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Sunday, January 31, 2010

Arsene must look in the mirror

Firstly I am not going to dissect the details of our depressing 3-1 defeat to Manu today. It was a Manu side there for the taking, they had a very weak back four on show and an unconvincing keeper. We did create a lot of very decent chances and on a better finishing day we could have easily had four or five goals. The referee was woeful, allowing numerous tackles from behind to go without

Saturday, January 30, 2010

O'Neill a sad and bitter man, Manure preview and Smalling's error

So Martin O'Neill continues his very inappropriate and personal attack on Arsene Wenger, his comments do nothing but make himself look rather reactionary and foolish:"I believe we dropped two points [rather than gained one] because we had clear chances. On the other hand it was a very difficult game because they stopped us from playing when we had the ball and when they had it they played a very

Thursday, January 28, 2010

A point gained but inability to strengthen will cost us

A point at Villa park is nothing to be sniffed at, just can't help but think how sweet three points would have been, then again what's the point in wondering about all the ifs and buts, reality must be dealt with. It certainly leaves a lot of pressure on the home game against the mancs this weekend. It was an interesting game last night, slightly contrasting styles and some decent football, a

Monday, January 25, 2010

Great result for Cameroon and other random rambling

At last Cameroon are out of the African Cup of Nations, Egypt beat them 3-1, and we all know what that means, Alex Song is coming home. Hopefully he'll be available for selection against Manu at the weekend. The Ivory Coast are also out, it will be useful to have the versatility of Emmanuel Eboue back in the squad too. Apparently Jay-Z is a Gooner and his favourite player is Cesc Fabregas, I'm

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Stoke bullying overcomes Arsenal second string

A few rather unexpected names are on the team sheet today. As expected Fabianski in goal and the back four of Coquelin-Sol-Silvestre-Traore, not a defense that will have ever played together before and that will be properly tested against a very physical Stoke assault. Eastmond is holding in midfield with Cesc and Denilson alongside him. Then a front three of Walcott-Vela-JET, I reckon Vela will

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Bolton fallout continues and Stoke 'rough up'

Firstly at least one person from Bolton, Owen Coyle their manager, has seen sense and realised that his initial words were over the top regarding the Gallas tackle. The clear media bias can be seen in this Star article as the tackle is called a 'horror' tackle. In reality it was just a foul with studs up and nothing more sensational, as can be seen on video and from the photo above Gallas had his

Thursday, January 21, 2010

Unfortunate Gibbs, Smalling and Bolton's war crimes

Kieran Gibbs' run of bad luck has continued with the news that he is to undergo surgery on the first metatarsal fracture that he sustained against Standard Liege in the Champions League back in November. From a medical perspective it is slightly strange that he has a non healing first metatarsal fracture, given that it was operated on initially. If the fracture was bad enough to need surgery

Hysteria exposes media's partiality and Bolton's ridiculous whining

Firstly Mark Davies has not sustained a serious injury, and obviously every Arsenal fan would wish him a quick recovery to footballing action. I am not surprised it is not as serious as some people feared, as it really wasn't that bad a tackle from Gallas. Paul Robinson, a Bolton player who did far worse to Cesc at the weekend, called it 'disgusting', obviously this man doesn't possess a mirror

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Bolton stun Emirates and Arsenal respond

The line up saw Clichy and Denilson return for Traore and Eastmond. The game started very much a la Everton, there just wasn't the drive and tempo in the Arsenal game that should be present in a side going for the top of the table spot.Bolton took a shock lead, some hashed defending led to an up in the air Clichy clearance being diverted towards Cahill by Davies, Cahill put it home firmly. We

Speaking manure, common in football

It's really quite amazing how a lot of people open their mouths without engaging the brain. I was just listening to the radio last night and heard fat Sam Allardyce talking ahead of their second leg match against Villa. Obviously fat Sam has an average set of cloggers playing for him at Blackburn and he wants to reduce expectations but he went a little far in his interview. He said that Villa on

Monday, January 18, 2010

Briefest of posts

So the dust settles on our 2-0 win and we'll have to get up to do it all over again. The bad news is that Fran Merida sprained an ankle and is out, the good news is that Walcott and Denilson return. This will probably mean that Walcott will start on the right of the front three and Denilson will come in for the impressive Eastmond. Gael Clichy will probably start at left back after his long

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Robustly done at the Reebok

It's never pretty away to Bolton, it's inevitable that those Reebok luvvies will do everything in their power to put us off our rhythm, often that includes a lot of below the belt tactics, so it's always a tough test and a win there is always a hard earned three points. The surprise before the game was Nasri's absence with a hamstring injury, further limiting our midfield options. Despite some

Saturday, January 16, 2010

Midfield crisis and Song hopes

Firstly to the good news, Cameroon have lost their first match at the ACN to the mighty Gabon, meaning that if Cameroon lose to Zambia in their second game and Tunisia draw with Gabon, then Alex Song will be coming home early, that's what I'm hoping anyway.Song is so important to us, not only because the lad has been playing so well, but also because we have so little defensive cover in the

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Redknapp charged, Sol's knowledge and other tit bits

It's been a day or two of amusement with an injury hit Liverpool being knocked out of the Cup by Reading and now 'Arry Redknapp being charged with tax evasion. Obviously 'Arry has been fitted up for this little bit of action by the nasty police, even so I can't help but hope he can be officially called a crook after the matter is heard by the courts, maybe his guilty twitching will give the game

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Exclusive: Eastmond signs on and Cesc back for Bolton

Before you read any further there is a deliberate irony in the use of the word exclusive in the title of this thread. 'Exclusive', when referring to a news story, generally means that this story has only been released to one news source. Obviously the story that Craig Eastmond has signed a new long term deal at the club is about as exclusive to anotherarsenalblog as the news that the UK are at

Big Sol and the media hype based on foundations of slurry

Starting with some actual news and not something just made up by various Fleet street hacks, the reserves featuring a rejuvenated Sol Campbell for 45 minutes brushed aside West Ham reserves 4-2 last night. A hat trick for JET showed that this young man is knocking hard on the first team's door, he's also been in a few first team squads recently. All the talk has been about Sol Campbell though,

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Campbell a 'triallist' and other shorts

It's pretty amazing these days how news can spread like wild fire, even the hint of something can mushroom out of control within minutes as a result of the network of electronic connections we know as the Internet. It is also very hard to cover up one's mistakes, they are often impossible to erase and can be left as evidence for a very long time.Sol Campbell has been training with the club for

Monday, January 11, 2010

Midfielders who can defend - are we short?

