Feb

29

Rampant sectionist displayed twice + Arsecast 66

Filed Under The Arsenal | 648 arses

A hearty and fruity and Guinness powered *boilk* to you all. My head hurts. I’m allergic to hurt so this is not good.

So what is there to talk about this fine raininy grey horrible morning? That is a good question and one that can be answered with another question. But that question is a secret so don’t ask me what it is. I simply won’t tell. I suppose we should talk about Arsenal and stuff. Ok then.

Martin Taylor says he’ll be happy when Eduardo is back in the Arsenal team and scoring goals again. That, I imagine, is something he has in common with most Arsenal fans but the main difference is none of us have broken anyone’s leg. I heard from a very good source that Martin Taylor does all satanic stuff at the weekend right and that he has a coven and they sacrifice orphans on a big stone altar and sing songs by bands called ‘Lucifer Jones’ and ‘Beelzebubble’ and then they drink blood and then do Tom Cruise impressions and stuff.

Alisher Usmanov says he’s not going to make a takeover bid … for 6 months, at least. What a true champion this man is. What a credit to the world he and Double-D are. Fat & Orange should be made presidents of the world. Alternatively they could be nailed to a tree and smeared with some kind of honey so a bear comes along and eats them just after he rapes them because he’s a randy old bear and let’s face it, you don’t get an opportunity like that too often. When you find people nailed to a tree in the forest you have to take advantage of it. Usmanov says he’s trying to ‘reassure’ fans. I’d like to reassure him in the face with a plank of wood, the fat cunt.

Ahead of tomorrow’s game against Villa Arsene Wenger says Diaby will be back but he’s not rushing Robin van Persie who is expected back in the side on the twelfth of never. That means, perhaps, another chance for Bendtner up front but seeing as Adebayor and Bendtner are like Kramer vs Kramer with the ball being the child they both want custody of we might have to leave it to Theo Walcott to score the goals. Hmm, with Diaby back he could go left, Hleb right and Theo up front, that way the great Dane and the Togonator don’t have to hate each other in public. Hurrah!

There’ll be more team news later and Arsene’s first press conference since the Taylor incident. It’ll be interesting to hear what he’s got to say and you can find details of it in tomorrow’s blog, probably. Unless I decide to change the whole focus of this blog overnight and report on the Iraq war or develop some kind of social conscience. It is unlikely though.

Now, Arsecast.

Arsecasts

In this week’s Arsecast, brought to you in association with OleOle.com, I chat to Goodplaya, the FA, the Man in the Bar has a player history, there’s a snippet from Talkshite radio, Eboue and more.

To subscribe to the arsecast in iTunes - click here. To download this week’s arsecast directly - click here (17mb MP3). You can find the arsecast archives here. And you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.

Enjoy. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a hangover to attend to.

Feb

28

Eduardo once broke a teammates leg + Thursday round-up

Filed Under The Arsenal | 773 arses

Many thanks to everyone for their best wishes via email, arses, forums or other blogs yesterday. Much appreciated. Now, we’ve got some winning stuff to get on with.

Eduardo has been released from hospital and details emerged of the sterling work done by Gary Lewin in the first few minutes after the Crozilian’s leg had been broken.

What’s also interesting is that Eduardo has been on the Martin Taylor side of things too. A Croatian reader tells me that in a training ground incident Eduardo broke the fibula of his teammate Marijan Buljat (obviously nowhere near as seriously as the break he suffered himself). Apparently he then celebrated every goal by displaying a message to the TV cameras in support of his injured pal. Having been the breaker and the breakee will, I suppose, give him better perspective on all this than any of us.

And sadly Eduardo’s injury is not the ugliest, most horrific site of the week. That honour falls to Alisher Usmanov who has made public his desire to purchase a ‘blocking stake’ in Arsenal. That’s 25% plus one share. Just when you think things can’t get any worse up pop Fat & Orange. They really do have the most impeccable timing, don’t they? Apparently the Fat part of Fat & Orange is also pumping money into Dynamo Moscow.

