Mar

31

Liverpool preview and Wenger talks

Filed Under The Arsenal | 441 arses

There was the usual press conference yesterday which means there’s plenty of stuff from Arsene Wenger this morning. We’ll start with his rather succint review of the season so far. He said:

We expected better. There have been factors, we have had many offensive players out and all our experienced players basically have been out. We have beaten the big teams and we have lost against the smaller teams who are not fighting for the championship. We are a young team who can beat everybody, but can also lose against everybody.

Quite. Again he urged patience for his team and said that he expected them to challenge for the title next season. I think he’s got a lot to think about between now and the start of next season. Does he sacrifice some of the young players or underachievers to bring in more quality and experience or does he hope that the travails of the last two seasons have made men of his boys? That, however, is a discussion for another time. Today we concentrate on Liverpool.

In team news we’ll be without Jeremie Aliadiere and Gilberto through foot and hip injuries respectively. I suspect we’ll play a 4-5-1 today with a back four of Eboue - Toure - Gallas - Clichy (It’s interesting to see him speak about that back four as the one he feels to be first choice. He doesn’t say it exactly but that’s what you would infer from his words. I suppose we can only judge them once they’ve played together for a few games but there are a couple of them who still have something to prove, in my opinion) and a midfield of Hleb - Cesc - Diaby - Freddie - Rosicky with Adebayor as the lone striker.

There’s a bit of pressure on the midfield, I feel, to contribute. Adebayor can certainly score, he got two for Togo last week, and his energy will be important but the midfield, with -3 goals all season between them, simply have to get their shooting boots on if we want to win this game. A draw wouldn’t be the end of the world by any means but if we win we’d go four points clear of Liverpool and have a game in hand in the race for third place. Even a loss would still give us the chance to go ahead of the Mug Smashers because of the game we have but we need a result today to build confidence. Fingers crossed.

The boss also denied a charge of improper conduct in relation to his comments about the officials after the Carling Cup final. He has requested a personal hearing and, given his ‘previous’ this season with the FA he’s going to have to be at his most charming to prevent a very serious fine and a probable touchline ban. He also says he’s not bothered by all the talk of Arsenal being taken over by the Krankies.

Right, well that’s about that. Whatever happens it’ll be good to have real football back. Time for breakfast then I’m off to watch it around the Mug Smasher’s gaff. Reaction and reportage mañana.

Finally, as today is the 6th anniversary of the death of David Rocastle, this video seems appropriate. And don’t forget the Rocastle Trust. Cheers, Rocky.

Mar

30

Learn to speak Catalan with Cesc - Arsecast 21

Filed Under The Arsenal | 433 arses

Yawn, I say, yawn. At last the real football returns as we take on Liverpool at Anfield tomorrow morning. Back from suspension and injury come Gael Clichy, Emmanuel Eboue and Emmanuel Adebayor and the boss is glad to have the big striker back, saying:

With the number of strikers we have out, his presence, physical ability and penetration power means it is good to have him back.

Indeed, I hope to see the big man penetrate the Liverpool defence on a number of occasions. He’ll certainly add something to the team after the toiling of Baptista and Aliadiere although Helen Keller’s child, born without senses, limbs of any kind and with bones so brittle they shatter every time he goes to the toilet, would add something to that pair. With the news that Robin van Persie won’t play again this season the big man has got a bit of responsibility now as the main striker. Let’s see what he’s made of.

As well as that we have most of our midfield fit so it’s four from Cesc, Gilberto, Diaby, Rosicky, Freddie, Hleb, Denilson and Flamini. At least we have options in that department. Hopefully we’ll see Gilberto back in midfield and that business of him playing centre-half is over and done with. A more detailed preview tomorrow. Possibly.

In a round-up of the other stories Jens Lehmann says Arsenal have only got themselves to blame for the poor season. Well, I blame global warming too, but I can see where he’s coming from. He also says he can play till he’s 40 and has hinted that the 2010 World Cup could be his swansong! Crazy keepers, they never know when to stop, eh? And speaking of keepers it’s reported that Arsene Wenger has been checking out Jurgen Macho, former Sunderland and Chelsea keeper. Yer man over at Gunnerblog reckons he’s fantastic but I can’t possibly say one way or the other. All I know is that his name reminds me of that song by Sinitta all those years ago and that is not good.

