A picture can say 1,000 words

Fulham-W

Olympiacos-W

Blackburn-W

Birmingham-W

AZ Alkmaar-D

West Ham Utd- D

Liverpool- W

Scum- W

 

Now there is only one result from them lot I really care about!

Thats right, we won 3-0 against our arch rivals Tottenham Hotspurs.  We detroyed them, the two quick goals saw us make there heads go down and our fans heads get bigger.

After draws in Holland and away at West Ham a league win was perfect for our ‘Title chances’ am I allowed to say that?  Are we in the race?  I dont know.  Are Chelsea looking very very good? yes, yes annoyingly they are.

Now we lie third in the League and if we win our goal in hand we will become second  ahead of Man Utd on goal difference.

This is not going to be the longest post, as my battery is dying and there is far too much football to talk about.  Hopefully, these past 8 games dont mean that much.  They were unbeaten ones and thats all that matters really, especially due to the fact only two of the eight were Draws.  Champions League revenge against AZ tomorrow night, hopefully we can put them back in their place.

Mannone Saves us a win

So Vito Mannone has just gone gained himself a man of the match performance which has produced a 1-0 win for us gooners.

After last weeks win against Wigan, where he was not troubled, Fulham started very well and they were equal to us for much of the game.  Mannone had to produce some fine fine saves to stop their front line scoring.

So last weeks win against Wigan was pretty much as much as a one sided game as you can get.  Thomas Vermaelen scored from a header and then played a nice one two with Eboue to curl a fabulous shot past Kirkland.  Eboue then (unintentionally) deflected an Eduardo Shot into the Wigan net.  Finally, Fabregas made a fine run along the Wigan backline for Bendtner to fire a cross into the near post where the captain was on hand to knock it in.

So an easy home win to an average team, was then followed by a tough away game against a team who have scumpered us in the past.

As I have said Fulham were equal to us from the start.  We played Mannone- Sagna, Gallas, Vermaelen, Clichy- Song, Fabregas, Diaby- Bendtner, Van Persie, Arshavin.

Mannone was the difference between the two teams.  He made some outstanding saves.  One one-handed save was brilliant from the 21 year old Italian, who from point blank range saved a Andy Johnson header and then a follow up Clint Dempsey shot with his head.  The commentators at the time were saying it was lucky, but for him to get up that quickly and get his body in the firing line, he made his own luck.

He was confident in coming for crosses and was not afraid to put his body in the line when it came to claiming crosses, or even using his feet.  Also to note is William Gallas who continued his fine start to the season with one last ditch block on a Zamora shot which could have been heading goal bound. 

Our goal game in the 52nd minute after a Fulham attack was stopped and we counter attacked with a few lucky toe pokes, from Song and Bendtner, which ended up at Fabregas’ feet who saw RVP strolling beyond the Fulham defence and played a beautiful, looping, curling through ball which was expertly controlled by the dutchman with his left and then instantlly stroked the ball home with his right.

He wasnt exceptional today, he played some nice football in and around the edge of the box.  I remember one time when he took on a few player on the edge of the area then played a ball to Cesc who (with eyes in the back of his head) saw Arshavin rushing through, only to collect the ball and scoop his shot over.

We could have made it 2 or 3 in the last ten with efforts from Eboue who pulled his shot wide and for our young Dane who headed over and had a shot heading for the far corner saved by their keeper.

Good result after a not so good display *thumbs up*

Jersey FC aren’t calling just yet

A brief comment about my football this season. 

As I’m in Jersey in the Channel Islands, trying to earn dollar, I have not had much time to play football.  I recently played 5-a-side indoors with my uncle, who wears Edgar Davidsesque googles (makes me laugh) and his friends who are about 40-50.  I thought I’ld be one of the best players but then I realised I have not played football in a while (well for me that is) and I wasn’t actually that good. I couldn’t find a pass and I really am shite and knowing where to stand in 5-a-side, and I end up standing behind the player with the ball and not really give him an option! 

Did score a few mind, my first was lovely in the left corner with my back to goal, went to turn with my left shoulder and back to my goal, but then went right and used my left foot to hit a screamer past the goalie.  Scored a few more in my (favourite) near post. 

