Monthly Archives: January 2013

Arseblog, the arsenal blog
January 23, 2013 posted by arseblog

Arsenal v West Ham – live blog

Arsenal v West Ham – live blog

Join us this evening for live blogging of Arsenal v West Ham in the Premier League, kick off 19.45.

Live blog is 100% free to follow on your computer or mobile device and gives you real time text commentary from the match. This season we’ve added a mobile specific theme which should detect your phone making it much easier to follow the updates. You can also switch to the main theme, or back, at the bottom of the page.

We’ve also set up a Twitter account @arseblog_live which will provide important updates like goals, cards, substitutions, half-time and full time scores. If you follow that and enable SMS notifications via Twitter, you can get those updates sent directly to your phone*.

Arseblog has teamed up with Paddy Power to provide you with great bets and if you register an account with them and bet £10, you get a £20 free bet. Click here, or click the image below, to register.

Arsenal odds

Click to launch Arsenal v West Ham live blog

If you want to take part in live blog chat, you need to register an Arseblog account here and signing up. Once logged in you’ll see an option to upgrade to a season ticket premium account. 12 months access costs £10 – which works out at a whopping 0.83p per month! You can register as a user or sign in via your Twitter account.

The subscription allows us to provide a decent place for Arsenal fans to chat during the games, without the craziness you find elsewhere. There’s already a nice community building so come on in! The season ticket will also give you upgraded access to the arses.

Register with the Arseblog Portal here and upgrade to take part in live blog chat.

* not available in all countries due to Twitter restrictions

Arseblog, the arsenal blog
January 23, 2013 posted by arseblog

West Ham preview: nothing less than 3 points will do

West Ham preview: nothing less than 3 points will do

Right then, it’s West Ham tonight, a game which was scheduled for December 26th but which fell foul of a tube strike.

It’s the game in hand we have over the teams above us, it provides a chance to close the gap and to get our first win of January under our belts. And it’s a game that has been back-dropped by frustration as the club remain inactive in the January window. At times it seems pointless talking about it but you can’t be blind to the fact that it’s a massive part of the narrative these days.

Everything we do on the pitch is referenced to what we’re not doing off it and as long as the results are disappointing that’s not going to change. You would like to think that there’s enough quality in the team to take a home game like this by the scruff of the neck, we saw a good display against Swansea (who are a better side, albeit different in style to West Ham), so we can hope for more that tonight.

With regards the team, Lukas Podolski comes back in after illness while Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain could also return. We’ve lost Francis Coquelin to a hamstring injury while the manager says he has to assess Abou Diaby after playing three times in a week following a 4 month absence. It’s one where he might be wise to err on the side of caution, it’s not as if he doesn’t have experience when it comes to managing the Frenchman.

Assuming Podolski comes back into the team, and Diaby doesn’t make it, it would make sense to move Jack back, partner him with Aaron Ramsey, and shift Santi Cazorla into the more central role he’s played most of the season. The only other decision I think he’s got is whether or not to rest Bacary Sagna. Carl Jenkinson is fit again and raring to go, no doubt, while Sagna’s form recently has been somewhat worrying.

Rather that speculate or get irate about why it might be happening (unlike many I have no machine to see inside his head to know that his contract issue is affecting the way he plays), I think we just need to accept that for the first time since he joined the club in 2006 he’s struggling for form, and while we have a decent option in Jenkinson then I think we should probably use it. Which could see a starting XI like:

Szczesny – Jenkinson – Mertesacker – Vermaelen – Gibbs – Ramsey – Wilshere – Cazorla – Podolski – Walcott – Giroud

Again, you’d look at the bench and wonder where goals are going to come from if the first XI can’t produce, but that’s a bridge we’ll have cross if and when we come to it. Arsene Wenger is looking for his team to start better and to take hold of the game before we happen to go a goal or two down. Which would be a pleasant change from some recent performances:

Every time we start to show what we can do, the game is already lost. That is what we have to change. We want to challenge for the championship and therefore now until the end of the season we really have to stand up and show our strength and character.

Last season we came from further behind and finished third but Chelsea are a bit away from us now. The game that we lost at Chelsea on Sunday had difficult mathematical consequences.

As did all the other games we lost this season, the Chelsea one was no more or less damaging, but if we win tonight we close the gap on Sp*rs to just 4 points and when you consider what we overhauled last season that’s nothing. That said, I don’t think it’s conceivable that they’ll collapse the way they did last time around, there’s no spoofer of a manager with his eye on the England job and their squad looks better than it did, so it’s absolutely crucial we don’t waste this game in hand.

