve had three disappointing losses at home this season, but after the first two we have bounced back well. We have to bounce back after this one too.

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Arsenal 1-0 West Ham: we've only got one Song

Posted on October 30, 2010 by admin

Posted by Andre The Giant

Had I written the blog at 4.43, I would not have been a happy bunny. However, after Alex ‘he plays the holding role, he scores the occasional perfectly timed goal’ Song planted his head on the end of a floated cross from Gael Clichy in the 88th minute of today’s derby against West Ham, all is well in the world. It wouldn’t have been that hard or that late if it hadn’t been for the uncooperative woodwork or the unusually successful hands of Robert Green. But a win is a win and it was the most mental celebration of a goal I can remember when watching Arsenal in the flesh. A lot of man on man action that was emulated on the pitch by the whole Arsenal team piling on top of a jubilant Song, who must surely be liking this added bit of attention of late.

It wasn’t a great game and it was made worse by what I felt to be poor refereeing. West Ham were allowed to get away with a lot, seemingly resorting to full on rugby tackles at one point. But the worst was the incessant time wasting. I really think cards need to be shown when keepers take a full minute to take their kicks. But the referee wasn’t concerned, often stopping Arsenal from playing the ball quickly from a free kick thus perpetuating the situation. It was amusing to see the West Ham players finding a new lease of life when they went 1-0 down and suddenly had to get back into the game.

The first half was unremarkable. Cesc was missing passes left, right and centre but did have a decent chance that he should have put away. Robert Green did what he doesn’t do very well for England and made some good saves. But Arsenal looked a bit hung over from the mid week mauling of Newcastle. Apart from Andre Arshavin who looked positively sprightly. Although, bizarrely, when he puts in the extra bit of effort, his passing seems to suffer. I’m not sure which version of AA23 I prefer. Why can’t we have a middle ground?

A newly braided Denilson (for fuck’s sake Den, you’re not Rio Ferdinand) was a surprise starter ahead of Walcott and he did nothing to justify the manager’s decision. When Walcott eventually came on in the second half, the game opened up. A through ball from Cesc (contradicting his otherwise average performance) tore West Ham’s back line a new hole but Theo could only hit the post. Samir Nasri nearly broke the goal with a free kick from 40 yards. If I’m honest, I was expecting a ball into the box. So when he lashed it against the cross bar I was more than a tad surprised. It would have been better than Alex’s against us had it gone in, I’m sure.

With the news that Chelsea had spawned a second away at Blackburn, nothing but a win would do. This did seem to get through to the players as the urgency really increased. Big Game Bendtner came on for an exhausted Arshavin but he didn’t offer much. It was Theo that really made a difference. The West Ham left back didn’t have a chance. But again, posts got in the way and it seemed Arsenal weren’t going to get the goal they deserved. But then up stepped Gael Clichy to put the ball slap bang in the middle of the six yard box. Green hesitated and Alex Song flung himself on the end with a sort of diving/falling header. Cue general rapture and pandemonium. With City losing and Manure playing Tottenham in the late kick off, it really was an important result and you could see that the players really knew it. There does seem to be great team spirit at the moment. More so than I can remember for some time. This team actually look like they want to win something.

The chant of the afternoon by far was “you’re going down with the Scousers”. We can but hope!!

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Cash 0 – 3 Class: Ade, What's The Score?

Posted on October 24, 2010 by admin

Posted by SmartArse

What a massive win. It was hugely important not only to register our first win against the current top four in ten games, but also to make sure that the gap between us and Chelsea is still just smaller than the six points separating 5th place Sp*rs and the Scousers in the drop zone. And of course to right the aberration of the Spuds being above us in the league for 24 hours!

Certainly we had our fair share of good fortune. We started atrociously with Tevez giving a fairly awful Djorou kittens before Boyata’s justified sending off. Then the aforementioned Tevez, a man more than capable of man-handling City to lucky victory, went and got himself injured. This just doesn’t happen to us. Aren’t we the ones watching our superstars in a procession to A&E?

Indeed we had the luxury of making three substitutions apparently purely for tactical reasons. I say apparently as Arsenal injuries tend to materialise out of thin air, but (touchwood) we look to be heading towards full(ish) fitness. It’s quite the luxury to be able to bring on Rosicky, Walcott and Bendtner vs 10 men. The difference between a depleted squad at Chelsea and a full one today was instantly obvious.