I also got called Scott by this one player.  I couldnt be bothered to tell him my actual name and just went with it.

Ill let you know how next week goes.

“Same time next week Scott?”

“Yes please (insert name here)”

Arsenal win 4-0 in a very easy win

Will be blogging about the game later. I watched the game so should be a better review than my recent blogs!

Arsenal 4 (Vermaelen [2], Eboue, Fabregas) -Wigan Athletic 0

Eduard-knee-hi-ho: Standard Liege 2: 3 Arsenal FC

Typical of me to accidentally miss the two defeats by Manchester Utd and Man City.  The first of the two games saw us play very well from all accounts and end up losing the game to a shocking decision from our hit and miss midfielder Abou ‘CLEAR IT!!’ Diaby, who executed a perfect header past Almunia.  So we lost a game to the champions, played better than them….nothing to worry about.

After the International break, saw us travel back to Manchester and play City. Where a incoming collision with Adebayor was on the cards and it sure did live up to expectations.  Even if we did lose the game 4-2.  We started off the game scared of them I feel with them getting hold of the ball and passing it around well.  SWP always seems to play well against us, in him teams have a way of taking pressure off the back for and just to give the ball to him and run.  He scares teams when he runs at them and he seemed to have the, out of form, Clichy’s number all night long.  However good Mr Vermaelen has looked this season a player with such pace and skill as SWP has is going to have the beating of TV (see what I did there) when he has the run on him.

Another person who impressed me, and who hasn’t for a while, was ex-England first choice right back, Micah Richards, who looks like a brick____ and was acting like one when he held off Diaby and other and made players look so weak when trying to hold him off. His running at defenders too was impressive as was shown when he “done” Alex Song in the left back position to lay on a goal for a moody, lanky, greedy striker with the initials EA.  Final short work on Craig Bellamy too, who annoyingly played very well, not only in attack but defending against our flying full backs, and he also apologised to the Arsenal fans after EA celebrated in front of them.  Somehow, EA had less dignity than the Welshman.

Now for EA stamp and celebration, while watching the game I thought the stamp was utterly accidental, but the more I watched it I saw him change his direction to stamp, not only on RVP’s face but on his hand.  RVP was right, he could have taken his eye out and ruined the career of the Dutchman.  RVP was very lucky, in the street EA would have been arrested and probably put away for a couple of years.  Utterly disgraceful.

Finally, on the game EA’s celebration rubbed it all in. While he was getting criticized, sorry booed at all game, he is the one being paid and was being paid to work by all of those fans in the ground. They pay the money, they make the Premier League what it is, so show them some respect.  His reasons for running the whole length of the field was appalling,  ‘it was in the heat of the moment’  I’m sure that’s what murders say EA.  He called Arsenal fans, not real fans. They apparently come from ‘Jamaica and America’.  Sod off, he got booed by some of the crowd last season at the Emirates because he was not playing well and he didn’t look like he gave a crap about Arsenal. The rest of the fans didn’t boo him they put up with him because he was scoring goals and we celebrated when he did put the ball in the back of the net.  So if he thought the hatred was that bad then he knew nothing, which is weird seeing so he was in the middle of the lot of them.

Anyway enough about the man who just proved exactly what man he is last weekend.

So last night we played Standard Liege with 9 players out.  No Almunia was the one that most scared me.  We had to play a young Italian who has played one Premiership game.  So 5 minutes into the game and he hadn’t touched the ball, but he had conceded 2 goals.  Now you can’t say that they were his fault I guess.  A long range daisy cutter from one of their defenders and a penalty which was very soft in my opinion. I only saw the highlights so excuse my brevity.  Abou Diaby received the ball with two players around him and turned with his back to goal and began to run at their defence.  He played a through ball to Bendtner who smashed his shot in from a tough angle. Goal time 45+1. Perfect time to score.

