Ten years of Wenger, Rio rebuffed

Next week Arsene Wenger celebrates 10 years in charge of the Gunners and captain Thierry Henry has been speaking about the impact he’s made on the club. He says:

The way he sees the game and the way he wants his players to play. He is unique. It’s like when you used to see Ajax, they had this tradition of passing the ball and that’s what Arsene has brought here.

There’s no question the perception of the club, well at least our football, has changed under Wenger’s reign. A chant that was the opposition’s favourite was taken over by our fans and we chanted ‘Boring, boring Arsenal’ while taking another team to the cleaners. I know I’m biased but I think the football we played during our unbeaten season and a little before and after was probably the best club football I have ever witnessed.

Big players have come and gone and he’s now building what has the potential to be another great side. Sure, there have been teething problems and as frustrating as some of it has been you have to admire his principles. He wanted to go with youth, he went with youth. This season will tell us a lot but there’s no question these have been the ten most consistently successful years of Arsenal Football Club.

Team news ahead of tomorrow’s game against Sheffield United sees the return of Thierry and more than likely Robin van Persie too. Theo Walcott looks set to miss out because of a shoulder injury he picked up in the reserves.

Also close to a return is Philippe Senderos who knows he’s going to have to fight for his place with Johann Djourou playing so well and the arrival of William Gallas. He says:

I expect to get the green light to resume training next week. It has been a test of my mental strength but I will come back stronger than ever. Now it’s down to me to win my place back in the Arsenal defence.

You really can’t fault his attitude and the return of him, Clichy and Lauren will provide the competition for places amongst the defence that is vital.

The Sun has this week been serialising Rio Ferdinand’s biography. It is, as you would imagine, completely shite. On Tuesday he talked about that sex tape he made with Fat Frank and Kieron Dyer while on holiday in Cyprus and spoke about all the ‘birds’ that love footballers and the ‘birds’ that he knows and ‘birds’ this and ‘birds’ that. He’s a classy bloke. Well, today he says this about Robert Pires when discussing the rivalry between Arsenal and United:

Robert Pires is a bit of diver and if someone gives him a proper hard tackle he starts crying.

Now, although I think Pires’ reputation as a diver is somewhat exaggerated, I can understand why people talk about it. However, it’s a bit fucking rich coming from a player who played with Ruud van Nistelrooy for years. He was the biggest bitch of them all. Falling, cheating, moaning, crying and leaping through the air like a common salmon. Just though that needed to be said.

Not sure where to watch tomorrow’s game. I’m half thinking Frazers again. Is anyone else going? I’d feel safer. Let me know in the arses. Cheers!

New stadium, old stadium

The main news yesterday was the release of Arsenal Holdings PLC’s financial results for the year ended May 31 2006. Unsurprisingly our debt has grown by £100m because of the new stadium however we’re in a healthy position with cash in the bank. Chairman Peter Hill-Wood said:

2005/06 has been a very busy and historic year for the Arsenal Group. On the field, Arsenal reached the final of the UEFA Champions League and has again qualified for the group phase of the 2006/07 Champions League. With the opening of Emirates Stadium, Arsenal is starting a new chapter in its history and we look forward to it being as memorable and successful as the 93 years the Club spent at Highbury.

And Manging director Keith Edelman was quick to assure everyone that although the debt has increased this is expected, manageable and will not affect Arsene Wenger’s transfer budget, saying:

We are very strong financially and have a lot of firepower if the manager wants to purchase players. We ended the year with £36million of cash in the bank. We have lowered our debt repayments substantially. It is a good deal for the club and it means we have more money to invest in players and team development.

So it’s all good then. The increased revenue from the new stadium would be even higher if they could manage to sell burgers and drinks at the same time. So we’re all happy in our new home. But what about the old place? It’s looking a bit sad at the moment as deconstruction begins ahead of its redevelopment. Thanks to ‘The gooner’ for the pic below. It’s a bit sad, eh?

