Monthly Archives: October 2007

Carling Cup preview + Platini/Usmanov and other monsters

A nice midweek game to keep us entertained and the lad will be hoping to hoping to avoid the horror show (shit, did all that yesterday) we got when we last traveled to Bramall Lane. A 1-0 defeat there was one of the low points last season so hopefully the Carling Cup team can make amends.

It’s a chance for some of the fringe players to impress. Lassana Diarra has been unhappy with his lack of first team action but if he performs like he did against Newcastle in the previous round he’s sure to put himself into the manager’s thinking. Denilson too has been very much on the edges of the first team this season but the manager is advising him to be patient, his chances will come. Up front Bendtner will get a chance to put his money where his mouth has been while Eduardo will use the game as part of his settling in process.

One man who’ll also be playing is Gilberto. Yesterday there were reports that he had refused to play in the Carling Cup and that his time at Arsenal was coming to an end. It really did seem out of character for him and Arsene categorically denied any such incident. Life hasn’t been easy for Gilberto this season. Probably our best player last season he’s found himself frozen out because of his Copa America fatigue and late start to the season but he’s a big player and he’ll have a big role to play between now and May, no question.

Of course there’s some previous with some of their players, not least Chris Morgan, who prattles on like he’s some kind of saint instead of the niggly, cheating cunt that he is. He talks about comments made by Senderos and that the Arsenal man is probably embarrassed by them. If I remember correctly the comments were made by Robin van Persie who was unahppy that he had been punched off the ball by the Sheffield United captain. A punch which saw him banned for three games. I hope Bendtner creams him with all his Danish might. The boss is expecting a battle and we’re going to have to match them physically but I think we’re more than capable of doing that. Kick off is 7.45 and it’s on Sky Sports 1.

Update: Full squad announced here 

Fran Merida talks about making his Arsenal debut and he could feature tonight, but probably from the bench.

William Gallas had a webchat with Arsenal.com yesterday and talked about the importance of winning trophies and how there are no egos in the Arsenal squad. Apart from his goalscoring penis, of course.

Alexander Hleb’s agent is angling for a new deal for his player. My cap is well and truly doffed to the Belarussian. He was so poor last season I thought he’d struggle to keep his place in the squad but he’s been fantastic this time around and it’s great to see. It might just be a bit cheeky to look for a new deal just now though, let’s see how the rest of the season goes.

In other news Michel Platini has criticised Arsene Wenger’s policy of buying the best teenage prospects. Quite why I don’ t know. Oh wait, I do know. It’s because Platini is a thunderous cuntbag. What’s the difference between buying the best 16 year olds and buying the best 26 year olds? At Arsenal kids know that they’ll get a great football education and, if they’re good enough, chances in the first team. If they don’t make it here they’ve got a great chance of making it elsewhere. Platini is horrible bastard of a cockfaced wanker and good friends with Septic Bladder too. Shut your mouth, you curly prick.

Jeremy Corbyn, MP for North Islington, made a written request in parliament to be given access to ‘reports received from British embassies relating to Alisher Usmanov’. His request was turned down. Corbyn said of Usmanov:

I believe the public needs and is entitled to know the character of the person who has bought such a large stake in the club. I would say that local people overwhelmingly would not like Usmanov to take over the club and would support the commitment of the current directors to resist a sale and remain independent.

He has called the government response ‘deeply unsatisfactory’ and will be pursuing the matter. The story was featured on BBC’s Newsnight program last night. If I can find a link later I will update here.

And that’s about it. Should be a good game tonight and I shall be ignoring any children that come to the door looking for tricks or treats. In fact, I might electrify the doorbell, that’d be a good trick.

More tomorrow and come on you reeeeeeeeds.

A scary pre-hallowe'en blog (not that scary)

Good morning to you all. A fine Tuesday it is too.

