Henry – Kolo – Arsecast info

Apart from the fallout from the ref’s decision in Moscow on Tuesday there’s not much happening. Thierry has no chance of his yellow card being overturned, no surprise there, but I think Henry makes an interesting point when he says refs should be more like refs in rugby.

People talk about footballers behaving like rugby players and accepting decisions. You don’t want to have a go at them, but just to ask them what they saw at crucial times and yet you’re not allowed to do that in football.

The system is still very scholastic and while I’m sure it’s supposed to make the ref authoritative it can, in cases like this, make them look like ignorant cunts. Sadly I can’t see FIFA or UEFA making any changes in the near future. Anyway, it’s time to put it behind us and gety on with the next game.

Kolo Toure is certainly happy to do that and he reckons we need to be at our best against Reading, saying:

We will have to be on top of our game at Reading because they are doing well in the Premiership and it will be a really hard game. It will be harder that Stephen Hunt’s knee after he’d been out and soaked his knee in vinegar and then baked his knee in the oven so he has a super-mega-hard conker knee.

There’s no doubt Reading are going to be a tough prospect. They were very unlucky against Chelsea, could have beaten United and with a couple of ex-Arsenal lads on the team they’ll be especially fired up on Sunday which promises to be a good football day (United v Liverpool in the early afternoon, us v Reading afterwards then el derbi when Real Madrid play Barcelona).

Today I’ll be putting the final touches to the arsecast (and I have to thank the bloke at arsecast.com who has no objections to me using the name arsecast. I thought it might be a site where he took plaster casts of sexy lady’s bottoms but in fact he reviews video games and hates Man United. Cheers, Sir) – and it will be ready for download tomorrow morning. I’ll give you all the details then. Just to let you know though the email address has changed to arsecast at arseblog.com and keep that handy because you’ll need it to enter the competition during the show.

Also tomorrow morning I’ll be putting the RNG into action to choose the 5 lucky winners of the Football Manager 2007 competition so stay tuned for that.

Finally, I would just like to disassociate from any of the crazy anti-Arsenal crap you might see if you still read blogfc from time to time. It’s nothing to do with me any more!

Right, that’s it. Have a good Thursday.

CSK.O Moscow, Henry and Wenger call ref 'a twat'

I was going to break out the old disappointing night template but fuck it. We lost 1-0 to CSKA Moscow and once again one poor performance brings out the worst in some fans. It’s really quite tiresome now.

Yep, we didn’t play very well. Yep, some of the lads had very poor games. Yep, we can do better. However, to read some of the vitriol spewed out in the comments of some other Arsenal blogs is pathetic. People need to get a fucking grip on themselves.

The match, meh. One of those nights. Henry had a perfectly good goal disallowed – I love this picture from Gunnerific (a new blog to me) – and understandably he was upset about the decision and the yellow card he received. He said afterwards:

I think it’s a disgrace. I asked the ref what did he see and he couldn’t tell me. He said at the end he didn’t talk about it anymore. He was happy to talk about other stuff with the boss but not that. To give me a yellow straight away – please, look at the replay.

And the replay shows it should have ended 1-1. Arsene Wenger was equally as scathing, saying:

It was a goal but sometimes referees cancel good goals because they don’t see things. Tonight, we had a new thing because they cancelled the goal after they saw things that didn’t exist. It was a very bad decision.

It’s hard to argue with that but at the end of the day we had other chances to score. Particularly in the first half when Robin van Persie should have done better on two occasions. Still, these things happen. You pick yourself up and you get on with it because not every loss means the end of the world and that all your players are crap and that you should buy 20 new players.

Their goal: like Goodplaya the two players turning their back on the ball need a bit of a talking to but I thought we were unlucky here as well. For me it was never a free kick. The challenge itself didn’t merit a free kick, their player fell over Djourou and the ref then played an advantage. They had a shot at goal which was blocked and then he gave a free kick. How many chances did he want to give them?

As poorly as we played the officiating was just as bad and on a cold night on a crappy pitch we never got going. I’d certainly have no worries about the return leg of this fixture. CSKA are a decent side but we should have far too much for them at Ashburton Grove.

Next up we take the long trip to Reading on Sunday to play the Premiership new boys and I’ll be previewing that game and reviewing the CSKA game in the very first Arseblog podcast, or arsecast (which is better?), on Friday. Remember if you have any comments or suggestions to make please email them to podcast at arseblog.com. There have been some interesting ones already.

Also on Friday, what a busy day it’ll be, I’ll be announcing the winners of the Football Manager 2007 competition. If you haven’t already entered see Monday’s blog for details about the game and the question which a surprising number of people are getting wrong!

And there you have it. Let the post-mortem commence.

Jens will kill you – Moscow team news

We’ll start this morning with goalkeepers. Both Arsene Wenger and Jens Lehmann have reacted to the injuries suffered by Carlo Cuducini and more seriously Petr Cech.

The boss doesn’t believe it’s coincidence that four keepers have been knocked into the middle of next week and he believes the challenges by strikers are not lawful. Jens is as forthright as ever and after wishing both the Chelsea players well he believes that keepers are not given sufficient protection by the officials. He says:

I know the English League is more physical than most but here you do not respect your keepers. Having played in other countries, I know that referees offer more protection to keepers. There is a discrepancy between England and abroad on this issue.

