october 28th
A good 2-1 win over Man City last night for Arsenal’s kids.
Forget the first half because nothing happened, maybe a few of them were a bit overawed or something. The second was when it started to get lively and we started to play some nice football against a far more experienced City side. It was after Ryan Smith went off and Quincy MD came on that we really picked things up and a lovely move over on the left hand side between Larsson, Cesc and good work from Flamini put Robin van Persie in for his first Arsenal goal.
He looks like a very talented player but seemed to be trying just a bit too hard to impress last night, often looking for goal when the better option was the pass. Hopefully the goal will take some of the pressure off him.
The second goal came from Danny Karbasiyoon, our young American (is he the first American to ever score for us?), who marked his full debut with a goal. Nice work from Quincy on the edge of the box, he played it to Cesc whose perfectly weighted pass put Karbasiyoon through and he finished smartly with his left foot. City got a consolation when Robbie Fowler slipped and actually kicked a ball right for the first time in the whole game, but the final whistle went just after we kicked off again.
It was very reassuring to see the way the lads played the game. They struggled at first, but didn’t panic and always looked to pass the ball around when they had it. As the experienced man and captain Pascal Cygan’s performance was excellent and I really liked the look of Philippe Senderos. He was strong, won everything in the air and he looks like a proper centre-half. We all know what Cesc can do, Pennant worked hard and looked for the ball a lot, Flamini I’m not sure about but he got into the game much more in the last half hour while Ryan Smith looks very quick but after the injury he ‘s just had he didn’t look like he wanted to get stuck in much. I was impressed with Arturo Lupoloi up front, it was a raw performance but he’s very quick and his movement and runs off the ball were just superb for a 17 year old. On a number of occassions a quick ball from van Persie would have seen him through and he had a real poacher’s goal disallowed after handball in the build-up by the Dutchman. All in all a very promising look at our youngsters and they’ll get a proper challenge in the next round which is at home against Everton.
And all this on a day when Arsene Wenger signed a new 3 year deal at the club. What can you say about him, about what he’s done for our club, for our football? There are superlatives and superlatives. He’s without doubt the best manager we’ve ever had and I’m so, so glad to be around to see this team. Thanks, Arsene. In his own words “I love this club and I am very happy here.”
Even better news, God may be a Gooner – that’s according to Arseblog columnist Safety, anyway.
T-shirt winners. I asked you ‘Who was a lying, cheating cunt?’. You said ‘ Ruud van Nistelrooy’. Our seurvey says “100”. Everybody got it right, some people even gave some other answers like Mike Riley, the entire Manchester United squad, and I would also have accepted George W Bush, any Greek sprinter and Angus Deayton. The random number generator did its thing and the winners are: Jeremy Peter who gets the Now 49 shirt and Chris Hold who gets the Soupgate shirt. I’ll be in touch with you both to get addresses and size info. Thanks to all who entered and thanks to goalhanger for providing the prizes.
I’m writing too much these days. Expect shorter blogs.