1997/8 - Vieira, Petit and Parlour 2001/2 - Vieira, Parlour, Van Bronckhorst, Edu, Grimandi 2003/4 - Vieira, Gilberto Silva, Edu, ParlourThese are the midfielders who could defend that we had in the squad when we won our league titles under Arsene. You will notice that there is a bit of a contrast with our current squad in terms of defensive midfield options.We have Alex Song who has been

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Everton - known problems highlighted....again

I reviewed the Everton game in full in the cold light of day to try and see just where things are going wrong at the moment, sometimes it's easier to see things more clearly when the emotional dust has settled. It is irrelevant whether we 'deserved' the draw or not, what does this mean anyway, I've never really understood. On the balance of play overall a draw was a fair result. What I think it

Saturday, January 9, 2010

Lucky Arsenal escape with a point

A chill wind blew threw the Emirates this afternoon and of the 50,000 odd thousand there (the official attendance is ticket sales not turnstiles), only the foolhardy will disagree that Arsenal were lucky to escape with a 2-2 draw.The line-up was generally as expected, with Denilson, Diaby and Ramsey in the middle trio, leaving Nasri, Eduardo and Arshavin the so-called strike force. I don't know

Everton, other news and a letter

The snow hasn't scuppered today's fixture against Everton, touch wood, there's no doubt that today's game will be a tough test despite the ease with which we dispatched David Moyes' side on the opening day of the season. I'd expect Eduardo to lead the line, Rosicky may start, Andrei Arshavin and Denilson will return to the eleven, so I'd see the starting eleven as something like: Almunia; Sagna,

Friday, January 8, 2010

Barcelona FC: an embarrassment to humanity and football

There is no point in having rules if they are not enforced, this is a chunk of FIFA's 2009 edition of the rules and regulations concerning the transfer of players:"A club intending to conclude a contract with a professional must inform theplayer’s current club in writing before entering into negotiations with him. Aprofessional shall only be free to conclude a contract with another club if

Thursday, January 7, 2010

The return of a legend - PV4

As legends go PV4 is one of the biggest that I've had the pleasure to watch play for the Arsenal, I remember his debut at home to Sheffield Wednesday vividly to this day, he came on and changed the game, his raw athleticism and silky skills combined to devastating effect, back then this kind of player just wasn't known to the English game. He was one of Arsene's very first signings and one of the

Team of the Decade - Andy Gray eat your soulless heart out

With the game being cancelled last night and only transfer rumours in the news, I am resorting to the completely pointless task of creating teams of the decade. Andy Gray has inspired me to come up with a Premiership team of the decade, not because I think Andy Gray's opinion deserves one iota of respect; no, this is a man who changes the rules for different teams, he is the little dog that sits

Wednesday, January 6, 2010

The likely hitmen for Arsenal in January

The talk on the town is that a striker is at the top of Arsene's agenda for the transfer window, and if Nicklas Bendtner fails a fitness test on friday then this will be even more likely to happen. Obviously Arsene is not a man for throwing around money as if there were no tomorrow, meaning that signing the likes of Dzeko, Villa et al is not going to happen, even if one assumes that Arsene rated

Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Bolton preview and why we love Bolton

Arsene rubbed his hands with glee as he started the press conference, well not quite I think he was just warming himself up, the first news was good in that Gael Clichy and Cesc Fabregas are both very close to returning, the latter will be the latest back and should be available for the Bolton away game. There was an interesting grin on Arsene's face as he said that he just wanted to make the

Merida, Rosicky, fixtures and injuries

If media reports are to be believed then Fran Merida has signed a five year contract with Atletico Madrid. He had been negotiating a new deal with us but the contract had not been signed. It's a bit disappointing because he is a great talent but one can understand why he's made the move. Fran is a good all round attacking midfielder, creative and inventive on the ball; however not really pacey

Monday, January 4, 2010

Shut it fat Sam you immense fool

Will people never get tired of repeating the same old tired and faulty arguments. Sam Allardyce is the latest to hype up the dire straits that the English game is in because of the number of foreign footballer in our top division. The media should not give these thoughtless statements the time of day.The argument is just plain wrong. The English game has benefited massively from the influx of

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Upton Park test overcome

As predicted there were a few changes to the starting eleven. Fabiasnki in for Almunia, Silvestre in for Traore, Merida for Diaby, Vela for Arshavin and Wilshere for Nasri. Overall the first half was very bitty indeed, a typical blustering cup tie if ever there was. The ref Clattenberg who looks like a prime tosser to me with his primadonna hair cut never got control of the game, allowing far too

Saturday, January 2, 2010

West Ham preview, Chelsea in denial

The hints are that big Phil may well start at centre back and that Tomas Rosicky will come into the forward line for our trip to West Ham. I'd also reckon that Fabianski will get some game time ahead of Almunia. Arsene has spoken about the FA Cup and he confirms that it will be a strong side with only minor changes from the Pompey game. A mysterious foot injury has been the reason behind big