Tim Payton of the Arsenal Supporters Trust says:

The AST totally oppose a hostile takeover at Arsenal. Our recent financial results and position at the top of the league demonstrate the club is very well run by the current board. If Red and White want Arsenal supporters to have any trust in their stated intentions to be just long term investors, they should renew their statement to the takeover panel that they have no plans to bid. Off the pitch uncertainty will not help the club in the vital weeks ahead

All very true but sadly I don’t think Usmanov, the fat, ugly cunt, gives a fuck what anyone else thinks. It’s good to keep this pressure on him though and the more fans realise how much he and his cronies are trying to hijack what could be a memorable season for us, the better.

Shall we talk positive? Yes, let’s. We need a bit of a boost. Not the kind of Ben Johnson boost but the kind of boost a stranger paying a nice compliment to your dress gives you. Not that I know anything about that. Someone told me, all right. Anyway, Cesc says he’s ready to give everything to bring the title home this season. Speaking to the official Arsenal magazine he said:

I realise I am playing more for the team. If I’m not man of the match, if I’m not player of the month anymore I don’t care, because I know I’m doing extra positive things for the team and now that gives me the most pleasure. All I want now is to win the title and to celebrate that at the end of the season with my team-mates. I want to give everything for the club.

And it’s that kind of attitude we’re going to need. Not just from Cesc though, from all the players. With the squad stretched even thinner than Karen Carpenter during the Irish famine we’re going to need some of the players who would have been considered ‘fringe’ to really step up and make a contribution. It’s now obvious that after the miss against Milan and the haircut Adebayor will never score again but Theo Walcott reckons he can take up the baton, saying:

I feel upbeat, I feel confident. The goals helped and they gave me a boost so hopefully I can take that into Saturday.

He also speaks nicely and maturely about Eduardo in that link. Manuel Almunia reckons our home form will be vital to keep the title challenge on track. I’d go one better and suggest it’s the home and away form that’ll count - remember, we’ve got to go to Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge. Those two games are going to have a huge impact on the title race.

I mentioned some weeks back the Ray of Hope appeal which is trying to raise funds for former Arsenal great Ray Kennedy, now suffering from Parkinsons disease. He talks to the Guardian about how the support from Arsenal and Liverpool has taken him aback and you can find details of the appeal if you feel like you can contribute something towards it.

Tomorrow we can start to focus on Villa, look at the team news, listen to the Arsecast and all that. Just to give you a quick reminder about the O2 Opus campaign, voting for the winners will give you the chance to win an Opus for yourself. It’s the last couple of days so if you fancy it get clicking.

Till tomorrow.

Feb

27

ARSEBLOG IS 6 TODAY

Filed Under The Arsenal | 853 arses

After a week of bad news, irritating media and general glumosity I hope you can put that to one side to join in the celebration this morning - Arseblog.com is 6 today.

Arseblog is 6 today

Much has happened in that time. Far too much for me to recall any of it but in bullet point form:

And there’s probably loads of other stuff too. Of course there’s loads of other stuff, it’s been 6 fucking years. Where the hell did the time go?

What started as a mere experiment on this very day in 2002 has grown into something large and sprawling and time consuming and expensive but fuck me it’s still a lot of fun. All I ever wanted to do was write about something that interested me and the only thing I could think of was Arsenal.

Thankfully you lot seem to have enjoyed reading what I wrote. Well, most of you. There are some people out there who think I’m a cunt, which is absolutely their right. As is my right to think they’re cunts right back. But let us not dwell on the cunts today. Let us think only of the good times, of the last minute winners, not last minute losers, of trophies won, not trophies lost, and of people called cunts who are cunts because they’re not one of us.

Arseblog used to be written A R S E B L O G. Why? Beats the shit out of me, that was just the way the web was back in those days. You know, I remember when all this used to be fields. It’s true. You could leave your backdoor open, your bike unlocked and a pie cooling on the window sill and there’d be no problems. Not like that these days. You can’t turn around without another Arsenal blog filled tower-block going up in next to no time.

How the internet community has grown. From a couple of websites like Arseweb (which appears to have been stricken down like a common Robin van Persie) and Arsenal World (Chris+ still going strong) we now have dozens of the fuckers. From the very good to the very bad to the somewhere in the middle. Still, it’s not a bad thing. The more the merrier, there’s always something for everyone, and all that.

