Here with the exclusives, as always, Le Grove can reveal the first official shots of the news kits.
Don’t ask how I got them, but it turns out the American kit makers aren’t too launch bothered about launching through unofficial channels. Why give Arsenal.com the exclusive when you can give it to a blog who’ll give you a fraction of the exposure!
As you can see, Arsenal are back to white sleeves… mainly because we normally have white sleeves. We’re sticking with the Arsenal logo and the sponsor… because we have to. We’re also going to go with a 1971 style shirt to celebrate our 125th year anniversary because I can’t find a colour picture of an older shirt to photoshop.
The away kit runs along similar lines to last years with the addition of some snazzy lightning bolts, a classy spread collar with double stitched buttons for playing those pesky shirt tugging Mancs.
Enjoy the pics… keep em’ crossed that Eboue isn’t too peeved at me for breaching his confidence!
Oops, did I just give away my source?
Anyone caught palming this off as their own exclusive will be sued.
No use trying to hide your face Diaby... busted!
Onto the serious stuff…
After reading the bile spouted by one of the most ridiculous, self promoting, calamitous referee of the last twenty years, plus the revelations long time Grover Chary uncovered over at ArsenalArsenal, I started wondering… why do referees hate us?
Well, an obvious, yet controversial conclusion would be to point out the fact that all referees are English. Yep, it’s in the rules. We don’t allow foreigners to ref our games.
So, the simple solution for Arsenal getting back in the refs good books would be to remove our foreign players and get some good old British stalwarts in. Alternatively, we could send our players on a ‘How to win friends and influence people’ course in the hope they can socialise their way into refs phonebooks. You know, like the United and Chelsea players have done.
Or, we could take a step back and review an earlier line in this post.
‘Yep, it’s in the rules. We don’t allow foreigners to ref our games.’
Yes, you read that correctly, your eyes were not deceiving you.
NO FOREIGNERS ALLOWED
Sorry Mr Rossetti, despite being the best at what you do in the world, despite Italy being a member state of the European Union, you can’t referee today’s game, because you son, are a Johnny Foreigner.
Now excuse me for being ignorant but I thought one of the main benefits of being part of the EU was the freedom to work where you like within the member states?
I thought I’d check the EU website and this is what it says,
‘Firstly, the EU Treaty has always provided for some basic freedoms, such as freedom to work and travel around the EU’
So if that was true, then there is no way I’d find any press releases on the Official Referees website (PGMOL) that contradict EU Law?
Wrong.
“There are no discussions regarding the use of foreign officials in the English game and the Professional Game Match Officials Ltd (PGMOL) has no plans to do so.”
Cast your minds back to last year when UEFA were told by the EU they can’t discriminate on grounds of nationality with players.
“The parliament calls on the member states and sports associations not to introduce new rules that create direct discrimination based on nationality, such as FIFA’s 6+5.”
If the EU won’t allow clubs to discriminate based on nationality, why do they allow the referees association? That stinks of hypocrisy to me.
You’ve got ex-referees talking in the national press about Arsenal’s lack of British players plus the obvious lack of decisions we get in games. Every time Arsene Wenger makes a comment about a bad refereeing decision, there is an article from Graham Poll slamming him. Where are the Graham Poll articles hammering Steven Gerrard after he dives? Where are Graham Poll’s two pennies when Alex Ferguson takes a pop at refereeing fraternity EVERY WEEK!
Seems Mr Poll (and Jeff Winter) is only interested in slating Arsenal players or foreigners… that has to filter down to the referees still in the game. I feel we’re getting a sneaky peak into the mindset/culture amongst British refs when it comes to foreign teams/players/managers.
Arsene Wenger alluded to the close relationship refs seem to have with the Brit pack a few months ago after watching Alan Wiley refer to Rooney as ‘Wazza’.
‘‘I believe for them [referees] to do their job to do their job in an objective way they have to keep their distance as much as possible. From the players, from the English national players and from the managers.’
That statement couldn’t be truer and it couldn’t be any more evident.
Teams with a British core have an unfair advantage over teams that choose to look abroad in their quest for Premiership dominance. This is unfair and by the looks of it, against the law.
How long before someone picks up on this and puts an end to this injustice?
* The Times nicked our Sorenson story a few weeks back, so hopefully, not too long!
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Gambon, CR gets an extra half season like that. Henry’s b-day was beginning of the season.
Its not called skewing stats when the argument was about their careers at Arsenal/United up until they were 24.
That was established earlier on
Who said anything about Arsenal vs UTD, we were talking about who the better player was at that age.
Gambon and we would have easily won the league fitness permitting. Don’t give me that bullshit.
Gambon we are talking about class players overall…Messi Henry etc….
BUt what I mean is Messi has hit his peak at 21+
Cristiano hit his peak at 23 or so
Ronaldo de Lima also hit his peak very early at 19/20+
Zidane hit his peak at 26
Ronaldinho hit his at about 24
Thats how it is different players reach their potential at diff times….it obvious Thierry never hit his until about 25…..you have to compare the peak years….Yes Ronaldo is still going through his….
so lets see how long it lasts how it fits into his current team obviously he not in some of the other guys league just yet
gambon – “They were both young and nowhere near their peak. Ronaldo wouldve scored 40 again this year fitness permitting.”
..and if Henry was at his peak today playing alongside Kaka, and the rest of the Madrid team and in Spain, he’d score about 60.
How do you compare that, the stats are a lot closer than you’ll ever want to admit, what’s different is the teams and squads they played for, the leagues and the differences between the leagues.
