The warning signs are there for Arsene – what is the cost of inaction?

January 31, 2011

3 days after Wenger telling the world that the quality levels in his squad are the best he’s ever had, we once again trot out against weaker opposition (53 league places weaker) and struggle like hell to turn them over.

Huddersfield not only gave us a run for our money, they probably deserved to win based on how many chances they had. In the second half they battered us for large sections of the game. Once again, we had to turn to the creative powers of the one and only Cesc Fabregas to save the day.

We were flat and pedestrian. We lacked zip in our passing and the quality in the final third was truly woeful. In fact, the lack of quality displayed in many areas of our squad was shown up and this was against a team our Carling Cup kids team would normally have dispatched with.

The pre-match wasn’t exactly inspiring. I sat on the tube on the way up wondering if I’d got the times wrong for the game due to how empty it was at 1140. There were many empty seats at inside the ground. Clearly, many people had decided to take the day off. Is that down to over kill on the football front of late, or is that down to knowing that you’re likely to shell out £65 to see a half assed second string struggle to break down whoever is in front of them? The latter I expect.

Anyway, the usual suspects were in the side. Denilson, Squillaci, Eboue, Arshavin, Bendtner…. dare I say Chamakh?

We started off brightly, most of the creative stuff was going through Arshavin and Samir Nasri. Arshavin powered a shot over the bar and Nik B couldn’t bundle a loose ball into the net.

Arshavin went close but fluffed his lines into the side netting. Huddersfield went up the other end and nearly turned in a low cross which was pretty worrying.

After 21minutes our break through came, Nik B picked the ball up outwide, powered into the box and smashed it hard at the far post, the ball took a deflection and made its way past the keeper. The score board at Arsenal said it was an own goal, from where I was sitting that looked like an unfair call.

Arsenal’s complacency started to rear its ugly head, passes weren’t finding the feet of red shirted player and this was typified when Denilson slipped in Lee who fed Pilkington in with a great chance that he thankfully couldn’t convert. Denilson held his hands up, but it was once again a shocking show of ineptitude at tier 2 level football from the Brazilian.

Just before half time, Sebastian Squillaci had a chance to show the world why he was such a fantastic signing when he chopped down Jack Hunt mid way through a run that had taken him past two players. It wasn’t a surprise the outcome was a red card. It wasn’t  surprise it was the Frenchman picking it up. If he’s struggling to pick up the runs of average players, what’s he going to be like when he’s inevitably paired with Song at centre back for the Barcelona game in a few weeks?

We also lost Samir Nasri after he chased down a long ball and pinged his hamstring. What a gutter. That’ll teach us for playing route one. I’m not subscribing to the ‘he shouldn’t have been playing’ brigade either. The only way he could have been omitted from the squad was if Wenger had assembled a second string capable of motivating itself to beat inferior teams. Sadly, we don’t have that. The FA Cup and the Carling Cup are not our number priorities but let’s be honest, they’re our number 1 hopes of Silverware. Rosicky joined the party hoping to inject some life into our game.

The second half began, Alex Song had dropped into defence for the anonymous Chamakh. I honestly can’t remember the Moroccan making a contribution in the first half?

Arshavin made a last ditch effort to stop Gudjonsson pulling the trigger. A timely intervention that certainly would have led to a goal.

Huddersfield were battering us, Almunia had to pull off a top class save to prevent us losing our lead. Then the moment came, a corner was fed into the box, our tallest player Abou Diaby was out powered and out jumped, Alan Lee powered a header home.

Typical.

We were shamefully poor. Denilson had been truly garbage and just to sum up how people felt about him, when he looked like he’d pinged a hamstring, quite a number of people cheered sarcastically. Of course, Denilson is the only player who could recover from a 3 week injury after 15.4 seconds which just goes to show you how little the second string fancy it. Very pathetic.

We had to call on Cesc to save our ailing day, the last thing we wanted was another replay. He came on and changed things up perfectly. His ability to find space and motivate the rest of the team cannot be underestimated. It was his cut back and teasing ball that lead to Nik being shoved over in the box. Cesc stepped up for the penalty, nearly stopped twice in the run up, but he was cool enough to bury the kick anyway. He picked up the ball, headed over to the corner flag, paid tribute to the odd jobs man, ran back to the half way line and dropped the ball so the Hudderfield players had to run back and pick it up.

At this point the ground started to empty, the crowd actually jeered the announcement of 58,000 fans.

The game played out, Cesc managed to pick up a booking for being pushed over. Well play Twattenburg. The result was called in, we’d picked up the result and the prize of playing Orient at home in the next round. Thank the lord, they’re about the level of our second string. Looks like a semi final could be coming our way, 3 games away from an FA Cup win, 4 games away from cup double.

So what did we learn today? Well, for me we learnt that Arshavin still hasn’t found his form but he’s getting there slowly but surely. He’s always a creative hub it’s just a shame he doesn’t try and keep it simple when he’s not on fire. Nik Bendtner, despite the goal is still a long way from  being a top class striker. His control isn’t instant and his instincts for  scoring were summed up when he was played into the box by Arshavin but took too many touches to shoot. Eboue is an embarrassment to the shirt, it’s amazing how many times a kick to the leg ends up as a facial injury.