And the future, what does that hold for Arseblog? Good question. Perhaps there may be some changes in the future, you can’t stand still in this business, can you? Oh no. The high-powered, lowly paid world of Arsenal blogging has no room for slackers and those who laze around. You don’t make the kind of no money I make by simply being an indolent sloth for most of the day. Seriously though, there may be some things on the horizon which I’ll tell you about in more detail when I have more detail but rest assured the daily muck will be fertilised in the bowels of my Macintosh and spewed forth like a baby’s diarrhea onto your screens every morning, come what may.

I would, on this very special day, like to say a big thank you to all of you for visits, your emails, your comments, your suggestions, your name calling, your stalking, your not listening when the police tell you stay 500 feet away from me, your ability to bypass my state of the art security systems and to sit in my chair and be waiting for me when I get home and most of all your frontal lobotomy that means all Arsenal bloggers are now safe. Without you lot Arseblog would be just one Irish cunt spouting off every morning … erm … well, you know what I mean.

We have a great community, clichéd as that sounds, both online and off. I might provide the eggs and the flour and the baking soda and possibly the creamy bit in the middle but you lot are the icing on the cake that is Arseblog. I should also thank Tom for his sterling fill-in work and behind the scenes tech knowledge and to the regular contributors to the Arsecast who give their time so generously and, best of all, freely. And I don’t mean free like easy.

Cheers to you all and I hope you’ll join me in raising a pint glass (yes, I know it’s early but it’s a party, you’re allowed!) to the website that has probably cost employers millions in terms of work not completed due to people skiving off on here. I think that’s something we can all be proud of.

To Arseblog. Cheers.

In other more Arsenaly news, Emmanuel Adebayor says he’s going to score in the Champions League some time. Some time really soon. Any day now, in fact. Next Tuesday would be a good day to make up for his lack of CL goals with 8 against Milan. Just saying. Oh, like you wouldn’t want to see it?

Cesc says the critics who wrote Arsenal off pre-season proved an inspiration to the team. Hopefully the critics writing us off after the Birmingham will prove to be similarly inspiring. The cunts.

The Sun says Mathieu Flamini had agreed a 5 year deal worth £50,000 a week but is now stalling, for some reason, with the club afraid he has been made an offer by another club. I say ‘How do they know?’. Sign up, please, Matty.

The Mirror tries to keep the Gallas thing going saying it took the intervention of teammates to calm him down. They say some of them questioned his leadership, I say ‘How do they know?’. Maybe in the Chelsea dressing room where the egos feed stories to their journalist mates they might have some insight but I call foul on this one. Not on the calming bit, on the questioning bit.

More proof the disciplinary system is a joke. Jeremie Aliadiere will serve a longer ban for lightly, almost sensually, brushing his fingers against Javier Mascherano’s face, than Martin Taylor who broke Eduardo’s leg. Martin Samuel writes a decent article in The Times.

And that’s about that. So off we go into our 7th year together. 7 is a lucky number, isn’t it? Perhaps the power of Arseblog’s 7th, Brady, Pires and the great and holy Vivas will see us through to the end of the season. We can but hope.

More tomorrow, Arsechums.

Feb

26

I agree with James Lawton + more on Eduardo and Gallas

Filed Under The Arsenal | 694 arses

Good news yesterday in relation to Eduardo. He’s expected to be back in about 9 months time and the club gave the following update on his situation:

Eduardo has fractured his left fibula and sustained an open dislocation of his ankle joint in the same leg. Earlier today (Monday 25th February), the Orthopaedic surgeon and Arsenal medical staff assessed the extent of the damage and possible time scale for a full recovery. It is hoped that Eduardo will be running again in six months time and making a full recovery after nine months.

Thankfully it was only the fibula that was broken. The initial reports of a double compound fracture were really worrying because that would almost certainly have ended his career. Still, there’s the complication of the open fracture which can lead to infection. Above all, I’m told, this is the main risk in the early days, so fingers crossed he can get through it well.

I did a little digging in the archives to when Abou Diaby was injured by Sunderland’s Dan Smith. Here are Arsene’s comments then:

There is an idea in England that you have to kick Arsenal to beat them. I knew at some stage this kind of accident would happen. I just don’t accept it.

Fairly similar to now, only that side of the picture has been completely left out of it as they focus on the initial statement the boss made then later retracted. There’s no more to my digging around than that, it just piqued my interest is all.