The game was very open, mainly because we couldn’t keep hold of the ball and that we left big holes at the back after miss kicks and all sorts.  We scored our second when a free kick was swung in from Cesc which floated over everyone, bounced then his Alex Song’s left bicep, who then passed it to Vermaelen who tucked it in from a yard out with his wrong foot.  The perfect come back was finalised when we had a corner from the right, which stayed about 5 yards out and about knee high all the way to Eduardo, who pinned his defender down and got his knee on the ball to direct it into the back of the net.

It really was poor defending but I don’t care, we deserve a bit of luck after our Utd display saw us lose.

Poor display, great result.

Will.I.am helps Arsenal be Boom Boom Pow

The first two league games have been and gone. We have 6points and we are looking really good!

One UEFA Champions League qualifying game over and we are looking really good!

I hate repeating myself, but it’s true.

First game of the season away at Everton. Which I was really worried about due to the fact that Everton had a really good year last year and I really rate Jo, who is on loan from Man City.

We were the last game on the first Saturday of the season, Live on ESPN the newest Setanta.  We started the game well passing the ball around like we normally do, but in a different way.  We were playing a 4-3-3 formation which we saw at the end of the last season.  I remember the days when Wenger said ‘We play 4-4-2, we do not change our formation for anyteam, teams change their formation for us’.  A few weeks later he played 4-5-1 against Manchester Utd in Cardiff when Paddy Vieria won us the FA Cup with a spot kick.  Wenger must have thought from that day that he was wrong and that he can adapt his team to be more effective against different formations against various teams.

So we played with Almunia in goal; Sagna, Gallas, new boy Vermaelen and Clichy in defence.  Our three boys in midfield were Song holding with Fabregas and Denilson pulling the strings infront of him. Van persie was upfront on his own with Arshavin and Bendtner flanking him.

On 26minutes after some neat footwork from our new number 52 Niclas Bendtner, who passed it to Cesc who passed it sideways to Denilson who curled the rolling ball into the top left.  Everton tried to reply immediately but were often stopped by the debutant Belgium center back.  He was impressive all day.

Then from a RVP free kick which was perfectly floated into the back post where Vermaelen ran unmarked and headed powerfully into Howards net.

Four minutes later, we earnt another free kick from the left which Cesc took and curled a cross in worth for anyone to get a touch onto to put it into the net.  Will.I.am Gallas got on the end of  it and started his goal tally for the season (which was soon to be added to).

So we went into the break 3-0 up and it was hard to see Everton coming back from 3-0 down.  Two minutes from the restart we scored after breaking from an Everton corner, where we raced to the Evertons goal. Denilson layed the ball to Van Persie who was racing down the left who nutmeged an Everton player to square the ball to a (speedier looking) skipper who shot past Howard and into the Everton goal for 4-0.

Then to add to the home teams woes, 22 minutes later Cesc controled a throw from Almunia and jogged up the pitch unchallenged to the edge of Everton’s area to power a shot into the bottom left of the oppositions goal.

God its getting boring talking about all these goals.

Not to let the last 20 minutes of the game get boring, substitute Eduardo then got on the end of a Arshavin shot which hit the post, to show his poacher instinct and pass the ball into the back of the net. 6-0.

Everton scored a goal, im not gonna talk about it because that would be pointless, just like the goal.

We were by far the most impressive looking team of the weekends Premiership action. Yet the BBC and Match of the Day, hardly said one word about us, it was all about Evertons haplessness.  No fair.

The following Tuesday saw us take on Celtic in a tough encounter.  Im not going to talk much about the game, just that we continued our form from the Everton game and came away from a tough match at Celtic Park with a 2-0 win.  Gallas scored (AGAIN!) and a own goal by Steven Caldwell, seperated the two teams and it provided us with two away goals to take to the Emirates for the second leg which is on Wednesday.

Now to Saturdays game, which was our first home game of the season.  The visitors were the increasingly depressing looking Pompey.  This game brought up some rotation from Wenger, with Eboue, Gibbs, Diaby and Eduardo coming in for Clichy, Sagna, Song and Bendtner.