In the end it was comfortable, but Christ on a bike that first half nearly killed me. My little brother gave himself cramp it was tense. I needed a sharp injection of tea at half time. We were 1-0 up against 10 men and had somehow contrived to miss a penalty handed to us from nowhere, defended like hair-brained escapees from Broadmoor and put half the team in Mark Clattenburg’s notebook. Song’s booking was (unsurprisingly) ridiculous. He just kicked David Silva for literally no reason – it’s like we wanted the game to be even!

The fact that it wasn’t at least even before we nabbed the killer second was certainly largely down to an excellent performance from Fabianski. Two stops from David Silva were particularly important, superb reactions to stop the backheeled flick in the opening few minutes and the finest of fingertips to a second half drive. He even did just enough to stop the horror of a Cuntabayor equaliser, throwing himself at his face and sending my heart back from my mouth.

An excellent performance yes, but I’m not entirely comfortable hopping on the Happyhandski bandwagon just yet, because of course Lukasz’s problems aren’t in his hands, they’re in his head and could thus return at the drop of a hat. But as long as his head stays high they shouldn’t just yet, so I hope the media throw a heap of praise the size of Gareth Barry’s arse his way.

Nasri too was brilliant, especially important given a relative off day for Cesc. It was only a relative off day, he still played crucial slide-rules for sending off/2nd goal and still gets into positions others don’t, but he was certainly inconsistent. Nasri was quite the opposite – completing an astonishing 96% of his passes and nabbing a cracking goal, plus an assist. Just the sort of performance we’ve been calling for at COTA and are delighted he’s starting to deliver regularly.

Nasri’s goal was of course set up by Mr Andrei Arshavin, a topic of lets say some stern words on twitter. God the man is infuriating. His passing can be so lax, unless it’s a final ball, in which case it’s suddenly perfect. The stats will tell you how effective he is, but he’s clearly not providing an all round game, as Nasri did today. But put it like this Gooners – would you swap the effective but infuriating Arshavin for the consistently pretty yet utterly devoid of end product play of the departed Alex Hleb? Obviously such a comparison ignores the obvious fact that there are other options, but it should put the criticism of AA23 into perspective.

An immensely satisfying win. Little can be better than sending Adepaymore’s outfit packing. I shudder to think that if he hadn’t thrown his toys out of the creche, never mind the pram, he’d have probably started for us today. Suffice to say I’m a fair bit happier with Chamakh stepping in for RVP. So fuck off, you greedy, lanky, talentless goon. You’re not fit to lick Wenger’s bootlaces.

Now we’ve pulled off a big win we absolutely must follow up on it. Consecutive home games against West Ham and Newcastle are those that clubs like Chelsea smash and clubs like Tottenham make a spectacular mess of. I know who’s position I’d rather be in right now.

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Arsenal 6 Shahktar 0 – Welcome Back Eduardo

Posted on October 20, 2010 by admin

Posted by SmartArse

I don’t know about anyone else, but I really wasn’t expecting it to be that easy. Shakhtar arrived with a bit of a reputation, 6 points in the bag and 11 clean sheets in 17 domestic games. And they were rubbish.

From the moment their keeper did what all keepers apart from ours now seem to be doing and handed us the lead that was really that. Shakhtar didn’t come to defend, but they didn’t seem to have come to attack either. They spent most of the time passing it between their back five, then getting robbed by a much-improved Song the Sheep when they dared to venture forward.

That lad with the yellow boots (don’t know his name, don’t care) was a bit nifty, but that really was about it.

Goals came regularly. Samir Nasri showed superb control to pluck a cross from the sky and thump home to make it two. The third came from the spot. From the other end of the ground I can safely say I have absolutely no idea what happened, but what I’m not yet totally comfortable calling the North Bank went ape shit and the ref agreed. Cesc blasted the penalty home and departed. Job done.

Jack chipped home a cracking fourth after some tasty football and a swift one-two with Rosicky and Chamakh added a fifth when everyone, including both himself and their goalkeeper, seemed to think he was offside (kudos to the lino, he wasn’t). Fellow COTA blogger Andre the Giant put it rather beautifully on twitter:

“Chamakh glances across to linesman, 3 foot from the keeper then slots passed cooly. Magic stuff from the sweaty hedgehog. “

It was a second half which provided a few goals, some decent entertainment and several superb occasions for standing ovations. None more so than the return of Eduardo, who returned to the Emirates pitch to rapturous applause as a second half substitute. Poor Denilson only got half the cheer. For those not lucky enough to be there, take a peek at the video below. Apologies for rather drowning out the second half by enthusiastically joining in, but I was just glad to see him back and healthy. A touching moment.