James Lawton:

Wenger admitted he was wrong to say Taylor’s action warranted a life ban. However, he would have been right, utterly, if he had said a three-match automatic suspension was completely inadequate. A score of witnesses have sworn Taylor doesn’t have a bad bone in his body but unfortunately, because of a crude and illegal tackle, his victim now has several. It is a cruel reality that football cannot afford to ignore.

Agreeing with James Lawton is a strange business but anybody can see the system needs to be reworked. The disciplinary committee must now realise that the whole thing is a mess. That violent conduct covers everything from tapping somebody in the face with your fingertips to stamping on somebody’s chest or shattering their leg is absolutely ludicrous.

Eduardo himself is not quite as forgiving as was earlier reported. He says:

Taylor was malicious with what he did. I don’t remember well what happened and I don’t want to see the action on television or in the papers. But what I know is that what he did was on purpose.

What I think he means is that Taylor meant to get stuck in, not to break his leg. If there’s anyone who can feel bitter about this it’s Eduardo and it’s hard to blame him at the moment. Perhaps he might have a different outlook in a few weeks or months time but right now you can understand his anger and frustration. Apparently Martin Taylor has received death threats since the incident, which is absolutely outrageous. On the the other hand the media’s inclination to paint Taylor as some kind of victim in this whole thing is rather unfortunate. The real victim is Eduardo and his shattered leg and beyond that Arsenal Football Club. Taylor is not a victim of any kind.

Update: Sky have removed that link and I haven’t seen those comments from Eduardo anywhere else.

Frankly the media have far from covered themselves in glory over this one. Reading around the many Arsenal blogs the consensus is that they’ve pretty much covered themselves in their own poo. From completely underreporting the seriousness of the injury to focussing on things that make good headlines and pathetic jokes, they have been, with one or two exceptions, jingoistic and downright awful. I don’t think there’s any great anti-Arsenal conspiracy, just a lot of really bad, biased journalists and sports editors who, when they look back on their coverage of this, should be ashsamed of themselves.

I was critical of Gallas and his reaction but some of the stuff written about him has been quite risible. I’m told that Gallas spent much of last week with Bacary Sagna after the death of his brother, he then saw a teammate almost crippled for life, then saw the ref give a penalty that was never a penalty in the last minute of the most emotional game any of the Arsenal players have been involved in. I’m not making excuses for him, far from it, but let’s try and put it into a bit of perspective. It was an extraordinary reaction under extraordinary circumstances. It’s over and done with and it’s now time to get on with playing football.

If anything the reportage might well be used to create the siege mentality that I now believe is crucial to the rest of our season. Not so much a case of ‘nobody like us, we don’t care’ as ‘we don’t like anybody now fuck off out of our way’. Bring it on.

Away from all that there’s news that Kaka might miss the Champions League tie next week. He didn’t do much in the first leg but I’d rather he didn’t get another go at us in the second. I suspect he’ll probably be fit though. Oh, and I know I said ‘away from all that’ but AC Milan had a message of goodwill and support for Eduardo on Saturday afternoon. A nice touch, I thought.

Transfer speculation? A keeper, you say? An Argentian keeper called Willy Caballero? You’re taking the piss. No, I’m not. It’s a bit spurious though.

And that’s your lot. Have a fine Tuesday, tune in for a special Arseblog day tomorrow.

Feb

25

The fall-out continues

Filed Under The Arsenal | 740 arses

Morning all, I hope this Monday finds you in better form than the weekend. Saturday and Sunday were fairly traumatic, it has to be said, but it’s a new week and it’s time to start getting on with things.

There was positive news regarding Eduardo. He’s been moved to a London hospital and he made a statement outlining his desire to overcome the injury. A positive mental attitude will be vital so that’s encouraging. The fact that he’s even able to make a statement is positive. I suffered a serious limb break in the past and I was so off my box on morphine I couldn’t see straight let alone make a statement like that.

There were also reports that the injury wasn’t as serious as first thought. Initial reports suggested a double compound fracture, an injury that is, thankfully, rare but has generally resulted in the retirement of the player who has suffered it. In the Premier League we know all about Coventry’s David Busst and many will remember Luc Nilis, the Belgian international, suffer a horrible fracture (disturbing image warning) while playing for Aston Villa.

