So Barcelona won the Champions League final quite easily.
I think it goes to prove that this year we’re much better than United seeing as we actually beat Barcelona. Forget their league title, the true measure of a team is how they fare against the best team in the world, and we beat them 2-1 and they had to pay UEFA to send off one of our men to beat us in the second leg.
I also thoroughly enjoyed Squividic’s performance at the back which also made our old friend Evra look quite shabby too. And Nani’s assist for the third Barcelona goal was sheer quality. Tell you something though, if I were a professional footballer I wouldn’t want to go play for Barcelona. I mean, where’s the challenge? Winning things with them would be just too easy. Every game would be like a general knowledge quiz where the opponent is Eboue, every time.
Anyway, maybe that’s just me. The football season is now well and truly over and we head into the summer with just the hugely important and massively significant European U21s to keep us going. If only one of Arsenal’s best players were selected for that, it would have made it really interesting.
From an Arsenal point of view things seem quiet. The Express churns out probably the laziest article I’ve seen yet this summer. Kroenke’s takeover has been ‘officially’ approved so he’s about to go on a ‘£50m spending spree’ which will start with ‘Christopher Samba’. Zzzzz. Come on, at least be a little bit creative. Everyone knows you can make up any old crap you like when it comes to transfers and if you’re suggesting a man who rarely goes on spending sprees is about to embark on one you could chuck in a better name than Samba.
No! Not Scott Parker. Someone better than that. Anyone. You don’t go on a spending spree for toilet paper and kitchen towels. You buy a Nespresso machine. Or something.
Meanwhile, Alex Song becomes the latest player to reveal that the team’s approach to games is as wrong as wrong can be, saying:
Sometimes we get on the pitch and we think ‘this game will be won easily’ that is something that we have to change. Because when you think you are going to win a game, and you don’t, it knocks the team.
Confidence is a good thing. Belief in one’s ability, also good. Having conviction in the team and your teammates, also an excellent thing, but, as we have addressed on this blog many a time, going out and thinking you just have to turn up to win a game is not. It’s been a problem for some seasons now and it doesn’t seem like it’s a problem that’s being addressed.
I am put in mind of the Tom Sharp book in which Luitenant Verkramp and Dr. von Blimenstein were concerned that South African police officers were having too much sex with black women. So, they decided to use what they called ‘aversion therapy’ to solve the problem. This worked by showing them pornographic pictures of black women and when they got an erection they were electrocuted on the top of their penis. This was supposed to ensure they would no longer desire the women. And it worked. A bit too well though, because it put them off all women and turned them gay, but at least they tried.
Arsenal need to do something similar with regards to this team’s approach to games against smaller clubs. I don’t necessarily mean electrocuting them on the top of the penis, although I don’t rule it out, but something has to change. Do we have a club psychologist? If so I think we might need a new one because, frankly, he’s doing a terrible job.
I may not have any kind of university qualification, I may not have studied and done exams and ‘learned’ but I can guarantee you a few minutes alone with a wet towel and the Arsenal squad and the approach to the smaller games would change. Maybe it’s a kind of in-built arrogance that they have which sees them ‘turn up’ for games like United and Barcelona and not for West Brom and Bolton but by the seven gods of Kajagoogoo they need it beaten out of them. Or have their helmets zapped. It all seems quite simple to me.
Patrick Vieira wants to stay at Man City. I can’t £magin€ why that would be the ca$e.
According to the Sunderland Sun we’re ‘keeping tabs’ on Craig Gordon. He seems injured a lot which would make him a very attractive option for us. Anyway, I’m not sure we need a keeper this summer. I’m all for making SZCZ the number 1 even if he does still have to do a bit of learning.
And that’s really about that for today. Time for more coffee, some breakfast and then I must tend to my *boilk*
Have a good one.