And then Eddy went and topped off a lovely night by smashing home a consolation on the half-volley, celebrated by the crowd at least as enthusiastically as any other goal in the second half. A fantastic response and a proud moment to be an Arsenal fan.

As promised not a hint of celebration from Eddy either to make everyone a winner. A pleasing reminder that some footballers are genuinely decent people on the same day Wayne Rooney reminded everyone that lots of them are just giant toss-pots.

The departure of Cesc and return of Theo deservedly received similar treatment. You’ve been missed boys.

They were bad, but that shouldn’t distract from the fact that we were pretty good. Most had a good game, but Jack again was especially fantastic; it was fitting that his goal was the pick of the bunch. And in no way did Saturday’s dismissal make him shit out of tackles. He was, I’m glad to report, his usual boisterous self. It’s a huge sign of his progress that we will genuinely miss him during his suspension, but apparently we have this lad Fabregas coming in to replace him. Word is he’s a little bit good.

It’s been said in the past that poor Fabianski can’t catch a cold. Well last night he was more likely to actually catch a cold than have to do any goalkeeping in what was the first proper cold night of the season. Another perfectly passable performance. Satisfactory. Unremarkable. No moments of alarm and one respectable save.

Though it’ll take more than a string of respectable performances for the crowd to stop treating him with an odd combination of amusement and suspicion, but still, progress is progress.

Even the half time tea was decent for one served in a cardboard cup with milk that comes in tubes. Like a frube. When googling the tasty yoghurt snack I stumbled upon the term ‘frubing’ – look it up, it’ll deeply disturb you. Fond childhood snacking memories altered forever.

Horrific images aside that was an all round satisfying performance. Qualification is now basically assured and we can now turn to Sunday’s tricky tie at City with what is by our standards a pretty full squad.

Frankly as long as Cesc stays fit, I’m confident. I watched him a lot off the ball last night and he looked a little rusty, certainly played with far less energy than usual, but I’ve every faith he’ll shake off the cobwebs in time to teach those lucky, money-hogging newcomers to the party how to play football.

Come on the Arsenal!

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Arsenal 2-1 Birmingham: Naughty Jack

Posted on October 18, 2010 by admin

Posted by Andre The Giant

On Saturday we learnt four things:

• Maoam Chamakh is learning to play English football a lot quicker than we expected but is going to get a reputation quicker than we would like

• Lukasz Fabianksi is perhaps the keeper that Arsene Wenger always thought he was and he still hasn’t made a cock up as bad as Edwin van de Sar

• Wayne ‘granny shagging shrek headed ginger twat’ Rooney is capable of doing Arsenal a favour by taking the heat out of the press reaction to a slightly tasty encounter

• Jack Wilshere is not, in fact, the messiah, as we first thought. He is just a very naughty boy

Jack Wilshere - Not The Messiah

Jack Wilshere - Not The Messiah

So let’s rewind a little bit and start from the beginning with an apology for the lateness of the match report. I must point my excuse shaped finger at iPhones for having batteries that only last half a day and Companies for making people do work for them. The bastards.

I have the rather efficient Exchange system on the Arsenal ticket hub to thank for facilitating me with a ticket to the game on Saturday. £36 seemed like a good deal too. I sat low down for a change which allowed me to get well acquainted with the ridiculous bright pink boots that half the team are now wearing. At one point Gibbs, Bendtner, Vela, Theo, AA23 and Den were warming up in a circle in front of where I was sitting and they were all wearing them. Just no. No, no, no, no, no. Let Bendtner play the fool with his trousers round his ankles, his silly floppy hair and his ridiculous boots but can we have some decorum in the rest of the team please? Patrick Viera wore black boots. Enough said.