Tomorrow being hallowe’en we’ll start with talk of people being afraid. More specifically other teams. Of us. That’s according to captain William Gallas anyway. He reckons our performance at Anfield will have other teams cacking their pants and hiding behind cushions. I’m not so sure. I think all the game against Liverpool did was confirm what everybody already knew. It’s not like we rose like a creature from some kind of dark lagoon. Anyway, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a lagoon in my life. What is it that differentiates a lagoon from a lake or a slough or a pond?

Gallas also thinks Cesc should ‘keep fresh’ to reach the top. I don’t understand really. Does he mean like keeping a body you’ve recently killed in a freezer? If that’s the case then I understand. I think Cesc really only knows how to play one way and that way is a very good way so we shouldn’t confuse him by asking him to play a different way from the way he plays which is, as I’ve already pointed out, a very good way.

Speaking of Cesc, Don Howe writes about him in the Terrorgraph and compares him to Paul Scholes. In one way that’s quite nice as Scholes, despite being a ginger fouling cunt, has been a quality player over the last 10 years. However, the ginger fouling part is not something you’d like to associated with. It’s sort of like someone telling you your wife looks like Angelina Jolie except they simply mean her body is riddled with tattoos and not that she’s an ultra-foxy dame. If that makes any sense. It probably does if you think about it but it’s very early in the morning for thinking so I’ll forgive you if you don’t bother. Scholes is out of Saturday’s game against United, which is probably a good thing for us, but United, more than any other team, seem to cope well with injuries. If Rooney, Tevez and Ronaldo are all missing due to their overindulgence at a vampire party where they drink the blood of a poisonous wench that they then sacrifice to Gods to thank them for their talent (which has been accorded to them in place of good looks) then we might get a bit giddy.

More on that game later in the week – one small point though. Dave emailed me to tell me that Howard Webb will be the referee again and it’s the first time in Premier League history that the same ref will have reffed a team two games in a row. Also, Howard Webb is a massive, massive cunt so this is not good news. This is the razor blade in our apple.

The Blob Wilson also writes about Cesc calling him an Arsenal legend.

The Mirror reports that neither Gilberto Silverbullet of Jens Lehmann (scary enough on his own) will be involved in the Carling Cup game tomorrow night. No surprise about Jens, Fabianski was always going to play, but they also suggest that Gilberto refused to play as a makeshift centre-half. While I understand Gilberto’s current frustration he can’t do that. But then it is the Mirror so it could be a load of old bollocks. We’ll have to wait and see what happens but you have to think he could probably do with getting 90 minutes under his belt. More on that game tomorrow.

Dastardly Davor Suker reckons this Arsenal team can be the most fearsome team in all of Europe, rivalling that Spanish basketball team that sent a load of ordinary blokes to the special Olympics a few years back. They all pretended to be mental and handicapped and won the gold medal which is a bit cheeky, you have to say. Anyway, we’ll be even better than them according to the noble chinned ex-striker.

Septic Bladder, football’s most uriney administrator, is determined to push ahead his plan to limit the amount of foreign players in a team and has hit back at Arsene Wenger’s criticism of his plan, saying:

If you have teams playing in the league like in England and there are no English players on the field of play, then something is wrong. One day you’ll say we don’t want a national team, then okay you’ll follow Arsene Wenger.

Well, that’s a bit crap, isn’t it? I mean, if you’re going to have a go at somebody you might want to be a little more offensive than that. You might say ‘Bladder is a pompous ignoramus whose only interest is swelling the coffers of FIFA and he also smells like the minge of a dead goat that, previous to death, had sex with many ponies who have gone off fish stock for semen’. You could be more creative but to suggest that it would be a bad idea to ‘follow’ Arsene Wenger when he has produced a young team that is playing some of the most scintillating and attractive football in Europe seems a touch on the stupid side.

Right, that’s it. I must go and get some more coffee. Mrs Blogs thanks you all for your good wishes yesterday. She finished the marathon in record time. Well, it was her first so it was a personal best.