Denilson was shocking in the middle of the park. I just can’t believe how many opportunities he is given to show how bad he is. Why not call back Lansbury and give him a go? At least we know he cares about playing for the club. Surely Aaron Ramsey would have benefitted more from a game like yesterday?

Abou Diaby once again finds himself straight back in the first team squad. I appreciate he’s been out for a while but there is no excuse for some of the lack lustre passes he was making and the simple rudimentary mistakes he was making all over the park, not least being beaten in the air when you’re the tallest player on the park.

Almunia? Well, what a waste of a place in the team. The guy might be nice as a pie, but he’s not fit to wear that green jersey. His indecisive line based keeping really wont be missed when his contract expires. We’ve got a gem in Chesney, I don’t even need to tell people that, he really is a class above anything we’ve got at the club and he should be given the number 1 permanently.

Chamakh put in another forgettable performance. I’m not sure where his confidence has gone, but all that time out he needed for a rest has clearly rotted his game because he was nowhere to be seen yesterday. Someone needs to have a word.

Finally, someone needs to fly a stern e-mail over to Wenger. He’s taking us into the final half of the season with 2 able defenders. Squillaci is a liability, Song is no centre back as there is no one who can do 50% of what he can do. Yet the coach thinks it’s acceptable t sit on his hands.

Suspensions and injuries will happen and the players that will slip in have shown against Wigan, Ipswich, Leeds and Huddersfield why they are not good enough to be reliable replacements against top class opposition. How many times have we been in situations like this?

Wenger needs to sign a centre back, inaction could be the undoing of our best chance at league title glory in a long time.

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Posted by Pedro

Twitchy signs Llorente, Chavs get Torres, Arsenal old boy scores and we sign…

January 30, 2011

…That’s right young imaginary world class centre back, Jack Shite, even 17 year old Chamberlain doesn’t want to join us, how predictable. Squillaci reminds me of when we signed Silvestre, he wasn’t good enough, got injured a lot and we won nothing. I see the similarities, French, too old, nothing special, injured a lot and stopping us signing what we need. Still Arsene rates him.

Oh well, I wasn’t expecting Arsenal to do anything as outrageous as improving the team so to be fair I’m not really bothered, I just look forward to those games that we win and anything else is a bonus.

Today I’m being rested, I’ll watch it on ESPN, I’m going to the Everton game so want to make sure I’m fresh, I can’t be expected to make the effort twice a week after all, the players don’t.

Arsenal don’t need to worry, they already have my money up front.

Onto today and the prospect of seeing the fringe players, it will be nice to see Diaby again before he get’s injured and comes back in time for the final. All jokes aside I really think that Diaby is an awesome player, he’s just injured too often and you saw what happened to Rosicky, 4 years of waste to come back and never feature. Having said that Rosicky should play today.

This is my best guess.

Almunia

Eboue Squillaci Miquel Gibbs

Denilson Diaby Rosicky

Bendtner Chamakh Arshavin

If they can’t see Huddersfield off, then we really should have a clear out, but I still expect a cricket score.

It will be nice to see Miquel so I hope he plays, but I’m not holding my breath. I know we still have a day to go before the deadline but given that we’ve already lost nearly a month, I can’t see the point in trying to buy someone this late on, we did it with Arshavin, but to do it again wouldn’t make any sense and unless it was a Premier league player, we would have to have a bedding in period for he or she that joined, I say she because I really don’t want to offend anyone, to be honest though, there are a few in our ladies team I think are better than Denilson anyway.

Have a great day Grovers, enjoy the Pires goal, he still has it 6 years on doesn’t he? Don’t worry about all the teams that have signed players and improved themselves, one of them have to play the mancs twice! And think of the future, we already have them in abundance. And they cost us nothing!

1,472 Comments | New Review | Permalink
Posted by Geoff

Vela off, Chezzer confirmed numero uno, Almunia’s back and are Arsenal about to get fined?

January 29, 2011

So to begin with Carlos Vela’s departure to West Brom on loan, didn’t Simpson go there once? Hmmm the word is the agent moved the goal posts at the last minute so Vela didn’t go to Bolton, strange that, I thought it was Vela that was playing and the loan was up to Wenger, still never mind, that put paid to Cahill then.

Great news is that Wenger has confirmed Chezzer is the new Arsenal number one, that is indeed top, top news, stay un-injured boy and you’ll go far, we are a different team with you in and you have the support of this blog. Almunia is being told to fight for his place, how bizarre, he’ll only get in if Chezzer or Fab get injured, so unless he means fight them, like beat them up, I don’t see how fighting for his place works, still he’s back for the Huddersfield game tomorrow.

For those of you who didn’t know where Huddersfield is, it’s North of Watford and South of Norway, we’re at home though, so it doesn’t matter!

Now we know that Arsene will make wholesale changes, so I will guess the team, question is do we get fined like Blackpool did or are the big two exempt?

Here’s my guess for manana’s team.