To the game. Walcott and Bendtner were both back in the squad but on the bench. Cesc was conspicuous by his absence after proclaiming his near readiness prior to the Chelsea game two weeks earlier. So we needed another performance from young Jack Wilshere to fill the Jesus shaped hole left by our absent captain. Vermalaen, Konscielny and Sagna were also out leaving our back four looking a little suspect (Eboue, Squillaci, Djorou and Clichy). Arsenal started well with some fluid passing and good movement in the first two thirds of the pitch but weren’t quite doing the business in the last third. Diaby was particularly impressive, picking passes and driving forwards, but seemed to get very confused when he got within 20 yards of the goal. Jack was superb, again. Everything he does seems to be positive (well, nearly everything, but more on that later). Get the ball, look up, turn, run, feed, hold, give, get back. It’s all so compact and lovely to watch that it’s just impossible to conceive how he can still be 18. We had a couple of good chances, Wishere laying off to Chamakh inside the area but the Moroccan choosing the wrong option. A defensive cock up allowed Clichy a right footed shot that scraped the post and AA23 had a few lumbering attempts (to shoot, not to get out of bed as some reports would have you imagine). We even scored a goal via a Squillaci header that was ruled out for offside. It looked level to me on the replays but there you go.

So, as is our way of late, all puff and no punishment meant Birmingham would obviously score with their first attack of the game. To be fair to our back line, it’s pretty hard to mark the eighteen foot Zigic, and it was quite a good header. So one nil down and lots of heavy sighing. Then the lanky sod missed a sitter and really we were pretty lucky to only be the one down. West Brom again anyone?

Less than ten minutes later and Chamakh had a little dance in the area, skipping past Scott Dann, who then lunged at Chamakh causing him to fall to the floor rather dramatically. Dann says it was a dive, I say bollox to you sir. The contact is clear and if you don’t want to give a penalty away, don’t swing your foot at someone a second after the ball’s gone past, you donut. Chamakh really does need to hold back on the theatrics though because it’s going to make referees think twice in the future. Nasri stroked home the penalty (that’s three in a row I think, why didn’t he take that one against Sunderland?!) and we were back to where we deserved to be. Well, not losing at least. Two minutes after the break and we really were back to where we wanted to be. Jack flicked Chamakh through, who twisted and rotated, got a lucky bounce and went round the keeper to side foot home. He seems to be a whole lot more than the header specialist we thought we’d bought (well I never, Arsene was right about something, who’d have thought) and he has taken to the English game like a porcupine to an oil spill. Jolly good.

Unfortunately, with Arshavin playing like a miniature lackadaisical Russian donkey and Diaby freezing in the penalty area, we couldn’t make the most of the possession we had to get the all important third goal, so it was squeaky bum time. Fortunately, Fabianski has grown in confidence exponentially since the penalty save and he made three or four very impressive punches out of the area from corners and set pieces. With some added confident clearances from Squillaci, Birmingham never really got near to getting their second. Then Wilshere, who had another man of the match winning performance, had a little moment. He lost control of a ball on the half way line and lunged back at Zigic who was the clear favourite to win possession. From where we were sitting, the red card was a surprise, but it was a shocker of a tackle and a deserved sending off. Manager and player held their hands up, admitting it was poor. Wilshere apologised straight away:

“I just want to say that I mistimed the challenge on Zigic and accept that I deserved to be sent off”

Despite the Arsenal contingent retaining their dignity, Birmingham lost theirs with some stupid arse comments from a stupid arse. McLeish was convinced that Wilshere’s tackle was as bad as the one by Martin Taylor that killed Eduardo’s Arsenal career. Let’s have a look shall we?

Karate Kick

Karate!!

watch?v=Ih07rQdArv8

Er, no, I don’t think so. Not just because the outcome was different but because Taylor planted his foot on Eduardo’s shin after making it quite clear that he was going to give the Arsenal players a rough ride. Wilshere rolled past the ball (he wasn’t a foot away from it like Taylor) and caught Zigic’s ankle badly. I guess you should expect no less from a man who told Martin Taylor that he had no reason to apologise to a man that he had brutally injured in a manner more fitting to a battlefield. Prick.

The invincible Chelsea dropped points against Aston Villa and Man Utd leaked two goals and two points against West Brom (not just us then). Not a bad weekend for us all in all.

Back to the man Eduardo, who returns to Ashburton Grove this evening with his new club Shakhtar Donetsk. I am sure he’ll get the hero’s welcome he deserves and it will be a great opportunity to say the goodbyes that he missed in the summer. Team news is that Cesc and Walcott are both in the squad. Cesc is fully fit but may not start according to the manager (not sure why not but there you go). We also know that Robin Van Persie is at least three weeks from a return. I am sorry to say that I think I’m coming round to the increasingly common view that it might be time to give up on RVP. We just can’t afford to keep someone who is so rarely 100% fit on the payroll. I heard some English guy is up for sale too who might be a decent replacement.