In other news the reserves beat Portsmouth reserves 2-0 with both goals coming from Jeremie Aliadiere. New Brazilian Denilson played some part in the game and will no doubt have been given a nice easy introduction into English football.

And that’s that.

Baptista – Freddie – Bungs – where is Leopold?

Good morning, Arsechums. It’s a fairly quiet one this morning and we have no midweek game, there are no internationals cocking things up and the manager is now spending the full week on the training ground with his players.

Arsene Wenger has been talking about Julio Baptista and his lack of pre-season football which means he’s playing catch up in terms of fitness. The boss says:

Julio is a very good player who is versatile and can play in different positions — and that will be good for us. But he has not played a lot of football and needs to be sharper and get some match-fitness before he is ready to start games.

It will be very interesting to see him properly fit because if he can waltz through United’s defence at his current level then what’s he going to be like when he’s gotten himself match fit?

Freddie Ljungberg says our win against United has put us back on track and shown everyone how good we are. It would be nice to see him back amongst the goals. There’s no doubting his work rate but it’s worrying to think the string of injuries he’s had have lessened his effectiveness. If he can stay injury free I’m sure he can make a contribution this season.

There’ll be lots of talk this morning about last night’s BBC programme about football managers and bungs. Our old chum Walrus Face seems to have been implicated more than anyone else so we’ll have to wait and see what comes out of it. Probably nothing, knowing the FA. I didn’t see it but it should be available to view via the BBC website later today.

I did mention last week that I might be making some changes to the mailing list. Those are still in the pieline but because of restrictions about sending schedules nothing will change for the time being.

I have also been trying to track down Leopold but without too much success. When I ring his house the answering machine says he’s moving house but it’s nothing to do with him not paying his bills or anything like that. Hopefully we’ll hear from him soon.

Hasta mañana, amigos.

Lehmann probe needs to be put in context

Morning all. A few bits and bobs to be getting on with this morning.

Firstly Arsene Wenger has blamed the World Cup for our slow start to the season saying that last week was the first full week he’s had with the players. He calls the international schedule ‘crazy’ and he’s right. We had 16 players in Germany, I think, and only Chelsea had anything near that. Then less than 6 weeks after the end of the tournament there’s a two week gap in the league schedule for Euoe qualifiers. A load of dingo poo, if you ask me. The main problem is all the no-mark teams in the qualifying groups. They should all be put into a group of their own and made fight to the death. With pointy sticks.

Jens Lehmann could face a police probe after allegedly throwing his water bottle into the crowd the other day. It seems rather harsh to put something up his arse for something so trivial but that’s the Great Manchester police for you. To put it in perspective here’s an extract from an email I got yesterday. I hope the sender doesn’t mind me publishing (please let me know if it’s a problem and I’ll remove it):

Yesterday I was sat (courtesy of a United contact with season tickets) at pitch level three rows from the front directly, on the edge of the 18-yard box where Jens kept the ball in the first half. The abuse the poor lad got throughout the game was horrible and sickening. I know we all take this piss, but it started at a level of ‘fucking cheating Nazi cunt’ and when he was recovering from the ball in the face they were accusing him of gassing Jews and shagging the corpses. Throw his water bottle into the crowd? He should have pissed on them. The intensity of the pure naked hate was frightening.

It will be interesting to see what the police make of it once Jens has his say.

Sky Sports has an article about Eric Adibal saying Arsenal want him. You can ignore that because he’s completely crap but scroll down for some interesting quotes from Julio Baptista.

The Mirror links us with Southampton’s wonderkid left back Gareth Bale saying a £4m deal could be done in January after a deadline day approach was rebuffed. An English left back though? They’re nothing but trouble. Good job Bale is Welsh!

France coach Raymond Domenech says he can’t believe Chelsea sold William Gallas, calling him the best defender in the world.

And there you. Had my first game with my new team here last night. I blame our narrow defeat on all the players we had watching the World Cup.