And he had a pop at the media too for playing down the seriousness of the challenges on Cech, Cuducini, Schwarzer and Shay Given:

All of them are great keepers, very brave, they never went to challenge or harm the striker but all four of them got knocked out due to ‘clumsy’ challenges. This word clumsy makes me really angry as well because these stupid pundits on TV they say sometimes ‘it’s clumsy’ and ‘it’s a man’s game’. Yes it is a man’s game but what you have to consider as well is these men have children and wives and their children don’t want to see their fathers end up with lifelong damage, driven around in a wheelchair or not being able to work anymore.

He makes a good point. Looking in particular at the Shay Given incident there was just no way Marlon Harewood was going to get the ball and while we all want our strikers to be committed and physical there’s a limit. The fact that the doctor said Given picked up injuries more typical of a car crash than a game of football says it all. It was the challenge of a limited, stupid player. Like Hunt on Cech. A keeper is the only guy on the field who exposes his entire body to onrushing boots and knees and they do deserve more protection from seriously bad challenges.

I don’t mean that they should get a free kick when someone legitimately challenges them for a cross but when an outfield player goes in hard and he’s got no chance of getting the ball then he needs to be punished. When’s the last time you saw someone get booked for a foul on the keeper? Exactly. Anyhow, it looks like Jens has it sorted.

Onwards to tonight’s game in Moscow and the boss named his 18 man squad yeterday. No real surprises – with Flamini and Senderos in action for the reserves last night they didn’t travel but young Brazial Denilson did with the boss saying he’s a mix between Gilberto and Rosicky. Gilicky. Rosberto. Interesting.

AW is worried about the pitch but is confident in his side and believes the likes of Rosicky and Adebayor are settling in well. It’s going be cold though, the forecast is that the temperature will reach minus infinity and they are a good side so it’s not going to be easy. Kick off is 5.30pm.

In a brief round-up of other stories Gael Clichy says he’s delighted Ashley Cole has fucked off to Chelsea, AW denies he wants to buy Frankenstein Ribery while we’re linked with Ajax’s very promising striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar.

Don’t forget the Football Manager 2007 competition, see yesterday’s blog for more info on that and if you have any questions or suggestions for the upcoming podcast just email them to podcast at arseblog.com.

Cheers!

Win a copy of Football Manager 2007 + Podcast info

Morning all. What a hectic jam packed edition I have for you this morning. Not that there’s much happening in terms of news but there’s lots of other stuff going on. Sort of.

The only real news story is Reading Steve Sidwell talking about how much he’d love to come back and play for Arsenal. Unlike most young players who are released by the club Sidwell has consistently said how much he learned at Arsenal and how good his footballing education was. Instead of bitching and moaning he got his head down, worked hard and it’s good to see him in the Premiership with Reading.

Could he play for Arsenal? He’s certainly as good a player as Flamini and I don’t even need to say how much better he is than Alex Song. Will it happen? I doubt it but who knows?

The lads travel to Moscow today and we’ll get team news on that later on which I’ll cover tomorrow. The game is at 5.30 because it’s fucking freezing over there. The last time we played there we scored a brilliant goal early in the game but ended up losing 4-1 because we were just too cold. They need to get wetsuit versions of the kit and we’ll be fine. Anyway, as I said more on that tomorrow.

The Moscow game is something I’ll be talking about in the first ever Arseblog podcast on Friday. Hopefully. There are still some bits and pieces to sort out but it should all be groovy. One of the segments I’m hoping to include is readers wives emails so if you have a question, comment or suggestion about what we should talk about just email: podcasts @ arseblog.com (put that together yourselves. I’m trying to avoid spam).

Finally for today my good friends at Sega have given me copies of Football Manager 2007 to give away to you lot. Not just the game but 5 lucky winners will also receive a t-shirt and a pen!

To find out how to win first read the info about the game and underneath you’ll find the competition questions.

Football Manager 2007 is released on 20th October 2006, and is the next installment in the eagerly anticipated and genre defining series by developers Sports Interactive, allowing players to take charge of their favourite club in a bid to guide them to glory.

The Gold demo is available now and can be downloaded by clicking here!
This year Football Manager 2007 has enjoyed its biggest leap forward yet, promising to be most user-friendly version to date – and it’s packed with over 100 new features!

For the first time users can strike partnerships with affiliate clubs, give pre-match team-talks and interact with their players on a completely new level. On top of this both the youth team and scouting features have enjoyed complete revamps.

The demo provides a great opportunity for players to test their managerial skills whilst sampling first hand the wealth of new features that acclaimed developers Sports Interactive have included to make Football Manager 2007 the most user friendly version of Football Manager to date.

To find out more information on Football Manager 2007, or to try the demo, visit the official site at www.footballmanager.net now.

Full Game Available on PC, Mac and Intel Mac on 20th October 2006

Ok, so in order to win the game you just need to answer the following question:

Before Arsene Wenger started at Arsenal he advised the board to make two signings. One of the players signed was Patrick Vieira.

Who was the other?

Was it:

• Gilles Grimandi
• Remi Garde
• Nelson Vivas

Simply email footballmanager@arseblog.com with your answer and if you’re right you’ll be in the draw for the prizes.

The random number generator will do its thing on Friday morning and I’ll announce the winners on Friday’s blog.

What are you waiting for?

More tomorrow.