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SOCCER NEWS

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Losing a grip on reality?

I am normally the first person to lay into a bad tackle or a bit of media bias, the few people who read this blog around the time of the Eduardo injury will appreciate this. What I have to say on the Stoke game and the Shawcross tackle may therefore surprise some of you. It would be easy for me to join the others who are calling for Shawcross' guts on a spike, I don't choose easy options, I will

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Poor Aaron Ramsey

There's a kind of numb feeling to today's win at Stoke after the horrific injury sustained by Aaron Ramsey, it puts the importance of winning and losing in context with life and other things that are far more significant.Ryan Shawcross should not be hounded, it was a late tackle, however on reviewing things it was no more than that, to me it looked like he simply clattered Ramsey late, I don't

To the Chelsea fans who booed Wayne Bridge

Dear Chelsea fans,I have never been particularly impressed with the behaviour of your club or your supporters. Still one should never write off a group of people based on the actions of a minority or Roman Abrahmovich.However the way in which Wayne Bridge was treated by Chelsea supporters today was an absolute disgrace, and any Chelsea fan who disagrees with this probably doesn't have enough of a

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Stoke - a litmus test

There's no doubt getting three points at the Britannia stadium would send out a very loud message to our title rivals, on the flip a dropping of points would add weight to the arguments that our squad is not up to it in terms of depth, experience and defensive power.A lot has been said in the last few days and some of the over reaction to Ted's very fair post Sunderland comments was a more than a

Monday, February 22, 2010

Take the Walcott Gamble

At the risk of setting light to my own funeral pyre a few years too early, I will (perhaps stupidly) stick my neck above the parapet again.As 1979 posted in the week, an Arsenal first XI would be a very different looking beast to the team that played against Porto and Sunderland. However, I am not aware of Arsenal putting out the "first XI" at any stage over recent years. There may have been the

Sunday, February 21, 2010

Sunderland paper over the cracks

There is a serious danger in viewing yesterday's 2-0 win over Sunderland as evidence that Arsenal are moving in the right direction again after the abysmal defensive performance in Porto on Wednesday night.The stats for the game make for pleasant reading (and we know how much AW loves his stats) - we had an incredible 68% of the possession and a 52% territorial advantage. We had 16 shots (9 on

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Porto rage wearing off.....slowly

I was just thinking to myself, imagine in an ideal world if we had no injuries then the line up against Porto could be something like this:AlmuniaSagna Gallas Vermaelen Gibbs Song Cesc Diaby Bendtner RVP Arshavin I couldn't see this side losing to last night's Porto side. Porto were there for the taking in my opinion, they looked vulnerable at the back for most of the game,

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Porto punish sloppy Arsenal

My mid match comments can be seen below, if ever a ninety minutes summed up our qualities and weaknesses then this was it. Two awful bits of defending cost us two shocking goals. No matter how good we looked at times, no matter that we were in the ascendancy when Porto scored their second, you simply will not win anything defending like complete and utter numpties.Fabianski must shoulder a lot

Arsenal - Porto

So the line up was almost as expected. Fabianski and the expected back four. Denilson in the midfield, with Cesc and Diaby. Then up top Rosicky and Nasri on the flanks of Bendtner. My first thoughts are that we do not have enough pace in the attacking positions and that Denilson needs to do more than he has done in many games of late.There were a couple of hairy early moments, Hulk missing a

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Porto test

It will be interesting to see how we line up tomorrow night. Injuries to Almunia, Gallas, Song and Arshavin see Arsene's options severely limited. The real problem for me is the missing Song, as it this area where we really lack quality cover. Obviously Fabianski and Campbell will come in at the back. Now I shall digressIf I were Arsene then I would be tempted to switch to a 4-4-2. I'd play

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Medical misinformation and a waxwork danger

Being a man of some medical knowledge I always have a little fun, sad I know, it trying to work out what injuries players have sustained from the scanty amounts of information that the clubs feed to the press. Many Gooners will be shedding a tear for young Ashley Cole who has apparently broken his ankle. Chelsea are brief in detail and say he will be out for three months. This strange, I can hear

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Justice over scouse team of referees

I was pleased to see Bendtner start, having a focus up front is so important, we had really lacked this in recent games with both Eduardo and Bendtner out. Having Diaby and Song in tandem in the midfield also filled me with confidence, we look a better side with these two breaking things up and getting stuck into the opposition. Liverpool lined up as predicted, two holding players and a lone

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Defending, spinning and hopefully winning

Having been directed to this Lee Dixon piece on the beeb website I felt the burning need to share, it really sums up what a lot of us have been suspecting about our defending or lack of it. There may been some rather systemic problems in our setup as a club, I suspect we play a bit too much mini-football that focuses on close control and passing, while defending is ignored. As Lee ponders, who

Monday, February 8, 2010

Tedious exchange and how long til things change?

Whatever Arsene said, and frankly most of it was very reasonable, I don't think it merited the response that it has received from Michael Ballack. Although Ballack had a point in that Arsene does look like he is making excuses when pointing out just how dire and negative Chelsea are as a football side, the way he makes the point does make him look rather aggressively defensive of Chelsea's style,

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Defensive frailties wreck a decent performance

Firstly it was a big improvement on last week's showing, there was a lot more hunger and fight from the off, Chelsea were made to look second best in footballing terms for long periods, we pressed them effectively, we were more robust in the tackle and we showed some desire. Unfortunately what I thought was a pretty decent team performance was wrecked by the two very sloppy goals that we

Gerrard the thug, Evra, Almunia and Chelsea await

Watching the highlights from yesterday's games I was struck by some blatant cheating and thuggery that was ignored by the mainstream media. Firstly Wayne Rooney's fall in the penalty box at the slightest of touches was completely ignored, it was a blatant dive, it was cheating, but it was lovely classy Wayne Rooney so we shall just ignore that and say no more.Then Gerrard's antics in the

Saturday, February 6, 2010

'Tough, persistent and consistent'

Arsene was keen to focus forward and not back as he started off the interview by stating that we were simply 'not at our level' against the mancs last weekend. He reiterated his confidence in the players and strangely stated that the lads 'wanted to do well so much that they didn't do well', not an entirely convincing explanation in anyone's book. The lack of patience shown by the team as we were

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Fence sitting et al

There has been a fair amount of criticism of the team's performance against Manu and quite rightly so in my opinion, it simply wasn't good enough, especially defensively. I think most Gooners aren't bad at taking defeat on the chin, it was the manner of this defeat that hit home so hard. Ted talked of the fight we had when the likes of Nutty played, saliently Nutty has been commenting on the

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Where from here???

Having cogitated and deliberated following our defeat to a distinctly average Manure side at the weekend, I have come to a few conclusions as to where we need to go from here. The defensive problems were obvious but for me they were not down to the defenders, it was more a systemic problem. The team did not defend as a unit, there was no adequate communication as to who should cover for defenders

Monday, February 1, 2010

The featherweights will always fail.

The last time Arsenal were thrashed 3-1 at home by United, the result was triggered by an unfortunate slip by Keiran Gibbs, deputising for an injured Gael Clichy. Cristiano Ronaldo then fired in a thunderbolt free kick past Almunia. 2-0 nil down and the game was over after 20 minutes. That result followed an appalling performance at Old Trafford, and an abysmal lack of will in the FA Cup semi