Monthly Archives: April 2008

A Late Saturday round-up

Well, first of all, you may have noticed that I can no longer post as Tom, so I came up with this very witty moniker, but I can assure you that it is actually me (which may or may not be a good thing).

Secondly, due to a communications/brain fault on my part, and a memory like a sieve, I’m afraid I completely forgot that I had to write today’s blog, despite it SAYING ON YESTERDAY’S PAGE THAT I HAD TO WRITE IT. So sorry about that.

Plus I’m monumentally hungover, so, well, you know what it’s like. *boilk* Ssssh. Stop shouting.

So, anyhoo. As Blogger mentioned yesterday, today I shall be updating you on who we haven’t signed, who we aren’t close to signing, and who else has left and whether the lights are still on. Well, I think I’ll leave the list of people we haven’t signed because that list is quite large.

I’m afraid the second list (who we’re close to signing) is pretty short too. In that it’s none. As far as I know, the lights are still on, and no one else has left, unless they snuck out as Gunnersauras (please, Eboue, find that a funny idea).

My take on the whole transfer saga is that we will get someone, probably on the last day. We all know Arsene, like the rest of us, believes transfer fees are absurd, wages are absurd, and that the club must live within its budget. I don’t speak on behalf of the manager, obviously, and I expect as an economist, he would probably say that supply and demand dictates that transfer fees and wages are what they are because they are. And while both fees and wages are absurd relatively speaking, it’s hard to argue with that.

Anyway, I think even Arsene, wearing one of those little sleep masks you get on a long flight, in a dark room, on another continent, with earplugs in, could see that we desperately need at least one central midfielder. I think what’s happening – and I have no basis for saying so other than pure speculation – is that we have made enquiries for one or two players, maybe more, but that to drive down their transfer fee, we’re waiting until the last minute to make an offer.

What? It’s something to cling to!

Take the reported interest in Gareth Barry, for example. If Liverpool were quoted £18m, baulked (rightly, in my opinion), and we offered £15-16m on the last day, Villa would be much more inclined to sell. All just my opinion, of course. Alonso too. I’d be absolutely delighted if we signed Alonso. I know some Arsenal fans are less than impressed with that idea, but I think he’d fit well, and frankly, to have him and Cesc in there, for Arsenal and for Spain – that could help us keeping Cesc for a long time, something I think every Arsenal fan wants.

Of course, this waiting until the last minute works both ways – you might have to pay over the odds, or not get anyone at all. Which doesn’t bear thinking about.

Anyway, enough of that. I prefer to think that we’ll get someone.

Arsene hints at late transfers. Alonso – please. Apparently the boss has also been sticking up for Adebayor. I don’t know if these are repeats of comments he’s already made, or new ones, but like everyone else, I’m pretty disgusted with Adebayor’s behaviour over the summer. I don’t think we should be booing him, but then I don’t think kissing the badge was entirely tasteful either.

On to today’s game against the Barcodes. Apparently Gallas and Fabregas will stay in the team having recovered from knocks midweek, but Fishface is still out injured (unless that bloke wins the Champions’ League for us, against Man Utd, with a 35 yard screamer, I’m always going to hate him – sorry). Samir Nasri has got over a virus so he’ll stay in the team, along with Theo (who I thought did absolutely brilliantly the other night; he looked composed, his pace is frightening, and most of all, I think he’s growing up, knocking defenders off the ball).

The Barcodes, on the other hand, are without Martins, Duff, and that Fat Australian Cunt. They do have Michael Owen though, the wee fuckbag, so whoever we play alongside Gallas at the back will need to put in a few ligament tearing tackles on him. God I hate him.

So that’s your lot. Apologies again for the late blog. Maybe you see you tomorrow if Blogger’s move hasn’t finished.

Come on you reeeeeeeds!

Draws cost us the title, not the Old Trafford result

Morning all, I have to admit it’s a bit painful watching the Champions League semi-finals. United were fairly rubbish against Barcelona last night but Barcelona were pure Arsenal at their worst. Lots of nice passing with hardly a shot in anger.

And the Gods ignored my pleas so that if United were to get through to the final then at least Ronaldo would be suspended or something. Pffff. Tonight’s it’s the ‘smashers v Cuntski. I have to say from a news point of view Liverpool v United in Moscow could be fun, those KGB fuckers would have great fun when the two sets of fans started killing each other. We shall see.

Arsene Wenger reckons losing the game at Old Trafford was the one that cost us the title. He says:

I feel we were one game away in this championship. If we win at Old Trafford, we are champions. It’s just one game, and in that game we were 1-0 up and we had two or three chances to score the second goal, so you cannot say we had a bad season.