Almunia

Eboue Squillaci Koscielny (or Miquel) Gibbs

Denilson Diaby Song

Bendtner Chamakh Arshavin

That’s my guess, we are running out of options as we seem happy to supply the rest of the league with loanees, so I’m thinking with Rosicky injured then Diaby who is fit, will step in, either way it’s a game where Pedro and I may well be rested, seems a long way to go to watch a second string play a conference side, so maybe resting the fans is no different to resting the players, I wonder how Ivan would feel about that, you know if we followed the leaders mantra and all took the day off!

On the way home on Thursday I met two very nice young ladies who were keen to talk about Le Grove and the Richard Keys and Andy Gray situation, they both said as girls that the whole thing was nonsense, well done girls and a victory for common sense, you were both delightful and it was nice sharing part of my journey with you talking about the Arsenal, you must have thought I was a sad old git! Thank you Cheryl and Jenny!

Have a great day Grovers, tomorrow we’ll see about the mighty Huddersfield and get to see our old boy, Benik Afobe!

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Posted by Geoff

New Arsenal defensive midfielder here | Arsene dreaming of that bonus again

January 28, 2011

So we’ll kick the morning off with a final word over the sexism stuff. Today, the Sun newspaper went with a hit piece on Richard Keys wife being sexist on page five, turn to page 31 and there is a double page spread of 10 sexist jokes, asking the readers which ones are acceptable (an excuse to print sexist jokes) and then hidden somewhere in the back there is an article about a jobless scumbag who beat a cat, threw it from the 11th floor of a building and let it die over 15 agonising minutes.

I know which I found more shocking, a shame we live in a society where an off air remark about the offside rule will curry more debate.

Anyway, we’re where we usually are in January. Wenger needs to make a signing, he’s needed to make one since December and surprise, surprise, there are simply no players anywhere in the world!

Unless of course they are under the age of 20. We never seem to have any problem picking those boys off because 1) They guarantee you a resale value 2) We’re the Real Madrid for young men.

We all read yesterday that Ian Holloway takes a cut of any transfer surplus he creates across the year. Not something I have a problem with usually. We’ve told you for ages that Arsene Wenger is bonused in a similar way and I think once again he’s proved it with the type of player he’s been signing and the inaction so far this winter.

That for me is where his bonus scheme is wrong.

Firstly, he’s not earning £250k a year like Ian Holloway. If that man is taking a cut of transfer profits, fair play, if he was sacked tomorrow in a heap of shame, his salary wouldn’t have secured him for life. Wenger is on the best part of £6million a year already. Surely he doesn’t need a further cut of transfer profits? Surely a club with ambitions as big as Arsenal’s should be telling him what he can spend because the CEO is intelligent enough to know that figure won’t bankrupt us, then bonusing him solely on what he achieves on the pitch.

Arsenal fans pay more than anyone to see their team play football. We’re one trophy position better off than we were last year and arguably, we haven’t played better, the teams around us have just got worse. We are unlikely to get a better chance of the league, we need a centre back, the coach is once again showing an ineptitude for signing players that hit his bonus and we’ll once again giving ourselves an uphill battle to make our mark.

Alex Song has been tremendous so far this year, under no circumstances should he be asked to drop into central defence.

1) He’s not good enough in that position

2) Denilson is not good enough to cover him

3) It could destroy his confidence doing what he’s doing at the moment

Hey, all of the above might be completely wrong. Wenger might surprise us with Gary Cahill or Chris Samba over the weekend. If he does that, regardless of how they adapt, no one will be able to accuse Wenger of not addressing the issues.

However, if history is a gauge, there is an awfully real chance that he’ll bank on the poor Squillaci coming back and then he’ll head into the next 3 months with just 3 centre backs. All the more perplexing as we know full well that JD’s fitness is about as reliable as an iphone 4 alarm clock. All the more worrying because I remember the centre back calamity we went with at the Camp Nou last year.

I find our weakness in the transfer market embarrassing. Almost as embarrassing as sending a girl a smutty joke picture message using an M&S sausage as a prop, only for her not to realise it was sausage. That was awkward. Did I not learn anything from Keys and Gray?!

In other news, I think I owe Geoff a bit of an apology. Sometimes he comes out with some stuff when we’re at football and I think , ‘ Geoff, you do talk some madness sometimes’, but more often than not, he gets it right, one of these times was his insistence that Jack Wilshere could become our new defensive midfielder. Well, low and behold, Fabio Capello has come out and said something very interesting,

“Wilshere is better technically than Makelele. He’s slower than Makelele but when he receives the ball he is more dangerous than Makelele,” Capello told the Daily Telegraph.

“Wilshere is the best young player. He now plays all the time with Arsenal. If you play with Arsenal, you are a really good player because Arsene Wenger likes good players.

“I think he’s mature enough to play this role. He’s a really interesting player.

Well, well, well… I didn’t see that one coming. It’s interesting because Jack seems to relish the fight more than the creative side of the game. That’s not to say that he isn’t very good at picking out passes, because he is. I see him more as an Alonso with balls type of player.

Capello also took time out to address his mistake of leaving Theo at home.

“He is playing how I remember when he started to play with us. It was a tough decision leaving Theo out for the World Cup.