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Arsenal Give Brummies The Blues

Posted on October 18, 2010 by admin

Well that’s what I call a good weekend! Not only did we collect all three points after conceding a poor goal, but Aston Villa held Chelsea to a draw whilst Man U are increasingly looking like a team on the descent. Admittedly they drew against a team which we only recently lost to, but you still have to feel that’s an awful result for Fergie’s boys and hopefully a sign that they are slipping further and further from their imperious heyday. Rumours that Rooney is ready to walk out on them are filling me with joys of spring during a distinctly chilly autumn in Barcelona (from where I do pen this post).

Lots of talking points from the Brum game, but overall, as an Arse lover, you have to feel pretty chuffed. We had our second string defense and keeper out and I can only recall two good chances that Birmingham had. One was the goal, after we inexplicably went flat during a throw-in and gave the opposition all the time in the world to pick out their 6’8″ Serbian striker with a cross. Pretty stupid to say the least. The other was a worryingly simple direct ball over the top that got played back across goal, and although the commentators (complete cretins on Fox Sports) put it down as a Birmingham miss I thought Squillaci did brilliantly to throw himself in the way.

As for our attacks, they were numerous and dangerous. Well dangerous to begin with, until Diaby would somehow, consistently, without fail, pick the wrong option. He did so many things right, playing as the most advanced of the middle three midfielders, riding challenges for fun and skipping over tackles, but his indecision and poor passing meant they nearly all went to waste. He himself had several shots on goal – mostly blocked as he took too long to pull the trigger. I like Diaby a lot, and he can be a phenomenal player at times, but right now you have to ask does he deserve a place in the team? Denilson is arguably more solid and reliable in possession (and probably scores more goals per minute played), whilst Fabregas and Walcott are now back in the frame, plus of course Rosicky and Nasri. Wenger seems to have him slightly higher up in the pecking order than he deserves IMHO.

Thankfully we were able at last to respond to the Birmingham goal when Chamakh beat Johnson to a ball in the area. Quite how anyone can say there was no contact is beyond me. It was an obvious foul. Did it warrant a penalty? Not really, but you can blame the ref for that. Nasri did the honours.

The second goal had me in fits of delight. Song, who was excellent all game (save for perhaps giving away a couple of unnecessary freekicks) performed an improbable flick on which Wilshere controlled and laid off to Chamakh. The Moroccan pirouetted (without the ball… at first I thought with the ball and I was in real raptures!) and somehow came out the other side of the Brummie defense with only the keeper to beat. He did so with the calm assurance of a natural striker and the day was won.

The big talking point of the game was however Jack Wilshere’s horror tackle on Zigic. It was pretty bad – a studs up lunge that went straight through the ankle – and earned him a straight red. Moreover it was highly embarrassing for Arsene Wenger given his current campaign to get rid of such tackles. Eboue hardly helped matters with a text book scissor tackle (for which he was yellow carded), of the very sort Arsene highlighted in his pre-match programme as particularly vicious.

There are some important points to remember before we can accuse of Arsenal of double standards however. AW has always always said that when he criticises bad tackling he does it for the sake of football – not for the sake of Arsenal. The fact is that no one believes him – they all think he wants nasty tough teams to stop roughing up his squad of softie skill players. AW has, and always will, stand for football in its purest sense. You can employ different tactics within the rules of the game, but if the match turns into a kicking contest then what’s the point of calling it football? It’s a simple logic. To take the argument to an extreme, if you are going to win a game by use of violent and illegal challenges then what’s the difference between doing that and going into the dressing room at the 45 minute mark and poisoning the half time oranges? Neither constitute football, nor does their effectiveness justify the means. If you can’t win a football match by playing football then take up wrestling, boxing, rugby or whatever instead.