We again looked very impressive against the South coasters.  We scored on 18 mins and the scorer was our inconsistent lanky frenchman called Abou.  The number two powered a shot into the top right of the net after neat work from Eduardo who was today playing out wide on the left.  Then before the crowed could stop singing, Diaby cleared a Portsmouth free-kick which made its way to Fabregas who played a lovely ball over the top to Eboue who was racing down the right with a man on him squared the ball to Diaby, who had raced forward after his initial clearance, and sent James the wrong way to make it 2-0 within 22mins.

We then conceded a goal on 37 mins when a cross, from the person who I confused with Armand Traore last season when he was on loan their, and a former Spurs man Kaboul jumped higher than Almunia could and the length of his arms to head a ball into the net.  My grandad always said that goal keepers just dont jump anymore, and he is right.  Almunia jumped a maximum of  a foot where as Kaboul must have jumped about 3 or 4 foot which was taller than Almunia could ever have made himself. So learn to jump boy!

After another scare from a Utaka break and with Gallas being the last man the Nigeria fell, which looks like he fell over his own feet, we added to our goal tally through a Arshavin free-kick which was headed on by RVP, then slid across the box by Vermaelen which found Gallas’s foot which in turn hit his face and went in the back of the net.  Very perculiar.

In the attractive 69th minute, RVP slid a through ball to our young welsh substitute, Aaron Ramsey, who calmly slotted the ball past James.

Game over, another 90 mins and another Arsenal 3 points.

Overall, a great week for the Gunners with impressive displays from Gallas, Vermaelen, Diaby, Van persie and of course Alex Song.  Song has looked very impressive this week, with great tackling and some lovely touches.  Especially with his chest, which he seems to have masters the chest over the on-coming opposition player.  Bendtner, has also shown maturity this season with his lack of goals not effecting his on the field play to help his team mates.

Great week.  Bring on the next 32 or what ever it is.

Long time no see… fancy an end of season review?

Yep thats right I am back.

First of all I would like to explain my lack of posting recently.  It is purely down to the fact that I have been finishing my final year of university and I have had about 20,000 words to write. Not Fun.  I’m all done now, unemployed and able to write about Arsenal, woop.  Saying that the season is over and not alot is happening at this time.

We finished the season 4th with 72 points, 18 points of the winners Manchester United.  We scored 68 and conceded 37.  Man U scored the same amount of goals but conceded 13 less than us.  Now it’s easy to tell where the difference between us and them is.

So during this blog I am going to review the squads season by looking at several positions and summing up my opinion of what went wrong, right and where I think we could add.

The Goalkeepers

Being slightly worried at the begining of the season with us only having a Spanish goalkeeper who had been far from looking like a top four keeper. In back up the 4th choice Polish keeper.

Even though with our number 37 in the goals conceded column in the table Almunia suprised me this season with a number of impressive displays which out numbered the mistakes he made.  He had an obsession to come running out of his goal when the defence could quite easily deal with it.  It must be an Arsenal thing…

Because our young pole with a lack of matches behind him decided get involved in a certain FA Cup Semi final.  He showed us that like many goalkeepers of his age, he was a great shot stopper and showed some great reflex saves but lacked maturity when it came to making decisions.  Coming off his line to help out the defence and coming for crosses were two of the major downfalls of Fabianski’s season. 

Overall Almunia being quite consistent and Fabianski not being there yet, I feel we should bring in a goalkeeper inbetween the age range of 24 and 31 that has some good experience behind him to challenge the two because behind them we only have a very young Italian keeper.

Centre-backs

This season saw a very poor effort from our defence at doing what they are paid to do and that is defend.  Our center backs specifically saw a constantly changing patnership due to injuries and bad form.  Like many football pundits would say ‘Wenger doesn’t know his best pairing’ .  Gallas started off the season as captain and this seemed too much for him with the responsibility of  marshalling a relatively young back line and trying to show that he is the voice and the face and spokesman for the club.  Gallas and Toure were the favoured partnership at the start of the season however it did not work out too well for the club with there being too many poor performances.  Gallas could not handle the pressure of such responsibilities and his form dropped aswell as the armband from his bicep .

