Apr

30

Adebayor spares Lehmann’s blushes - Fiszman on Kroenke

Filed Under The Arsenal | 384 arses

Three nice points but not an altogether convincing performance. It started brightly when Julio Baptista headed us into a 5th minute lead after good work from Adebayor. ‘That’ll fill the Beast full of confidence’, I thought to myself but after he scuffed two relatively easy chances, the sort of chances that Heather Mills would have stuck away with her wooden leg, I realised it wasn’t confidence he was filled with but poo.

Cesc had a good shot saved and Adebayor had a header saved and that was about it for the first half. The second half was pretty dull and with Fulham fighting for their Premiership lives we let them get back into the game. Not that they created anything much or looked in any way dangerous until they scored. Jens Lehmann showed why some people have had doubts about renewing his contract. He came miles out of his goal to punch a ball that the defenders would have dealt with, it fell to Simon Davies who lobbed it in to equalise. Kamikaze goalkeeping and to be honest I’d be just as happy to see Manuel in the side for the next couple of games. Jens needs a kick up the arse.

It was down to Emmanuel Adebayor to spare his blushes though. A good pass from Cesc set him through the middle and he shimmied then curled one into the bottom corner. He really deserved the goal and I think he’s a player who, if he keeps working the way he does at the moment, could do big things for us in the future. Then Moritz Volz rugby-tackled Alexander Hleb and Gilberto scored his 9th league goal of the season from the spot. Game over, three points Arsenal and Fulham are in big, big trouble now.

Afterwards Arsene Wenger pointed out the deterioration in our performance but I suppose you can take a positive from the fact they reacted to it. It’d be much better if they just played well though. It was one of those typically lazy end of season affairs though and we did play some nice stuff in the first half hour. We’ll have to perform better than that against Chelsea next week though.

Before yesterday’s game Danny Fiszman, who is normally very media shy, gave an interview to Sky Sports about Stan Kroenke and the possibility of a takeover. While he admitted the board would meet Kroenke because of his now significant holding in the club the American won’t have been encouraged by his words. He basically said what anyone with any common sense outlook on this whole thing has said and it’s that a takeover funded by loans will take money out of the club. He did say the board are open to anything that will improve the club, but:

I think it is going to be very, very difficult to explain to me and the rest of the board how you can make a substantial investment, which has to be £400m, £500m or £600m and expect a return for that. Even with an eight to 10 per cent return you have to take £50m or so. And that has to come out of the club, otherwise there’s no point in making the purchase.

Again, that’s the bottom line. Money goes out of Arsenal. He refused to comment when asked if Double-D was in league with Satan Kroenke and went on to say:

The board has 45.5 per cent of the shares of the company, we also have friends which take us over 50 per cent so they can mount a hostile bid but they are never going to get control of the club.

KAPOW! I’d say if the board had a Myspace it’d have like, 504,365 friends and if David Dein had a Myspace he’d only have that default guy and then the default guy would delete him because he wouldn’t want anyone to think he was a total lamer who hung around with sunbed freakazoids.

Congratulations now to the Arsenal Ladies who drew 0-0 with Umea yesterday but won the UEFA Cup on aggregate. I saw most of it and Emma Byrne, Arsenal’s Irish keeper, made some good saves and it’s a great achievement for everyone involved in the ladies set up, well done again to the players and to Vic Akers who’s done such a good job.

Elsewhere Thierry Henry’s thoughts on Sp*rs scoring equalising goals are most entertaining while Nicklas Bendtner says he’ll do everything to break into the Arsenal first team. Would he eat a dinosaur’s testicle poached in alligator piss? We shall see.

And that’s that for this Monday morning. The week will be quiet enough but there’s plenty of interest in Europe and we can laugh at Sam Allardcye who will hopefully go onto smaller and worser things with whatever club he lands at. We’ll feel the tremors, no doubt.

Apr

29

Sunday round-up

Filed Under The Arsenal | 452 arses

Happy Sunday to you all. We’ll start with the little bit of team news we’ve got ahead of today’s game with Fulham. The only absentees, bar the long termers, are the on-offers. Freddie Ljungberg and Tomas Rosicky continue their trend of play a couple, miss a couple, so the boss will shuffle his pack a bit.

After yesterday’s results 4th place is the minimum we can achieve and with Liverpool losing there’s still an outside chance of 3rd as they continue to be distracted by Europe. Three points today are a must, not from any other point of view than we owe Fulham for the defeat earlier in the season.

Looking around at the stories this morning William Gallas talks to Amy Lawrence about what has been a difficult first season for him at Arsenal. As I said yesterday he’s been a disappointment but he says he’ll change things and organise the defence better. I suppose we should give him the benefit of the doubt but he’s got a lot to prove still. His point about the marking system at corners is a decent one, I have to say, again you have to ask if that’s a subject that is better broached at the training ground than in the press. Still, if it means we concede less goals from corners or set-pieces then it’ll have had some impact.