“He is one of the players after the World Cup I thought about a lot. I made a mistake not selecting him.”

I’m not so sure I agree here. Theo has been very disappointing for a number of years now. I’m glad he was dropped from the World Cup squad. He’s worked on his fitness, he’s more motivated than ever before and he’s found his shooting boots at long last. The confidence in his game this season is incredible compared to last.

Just before I go, I thought it was interesting that Blackpool were fined for making 10 changes to their starting line up against Aston Villa earlier in the year, yet Arsenal make 8 changes against Wigan, drop points and no one says anything. Neither team should be fined for utilising their submitted squad, but it does go to show you that sometimes big club fear from the league bosses is real.

In fact, it’s the same for everyone. Commentators openly say on Sky,

‘The referee was probably justified not giving that penalty, could you imagine Ferguson at half time?’

Sorry, if Ferguson shouted at me and I was as big as Howard Webb, I grab him by the shirt and pin him up against the wall and demand a pay rise. Why should it be acceptable for a manager to shout at anyone, especially a match official that’s on the pay roll?

Ferguson is the King in the world of Premier League and I think it’s outrageous certain clubs have decision go their way because of how they operated. Anyway, that’s a different blog for a different day.

See you in the comments!

P.S. Two things. No I don’t have any tickets to the Carling Cup Final and if you are a Arsenal blog writer and you want to talk about us even if it’s to slag us off, a backlink would be common courtesy.

Also, don’t forget that you can follow us on twitter @LeGrove, you can access our exciting Facebook fanpage and you can receive a lovely e-mail everyday if the IT gestapo are on your case about us!

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Posted by Pedro

Andy Gray and Richard Keys, the demon anti Arsenal Sky pundits have been fired, so is that Good?

January 27, 2011

For the pro manc loving Fergie can do no wrong stance, yes. For their he’s just showing passion and letting you know he’s there comments, yes most definitely. But for an off air comment about a female lino not knowing the offside rule, most definitely not.

I am in no way defending sexism or any ‘ism’ for that matter and I know some of you won’t agree with this, but read on and let me tell you why I believe this is wrong.

And encroaching on civil liberties with spy cameras is verging on Stalinism and that’s on ‘ism’ that is unacceptable in this country.

What next, cameras in toilets to see who washes their hands, or worse?

Ok, they didn’t get caught fiddling their expenses at the taxpayers expense, they weren’t shagging their best friends wives and knocking them up, they were neither drug dealing or taking, they weren’t shoplifting and they weren’t looking at underage porn sites on the internet.

Yes I agree that there is no place for racism, there is no place for discriminating against disabled people, mental handicapped people or old people, and there is certainly no place for sexism, but I believe they were just having a bit of lads banter that went horribly wrong.

With all the evil going on around us in this world and in this country, let’s get some perspective, Richards Keys resignation was on page 5 today, buried further down was a white bird and a black bloke who stamped a homosexual to death for nothing, they got 7 and 6 respectively, what happened to life? Now that’s a real crime, but I didn’t see that repeated for a week on the TV and all over the press. Sky, ITV, Channel4 and the BBC have been camped outside Andy Grays house for a week.

What do blokes talk about when they are down the boozer, God? Or how they are going to spend all weekend helping the elderly and doing charity work?

Do they hell, and if you are one that does, then you have indeed cast that first stone and I humbly apologise – Jesus.

What do women do when they are out with their chums? The same as blokes thats what, being lewd and probably being disparaging about blokes, ‘man flu’ springs to mind.

Tell me I’m wrong!

If we apply this holier than thou logic in life what next, we can’t take the micky out of the Scots, or the Welsh? We can’t have a dig at the spuds? We can’t wear Lancaster bombers on our heads when we play Germany?

There is a fine line between banter and misogyny and those two guys are not misogynists. As much as they get me down with their arse kissing manc antics, they are just ordinary blokes that have paid a high price for a few moments of madness, off air and pretty sneaky by the Prince of Darkness in my book.

We have many ladies on here, and we love them all, but they know what banter is, one lovely lady called a fellow blogger an ‘acorn dick’ the other day, and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t know that for sure, but it was just banter, she wasn’t called a man hater, in fact many male bloggers joined in on her side.

I am all for justice, but those guys for all their faults did not deserve to lose their livelihoods, maybe a ban would have humbled them. Now though, they are finished.

As for Twitchy’s son, I expect him to be in the deep stuff with his wife after the clip I saw, but by the same logic as was applied to the demon duo, how the hell was he on Sky last night, he thought the ‘Smashing’ sketch was hilarious. He should have been sacked as well, unless hanging out the back of someone is acceptable banter, he thought it was.

So when you’re at a game and 50,000 fans are singing the ‘referees a w*nker’ I hope you tell the people around you there is no place for foul language, verbal assault or bullying, but I won’t, it’s all part of the game, and what those twerps did was in private, ill judged granted, but in private, or so they thought.

Onto our beloved Arsenal, we get to play the Brummies in the final, sweet, that means I can get hammered at Baker Street without fear of standing next to a 1000 West Ham fans, last time it was the chavs, this time though I expect a different result!