The defence was shifted around many times between Toure, Gallas, Djourou and Alex Song competing  losing their place in the starting line up.  On a note that kills me to say.  I think recently Kolo this season has been a shadow of his former self and he has yet to show the form he showed before he had a spell out with an illness, this could be down to the fact that he has not had the Campbell’esque partner, which saw his best form.  I hope he recaptures that form, otherwise the rumours that Man City are after him are looking increasingly attractive.

None of which showing a Vidic and Ferdinand partnership which fans were comparing them too.  Since the end of the season Arsenal have signed a left footed centre-half..No no stop cheering it is not Pascal Cygan…it is a young Belgian, former captain of Ajax, just 6ft defender.  Being a captain of the best club in Holland shows that the 23 year old has leadership qualities that we are seriously lacking at the back. We will see come next season if he is exactly what we need. 

Full backs

Not much to say here other than they do what all good Arsenal full backs do, they go forward better than they defend.  Sagna and Clichy our first choice full backs are both getting better and better, Clichy was probrably our best player in the first half of the season.  He showed a few more mistakes than last season but he is more and more looking like he is going to turn into a much much much better version than Ashley Cole, I love it.  Sagna was more of the same, he is great at getting forward and linking up attacks, in my opinion he is the best right back in the league.  Kieran Gibbbs came in to the squad when Clichy got injured towards the end of the season and played really well minus one mistake against Man Utd in the Champions League semi when under no fault of his own, slipped over.  He will provide good competition for Gael next season.  Additionally, in the Youth Cup a young left back Thomas Cruise showed me that Arsenal have a great skill at producing fine young left backs that are so so so comfortable on the ball.

Centre Midfielders

Gone are the days of having Vieira and Petit in centre mid, or even Vieira and Gilberto Silva.  We now have a young spaniard who is first pick, with loads of young(er) players around him.  People that have played there have been Denilson, Song, Ramsey, Diaby, Nasri, Eboue even Arshavin and Van Persie played there.  This to me shows, along with injuries of course, shows that Wenger was never quite sure on who his best partner for Cesc is. 

Now all of the above mentioned stick out to be magnificant centre midfielders, if centre mids at all.  From the begining of the season I saw Fabregas being teamed with Alex Song, who I was not orginally the greatest fan of, now as you who read my blog can tell, he has impressed me an incredible amount this season.  He has developed from a young player who we did not know if he was a CM or a CB to a pretty darn reliable defensive centre mid.  He always looks so lazy when playing yet he constantly wins the ball back, is strong in the challenge and is pretty tidy in the air, with him beating Emile Heskey in the air throughout our games against Wigan.   As I have said before his only down fall is his passing , as he can struggle to make a 10 yard pass sometimes, but saying that so did Gilberto.  For a player of 21 he sure does have time to learn his trade as a centre mid. 

Looking briefly at the other players that played CM, Denilson was another player who impressed me at the begining of the season by having a hand in a few goals be it assists (Nasri opening game of the season) or scoring (Aston Villa away).  However, with him being used regularly at the start, towards the end of the season his form seemed to decline with him looking tired. Also one thing that I think makes him a lesser mans Cesc is his lack of a killer pass, he still has to add this to his game to make him a better player. 

Now Samir Nasri not one that you would think of as a Flamini esque CM, but Wenger towards the tail end of the season started to use him as a CM to allow Cesc move further up the field. Now this intially seemed weird as Cesc is so much less mobile up the field than Samir is, which made supporting the striker difficult for Cesc.  Samir at CM however, seemed to work well as he could get about and play the quatre back passes that everyone wants David Beckham playing for England.  So if Wenger is to play Samir at CM i do not think it should be at the expense of Cesc, he should perhaps play the two together with Song supporting. 

This is not saying that Wenger should not go out and buy a more experienced (Gilberto like) player for our young players to learn off, compete with and develop under.  To be honest tho I would preferably want a Premiership experienced player to play there but a currently players playing in England are too god damn expensive. So I really do not know who Arsene will buy. I can only hope they will be amazing and unknown.