I would have to disagree with the manager there. I think it was three games that really cost us. Birmingham away, Boro home, Wigan away. Those three came as part of a sequence of four draws – the other was against Villa which, given their position in the league, you can’t say is a bad result. With all due respect to those teams we should have won those games, not easily, but we should have won them. Even losing to United and Chelsea if we’d done that we’d now be sitting two points clear at the top of the table. I can see where the manager is coming from with his assertion, but even had we won at Old Trafford we’d be two points clear of United but one behind Chelsea.

Emmanuel Adebayor has warned title rivals that we’ll learn from this year and come back stronger next, saying:

This season we may end up with nothing, but it will not look the same this time next year.

That’s the kind of spirit you need in the squad. I’ve said it before that often the pain of coming close and losing is as great a motivator as you’ll get as a footballer. There’s no doubt this season will have hurt this squad, their pride will be dented and I suspect they won’t look back on the Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge results half as much as they will to the games at St Andrews and the JJB and the Boro game at home. Hopefully lessons will be learned.

Speaking of Adebayor the boss says he scored twice as many goals as he expected him to this season. Which must be a nice surprise. He’s challenged him to show a ‘mark of class’ by repeating it next season and frankly I’m a little worried about how people will react if he doesn’t. Anyway, that’s by the by. You get the feeling Arsene thought that with the sale of Henry we’d become less reliant on one player for our goals. Maybe he thought they’d be spread about more but with only Cesc really getting any from midfield and injuries to van Persie (whose removal, no, not that kind of removal, against Derby was merely precautionary) and Eduardo it meant the responsbility fell to the big man and for the most part he stepped up and took it.

Eduardo’s injury was the real downer, I think. He’d just settled in, got used to the pace of the English game, and with 12 goals up to that horrible day had begun to start scoring regularly. People were comparing him to Robbie Fowler and I sincerely believe that had he been fit he would have scored the goals which made the difference in the those drawn games. He might have prevented the losses against United and Chelsea too. So fuck you Martin Taylor, you big, clumsy cunt.

Lukasz Fabianksi says his goal for next season is to be Arsenal’s number 1. The young Pole says:

I am not here just to be the second goalkeeper, I want to be the main goalkeeper. Manuel and Jens are fine goalkeepers and we all get on well but I will be fighting to be ahead of them.

He’s set to start the final league games of the season as the manager gets to look at him in a more pressured environment than the Carling Cup. He was ok against Derby, I thought, made a couple of good saves but he needs to be more dominant and decisive in the area. Let’s see how he goes.

Today is the day that Arsene Wenger put a deadline on Mathieu Flamini’s new deal. There’s a contract on the table from Arsenal and the manager says he still doesn’t know if the player is leaving or not. I don’t think you need to be a genius to work out that if he was going to sign for us he’d have done it by now. With crazy Bosman money on offer elsewhere I think it’s now safe to assume that he’s going. Which is a shame but there you go, we’ll just have to find someone else to replace him.

Right, that’s about it. Don’t forget the competition to win the classic 80s shirt from Toffs, the very difficult question is on yesterday’s blog. You have until midnight tonight to get your entry in and the two winners will be announced tomorrow.

Until then.

A stroll at Pride Park + Win a 1984 Arsenal shirt

It was a game that had a real end of season feel to it. We played in second gear the whole time and got caught by a plucky Derby team who at least gave it a shot. Sitting bottom of the league after the season they’ve had it would have been easy for them to roll over but they didn’t and credit to the Derby fans who gave the club their 6th consecutive sellout crowd at home. And not too many of them fucked off early either.

Anyway, when I say we played in second gear in the first half we were in neutral most of the time. Derby started well and could have gone ahead when a shot deflected just wide of Alex Song. We didn’t look that penetrative and it was a mistake at the back which saw us take the lead, van Persie feeding in Bendtner to open the scoring. Robin van Persie could have made it two but curled a shot just wide. Derby got right back into it though, Alex Song gave away a free kick on our right and William Gallas should hang his head in shame for turning his back on the ball and the player as they equalised, taking advantage of such slack defending.

The equalisationalism didn’t last long though. Kolo floated a ball over the top, Derby tried to play offside and failed miserably, van Persie controlled it on his chest and fired home with his right foot. Sadly, just as it looked Robin was getting back into the groove he picked up yet another injury. A thigh strain again apparently. The TV said his withdrawal was ‘precautionary’ but it’d be no surprise if he spent a year out injured.

