It was an eventful day yesterday in Arseblog Towers. After saying goodbye to the Arseblog Basset so many months ago, we decided it was the right time to bring in a replacement, and the fuzzy thing in the picture above is him.
His name is Archer and so far, without any kind of exaggeration at all, he’s the best dog in the entire world. We were expecting some first night in a strange place whining and yelping. Not a bit of it. He slept right the way through. And we were also expecting something of a mess to be made in terms of his toilet needs, but he hung on all night (remember when you could do that chaps?). So far he has done all of his business in the back garden.
The cats have put him firmly in his place and unlike the Basset he realises his place in the pack is even lower than Blogette (although he did take a liking to her socks last night). The picture you see is him watching Germany playing Holland in the Euros last night and it was a good night for his ‘native’ country as they won 2-1, meaning elimination (essentially) for the Dutch.
To be fair, it’s hard to have any sympathy for them whatsoever, despite Robin van Persie’s fantastic goal. They’re clearly not a happy, cohesive camp with talk of ‘pathetic egos’ and that overrated Sp*rs fella bitching about how he wasn’t being picked. The thing to do there is when you come on make a difference and show the coach that he made a mistake, not something van der Vaart exactly managed. Sneijder did well, I thought, but I genuinely believe any manager who indulges the rotten, glory boy selfishness of Arjen Robben gets exactly what they deserve.
I know other players are thoroughly dislikeable for the way they act or they way they behave off the field or the way they have sex with their friends wives or the way they allegedly racially abuse the brother of an international teammate or the way they insist on being at the centre of celebrations in games they didn’t take part in even going so far as to put on shinpads, but Robben is utterly hateful because of the way he plays.
Sure, he is capable of some exciting moments but I’ve had my fill of seeing him cut in on his left foot and curling shots way over the bar when he could pass the ball to players in better positions. If I were Robin van Persie I would wait for him to get out of the shower then I would, still in my full kit and boots, kick him repeatedly in the balls until blood came out of his eyes. Then I would invite the rest of the team to do likewise. It’s the only way he’ll learn.
His cringe-worthy march around the outside of the pitch when he was taken off just shows you what kind of an ego he has and for him alone I’m kinda glad it went wrong for Holland (sorry, Dutch readers but he’s just an awful, awful person and player – and I still haven’t forgiven him for bottling the Champions League final, the bottling bottling twat).
That said, Germany were good. Gomez’s goals were outstanding (why couldn’t you have done that in the final against Chelsea?!), the turn for the first was sublime, and the clipped, pacy finish for the second was really brilliant. They pretty much controlled the whole game and even after Holland got the goal back through van Persie they never looked in any real danger. So they go through, Holland go out and it’ll make the final game of the group quite interesting indeed.
Portugal and Denmark are level on three points each after the former beat the latter 3-2. They went 2-0 up and probably thought that was enough but they did not count on The Greatest Striker That Ever Lived living up to his own billing. Two headers from Nicklas Bendtner brought them level but a late goal for the Portuguese sealed the deal.
As for Bendtner, I know he’s not exactly Mr Popular but he showed he’s not as bad a player as many suggested. It’s hard to see any way back for him at Arsenal, especially if the rumours regarding Giroud are true, but this tournament is a very excellent shop window and I’m sure clubs will be encouraged to take a punt on him which would be good for us. A few extra quid in the coffers – unless we manage to negotiate downwards or something. As if that could happen.
Today it’s Italy v Croatia (Eduardo!) while the minnows of Spain take on the mighty Repubalic of Ire-er-land. It’s hard to see how Spain could get anything at all from this one but football’s a funny old game and they may just surprise us. All to play for, at least.
Away from the Euros and onto Arsenal news and Ivan Gazidis told a Chinese web chat that there are arousing things afoot in terms of our transfer business. He said:
We are also talking to people in this summer’s transfer market, I think there will be something exciting for our fans to be happy about.
Hurrah, but then:
We want to do business carefully. We don’t have to add many players, but we have to be very selective. The players we add must bring something to the team
Awwwww, why must they always qualify things? Why couldn’t they just let us have the excitement bit which could fuel our imaginations. When I first heard it I pictured us signing Steve Austin, the Six Million Dollar Man who would make that ‘jing-jing-jing-jing-jing-jing-jing’ sound every time he went up for a header. And to make life interesting, we’d also sign his action figure nemesis ‘Maskatron’ who could take the shape of any player with his special masks that he keeps in the cavity in his back. Way to spoil my fun, Ivan.
That said, it does seem as if we’re more active this June than last, even with the Euros going on. Wenger is doing his best wry smile face every time anyone mentions Giroud and that’s a deal expected to be wrapped up soon, so perhaps the lessons of the summer past have been learned. The proof will be in the pudding, however, not in the rumour of the creation of the pudding, so let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
And finally, Harry Redknapp has been sacked by Sp*rs. I know this will make my good old friend Harry Hotspur (he was the original Harry) very happy as he reckons that any manager that blows the kind of lead Redknapp did under the circumstances he blew it deserves the sack (at least). I just think his ever dwindling ambition last season was one of the funniest things football has ever seen.
“Yeah, we can win the title, why not?”
“Title’s a bit far away, but we can finish top 3.”
“Fourth would be a real achievement for Sp*rs.”
Hahaha. And to think they had an ‘as it stands’ 13 point lead when they were 2-0 up at our place (update: and an actual 13 point lead on Jan 31st – thanks @joshJjames78). People can point to all the beautiful goals Robin scored last season but the more I think about it, the more I reckon Bacary Sagna’s header was my favourite Arsenal goal in years. It started the comeback and it started the end of Harry.
Oh, the Twitching starts now. Till tomorrow.