Wide Men

 Theo Walcott, Samir Nasri, Emmanuel Eboue, Andrei Arshavin, Carlos Vela, Jack Wilshere, Aaron Ramsey, Abou Diaby…

All played out wide for us last season. In the first half of the season both Nasri and Walcott impressed me immensly with Nasri fitting in straight away to the English Premiership.  The opening game against West Brom saw him score straight away and from that moment onwards he has looked like a fabulous signing from Wenger.  Most notably he scored a brace against Man Utd to win the game for us 2-1.  He not only scored goals but he set them up too.

Theo on the other hand started of like a house on fire, he looked unstoppable, defenders were scared of him because he ran at them. Some one with that pace is going to make any defender pee their pants.  At the start of the season I remember him saying on arsenal.com that he was told to be more aggressive against opposition and with the aim to do that he bulked up his upper body strength and learnt how to hold players off as well as run at them.  His impressive displays for Arsenal saw him gain (deserved) England call-ups and he scored a hat trick in his first start.  Throughout the season I still found myself being fustrated with his lack of footballing know-how (compared to mine that is ;o) ).  Sometimes he just did not know when to pass or when to attact the full back and stay out wide, also in front of goal some of his shot choice was poor.  He tried a lob at one point from about 6 yards out when he could easily have just rolled it past the keeper.

One player who did not have a lack of scoring know how in less than 6 months at the club was one man from Russia.  Not much to say about the little Russian really except to marvel in his goals.  From his fine indivdual goal against Blackburn  where he scored from a crazy angle after running from the corner flag to the goal…class. To his 4 goals against Liverpool in one of the greatest games I have ever witnessed.  He is exactly what we needed a bit of experience for our young squad to learn off of.  I cannot wait to see him for a whole season in an Arsenal shirt.

Strikers

Adebayor has gone!

Thank fook for that!

So now we have an exciting (injury excuting) strike force of RVP, Eduardo, Bendtner, Vela, Arshavin and Walcott can even play there.  I would really like to see Bendtner play up front more this season he finished the season with a good goals to game ratio.  I would like to think that if he plays more he will score more, with Ade-bye-bollocks now left you would think that he will play more and being the only target man now… he should reap the rewards.

RVP became our fans player of the season and deserved it fully, when he was in the team he scored important goals (the brace at Chelsea).  He really is becoming a quality player, we all know Dutch players have a tendancy to be a bit miserable and aggresive sometimes (we saw with Dennis).  Hopfully, he will let his left foot and chocolate leg do the talking by scoring more and more important goals for us. 

Eduardo after briefly coming back to the squad last season with a few goals in the Carling Cup he soon became a fans favourite.  It would be awesome to see him continue to show the goal scoring nack that he showed glimpses of when he first joined the team.  Bring on next season for him too! 

Vela, more of the same really he is progressing by playing and scoring some classy goals in the tournament, he seems to be a faster, younger version of Eduardo.  He certainly knows where the back of the net is and can find it with great precision.

Now our old no.25 has left to go to the riches of Man City.  Do we need a replacement? I do not think so, alot of talk is about Chamack of Bordeaux.  I just really do not think that we need another young striker to go in front our youngsters that are waiting to come through.  However, if we could get a certain Real Madrid striker called Klaas-Jan Huntelaar.  But with a steep £18 million pound bid from Stuggart to compete with I do not think we could pay that much for some one that would be likely to spend time on the bench or starting and hampering our young strikers with alot of potential.

That concludes my Season review, it certainly has taken me alot of time to write these 2,300 words! Hope you havent got too bored.  Mucho love.

Two Games=Three Cesc Assists +Three Adebayor Goals

Again I miss two games and we go and get good results in them both

Ill start with the Man City Game which we won 2-0 thanks to our returning heroes hero and Emmanuel Adebayor.  Cesc game back into the team and looked like he had never been out of it, like Arseblogger said, you really do forget what a good player Cesc is when he hasn’t played for a while.  He may not be the fastest of players or the most skillful, but he makes up for with with the quickness of he’s Spanish brain.  Getting two assists in ur first game back after being out for what seemed like years, is pretty damn impressive. 