Finally I’m hearing we are talking to Sackho and Benzema, now those two would push us over the line for sure, I would love it, but I can’t see it somehow.

Email Pedro as we has lots of tickets available for the cup match on Sunday.

Have a great day Grovers, next up Huddersfield, a case of Peroni if anyone knows where that is, thank God we are playing at home and we’ll get to see Benik Afobe, not scoring though I hope!

I also found it unbelievable listening to all those sanctimonious pricks on TalkShite when they (all of them) judged Andy Gray and Richard Keys comments as unacceptable but yet they all work with Stan Collymore who no only beats women, he’s a self confessed dogger, funny how that bloke deserves a second chance but suggesting a woman doesn’t understand the offside rule is unacceptable. I wonder what Ulrika’s view on that is.

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Posted by Geoff

Nik on the wing… Arsenal win. Ratings and Review

January 26, 2011

After Geoff’s impassioned plea for a resounding win, the least the boys could do was oblige.

It was the biggest night of 2011 and possibly the biggest game in the universe at that given time. Could we shake off the embarrassment of the away loss, could the boys step up?

Well… despite making a bit of a meal of it, resoundingly yes!

Ipswich sent out pretty much their only warning shot of the match after 2 seconds with a fizzing 45 yard punt at goal. You felt they needed that for pride reasons, you know, in case the Arsenal of the weekend showed up. Sadly for us, the stuttery, lets thread it through the eye of a needle Arsenal turned up. We didn’t create an awful lot, in fact, we went closest to conceding when Chesney came flying out of his goal, missed the ball and head butted Sagna out of the game.

What a plank.

Our first real chance came when Nik B picked up the ball out wide, chipped a floated cross into space where Robin was on hand to clatter the ball against the bar with an angled header.

Robin went close soon after when he latched onto a superbly flighted Cesc pass, he watched it over his shoulder but sadly couldn’t knock it into the net.

Cesc had the final chance of the half when he fired narrowly wide of the Fulop’s post.

The second half began and Arsenal’s lack of width was really telling. Sometimes it takes us an awful long time to realise that when it’s congested in the middle, there are other areas of the pitch you can pass to.

Then came our moment, Jack Wilshere saw Nik B holding his line, he fizzed a 40 yard ball perfectly into his path, the Dane controlled it with the outside of his boot, cut inside and curled one into the bottom right corner of the goal. A strike of pure brilliance and one you felt had been coming for a while!

Not quite sure what Arsenal.com were alluding to when they called it a goal of ‘rare quality’? Were they jibing Nik, because I’m pretty sure Arsenal are always scoring quality goals!

Not long after, Arshavin won a corner, he took it and found Kozzer who took advantage of some unsure keeping and headed into the net. A great goal and brave attempt by the Frenchman!

There was still time for Eboue to cock up and let Scotland in, but Chesney was equal to his tame shot.

The final goal came when Denilson broke up play, played it to Cesc who spotted an Arshavin run, the Russian cut inside his man and played a reverse slide pass back into Cesc’s path… the Spaniard slipped the ball teasingly between the Ipswich keepers legs.

The game was over. We had won. It was time to start carnival dancing to the tune of, ‘we’re on our way to Wembley.’

I said at the start of the season I’d be more than happy with a Carling Cup win. Trophies breed trophies and we’ve not nabbed one for years now. This could be a fantastic opportunity to kick-start a glut of them. I challenge any true fan to say this doesn’t mean anything to them. The fact is, if you have a mindset like that, you’re not a real sports fan, you’re just a snob. I can’t wait for our day out and I can’t wait to see our captain raise the first trophy of the new decade!

Fair play to Arsene Wenger as well. He’s made plenty of mistakes over the past few years, but it takes a big man to admit that devaluing trophies is wrong and to address that. I’m over the moon we’ve taken this cup seriously and I certainly won’t be complaining when we’re open top parading with something better than an Annual Report.

We need to get our minds focused on the weekend now. Huddersfield in the FA Cup which could potentially put us 3 games away from another Cup Final.

I’ve got 1993 fever… and don’t even tell me Koscielny doesn’t look just like Andy Linighan!

Kozzer? (Right you doughnut)

Ratings

Chezzer – He pulled a flappy early in the first half and viciously assaulted Sagna. Other than that, a quiet game and a clean sheet! 6

Clichy – I thought he played pretty well. He’s returning to form, about time too! 7

Sagna – Head butted into a rest. 6

JD – Top game, kept them quiet, won everything in the air as usual. 9

Kozzer – He made a few rash challenges and picked up a harsh booking. He was good on the ground and he popped up for the all important goal that gave us the lead. I’m really enjoying his game of late. 7.5

Denilson – He broke up play for the third but I couldn’t help but notice his flat-footed approach and how weak he is. I’m not a fan, Song is miles ahead of him. He even looks average against Championship teams. 5

Cesc – Guilty of not showing intelligence for the first 40 minutes. He grew with the game and kept plugging away. Not vintage, but a win is a win. 7