We’re looking for a reaction tonight, from the players and the boss. He’s the one who prepares his team, gets them motivated and fired up to start a match, so fingers crossed for improvement from all concerned. West Ham, like all teams managed by the Walrus, will provide us a stern challenge. We’ve got to be ready for a physical game, but it’s one that, should we get going from the first whistle, we can win. At this point, nothing less will do.

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In other news the boss spoke about transfers yesterday, and responded to the suggestion that he was looking for two players with a rather shifty ‘yes’. We got the usual ‘no names’ (understandable) and ‘If we sign someone we will tell you’. Sometimes I like to imagine there’s an intern waiting to send parchments to the press, sitting in a cold, dark room, a candle burning, a pristine wax seal sitting beside him and a rose gently decaying.

The manager was also asked about whether or not he’d had ‘crisis talks’ with the team and said the focus on everything little a football club does these days is ‘ridiculous’. I have to agree with him in this sense, some things are not for public consumption (much as we might like the insight), but that’s the way of the world these days.

I’d put money on some club, sooner or later, doing a season long reality TV show like those ones with Z-list celebs or the morons from a particular area who think they’re famous and special but are, in fact, the kind of people that should be wiped off the face of the earth (along with anyone who watches them). I’d also put money on it not being Arsenal.

Competition: win a Dennis Bergkamp print here.

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Finally, don’t forget we’ll have full live blog coverage of the game later on for you. Check back later for a post with all the info or you can bookmark the default live blog page. We’ve also set up a Twitter account @arseblog_live which will provide important updates like goals, cards, substitutions, half-time and full time scores. If you follow that and enable SMS notifications via Twitter, you can get those updates sent directly to your phone.

And if you fancy a flutter, Paddy Power will give you a £20 free bet if you sign up and bet £10. Simply click here to register.

Until later.

Competitions
January 22, 2013 posted by arseblog

Win a Dennis Bergkamp print

Right then, to ease the miserablosity of everything just at the moment, here’s a chance for you to win one of these awesome Dennis Bergkamp prints.

Made by artist Dan Leydon, it depicts Dennis Bergkamp’s brilliant goal against Newcastle. To win, simply answer the following question: Who was the defender Dennis turned inside out before scoring?

Answers please to competition@arseblog.com before midnight tomorrow, winner announced on Thursday morning.

And if you simply want to buy one, or any of Dan’s other Arsenal related prints, visit his shop right here.

Arseblog, the arsenal blog
January 22, 2013 posted by arseblog

Crisis schmisis blisis isis danger zone

Crisis schmisis blisis isis danger zone

It’s -5 here this morning. I’m sure there’s a metaphor to be made about the cold, lifeless heart of Arsenal, or something, but I can’t be arsed. I just wish I had boiling hot Bovril instead of blood. Mmmm, beefy.

We have West Ham tomorrow with talk of a ‘crisis meeting’ at the club yesterday between the manager and players. It’s an interesting one, mostly because after any difficult defeat or run of bad form, the ‘crisis meeting’ story is one you can roll out without too much fuss. Maybe there was one, I don’t know, but if there was I hope it was more than the manager barking at the players.

I think he’s right to expect more from them, but are they entitled to expect more from him? Are they content with the squad? Do they feel it’s good enough to achieve what a) is expected and b) what they’d like to in terms of winning trophies and, at least, competing for the league. We know players have left this club in recent seasons, some for more money, some because they felt they couldn’t win things, and while there’s a unique irony in footballers leaving a club because the club can’t hold onto its best players, or doesn’t seem willing to  buy new ones to improve things, it’s also hard to escape the fact that it keeps happening.

Arsenal lose their best players when they don’t want to and can’t get rid of the ones they don’t. Although they’re not at the club week in, week out, Denilson, Bendtner, Park, Chamakh and Djourou are on all loan. Guys like Squillaci and Arshavin, considered surplus to requirements, have no interest in going elsewhere until their contracts are up. The squad is imbalanced, reliant on a core of 14 or 15 and when you go beyond that, as we saw against Chelsea, the options are limited.