Keith Edelman, the man with the heart of iron and other grimy metals, spoke yesterday and after he announced ticket prices would be frozen for next season (as I did NOT exclusively reveal 24 days ago) he downplayed the threat of a takeover saying the current board were committed to the club. However, the Stan Krankie stories won’t go away and he, yesterday, issued a denial of his denial that he was interested in ITV’s 9.9%.

However, Nigel Phillips of the Arsenal Supporters Trust has advised me that apparently you can’t deny a takeover bid as company law then precludes you from making a bid for 6 months. So, he’s said that his spokesman was wrong and blamed him. It would seem that he’s going to try and buy at least the ITV shareholding. Possibly more. Hmmmm.

Anyway, let us move on and allow me to perform aurally for you. I said AURALLY you sick bastards.

Arsecasts

This week’s Arsecast, sponsored as always by Savile-Rogue.com, features a chat with the Mug Smasher about the Liverpool game, Arsene Wenger Hawkins, the Man in the Bar and a great new feature. In this week’s Arsecast we teach you how to speak Catalan with Cesc Fabregas! Make sure to check it out.

There’s the winner of the Savile Rogue scarf - singular, because contributions this week were down due to the internationals. Remember, if you want to email or leave a voicemail for the show you can find all the contact info here.

To subscribe to the arsecast in iTunes - click here. To download this week’s arsecast directly - click here (16mb MP3) or zip file here. You can find the arsecast archives here.

Right so, happy listening. More tomorrow.

Mar

29

Internationals over -let the real football commence

Filed Under The Arsenal | 550 arses

Right so, the internationals are over and we can get back to talking about real football. As far as I know we haven’t lost anyone though injury and Cesc didn’t play at all last night so he’ll be rested and raring to go against Liverpool.

And a rest won’t do him any harm at all considering he’s already looking forward to recharging his batteries in the summer. Elsewhere Rosicky played for the Czechs, Freddie played for Sweden who were beaten by Northern Ireland while Abou Diaby started for France and did well by all accounts. Apart from that I don’t know who else played but if there are any injuries no doubt we’ll find out today. Away from the first team Nicklas Bendtner scored for Denmark as they beat Germany 1-0 in a friendly.

The Times is reporting that Arsenal have a verbal agreement in place to sign Frank Ribery in the summer, provided Marseille don’t qualify for the Champions League. Opinions are divided about him but he’s small, quick, direct, goes wide and does offer something different than the central midfielders we’re insisting on playing on the wings these days. At this stage he’s the most likely arrival in the summer.

Gael Clichy talks about losing a finger, dying and how Armand Traore breathing down his neck keeps him on his toes.

Arsene Wenger says he should have sacrificed the FA Cup this season and says the replays against Bolton and Blackburn were a factor in going out against PSV in the Champions League. It sounds like a nice thing to say but realistically how do you sacrifice a competition like the FA Cup and especially when you’re playing at home like we did against Blackburn? At that stage we had a squad with a lot injuries so who does he pick and how exactly do you sacrifice the game? Do you lose deliberately at home? Score own goals on purpose? Of course not.

I’m not sure the FA Cup had much of an impact on the PSV game. Would losing in the FA Cup have made our strikers score goals? No Sir, it would not.

Jose Antonio Reyes says he’s still hoping to secure a permanent deal with Real Madrid. Whatever happens I think you can be sure he won’t be coming back to Arsenal. Meanwhile the boss has ruled out the possibility of Gilberto joining Juventus, calling them a ‘pack of stripey shirted, Brady stealing cunthammers’, and who can argue with him?

And that’s that. I must away and record an Arsecast for you but with little material to work with this week it might well be a short one. Unless, of course, I include my acapella cover version of Safety Dance. Hmmmmm….

Mar

28

FA fines way over the top, more share movement

Filed Under The Arsenal | 451 arses

So Arsenal and Chelsea were both fined £100,000 for the Carling Cup ‘brawl’, which was little more than a bit of pushing and shoving at the end of the day. The FA said:

The Commission stated that it viewed the incident as serious, unacceptable and damaging to the image of the game. It found that Arsenal players had been marginally more involved in the Carling Cup Final incident, but that Chelsea FC had past proven cases in recent years regarding the general behaviour of their players where warnings had been issued.