Wilshere – Superb through ball for Nik (I think). He’s a hard worker, I’d like to see a bit more creativity from him. He’s either sublime or anonymous. I guess that’s youth for you… I love that he works hard regardless. 8

Arshavin – The haters were baying for his triple distilled blood once again and he retaliated with two assists. He wasn’t amazing today but he’s feeling his way back into things. He just needs a bit of luck in my opinion. I think all the incredibly boring people who abuse him at the Emirates because it’s the done thing at the moment need to grow up. 6.5

Bendtner – Super game from the unorthodox wide man. His goal was fantastic on a number of levels, his work rate was tireless and his creativity was admirable. He’s really starting to slot into that wide role, his crossing is immaculate. 8

Robin – He looked sharp out there today and I thought he showed super bravery when the Ipswich keeper clattered him in the first half. Injury free… again!  7

P.S. Before I go, how ridiculously transparent is the Richard Keys / Andy Gray smear campaign? If any man tells me they haven’t had this exact same conversation at work, I’ll know you’re lying. Boys will be boys and I’d imagine it’s even harder not to converse like that when you work for a company who solely employs based on looks.

I actually thought that conversation was hilarious… tasteless and crude, yes, but come on, people are allowed to say whatever they want when they’re off air. Leaking videos hasn’t been standard practice @ Sky over the past 20 years has it?

… and ladies, don’t pretend you don’t have exactly the same conversations. I sat as the sole male in an office of 16 women when I started my career, my god, did I hear some things that certainly scarred an impressionable young mind!

In fact, my most embarrassing moment came in that office. The assistant manager basically shouted across the whole office…

‘Pedro, I just walked into the kitchen, I was going to pinch your ass…. but then I realised you didn’t have one’

Despite everyone hearing and laughing extremely hard, no action was taken. Good… If you can’t take a few tasteless comments in the office, perhaps you should work from home.

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Posted by Pedro

Arsenal, your time has come, Arsene this is it, 90 minutes from Wembley, time to fulfil our destiny!

January 25, 2011

Arsene, pin this on the changing room door, this is what it feels like to be an Arsenal fan, no transfer talk, this is a battle cry!

So this is it, the match we have long waited for, the big one, the chance to go to Wembley, first of all though we have to beat the team that beat us in the first leg, Ipswich.

Now some of you will be too young to remember that day I went through Plaistow park when the pink blossom was on the trees, it looked wonderful, I should have been happy, but I was thinking about suicide, yes that’s right, I was thinking when looking at those lovely trees about slinging a rope over a bough and ending my life, and for what? It was because we had just lost to Ipswich in the FA Cup final, we were overwhelming favourites and we went down to an Osbourne goal and that was the end of my young dream. My childhood so cruelly shattered.

I was devastated, but I didn’t do it, you know why? It was because I had a dream, a dream that the following year we would stuff the Mancs in the same final, and 4 months later I met the lady that I eventually married and life got better, oh and also I didn’t have a rope on me that day!

So what did that teach me? It taught me never to underestimate the opposition and never to take Ipswich for granted, here we are 33 years on (Jesus’s age when he passed away) and we face Ipswich again, also one nil down, only this time it’s only half time and this team has the chance to right that wrong, and give me back my life, that life that was so cruelly ruined by the Tractor boys. So Arsenal, you owe me big time.

I wouldn’t field a second string, I would field our best team, or at least a team that can win, a team that will not accept defeat, a team similar to the team that beat Wigan, forget the fringe players, if we don’t win this one by two clear goals it’s over, simple as that, we have to win, let’s field a weakened side against Huddersfield, we may beat Huddersfield and go out in the next round, this is a must win game Arsenal, don’t screw this one up.

Put the team out that beat Wigan, then when we get the goals send on the subs, against Wigan we played like we did against the chavs, we shut them down, we chased the ball, we pressed and we shot on sight, that’s what we need to do, not start with Denilson, Eboue or Bendtner, sorry boys, you’ve been given too many chances, sure if we won with them in the team I would be delighted, but if we start with them, so will Paul Jewell.

I think this game is more important than any game we’ve played since we went unbeaten, when we played Barca in the Champions league final we had a chance, but it was always a big ask, especially once Lehmann went off, this one will define our season, it Ipswich for Christ’s sake, take them out and do it in the first half.

I’m predicting a big win, I will feel more comfortable with this starting line up though.

Chezzer

Sagna Djourou Kozzer Clichy

Wilshere Song Cesc

Walcott RVP Nasri

Put Gibbs, Chamakh, Bendtner, Arshavin and whoever else on the bench.

They will no doubt park the preverbial, but if they nick an early goal, they will never come out of their own half and that will be dangerous, remember West ham and Shitty? Yes we beat West ham but it was tight and we don’t want extra time or penalties, my little ticker wouldn’t handle it, not twice in 33 years anyway!

Arsene, this is your chance to show that project youth has sort of worked, I know we can win this, if we were playing the spuds or the mancs I may be nervous, but we are playing the team that lost by 7 to the team we beat 3-1, go out and play for the fans, get us to Wembley and do us proud.