Arsene Wenger says he’s not worried about a new contract just yet but says he’ll talk to the board about it at the end of the season. He says his desire to stay at Arsenal depends on how much he can develop his young team. Whether that means he needs assurances about money being available or something else we don’t know. Anyway, I don’t think you can really accuse the board of not giving him money when he’s wanted it and they have always insisted that their would be funds for players. I wouldn’t worry too much about this contract business anyway, he has left it very close to expiration before and there’s still plenty of time to sort things out.

Not much else happening apart from to wish good luck to Arsenal’s ladies who play the second leg of their UEFA Cup final against Umea IK.

Oh, and hahahahahaha at Leeds. Relegated again. That’ll teach you to bully me when I was 8. Suck it up, fuckers. More tomorrow.

Apr

28

Saturday round-up

Filed Under The Arsenal | 195 arses

Morning all, what a fine Saturday it is. A lie in, the hangover I was expecting doesn’t seem to have kicked in and plenty of Arsenal news to tell you about.

Firstly the Chairman has written a letter to the shareholders in which he talks about Stan Kroenke and his ‘investment’ in the club. It’s well worth a read and the main points seem to be:

  1. The current board are Arsenal fans and Stan Kroenke isn’t
  2. The club is generating its revenue in such a way that it is invested back into the club and not going out to service loans or to fill the pockets of directors
  3. The board have the best interests of the club at heart. David Dein may have been an Arsenal fan but the ‘irreconcilable differences’ were obviously that he didn’t have the best interests of the club at heart.

Obviously there’s a bit more to it than that but he’s made their position very clear. This is on top of Danny Fiszman’s denial that he was ever involved with Russian investors and the implications of him calling that story a ‘total lie’ are very clear. P-Diddy H to the W has spoken to Kroenke and will be meeting with him soon, it will be very interesting to see what happens there.

Away from all the boardroom shennanigans Arsene Wenger spoke about the appointment of a football director and he says it will happen in the summer. Some people, notably Goodplaya in yesterday’s Arsecast, expressed some concerns that Arsene might have too much control over this appointment but it seems the boss is not looking to surround himself with ‘yes men’, saying:

He will be appointed by me but it will not necessarily be a friend of mine. It will be somebody who will do the job well because if I go one day the guy has still to work here.

Can’t really argue with that and there’s a growing feeling that the man in question could be Wenger’s first football signing at the club, Remi Garde.

He also addressed the situations of Julio Baptista and Jose Antonio Reyes, saying he’ll be meeting with agents and Real Madrid in the near future. It’s obvious Reyes doesn’t want to come back to England but Real Madrid don’t seem to him either. However, that could be as much to do with the uncertainty surrounding the managerial position there with Capello likely to get sacked no matter what happens in La Liga. Baptista has been the single biggest disappointment I can remember in an Arsenal transfer. We all saw how good he was for Sevilla and we all remember the protracted tranfer business the summer before last so to see him blunder and stumble his way around, one or two games apart, has been horribly frustrating. If the price is low enough he could stay, again depending on what happens with Reyes.

In fact, perhaps it’s all a plan. Arsene Wenger has told him to play badly on purpose so his transfer value plummets. He’s now worth €14,99 and 10 kilo bag of spuds.

The keeper situation is an interesting one. With Jens set to stay for another year the boss has said he sees it as a battle between Lehmann and Almunia for the number one position. Crafty stuff, Jens has Euro 2008 to motivate him and the thought of losing his place at Arsenal and therefore his position as German number 1 is the kind of thing he needs, in my opinion. He was brilliant last season but without the focus of a big tournament his performances have dropped.

With regard to William Gallas the manager says he wants to keep him and that there are no problems with him at the club. His season has been hampered by injuries and frustration at going from a team challenging for everything to a team which, in the end, challenged for very little this season. We’ve all seen what a fine player he has been for Chelsea but there haven’t been too many times he’s performed at that level for Arsenal. I’m reserving judgement but if he stays we need to see a much better player than the one we’ve seen this season and perhaps then he can put himself in a position where his opinions and ’suggestions’ about the team are better regarded.

Tomas Rosicky says his season has been frustrating because of injuries. Yep. I’m looking forward to seeing an injury free Rosicky next season. He’s shown recently that he could just be very effective from the left hand side. You feel that if he could link up more with Clichy and if Clichy could produce a final ball every now and again we could become more dangerous from the left.

Justin Hoyte has signed a new long term deal with the club and hopefully he can continue to improve and eventually make the right back position his own, leaving Eboue writhing on the ground in annoyance. He doesn’t have Eboue’s flair going forward but for me he’s much more solid defensively and doesn’t have Eboue’s diving, cheating, faking, timewasting and general cuntery about him.