In Eduardo’s case it seems that it’s only his fibula that has been broken and I think that seriously increases his chances of making a decent recovery. All the same these stories have not been confirmed by the club so I think we’d be best to wait for that until we get too hopeful.

Apparently Martin Taylor attempted to visit Eduardo and he deserves some credit for that. There are plenty of footballers who wouldn’t have bothered at all or wouldn’t have the courage to do so. Sometimes it’s much easier to not take responsibility, to hide away, to take the easy way out and ignore what’s happened. As I said yesterday I don’t believe for a second that Taylor tried to break Eduardo’s leg but he is guilty of a dangerous and ugly tackle which has had terrible consequences. So as much as we roundly condemn him for that we have to acknowledge the fact he’s at least tried to say what he has to say in person rather than via a meaningless statement released via a website or merely saying nothing at all.

The media reaction to all this has been painful though, I have to say. From the idiots who suggested it wasn’t even a yellow card to the newspapers whose match reports blatantly ignored a violent assault on a fellow player. Much happier to focus on Wenger’s admittedly heated initial statement (seriously, I saw at least a dozen websites go trawling for hits with Wenger’s ‘life ban’ comments well after the boss had retracted his initial statement) or Gallas’s end of game antics the old boys couldn’t find it in themselves to condemn a ‘good honest British player’. It’s nonsense. That the focus should be taken away from the Taylor challenge to Wenger’s words says so much about some of the people who write about football in England.

Without dwelling on it I think we have to ensure we don’t lose sight of the fact that the need for change is still obvious. There have been many testimonies on the character of Martin Taylor since this incident and those, coupled with his disciplinary record, suggest he’s not the kind of person who would try and cause serious damage to a fellow player. Still, that doesn’t alter the fact that a very bad challenge carried out by him has caused serious injury to Eduardo. He may have been a bit late, he may have not meant to hurt him as much as he did, but that doesn’t mean that he shouldn’t be punished for what happened.

The longer the FA goes without introducing some method of punishment for incidents like this the more likely we are to see it repeated. And perhaps the fans who think that Arsenal’s reaction has been over the top won’t be so quick to judge when it’s one of their players out for 6 months and the perpetrator is back in 3 games. Those newspapers and TV stations who want to slag off Wenger about his comments are, in my opinion, merely using this opportunity to give him stick to suit their own agenda. Headlines about AW and disrepute will sell more papers than ones calling for the footballing authorities to finally take a stand against proper violent conduct. They are cowards.

Steven Kelly must be one of the front runners for the ‘Stupidest cunt of all time’ award. He said:

It was harsh Tiny (Taylor) being sent off. Tiny has gone in and it wasn’t a malicious tackle and the reason the ref has sent him off is because he has seen Eduardo has broken his leg. I don’t think you can send a player off for that.

Fucking hell. What a moron. If you can’t send a player off for a brutal, over the ball challenge then when can you send him off? For a little slap at someone’s face? I understand players sticking up for their mates but to suggest Taylor was harshly done by is quite patently absurd. Or to put it a more Irish way, as thick as bottled shite. Ask a fan of any team who has seen one of their players have his leg broken by a bad tackle and ask them if they thought the sending off was harsh. Not a one would suggest such a thing.

Mathieu Flamini says Arsenal will do their best to win the title for Eduardo and describes the injury, saying:

I went over to see him and it was really bad. I have no words to describe what I saw. It’s the worst injury I have seen. He is a friend and it upsets you.

When you read some experts suggesting he could have lost his foot then it really does make bigger fools of all those trying to make light of the incident.

Lots of stories this morning about William Gallas and his post match reaction. I said what I had to say yesterday about it, I don’t think there’s any point repeating it, but as I also said he needs to shape up. This is a young team that needs a strong leader between now and the end of the season. It’s a team that deserves a strong leader not somebody who throws a tantrum like that and shirks their footballing responsibilities, whatever the circumstances.

For now though we should put what happened at St Andrews firmly behind us and get on with winning games, starting with Villa on Saturday. Never before has the ‘one game at a time’ mantra been more important. The manager has to get his players focussed again and I think having no midweek game this week is probably a blessing. It gives him time to sort some heads out.

Arsenal are collecting messages of support for Eduardo - go here for more information.

Right, that’s about that. More tomorrow.

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