This reminds me of the battle of the Nile, Nelson was after Napoleon’s fleet, he searched for weeks and finally saw them off the coast of Egypt, his management team advised against an evening kick off as that had never been done before, Naval battles were never played under floodlights, he was out numbered and out gunned, he went in as the sun went down with his strongest 11, he wiped out the French fleet and blew up their flagship the L’Orient, the moral of the story is ‘strongest team’ and an ‘evening kick-off’ blimey we even have a player that used to be on the L’Orient, go out there and win it for the fans Arsenal, you owe us and history is on our side!

Have a great day Grovers, I think this will be one of those dates that people will say ‘where were you on the 25th of January 2011?’

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Posted by Geoff

Arsenal kill economy | Andrey off with Bends | Cahill on? | SexiZZZm

January 24, 2011

Good morning from a very wet and wintery Le Grove. The sun isn’t shining, the weather is being decietful and I’m getting ever closer to my yearly February meltdown.

However, 2011 could be different. Arsenal directly affects my emotional well being and interestingly enough, when things are going well in your club life, they start going well everywhere? Anyone else get that?

We really are in a fantastic position to make an impact in the league. I know that Arsenal were looking at Chris Samba and I know we’ve been interested in Gary Cahill before… something tells me we could be be seeing the Englishman at the Emirates shortly. We all know that Owen Coyle and Wenger are totally best friends forever, we also know Bolton are hardly cash kings, so the idea that they’d sign Wheater without selling someone is one that I don’t subscribe to.

“At the moment, I cannot come out with any name,”

“I think Gary Cahill is a very good player, but I cannot tell you more.”

Lets be honest, the coach normally gets a facial hardon when he is offered the chance to tell the press he’s not interested in a player, so the fact he’s not flatly denying his interest is very good news. Also, the fact Bolton clearly have their eye on Mexican is a good thing. I spoke to Pam the tea lady at the club the other day and she told me Carlos has no idea where he’s going at the moment… which says to me we might be negotiating with him as the bait.

TalkSport reckon Oxo-glade plugin could be signing today. It’s great we pick up these young kids, but he’s not worth getting excited about for about another 4 years. I hope he’s sent back to Southampton for some games…

I read the rags yesterday… firstly Bendtner could be off in the summer. I fear for our club should the big man leave. Far worse than that though, I read that Andrey maybe told he is surplus to requirements with Chelsea looking like a possible destination… for less than £10million! I’d be pretty gutted to see him go. He’s played out of position and Wenger really doesn’t know how to manage him. Regardless, he’s brought much enjoyment to my life and he’s reassured me that misogynistic behaviour does have a place in the life of the modern 21st century man.

Stupid women.

Talking of which, I read two superb articles about the sexism debate. One from Laura over at the Football Rascal and one from Lady Arse. Different sides of the fence, both very interesting. Just incase you’re not aware, Andy Gray and Richard Keys were caught slagging off women lino’s when they thought their mics were off.

Once again they were shown up to be a pair of clowns. Hardly news is it?

Last time their mics were left on I’m pretty certain they were trying identify the perpetrator of a rogue studio fart. Those two are about as cultured as a big fat gypsy wedding… or a dinner party with a tramp… or a night out with Gazza.

You get my jist…

That hasn’t stopped the whole sexism in football thing rising to the top of the agenda again and I can’t help but think it’s a little misguided. Sure we’ll all probably have a joke at women referees at the start, but for me, that’s just part of the game. If women want to join the party, then they’ve got to be prepared to take the banter that is and always will be part of the game.

Remember, taking the mick is inclusionary, not exclusionary… and without doubt, some of the best p*ss takers I know are women. So in short, I’m saying man up. Men have been making a hash of refereeing for years. In the words of Kevin Keegan, ‘I’d love it’, if women could shake up the shoddy standards of the refereeing old boys club.

Why anyone male or female would want to subject themselves to a job as masochistic as refereeing is beyond me!

But Karen Brady complaining about sexism is a little rich, I mean how did she end up at Birmingham in the first place? Then surprisingly at West Ham, was that because she was qualified or were other factors involved. Just a question.

Anyway I thought that EPL football was about 22 men kicking a ball, if women want to join in, then join in, but please, stop bitching about sexism, first we had racism, the we had hooligans, that was followed by respect, then kicking, kicking out of football (us) now it’s about sexism, what next?

The bold type above was written by Geoff!

Finally, Tim Payton, my new best friend at the AST told me yesterday exclusively via our pubic twitter account that he believes the customary tour to 3rd world Austria has now been shelved. I’m not sure quite how many businesses that will bankrupt, but after a quick bit of analysis, I concluded most of them. Their loss is Japan’s gain. It’ll be great to have a tour, share our culture and customs and earn some revenue.

In the main, all I hear is positive things about the team that Gazidis has assembled at Arsenal. We’ve got some seriously smart people working behind the scenes to ensure that when we’re given commercial agreement freedom, we take the corporate world by storm and secure a proper deal. A lot of that revenue will be dictatated by success on the pitch which is why it is vital we sign this defender before the end of the month.