I had no doubt that Wenger would agree with Wilshere’s red card, and – although he was probably told to say so – I was sure Wilshere would be clever enough to accept it to. As Wenger pointed out it was pretty much his first full throttle tackle of the game and he got it badly wrong. He didn’t set out to win the midfield contest by continually taking down a more skillful player, and at the age of 18 you might think he is still learning a little about the timing of challenges and the likelihood of getting the ball cleanly in any given situation. Personally I think that the hysteria of individual tackles, like those of Shawcross on Ramsay, or Taylor on Eduardo is overdone, and Arsenal fans are in danger of making themselves look like single-minded simpletons when they go on about them (I think the Wilshere tackle proves anyone can get it wrong in the heat of a game). What is absolutely infuriating is when players and managers try to defend such individual tackles, or worse an approach to football that includes that type of tackling and consider it legitimate. There will always be bad tackles and injuries in football but let’s try to reduce them as much as possible, punish the offenders, and not just accept them as part and parcel of the game – there’s a lot more referees, managers, players, the FA, fans and the media can do to stamp them out.

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Chelsea 2-0 Arsenal: Defeat On The Day Not The Biggest Issue

Posted on October 4, 2010 by admin

Posted by SmartArse

The most obvious reaction to Sunday’s 2-0 defeat at Chelsea is that it was worryingly like last year’s 2-0 defeat at Chelsea. Observe, if you will, a few choice quotes from our match report of said game:

“What is disappointing is that we started so well. We were really harrying Chelsea in midfield, zipping the ball round with pace and creating genuine pressure.”

“criticism in general should be tempered by the fact that despite these lapses we really made a game of it.”

“The difference was, their late misses aside, Chelsea took advantage of what little they had.”

So yes, there are obvious similarities between the two games. A lot in fact. Yet I don’t quite feel this tells the entire story of Sunday’s fixture.

Last season, in both fixtures against Chelsea, defeat felt utterly inevitable for pretty much the entire game. In part, this was because you felt that no matter how much possession and pressure we had, Chelsea could score at any time – this was no different on Sunday. What was different is that it really looked like we could score. The word I used to describe our attacking in last year’s game at the Bridge was “anaemic”. This year however I felt we were actually pretty threatening.

At least we seemed as threatening as should reasonably be expected in a big game against a brilliant defence and a midfield packed with stoppers. We created chances that we didn’t take, especially the headers for Koscielny and Chamakh and managed half chances – Jack’s pull back to Chamakh, some Arshavin drives – a pretty decent return we probably should have made more of.

Indeed the genuine openings that Chelsea actually created were pretty similar and like us they didn’t score from any of them. Neither of the goals they scored came from chances – they were both remarkable, ridiculous goals; the first snatched by Drogba from a cross that was almost behind him and the second one of the most spectacular freekicks you will ever see. Some on twitter were convinced the wall was at fault. Bollocks. That ball curled around the inside of the wall and still hit the top right corner. An utterly unstoppable strike.

On the day we were narrowly beaten and probably should have picked up a draw. A close game between two big sides was in the end decided by two remarkable goals. Not shocking. In general, that’s how the big games go.

That’s the story of what decided this particular game. But on most other days, would it have been this close?

It takes us playing relatively well, probably closer to our full potential than Chelsea to theirs, to make the game close. We play well and all we deserve is a draw. We would have to put in an immense performance to beat them. Chelsea don’t have to be remotely at their best to beat us. On the day we could have forced a sneaky victory, but imagine playing the game ten times over – who do you think wins more?

Even on the day, we were fortunate our obvious fragility at the back didn’t cost us more. Squillaci did dawdle horribly to hand Anelka Chelsea’s best chance, but it was the numerous unpunished moments of calamity that were most worrying. Koscielny and Squillaci both had nightmares, panicking and shanking the ball when faced with the most simple of tasks so many times I can’t bear detail them all. We face a tough enough task at it is without handing the opposition the initiative. It is both remarkable and incredibly lucky that much of the shankage turned out to be innocuous, but the general standard of defending at the moment certainly makes for troublesome viewing.

Fortunately there is also a long way to go. Unfortunately we are also a long way behind and not just in terms of the significant gap in points. 7 points adrift at the start of October is not ideal.

Work to be done, and fast. Sadly no amount of work can solve our injury problems, but we can’t dwell on that, nor use it as an excuse. We certainly have the ability to pursue at least 2nd in the league and all the cups, but not if we allow our current form to continue and our heads to drop as they did at the end of last season.

We’ll start with three points at home against Birmingham and try and build from there.

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A Partizan Performance from Fabianski

Posted on September 30, 2010 by admin

Posted by Andre The Giant

With Chelsea playing at home against Marseille and the match being shown on Sky Sports 1, it seemed almost unfathomable that Arsenal’s away game, down in the lows of Sky Sports 4, would be on display in the local public houses of Bristol.  So I sat down on Tuesday night, in front of this very computer, with the hope that some generous soul had decided to flout copyright law and beam a decent quality pirate version of the game through the ether and into my home.  I was wrong.  What ensued was 45 minutes of clicking and twittering and arsing, in a vain attempt to find a decent picture.