So, if the manager is demanding more from his players, I’d love to know if the players were demanding more from him and the club. Not that they should go out and buy a Messi or a Falcao or a Cavani, much as we’d all like to see it, but that they don’t sit there eyes closed, hands over their eyes going “lalalalalala, can’t hear anything”, until the transfer window closes.

Look at the situation involving Yanga-Mbiwa, he’s off to Newcastle for £7m. He can play centre-half, he can play as a defensive midfielder, he looked very impressive when we played Montpellier in the Champions League, and he’s a player in who we had a great deal of interest last summer before he signed a new contract. Now, we’re a centre-half down with Djourou gone, Squillaci is a step closer to first team action, it’s hard to find anyone who wouldn’t fancy a bit more steel in midfield, and where are we when this is going on? Even the Montpellier president thinks going to Pardewland is a mistake, saying:

It’s not my fault if he’s an idiot. Newcastle really isn’t a good choice

Maybe the fact he’s going there is proof of his idiocy, but maybe that’s his only option. Would he go there if he had to choose between Arsenal and Newcastle? I don’t think so. Perhaps something has changed between summer and now, perhaps we know he’s a bad guy off the field or not as good as we thought he was, but our summer interest was real enough and our need for players now is more pressing, so it’s a tough one to figure out. Especially as it’s a signing that seems to fit us perfectly from a financial point of view, not to mention ‘footballistically’.

Anyway, it’s just impossible to make any sense of what’s going on, why we’re not in the market, and why it’s come at the expense of Premier League points this month. It seems Arsene has got every faith in the players he has and I accept he’s right to expect them not to make the kinds of mistakes they have been this season – but at some point the narrative will change from ‘The players shouldn’t make those mistakes’ to ‘These are the kinds of players who make those mistakes’.

Anyway, yesterday I thought I’d have a look at where we are now compared to this time last season. You can see the table from 2011-12 on top, the league as it stands on the bottom:

The gap between us and the leaders is certainly greater, but with Sp*rs our main rivals for a top four finish it’s somewhat heartening to see a smaller points difference and we have a game in hand. Which is a good thing because I don’t see this Sp*rs side going into a Redknappian freefall like they did last season. I certainly can’t envisage Chelsea slipping away the way they did (they finished 6th!).

But it means that as tough as it is, and as difficult a place as we’re in right now, there’s still a lot to play for and that has to be drummed into the minds of the players as a matter of urgency. We need to get a run of good results under our belt, to put some pressure on those above us at least, and it has to happen soon. I will say though, that if more is expected of the players, then that too goes for the manager, because every single time we lose a game, or drop points, his intransigence when it comes to the transfer market becomes a bigger, pointier, nailsier-in-it, stick to beat him with.

I think all we can do is hope for renewed focus from everybody at the club, players, manager, executives, Dick Law’s houseboy, the lot. If there is, and if we show a bit more of The Arsenal on and off the pitch, then we’ve got a chance to salvage a season that is slipping away from us.

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Firstly, let me preface this bit by saying I think Theo Walcott signing a new deal is a generally positive thing for the club, as outlined here. But if anything illustrates the fact that footballers are living in a different world from the rest of us, and really have no clue how they relate to the ‘common man’, then it’s these kind of quotes when he talks about his new deal:

It has been tough through the negotiations. It hasn’t always shown on the pitch and off the pitch but deep down, it has been tough, not just for me but for my family, my partner. They were all getting hit with it every week and every day. I’m so pleased it’s over.

I can deal with the speculation but it’s more my family and friends, who I thought might not have been able to cope. I’ve dealt with it and I think that shows that I’ve matured as a man. I can deal with these sort of things.

It’d make your head spin.

“Theo, £75,000 per week, image rights, win bonus, appearance fee, performance bonus, goal bonus, bonus for finishing top four, percentage raises, commercial deals, sponsorships and ‘loyalty’ bonus?”

“No.”

Theo, £80,000 per week, image rights, win bonus, appearance fee, performance bonus, goal bonus, bonus for finishing top four, percentage raises, commercial deals, sponsorships and ‘loyalty’ bonus?

“No.”

“Theo, £85,000 per week, image rights, win bonus, appearance fee, performance bonus, goal bonus, bonus for finishing top four, percentage raises, commercial deals, sponsorships and ‘loyalty’ bonus?”

“Stop, this is very tough, I’m going for a lie down.”

Poor footballers, they’d break your little heart.

Finally for today, you might have seen the image of the player fines going around, the full list of Arsenal player fines can be found here.

Till tomorrow.