And make no mistake, if the greedy Glazers accept the offer from the rich Arabs of £1.5billion, next season the mancs will join the chavs and shitty in buying all the talent, so let’s get in quick, before they do, grab Hazard as well, because we won’t be able to afford him in the summer, I mention this now so no one can accuse us of hindsight in 4 months!

Come on Arsene, do the right thing… make life easy for yourself for once!

Have a great day, see you in the comments!

Disclaimer: This post was written with a smiley emoticon in mind for most of the controversial bits.

P.S. There are a real lack of tickets and a real abundance of takers. If you have spares, don’t let them go to waste, let me put you in touch with people who want to go!

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Posted by Pedro

Robin gets a hatrick, their keeper stopped the Arsenal getting a cricket score!

January 23, 2011

Even Matt Le Tissier said we could have scored 10 more than we did, he also said Wigan got into our half once in the first half.

We were so good I don’t think Chezzer had a shot to save, our defence is playing with a swagger because we finally have a keeper they can trust, are you reading Arsene?

I’m doing the match report as Pedro didn’t see the game, yes he was playing golf, the melt! Kidding, every top reporter deserves some time off now and again.

We played like the team that won the double did, with verve, speed and great strength, we shut down and pressed them in every area of the pitch, the team selection was our strongest in my humble opinion, the only thing that spoilt it was Denilson coming on, that made no sense and just showed that the manager can’t admit his mistake, yes he has been dropped from the first team in favour of Wilshere, but he just can’t help picking him.

The first goal was from a Song through ball, inch perfect and turned in superbly with a first time RVP shot, how Nasri and Cesc didn’t score the next 6 between then will remain a mystery, their keeper stopped everything, but the way we were pressing you knew it wouldn’t last.

In the past I’d be waiting for them to nick a goal, but since Chezzer came along, Djourou and Kozzer have formed a partnership that doesn’t panic when they lose the ball, so what happens? That’s right, they don’t lose the ball. Bring in a Cahill to that mix and we’ll have 4 top defenders to be tactical with.

We had to wait until the second half for two things, the first yellow card, and much deserved, the dirty, filthy northern monkeys and RVP’s wonder volley, as good a goal as you’ll see all season, fabulous, shortly after, Cesc was stopped from scoring by Caldwell, who got his marching orders, the ball was given to Robin who neatly dispatched it into club level, unlucky son!

To Arsene’s credit he left Robin on and shortly after he swept in from the left and buried it into the back of the net like a professional footballer. 3 zip Robin’s first hatrick (I think) and time to bring on Chamakh, somewhere in all this he brought on spinnyhead and I don’t know why.

That really was the end of the game and the foot came off the pedal.

Both full backs were on fire and the midfield were weaving the prettiest of patterns, up front we had Nasri, Robin and Theo who all played blinders, so what to mark them, forget the individual scores, give them all a 9, yes even Song, he really is starting to look good now he has abandoned trying to emulate Lionel Messi, well done Alex, keep it up and stay in the middle.

I will say it again, Djourou has been immense, Kozzer is improving with each game but the reason for our new found confidence? Chezzer, Arsene, don’t bring Fabianski back, get Mannone on the bench.

I like Fabianski, nice bloke, but he has basic flaws that he can’t seem to kick and the defence feels it.

Bendtner and Denilson look like they don’t want to be around, Vela looks like he does but the boss has the hump with him, solution? Let them go in the window, loan Vela to Bolton and bring in Cahill.

But I think you already have that covered don’t you Arsene?

Have a great Sunday grovers, next up the Tractor boys at the Grove, an a final beckons!

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Posted by Geoff

Woodgate to Arsenal, or could it be Adams? Will Arsenal surprise us?

January 22, 2011

Ha, ha, I had to laugh when I read that little pearler, Woodgate to join Arsenal on loan, what about re signing Tony Adams instead? He’s here right now and probably better, what will they write about next?

Arsene Wenger’s comments regarding Gary Cahill are more interesting though, this has to be the first time since Arshavin that he has not come out and said no, I won’t be signing Cahill.

Now that excites me because it shows intent and also that Squillaci is not the player he thought he had signed. Some admission!

I am surprised because I thought Samba and the DM at Blackburn  would be more of a Wenger signing, Cahill may not be a big name or a big England star right now, but if he played for us, he soon would be, for me he ticks all the right boxes and I have a feeling that with Vela going the other way, this could be a goer.

In other news I remember watching Cesc and Nasri being interviewed after the Leeds game, I thought wow, these two are the best in their positions in the world!

I started to think of them in a way I shouldn’t, I was just purring, and they play for us, imagine another 5 years with these two at the helm? So Barca have Xavi, Iniesta and Messi, we have Nasri, Cesc and Robin, add Theo and Chezzer to that list and my head begins to spin and I start to think about beating Barca on our way to the Champions league final, bring in a non-cup tied Gary Cahill and we start to look like an outfit that will beat anyone, Cesc won’t want to leave then will he!

I think we’ll have our best team out today and I really expect to show intent, I reckon it could be our biggest scoreline of the season, these players are now competing for places in a squad that could win 4 trophy’s, think about that!

I’m having massive internet problems today Grovers, so this is it, enjoy the game and see you in the comments!

 

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Posted by Geoff

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