Van Persie, Baptista and Adebayor speak

Hello everyone, hope you had a good day yesterday. I am still as full as a very full thing after a day of eating and drinking and more eating.

Today will be similar but with the added bonus of football thrown in. We go to Watford and with a busy Christmas schedule the boss may decide to rotate his squad a little bit. Perhaps Julio Baptista could start and he could be a bit frustrated. Speaking to AS, he said of his lack of first team action:

Arsene Wenger tells me he will wait until I get used to this league, but until I play regularly I won’t achieve that.

He has a point, you know. I suspect we’ll see more of him from now on. The boss has always maintained it takes time to adjust to English football and he hasn’t been helped with some fitness and injury niggles. He does look much leaner now though.

In a quick round-up of the stories Robin van Persie reckons Arsenal play the best football in England and says he looks at other teams and thinks he could never play for them because of the way they play the game.

Emmanuel Adebayor says the team must remain focussed and Arsene Wenger has praised the Togonianator after a mixed reaction to his start at the club. The boss said:

At the start he looked inhibited, especially at the Emirates. He is sensitive and sensed when people were on his back. That’s why I used him more away from home at the start. He has won the fans over because he fights and plays for the team. He has a good mixture between the English game and the French game.

Today people who were on his back now love him.

And he’s right. Lots of people, myself included, doubted he was the right man for the club but I’m quite happy to admit I was wrong. He came from Monaco and there were question marks over his attitude and temperament but he’s been first class in every respect and he deserved a huge amount of credit for the way he got his head down, worked hard and proved people wrong on the pitch. Keep it up, Ade.

Jens Lehmann says his priority is to stay at Arsenal but he’d have no problem with a move if things didn’t work out with Arsenal. We’ve been over this before, I think.

And beyond that there’s not much happening. Now, I must roll my engorged carcass up the stairs to try and vacate some space so I can fill it all up again.

More tomorrow.

Merry Christmas from Arseblog

Morning Arsebloggers, just a quick one to wish you all a very merry Christmas.

Now, let’s eat, drink and be Bryan Ferry. Have fun!

Arsenal hit Rovers for six in Christmas special

A festive performance from the lads yesterday as they stuck 6 past a tricky Blackburn side. After the odious David Bentley had won a penalty to put the visitors one up in the first couple of minutes we hit back with goals from Gilberto, who really is having a storming season, Alexander Hleb and an Adebayor penalty.

3-1 at half time and in the second half we tore them to pieces at will. Cesc had a couple of chances to score, Rosicky had an effort headed onto the bar and it was just typical that it was Rovers who scored to make it 3-2 and a bit nervy for 5 or 10 minutes. Jens Lehmann saved well to stop them getting it back to 3-3 then Robin van Persie finally got on the scoresheet to make it 4-2. Moments later he got his second after great football and the icing on the cake was Cesc nutmegging Robbie Savage, making him look like the chump he is, getting into the box and after his shot was saved by Friedel Mathieu Flamini lashed it home to make it 6-2. The boys celebrating and laughing at what Cesc did to Savage was just deadly to watch.

Although the goals came late and Rovers might complain the scoreline didn’t reflect the game when you look back on the number of chances we had I don’t see how they can argue too much. It was one of those performances that makes it easy to understand why Arsene Wenger has so much faith in this squad. Some of the football was just outstanding to watch and really the only thing they lack is consistency, something the boss is aware of.

Although we were a little shaky at the back at times the midfield four were excellent. The returning Rosicky will be a massively important player for us if he stays fit. His enthusiasm and energy seems to be infectious. Gilberto got his 7th goal of the season with a fine header, Hleb got on the scoresheet, Cesc was everywhere and probably should have had a couple of goals himself. Up front Adebayor was brilliant again. He never stops and he’s now adding some classy touches to his game. The little pass to Cesc to set up van Persie’s second was fantastic. And van Persie himself got a couple. How typical is it of him that minutes after skying a relatively simple chance over the bar he cut in from the right hand side, sold the defender a dummy, turning him inside out and curling the goal he really needed into the far corner?

Afterwards Arsene Wenger said:

You see that there’s a great spirit in the team, they enjoy to play. Not only do they enjoy to play together, they enjoy to play at a high tempo. That’s something amazing and very interesting to watch.

I watched the game on a stream and later the highlights on RTE where both Eamonn Dunphy and Johnny Giles couldn’t praise the type of football we play enough. They said that Cesc nutmegging Savage was like a metaphor for the game – Beauty and Beast stuff. heh. If you haven’t seen the goals yet here you go.

As I said above though it’s days like yesterday that make you understand the boss’s belief in the team and I suppose it’s what makes days when we don’t perform so frustrating. Perhaps though we need to just be a bit more patient with this team. The lack of consistency is probably down to youth but they’re learning, getting more experienced and if the core of this squad stays together then there’s no question they could go onto to be a great side.

Anyway, it’s a couple of days rest before Watford on St Stephen’s Day but the Christmas schedule has gotten off to a good start.

In a quick round-up of the other stories around Theo Walcott talks to the Sunday People about the year he’s just had while there’s an interesting interview with one of Arsene Wenger’s first Arsenal signings, Remi Garde, in the Telegraph.

And that’s about that. I’ll be here with a brief Christmas greeting tomorrow but I hope you all have your shopping done and can relax and take it easy now.

For those of you not around for a few days I’d like to just wish you a very merry Christmas and all the best for the new year. Thank you for visiting Arseblog, it wouldn’t be half the fun it is without you lot.

Cheers everyone!

ps – Due to popular demand here is Arsene Wenger Hawkins’ Christmas song from this week’s arsecast.

Saturday round-up

Good morning everyone. Yesterday I finished off my Christmas shopping. That was good. Drinking from 3pm until 11.30pm last night was also good. Waking up this morning was not good. Thankfully 8 x 500mg of paracetemol should do the trick.

So what’s going on this morning? Well, the boss had lots to say yesterday.

He talked about how totally awesome Theo Walcott is, he talked about how he’s going to fight the FA charge currently brought against him and he talked about how he believes this side has the ability to win the title. He believes we need the spirit of the 97-98 side though, saying:

The situation is comparable to 1998. I have the same feeling because the team gelled in confidence and belief. And suddenly the results became natural. I feel the situation is comparable so let’s make sure the end is comparable.

Well, I could live with that, I have to admit.

In team news Rosicky could start, the rest of the injuries you already know about and that’s about that.
Ahead of today’s game against Blackburn former Gunner David Bentley says he’ll always be grateful to Arsenal for what they did for him but says he’s not an Arsenal fan and he’ll be trying to win the game today for his Sp*rs supporting mates. Way to ensure a good reception.

Emmanuel Adebayor talks about why he’s always smiling and his attitude is great. When he arrived from Monaco he had a bit of a reputation but we’ve not seen any evidence of that. He’s worked hard on and off the pitch and he’s winning over the doubters. Fair play to him. He says he likes to play jokes on people. His favourite one is to throw water on Emmanuel Eboue and speaking of Eboue the Ivorian talks about his childhood, which wasn’t a bag of laughs, in the Daily Mail.

Jeremie Aliadiere could join Middlesboro on loan.

I have to haul my battered carcass upstairs, shower, shave and go to the restaurant in Dublin I hate more than any other. That’s what happens when you let someone else make the booking.Till tomorrow.