And that’s about that. No other news, there’s football on this morning and Walrus looking cunt Allardyce is leaving Bolton at the end of the season. Splendid news. He’ll go somewhere else and make them as hated as Bolton.

More tomorrow.

Apr

27

News round-up, historic Arsecast 25 out now.

Filed Under The Arsenal | 253 arses

Right then, let’s start with Double-D who, according to reports this morning, has held talks with Stan Kroenke about selling him the 14.6% of Arsenal that he owns. No real surprise there. It’ll be just the conditions of the sale that will make for interesting reading as he’s unlikely to sell without some guarantee of a place in Kroenke’s boardroom and no doubt he’ll be talking up his relationship with Arsene and how all the players love him and that he brings a real glow to the place.

The same article says the Chairman will make a statement to supporters in the programme for the Fulham game, which will be interesting to read. Meanwhile Danny Fiszman has broken his silence to say reports of him having secret meetings with Russian investors are a ‘total lie’. I wonder where that story could possibly have come from then…

Away from that there are some stories to get through. Thierry Henry feels the team lacks concentration and this is the cause of so many lost points while the manager has again said the move to the new stadium meant it took us some time to feel comfortable when playing at home. When he says we drew some games at the Grove we would have won at Highbury it’s hard to argue.

Julio Baptista will not be staying at Arsenal. Both the Sun and the Mirror are reporting that Baptista has been told he’ll be going back to Madrid (where he’ll probably score 50 goals next season) which leaves Jose Antonio Reyes in a bit of a difficult spot. He’s made sure that everyone knows he doesn’t want to return to Arsenal, bad weather you see, so he’ll be up for grabs to anyone who has the requisite funds to spare this summer.

Aston Villa’s Martin Laursen says Nicklas Bendtner can be a good player if he works hard and takes advice from more senior players and Bendtner’s new strike partner Andy Cole has been quick to dish some out. He looks like he’ll be given his chance at Arsenal next season and while he’s done well at Birmingham there’s a feeling he can be a bit lazy and allows games to pass him by when he’s not in the mood. That’ll have to change if he’s really serious about making it at the top level.

Arsene Wenger has backed Demento for the manager of the year award, pointedly ignoring Mourinho and having a nice little dig at Chelsea’s style of play.

Arsecasts

The Arsecast is brought to you in association OleOle.com - which if you don’t know is a football community that’s entirely free to join and take part in

In this week’s show there’s a triple-decker, menage a trois (but with 4) blogchat as I talk, AT THE SAME TIME!!!, to Gunnerblog, East Lower and Goodplaya. As well as that The Man in the Bar is back and sober, Arsene Wenger Hawkins is there and there’s more of the usual waffle.

To subscribe to the arsecast in iTunes - click here. To download this week’s arsecast directly - click here (14mb MP3). You can find the arsecast archives here.

That’s that then. More tomorrow.

Apr

26

Jens to stay but will he be number 1?

Filed Under The Arsenal | 395 arses

Transfer and contract rumour is the order of the morning which does make a change from all the takeover stuff.

Let’s start with Jens Lehmann who has apparently decided to stay with Arsenal and accept the one year contract on offer. His performances in the second half of this season have concerned me, I have to say, but as has been pointed out elsewhere we need to strengthen other areas before that of the keeper. However, that Times article suggests we’ll be after Hearts Craig Gordon in the summer despite Lehmann’s acceptance of a new contract and just the other day I was told from a very good source that our interest in Yohann Pele is very real and at an advanced stage. So, we shall see what happens there. If he does stay then we need to see the Jens of last season, a player who was motivated and focused and not the Jens of the last couple of months who looks unsure and increasingly erratic. Perhaps having his future settled, one way or the other, will do that for him.

The other thing to bear in mind is that if Arsenal tell him, which I’m sure they will given his age, that they’re looking to bring in another keeper who might usurp his position then his decision to stay might be reversed.

The Guardian is repeating the Gallas to Madrid story that appeared in the Mirror the other day and looking around the Spanish papers they’re only using the Mirror story as a source so I doubt there’s very much in this, at the moment. Also in AS yesterday was a highly speculative piece about Cesc joining Real Madrid this summer because he wouldn’t stay if Wenger left. They seem to have completely overlooked the fact that Wenger won’t be going anywhere and Cesc has an eight year contract.

Yoan Gouffran is a French striker who appears to be quite good so naturally we’ve been linked with him. Not much more to it than that.

Not much more happening to be honest. In relation to tomorrow’s Arsecast (sponsored by OleOle.com) I’m going to try something new and different this week. It may work, it may not but if it does work it’ll be completely and utterly awesome. Or possibly quite good. Or maybe just about listenable. Or crap. There’s rather a lot of scope for it not to work. Hmmmm.

Anyway, I’ll get about my business and try and sort that out. You can spend all day discussing whether or not we need a new keeper or, perhaps, whether you’d prefer to be an anteater or an armadillo. I’m easy.

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