Until tomorrow.

Arsenal make significant point at Anfield

Arsene Wenger said beforehand that this game was a ‘test’. If that’s the case then there can’t be any doubt that we passed it with flying colours. Despite an early Liverpool goal and some of our players not playing as well as they can we pretty much dominated the match and had chances to win it.

The early goal came when Cesc fouled Xabi Alonso on the edge of our box. The fact that Cesc didn’t even try to protest said a lot and Steven Gerrard drilled the ball through the wall to make it 1-0. We had a decent wall and if Mathieu Flamini had stayed where he should have stayed it would have been just a crap free kick. Still, these things happen and you can be sure we’ll have more secure walls for the rest of the season.

Our best chance in the first half fell to Emmanuel Adebayor but Reina came out quickly to make a good block. Kolo Toure made a great run forward but Adebayor’s final ball was not good, much to Kolo’s frustration. Almunia saved well from Gerrard a made a good save again from Crouch at the start of the second half. Torres had limped off at half-time after being completely ineffective – he didn’t look anywhere near fit enough to be starting a game. We should have equalised when Eboue’s shot cannoned back off the post and Cesc fired the rebound wide first time. It’s easy to look at it from where we do and say he had loads of time but he really did. He could probably have taken a touch and then rolled it home.

Riise and Crouch had shots on goal but once Xabi Alonso went off Liverpool were just unable to keep the ball and we dominated the game looking for the equaliser. Bendtner, Walcott and Gilberto all came on and we began to look more dangerous. The goal came from a fantastic run from Alexander Hleb who delayed his pass long enough for Cesc to get forward. The pass itself was sublime, a little scoop into his path, and while it wasn’t the most thunderous finish of Cesc’s goals this season it beat Reina at the near post to make it 1-1. Absolutely no less than we deserved.

We could have won it too when Cesc’s shot came off the post and Bendtner did exactly what Cesc did with the earlier rebound, much to Kolo’s frustration. He had time as well and even the Mugsmasher himself felt Liverpool were lucky to get away with a point in the end. We should have had a penalty too when Carragher, just like last week against Everton, got away with some shirt pulling and man-handling so blatant that he must be sacrificing virgin goats to Satan so the refs don’t see it.

Overall though a point away at Anfield is a good result and what made our performance and domination of the game so enjoyable was the fact that, in my opinion, some of the lads had poor games. Rosicky was anonymous, I thought Cesc had his quietest game for a long time (and then he does that, I know!), Adebayor looks a little out of form right now although his workrate is still a help to the team and we were hampered by the consistently frustrating Eboue who had a poor game on the right with more embarrassing theatrics and pulling out of challenges, which is pretty unforgivable when the rest of your teammates are working so hard. And why did he wear a long sleeved shirt in the second half when everyone else wore short sleeves?

Yet in spite of that we could have had three points yesterday and that’s fantastic. Postive performances – Kolo and Gallas both had excellent games, Hleb was good again and his creativity made the difference and Almunia made good saves at the right times to show he’s the right man for the job at the moment. What more can we say about Cesc? A quiet game but his 10th goal of the season. The boy’s a genius – a fact not lost on Steven Gerrard.

There’s so much to be happy about with how we played and the result we got at Anfield. I’m sure we could have coped with losing a game but it wouldn’t have been ideal preparation ahead of United next week. And the attitude of the players is fantastic too. You only have to listen to Cesc after the game complaining that we should have won to know how they feel. Most teams would be happy with a point there, most of us fans are happy with a point, but they really do want to win every game and feel like they can.

Afterwards Arsene Wenger said:

I feel we came out of this first big test stronger. There’s a long way to go, but in my opinion we have the talent to fight up there for the championship. I would give credit to the attitude and the quality of the team. I felt we showed fantastic quality today and our mental strength and togetherness allowed us to come back.