So for the second half Derby were faced with the man who scored a hat-trick against them at the Grove early in the season. And they didn’t have to wait too long to be reminded of his quality, he tapped it at the far post after good work from Theo Walcott. This followed chances for Kolo and Bendtner and at this point we were all over them. Bendtner, who had a decent game I thought, set Theo free through the middle but his Henryesque finish went just wide. It’s no exaggeration to say we might have scored four or five in that period. Typically though we conceded.

William Gallas lost track of Rob Earnshaw, football’s only Ferengi, and he finished smartly past Fabianski to make it 3-2. Not good defending really. We made it comfortable again just a couple of moments later. Theo Walcott controlled Gilberto’s long pass beautifully, drove into the box and curled a great shot into the far corner for his 6th goal of the season. It was a great finish from a young man who is definitely giving the manager something to think about in terms of his role for next season. He just looks so much more confident and assured.

The 5th came when Bendtner sent Clichy away down the left and his cross was put away first time by Adebayor and the big man’s hat trick was completed in the last minute when from Cesc’s pass he rounded Roy Carroll with ease and slotted home. That’s 30 for the season now and to put it in perspective that’s 11 more than the entire Derby team have scored all season. Hats off to Adebayor, he’s had a brilliant season, something not lost on his team mates with Cesc saying:

He makes a difference every time he plays, he’s a striker who can do everything. We should feel fortunate to have him.

Afterwards the manager was full of love for his team, saying:

It was a typical performance from us – mobile, clean technically and we were always dangerous but as well we had moments where we lacked concentration and we were punished.

I love this team and I think they have a great future.

And it was typical from us. Some chances missed, some players going off injured, some really slack defending but Derby are just so very bad that even missing as many chances as we did you always knew we’d make more and score more. It keeps alive our very, very slim hope of the title but we need both United and Chelsea to turn Devon Loch and the odds on that must be enormous. Still, next up it’s Everton for the final home game of the season and that’s not going to be easy. More on that in the days ahead.

The boss was asked about the futures of Flamini and Hleb and said that Hleb would stay as he had two years left on his contract but admitted that while he was hopeful Flamini would stay it was out of our hands ‘unfortunately’. We’ll wait and see.

And that’s really about it in terms of football news but it’s been a little while since we had a competition so get your thinking caps on and emails at the ready.

Up for grabs is this fine shirt to your right, it’s the 84-86 home kits and it comes via my good old chums at Toffs. To win simply answer the following question.

Who was manager of Arsenal from 1984 to 1986?

Was it:

a) Don Henley b) Don Howe c) Don Johnson

Answers via email to toffs84@arseblog.com – you have until Thursday at which point the Random Number Generator will do its thing and select two winners.

So there you go. More tomorrow.

Well done, Cesc + Clichy – Flam to Milan (?) and Derby

We’ll start this Monday with some positive news and congratulations to Cesc Fabregas who was named PFA Young Player of the Year last night. He says:

I’m very proud. It’s a very prestigious trophy. Football is a collective game and you prefer to win trophies with team-mates but it’s always nice to have this type of award. I dedicate it to my team-mates because without them I would not have won.

Well done, Cesc. Cristiano Ronaldo expectedly picked up the Senior award (although he voted for that useless shitkicker Adebayor, what is he thinking?) and there were four Arsenal players named in the team of the season. Full backs Clichy and Sagna, Cesc in midfield and Adebayor up front.

Speaking of Gael Clichy the manager has been full of praise for him after what was a very good season. There were doubts about his fitness but he’s lasted the pace and shown incredible fitness and desire in every game we’ve played. I think we’ll see an even better Gael Clichy next season. The player himself speaks about William Gallas and says he forgives him for his behaviour at Birmingham. It sounds odd though, doesn’t it? Players having to make excuses for and forgive their captain.

The Independent is reporting that Mathieu Flamini has agreed to join AC Milan while repeating what we already know about Alexander Hleb. I really don’t have anything more to say about either of them until we know something more concrete.

It’s Derby tonight and Paul Jewell says he’d like some of our youngsters on loan. He might get to see a couple of them tonight. Lukasz Fabianski is set to start in goal and without Rosicky, Hleb, Flamini, Eduardo and Sagna, and the boss suggesting he might rest some players for good measure it could be an interesting team. I suspect, however, that given the events of the weekend at Stamford Bridge, Arsene might just hold off on putting out too young a team on the very off chance that something bizarre happens to either Chelsea or United.

At this stage there’s not much else going on so we’ll leave it there. It seems like ages since we played so I’m looking forward to tonight’s game.

More on that and whatever else tomorrow.