august 14th
10.07 – 13-0 to the Arsenal, 13-0 to the Arsenal…..
Well, that’s how many games Arsenal won on the bounce last season. A win over Birmingham on Sunday would make it 14, and set a new record for consecutive wins in the top division. There’s some info on the records in today’s Independent.
Dennis Bergkamp fires a warning to the rest of the Premiership ahead of the new season, and says that Arsenal are as hungry as ever for trophies this season. We’ve never found it easy to defend a title, 1990 and 1992 were not such good seasons, and 1999 was a heartbreaker, losing out by only 1 point. But, if you look at the squad now as opposed to back then, we have Gilberto instead of The Grimster, Wiltord instead of Chris Wreh (well, sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference) and the strength in depth means we won’t have to resort to playing left backs in midfield a la Nigel Winterburn.
Bizarre goings on in the Nationwide last night when Crystal Palace manager Trevor Francis was sent off for whacking one of his own players – Francis insisted it was just a joke. You know yourself, one of the funniest jokes of all time is punching somebody in the head. It’s a classic.
As well as landing himself in all sorts of hot water with FA (although I guarantee you if Keane gets a ban it won’t be nearly as much as Patrick Vieira got for spitting), Roy Keane has created a rift in the Utd dressing room with David Beckham telling him to shut up and leave it to Fergie to criticise the players. Has it not occurred to Becks that everything Keane said in his book was approved by Ferguson and that the manager is using his captain to say all the things he’s not willing to say in public?
“Sir” Alex has redoubled his efforts to scare his players into good performances this season, and this Soccernet article makes a nice comparison between his style of management and that of Arsene Wenger.
Does anyone else think Qu Bo, Tottenham’s £2m Chinese striker, sounds like some kind of square robot? (Cube-o….oh, it’s just me then. Oh well).