Leaving aside the quality of the football you have to comment on the character of the team. To come back from a goal behind at Liverpool is a challenge and even though not everyone played brilliantly the spirit and desire to get something from the game was apparent. If there were any doubts over our ability to be part of this title rest then they’ve certainly been dispelled now.

The match against United is an even bigger test, in my opinion. I know we’re at home but they’re beginning to look very good and they’re playing some lovely football. The goals are flowing and defensively they’re as solid as always. It’s going to be a very tough game.

Finally for today good luck to Mrs Blogs who decided some months ago to do the Dublin Marathon. She’s been training like a demon and I’ve just dropped her into town so she can run about the place like a lunatic for 26 miles and that little bit at the end which just seems unfair. Isn’t 26 miles enough on its own? Anyway, good luck Mrs Blogs.

More tomorrow.

Sunday round-up and final Pool preview

Morning all. Did you put your clocks back?

Mugsmashers later, as we know, and we’ve more or less previewed all there is to be previewed so we’ll go through the Sunday papers and see what’s what.

The Observer’s big interview this week is with Emmanuel Adebayor. Interesting stuff. Despite no goals in the last 5 or 6 games the big man does have a tendency to get on the scoresheet in big games. Hopefully he can end his mini-drought today.

The Telegraph features Gael Clichy but do we really need to hear that story about how he ‘died’ for 20 seconds when he was a kid every time he’s interviewed? It’s funny to note he puts Jens Lehmann’s penalty save against Villarreal as one of the definining moments in his career, having been caught out by arch diver Jose Maria in that game. He says:

I am saying to myself, ‘please Jens, do something for me, you have to make it. Come on, come on, come on Jens’. Then, finally, he dives and he has made a great save. You never know what the reaction of the people around you might have been, me coming back after six months out and giving away a place in the final. So, you can see that sometimes it is a bit like destiny and Jens was part of it.

Speaking of Jens he’s still not happy, as you might expect, and has continued his questioning of Arsene Wenger, saying:

I made two mistakes at the beginning of the season, but I saw Manuel Almunia making mistakes as well, so sometimes you don’t know what the thoughts of the coach are.

I don’t know what games Jens was watching but I haven’t seen Almunia come close to making the kinds of errors he did at the start of the season. We got away with the Fulham one but the goal against Blackburn cost us two points in the league. He goes on to reveal being unhappy with certain parts of the conversation he had with Wenger but claims not be frustrated and that he views this situation as a challenge. Can you imagine what he’d be like if he was in a bad mood then? Doesn’t bear thinking about.

The Mail has an interesting piece on AW’s decision to go with youth and takes look at how our scouting network functions and how some of the young players have ended up at the club. The Times also runs with a piece on ‘the kids’.

Jermaine Pennant, out of today’s game against Liverpool, claims Arsene Wenger has something against English players. Obviously Arsene Wenger is a racist and a bigot and xenophobic and that’s why Pennant didn’t make it at Arsenal. It had nothing to do with his own problems, turning up late for training, drink driving, consistent breaches of discipline or anything else. Pennant is the perfect example of the modern English footballer who thinks he’s far more important than he actually is and is totally unwilling to accept any responsibility for his own behaviour. Get fucked, Pennant.

Liam Brady explains his position regarding the vacant Ireland manager’s job:

I most certainly won’t be applying for the job and, second, I didn’t speak with Wenger about the job as I’m totally committed to my role as Arsenal’s Youth Development director and Academy manager.

And that’s what’s in the papers. As for today we’ve just got to go out and play our football. We need to be strong defensively because Liverpool do have players who can hurt us. I think it’ll be Torres and Crouch up front so that’s a combination of pace and lanky bloke which will test Toure and Gallas. Up top Theo can run the legs off Caragher and Hyppia while Mascherano will try to do to Cesc what we need Flamini to do to Alonso.

Should be a good one, fingers crossed for a result. More tomorrow. Come on you reeeeeeeeeds.