Let’s start this morning with a bit of a celebration. Crack open the bubbly – none of your half-arsed Veuve Clicquot either.
The real stuff. That’s it, gimme your glass, there’s Aspi Spumanti for all. Why start drinking so early in the day? Well, it’s my birthday. Not me precisely, but Arseblog is 7 today. Blog years are like dog years so in reality we’re 49 but let’s not dwell on that side of it.
Let us not look back at the youthful, energetic, zesty young man that started this website and compare him to the gnarled, greying, grizzled lump that sits here now, that makes Mrs Blogs weep at how this toil, this labour of love, has aged him.
No, it is a moment for a glee jamboree. An Arse festival. A shindig and a hoo-ha. Seven is a great number. Think of all the great players that have worn that shirt for Arsenal down the years. Brady, Rocastle, Pires and, perhaps the greatest of them all, Nelson Vivas.
Happy Vivas day to Arseblog. In seriousness though I want to say thanks to every single one of you for reading, contributing, listening and generally putting up with all the shite that spews from this site every day, every week, every year.
The community that has grown and continues to grow is a fantastic tribute to how brilliant most Arsenal fans are. And not just online. Offline, in what they mockingly like to call ‘the real world’, friendships have been made and keep being made and will be made in the future. I’m very proud to consider some of you my friends … some of you … I’m good at pretending for the rest. Haha.
But all of you, those who read, who comment, who go to matches and have made the Tolli brolly as big a part of Arseblog as anything else, to those who come on to argue and those who email me to tell me off, everyone, thank you for taking the time and joining in with something I never thought would grow to be as successful as it has been.
Sometimes I look at the date when I send out the email each morning (remember, Arseblog can fill your box each morning) and think ‘Fucking hell, I remember when it was 2004 around here’. I remember where I’ve been every single morning of my life (more or less) for the last 7 years.
And despite Arsenal going through some relatively tough times on the pitch at the moment it’s still an absolute pleasure to write about the club I love.
So thanks again for everything, here’s to another 7 years, and someone will be around shortly with the cubes of cheese and pineapple on cocktail sticks.
I am one classy bastard. Oh yes.
So, some Arsenal news. Fair enough. If you insist. Ahead of the game tomorrow against Fulham Abou Diaby is out with a calf strain. I know we shouldn’t be in any way surprised but it’s still just so frustrating. I wonder how long can we keep considering him a part of the first team squad if every 3 or 4 appearances are followed by a month or two on the sidelines.
This particular injury isn’t too bad apparently and he could return for the midweek game against West Brom but if we didn’t see him for a couple of weeks it’d be no shock either.
Other than that there’s nobody else back although the manager has spelled out the returning schedule. Theo is likely to be first back, then Eduardo, then Adebayor. Maybe we’re getting them back at just the right time, let’s see.
Cesc has been talking about what this team needs to achieve between now and the end of the season. He says:
We have to make sure we put a run together and don’t lose more points. Aston Villa will drop points, of that I am sure, and that’s why we need to be ready to capitalise at the right time
Well, Villa dropped points last weekend and we didn’t make up as much ground as we should have. We have two games coming up against Fulham and West Brom and unless we take all 6 points we’re going to find our job much more difficult.
Villa have made it clear what their focus is. They sent out a second string side in the UEFA Cup last night and got beaten. They don’t care about the UEFA Cup. O’Neill will have that team thinking of one thing and one thing only – finishing in the top four. So it’s going to be a big, big job for us to claw back those 6 points in the final 12 games of the season.
The club announced its financial results for the 6 months ending November 30th. While the numbers appear good there’s a bit of uncertainty surrounding the property side of things and the club may seek to have the loan extended. If anything it just shows how crucial a top 4 finish, not just from a football point of view, but to lose that amount of income in these times would be disastrous, no matter how much we say we can cope.
Also from the club, somewhat of a first, the official site interacting with bloggers. This has never happened before, not in the whole 7 years of Arseblog, and I suppose it’s a sign that someone realises that bloggers aren’t just cunts who should be bullied because they might have inadvertently used the Arsenal logo somewhere on their site.
Arsenal TV online is making its matchday coverage for the Fulham game free for everyone this weekend and they’ve given a 6 month subscription as a competition prize. To enter the competition simply email [email protected] and you’ll go into the draw, winner announced on Monday.
They are looking for some feedback so feel free to leave comments about the coverage in the arses over the weekend. I have to say I find it quite interesting, particularly the Wenger press conferences. Often what’s reported in print, so to speak, doesn’t quite capture what it is he said or how he said it.
Now, after all that it’s time for this week’s Arsecast. This week we venture to the other side of the world for the blog chat. Joining me on the show is Spanish Fry from Arsenal FC blog, all the way from Brisbane. As well as that Arsene Wenger Hawkins is along, George makes a phone call, we have The Adventures of Tomas Rosicky and more.
You can subscribe to the Arsecast on iTunes by clicking here. Or if you want to subscribe directly to the feed URL you can do so too. To download this week’s arsecast directly – click here 22mb MP3) or you can listen directly below without leaving this very page.
Till tomorrow.