As for Adebayor, he came back into the team on Sat and showed the form that he showed us when he first joined the club.  Chasing defenders, passing a ball simply and ultimately scoring goals.  Before his recent injury he was not showing any passion for Arsenal and he didn’t seem to think his place was under threat.   On Saturday he obviously thought that Nicklas Bendtner was playing alright and that he would show him what competition he has to get back in the team.  Which is what our team needs, competition from the senior players making the young players improve, by learning and the old players show their experience in the first team and hopefully get us earning results.

The two goals were pretty simple in the end, well Cesc made them both look very easy. Adebayor’s first goal came from us earning a freekick, which I didn’t think was one. When Robinho, some how out muscled the stocky Sagna with a shoulder barge. Therefore it must have been a foul.  From the freekick Cesc delivered a outswinging freekick to the penalty spot.  Which coaches tell you put corners when you are 10 years old.  Adebayor simply stood still bent down a little bit and headered past a player on the line and it into the near corner. 1-0

Before half time saw some Man City chances, one for Micah Richards (Good save from Almunia) and one for Gelson Fernandes (which he should have scored).  Alas they didn’t.

2-0 came in the second half, which we bossed for whole 45 mins.  I dont think Man City had a chance in the second half, if they did it was forgettable.  We scored when Cesc played a loping through ball over Richard Dunne’s head, to which I thought Dunne was going to head away.  But it didn’t and it went straight to the feet of Adebayor, who took a poor first touch and turned it into a good one by rounding Shay Given in the Newcastle Man City goal and passing it into the back of the net. That was it really from the City Game, a good competent performance.

Then Sunday, then Monday, then Tuesday Villarreal away.

News was that Nasri had got over his flu, Walcott had got over his knee injury that he recieved against City but Robin and Diaby hadn’t recovered.  So it was our new trusted 4-2-3-1 formation that has been serving us well recenty. With Denilson and Song holding in midfield, Nasri and Walcott flanking Cesc and Adebayor up front on his own. 

Now Adebayor, you know you annoy me when you don’t play well/make an effort and playing that well against City gave me false hope..well in the first half it did.  He started the game not making one decent pass, not making one header his touch back to Clichy from a throwin went past Clichy faster than he threw it.  His touch sometimes can be so bad. It annoys me.  He doesn’t know when to make the simple pass, instead he tries to take on one more player and by then the pass has gone.  Watching it with my mate who gets equally annoyed by him, I said ‘He does all this shite link up play but he knows how to finish’. 

So after a great start to the game by Villarreal, who were certainly bossing the game like we did against City.  They showed some great passing and ball retention, it looked like we were never getting the ball off of them.  So come the 10th minute the ball gets played around on the edge of our box and it lands at the feet of Senna and he launches a shot into the top right of the goal.  A fantastic strike.  People say Song should have closed him down quicker, but Alex was running between about 3 Villarreal players at that time so you can’t blame solely him.

1-0 down they could have increased their lead through a corner which seemed to hit one of their players on the waist and then hit Clichy on the line and be scrambled upon by Almunia.  The same Almunia who had recieved an injury whilst playing right back to clear a ball.  He soon had to be replaced by Fabianski, who had a good game and it is looking like he will have to for the next coming weeks.  Gallas also got injured in the first half with a Medial ligament injury after Alex Song took down a Villarreal player who flew into the knee of Gallas. He went off injured only to come back on a few minutes later, then to be taken off and replaced by Djourou.  Through out the end of the first half and the begining of the second half we started to get more and more into the game. 

On the 66 minute Cesc done what he has been doing all weekend by passing a ball to Adebayor, who controlled it on his chest and then manufactured a overhead kick to bring it to 1-1.   

Senna had another chance of  scoring a beauty from the edge of the box with a shot that went narrowly wide, but lightening doesnt strike twice ‘n’ all that.

So we go into the second leg with an away goal and us on top, hopefully we can keep it at 0-0 until around the 60th minute mark and then score a goal or two to make it comfortable for us. 

From a Tuesday evening in Spain to a Saturday afternoon in Wigan, bring on the Latics.