Ronaldo might score 40 again, but in Spain thats something completely different and in todays game are you really going to sit there and say he did it single handedly with all the players and money Real Madrid have ?!
henry better than ronaldo= fact. Zidane best player ever=fact.
i think that juan roman riquelme is the most underrated player in the recent history of the game.
just needed to throw that.
Fitness permitting, Henry used to get battered silly playing up against the defences back then, and he wasn’t a diving cheating twat, but will that go in the record books ? Fuck no.
Henry got battered silly yet everyone left Ronaldo well alone yeah?
zidane is the best player to ever grace the earth, i agree. in fact it goes to me
1.zidane
2.maradona
3.pélé
4.di stephano
5.cruff
6.real ronaldo
7.becknbaur
8.muller
9.neives denilson
Maradona > Zidane for me.
Neves Denilson should be 6th.
gambon – Are you kidding me ? He’s always on the floor, because he loves it, because it means he can get up and take a penalty or a free-kick, even on the week-end he got clipped, realised about a second later and then jumped to the floor.
Who’s going to disagree that when Henry first came to the league, the league was far more physical then it is today ?! Are you saying it wasn’t ?!
Keyser
We’re talking about 2000-2007 not 1962.
gambon – and ? A period where we had about 60 red cards, whereas we haven’t had one all season now.
gambon
i knew it, he is too low on my list
Thats cos we’re full of pussies.
Is the league still as rough as it was even a few years ago ? I don’t think so, do I think Spain’s going to be even rougher for Ronaldo ? erm No, not that either.
Anyways got to get up in 5 hours so goodnight, fun as always.
Try not to dream about Henry & CRs wiki stats.
Gambon..Pele>Maradona for me
Pele was a more complete player….Maradona was very left sided…..
Pele was only 1-2 inches taller than Maradona but yet he was supreme in the air as well…He used to out jump 6footers and score diving headers along with displaying dribbling skills just as good as Maradona…
Also Pele could use both left and right foot equally well…
Remember Maradona had to cheat to win the one World Cup he did win….
Gooby Says:
February 24, 2010 at 00:20
zidane is the best player to ever grace the earth, i agree. in fact it goes to me
1.zidane
2.maradona
3.pélé
4.di stephano
5.cruff
6.real ronaldo
7.becknbaur
8.muller
9.neives denilson
—————————-
One problem, where is Denilson 15?
eboue should be on that list
heres my list
1. Denilson
2. almunia
3. Fabianski
Top 3 keepers in the World atm: Fabianski, Casillas, Almunia
Top 3 Strikers: Drogba, Bendtner, Villa
Top 3 playmakers: Cesc, Eboue, Denilson
Top 3 defenders: Silvestre, Terry, Lucio
speaking of villa,did u see his second goal against getafe. Best ive seen so far
top 3 keepers-Cesar,buffon,casillas
Top 3 strikers-Torres,drogba,villa
top 3 playmakers-Cesc,xavi,iniesta
top3 defenders-Nesta,pique,terry
NISH
1 out of 1`2 aint bad
well just wait on that until the off season it might very well be 0-12 next season
Morning All
Nishanth,No Messi in playmaker category.
when will rooney stop scoring goals?
after ronaldo,its rooney who is carrying manu…how unlucky r we?
and stuttgart played like arsenal in most of the game,in context of missing so many chances against barca..
stuttgart shoud have won 4-1
Don’t worry ethan.Denilson will step up
http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11095_5902700,00.html
Sabeel-Messi is more of winger or a supporting striker.Not exactly a playmaker.
Hleb was excellent for the first 60 minutes yesterday.Rarely gave the ball away and attacked with intent(He doesn’t do that often).Wonderful to watch him play.
nishanth
i think Messi can practically play anywhere…
thats why i asked
Did you watch bordeaux play yesterday?Chamakh looked okay.He is a good player but doesn’t add any extra quality to the squad.He does win a lot of headers though
No i couldnt
but majority people say,he is ‘okay’ type of player..
But difficult to judge,how he would perform in our team.
bordeaux arent arsenal really..so hopefully he will be better in our team..
cant believe a over rated,but really average ibramohovic joined barca…and now he is scoring quite a many goals for them…
similarly hoping chamakh bangs it in,more often,when he plays in our team…
forget chamakh….the useless togo twat got 30 goals becos of our midfield/fabregas…
so chamakh should do the same..
Ibrahimovic is actually pretty good.Not worth 65million that barca paid for him though.
Chamakh’s link up play is good but we already have too many strikers who are good at that.We need a proper goalscorer(torres,villa,higuain,etoo) but then these type of players would cost a lot and wenger won’t be tha interested
see the 1st comment
http://i49.tinypic.com/140yvxt.jpg
nishanth
think again,just look at out status NOW,we cant say that,when we need chamakh IMO
for situations like these which we are since months with no Striker,
half of them are either injured all the time..season after season..
i reckon now on,we begin and plan the season thinking RVP is not in our team
evry1s drunk again
denilson
“We lost two games against Manchester United in the Champions League but we learned from both,” said the Brazilian.
So somehow we’ve learned to beat them in the C.L but we cant beat them for some reason on a regular home game ?
is that what he’s saying to me ?
eg
You dont rate him
You hate him
Still why do you quote him?
yh most probably
bnsb ?
logic ?
i don’t rate almunia or ade before him but i sure as shite will tell ya
and it’s not a matter rating a player or not , im diligent enough to know he’s not good enough currently in the role wenger needs him to fill ..
maybe in time he will be an excellent player .
but he isnt now .. and i sure as hell wouldnt be picking topics like boys to men !
because he is the main example of its failings
bnsb Says:
February 24, 2010 at 08:59
eg
You dont rate him
You hate him
Still why do you quote him?
—————–
sorry didnt answer the question ..
because its a fuckin laugh