Now, £100,000 is a lot of money, for Arsenal. For Chelsea it doesn’t matter a jot. It could be £1m and it wouldn’t matter but the point is that both clubs have, in light of other incidents, been very harshly treated. The example that people are holding up against is the brawl between Sp*rs and Boro which saw them fined £8,000 and £4,000 (both clubs had 50% of those fines suspended as well).

Let’s not forget Emmanuel Adebayor was fined £7,500 for his part in the Carling Cup goings on, more than the Sp*rs and Boro fines combined. Hardly fair, is it? Should Chelsea not also have been fined for their fans behaviour as they hurled potentially lethal sticks of celery onto the pitch?

You have to question the FA’s motives behind these fines. With a massive payout to Sven Goran Eriksson (which is being paid in installments) £200,000 comes in very handy indeed, doesn’t it? There’s really no point going over such old and well trodden ground though. I mean, we could ask why West Ham weren’t even investigated when some scumbag threw a coin which hit Robin van Persie but what’s the point? The FA are a shower of insufferable cunts who have always been a shower of insufferable cunts and always will be a shower of insufferable cunts. There’s not much more to it than that.

There was movement of Arsenal shares yesterday and strange movement it was too. Ken Friar transferred 152 shares to Peter Hill-Wood for £0.00p per share, which is a very competitive price, you have to say. That means the Chairman now has 500 shares which accounts for 0.80% of Arsenal’s shares. With the 1.1% sold by Danny Fiszman still causing ripples this will do nothing to dampen speculation but at the moment that’s all it is. We know something’s going on, but what? I do love a good mystery.

The French press yesterday linked us with Frank Ribery again, no surprise, as well as Florent Malouda and Eric Abidal (who are most unlikely targets). I’m not going to bother too much with transfer stuff when there’s still a fair chunk of the season to go but of the three the short ugly winger is the mostly likely to arrive in the summer.

Gilberto has been linked with a move to Juventus. There are quotes from him and quotes from agents and blah blah blah. More worrying are reports that he limped out of last night’s friendly against Ghana at half-time so we shall have to wait and see if he’s fit for Saturday.

Tomas Rosicky was fined for partying a bit to late with some of his Czech buddies after their 2-1 defeat to Germany at the weekend.

The final groups of games take place tonight so hopefully all our players will come back injury free. Light votive candles, sacrifice goats to whichever God you worship. It is your duty.

Until tomorrow.

Mar

27

Inside the Togo FA

Filed Under The Arsenal | 279 arses

We’re right slap bang in the middle of this international week and it’s difficult to find anything to bring you this morning.

Stan Kroenke, father of little Jimmy Kroenke, has denied any interest in an Arsenal takeover, saying:

There’s no interest or intention in buying any shares or any pieces of Arsenal Football Club, or any club in the Premier League.

However, I’m told from two well placed sources that ITV have been in discussions with this group regarding the 9.9% of the club they own. Whether anything further happens now, I don’t know.

The Togo sports minister says he doesn’t understand the decision to send Emmanuel Adebayor, and two other players, home as the mediation process regarding the bonus payments was still underway. Perhaps the big man arrived in the office for talks, said his piece then did that dance he does with Thierry Henry. That might have given them just the chance they needed.

“Get out, Adebayor”, they might have said.  “We won’t have any of that dancing here.”

“You people don’t understand the funk, the Adebaygroove”, he might have replied whilst gyrating his hips in an entirely inappropriate way but which also made them slightly aroused.

“Good Jesus, it’s the Togonian Elvis, the one the prophets have warned us about”, they possibly exclaimed. “From hence forth you are prohibited from playing for the national side lest you infect the rest of the players, and the country, as you trip this light fantastic.”

“Your loss, man, I mean, men”, Ade could have said in reply, “the Adeboogaloo could have united this country in dance, in joy and in World Cup winning football but I will return to London where they appreciate my moves. See you bitches later.”

Football is as much about politics as anything else, isn’t it?

Former Gunner Anthony Stokes says his new boss, Roy Keane, is like Arsene Wenger while Clubcall link us with Italian central defender Matteo Ferrari.

More tomorrow (fingers crossed something actually happens today).

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