Our first goal, the highlights would tell me, was a masterful switcharoo between Jack ‘are you sure I’m only good enough for the England U21s’ Wilshere and AA23.  One touch to Jack, who dragged forwards and side footed back to Arshavin, who blasted through the Partizan keeper.  Quite a goal to start things off and yet further proof that young Wilshere is “fucking awesome”.  What I saw on my computer screen, unfortunately, was not dissimilar from a ZX Spectrum game that had failed to load properly.  I later established that the first half was chock full of Arsenal chances, none of which we took.  We were, of course, punished for our ambivalence in front of goal with a penalty awarded to the opposition side.  I couldn’t tell you whether it was a penalty because my interest had been drawn from a static screen to Hollyoaks.  I know, I know, but at least it had actual moving people on it.  Reports suggested it probably was a handball from Denilson and the penalty was duly slotted home by Cleo.  We had Fabianski in goal after all, of course he wasn’t going to save it.

So I threw caution to the wind and ran down to my local, in full knowledge that I’d need to run right back home again and continue my particularly unsuccessful attempt at following the game so that I could write this damn match report.  Being the idiot that I am, I forgot that Bristol was quite an Arsenal friendly place and sure enough, the game was on in glorious High Definition.  Unfortunately, Arsenal’s first half High Definition football had gone a bit lo-fi.  It took ten minutes of striving to get back into the game before Arshavin put Chamakh through on goal.  The Moroccan has a wonderful knack of getting goal side of the last defender and clean through on goal his legs got tangled with Jovanovic’s and he went down like a flamboyant queen on pink prom night.  Arshavin stepped up following Rosicky’s failure to convert at Sunderland and duly blasted straight at the Partizan keeper.  A poor penalty to say the least and the score remained 1-1.

After the disappointment of the penalty miss, Arsenal could have gone one of two ways.  Fortunately, it was the good way.  Wilshere and Arshavin both had good opportunities, before Rosicky pitched a perfect cross to Maoam who headed against the bar then followed up with a nod in to make it 2-1.  Ten minutes later and the points appeared to be all Arsenal’s when Squillaci opened his Arsenal account with a flicked header from a Nasri corner.  Of course that is never quite that with Arsenal (unless we’re winning 6-0) and Kieran Gibbs fouled Stevanovic on the edge of the area.  It wasn’t a pelanty, the tackle clearly taking place outside the area, but it was according to the dullard referee.  What ensued was a monumental two minutes of football, the likes of which may never be seen again.  Cleo went left, Fabianski called it and made a fantastic save, pushing the ball round the post.  He glanced up to Gibbs, thankful for saving his neck, smiled and then let out lion-like roar.  For some reason, all I could think of was this:

Hear Fabianksi Roar

Then the corner came in, Fabianski punched well clear of the area.  Then a high ball came back in and he only fucking caught it too.  Five minutes later and Iliev was clean through only for the Pole to tip the ball round the post.  Surely the best moments of his Arsenal career and perhaps all could be forgiven (just for a second at least).  So the win was sealed, thanks in part to a pretty impressive performance by our most unreliable player.  With the build up to the Chelsea game in full force, it seems likely that Almunia will still be injured and Fabianski will be first pick.  Whilst his performance doesn’t go anywhere near to making amends for the numerous times he’s cocked up in the past, it’s definitely a bonus to have a confidence booster in the bag.  Hopefully he has another stormer on Sunday.

In the post match interview, Wenger said that the Verminator was definitely out for Chelsea and Cesc had a “little, little chance”.  Personally, I saw a glint in the prof’s eye which suggested the chances were a little more than that.  The latest reports say he’s 50:50, but with some positive tweets from Jesus himself I reckon he’ll be there.  We certainly need him, that’s for sure.  I don’t personally see it as the ‘must win’ that others do, it’s still early doors in the season.  But it would be nice to get at least a draw because if Man City and Man Utd both get points we’re in distinct danger of slipping to at least fourth.  With the right team and the right motivation (it goes without saying that it should be there in one of the biggest fixtures of the season) I am convinced that we can get something from the game.  Here’s hoping.

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