International Break…

Newcastle 1-3 Arsenal: Taylor-made penis

So I’ve been gone a while…

Sorry for the lack of posting readers, it is purely down to Uni work as it I am coming to the end of handing my final year project in.  Oh the joys.

In my absents we have beat Hull in the FA Cup (up yours Phil Brown, you Cock), and we beat Blackburn 4-0 in the Premier League.  I watched the Hull game and with the game coming to an end I was becoming very fustrated at the prospect of us not getting to Wembley.  But we pulled the game around with a Van Persie goal after a cut back from Arshavin, and Gallas scored a header from an offside position to set up a Semi Final tie against Chelsea.

The Blackburn game was a rout, as so should it be against a poor poor Sam Alladyce side and we have never heard of one of those have we?  Andrei Arshavin’s goal was the highlight of the game with him scoring a sensational individual goal (similar to one he scored for Russia)  where he jinxed down the left wing with the defender expecting him to cut inside on his right foot but he continued to go down the left along the touchline and being one on one he lifted it over fatty Paul Robinson.  The other 3 goals were an own goal which Arshavin almost took credit for and the other two were scored by the goal machine Emmanuel Eboue. 

Now to yesterdays game.

We played Newcastle at St James Park and won 3-1. The game did not get started to the second half , I only remember a Van Persie shot blocked by Steven Taylor and a disgraceful forehand in the face of Arshavin from S.Taylor.  Oh yeh and some bloke called Martin missed a penalty for them.

We started the second half like we were the only team that was going to win the game.  When we earnt a free kick on the left wing when Ryan Taylor twice pulled back Gael Clichy.  Arshavin whipped in the freekick and Nicklas Bendtner stetched all his 6ft 4inches and headered a lovely header. 

Before I realised and got my stream back working, they had scored an equaliser after a defensive mix up by Gallas.  It wasn’t the best defending, but we will let Gallas have that one because he is actually playing very well at the moment. 

Five minutes later and Diaby played a ball to Van Persie, who then saw Diaby running into space left by S.Taylor who left the field to recieve some treatment and Van Persie passed the ball back to Diaby who ran directly into the box and suberbly finished high into Steven Harpers goal. 

Three minutes later Van Persie set up Samir Nasri who hit a clean strike past Harpers left hand. 

All round it was a good performance.  We are scoring goals again and not just one a game.  Bendtner played well again, he is showing good form and showing maturity older than his 21 years with good team play and a good work rate.  Its good to think that Adebayor will have a bit of competition when he comes back into the squad.  Which is what Adebayor needs because before his injury he showed little effort in his game and it was like he wasn’t worried that his place could be taken in the team at any point and showed that he really didn’t care about Arsenal FC (as you can tell I am not the biggest fan of Adebayor). 

Another positive from the game was how Diaby played.  He was always thought of being the next Vieira for obvious reasons.  But to me, he draws more comparisons Alexandre Hleb with his footwork.  However, he is much stronger and can tackle pretty damn well.  We do have some good competition in centre midfield with Fabregas coming back, Denilson playing well, Song showing quality in that holding midfield role, Diaby and Ramsey who is young and learning his trade as a centre midfielder.  I know people will say they are all young and inexperienced but hopefully they can all what to better each other and develop as players.

Finally, Im going to vent my anger at my game today.  We played one of the teams that could over take us as at the top of the league.  They have about 7 games in hand on us and can overtake us if they win their remaining games.  So today we had to win if we wanted to scumper their chances of overtaking us.  We went 1-0 down in the first half when they broke from our corner and beat our two defenders to score past our keeper.  For the rest of the half we were on top and scored when a free kick floated over their keeper hit the angle of the goal and one of our players followed up to blast it into an empty net.  For the rest of the game we continued to play the better of the two teams and create a few half chances.  Then…in the last min they won a corner the ball floated over the back post and their player to knock it over the line.  Then game the feeling of FOR GODS SAKE I was absolutely gutted.  We did not deserve to lose to a bunch or ego filled twats.  Apparently we have a month off for the other teams to catch up with us. What will I do with my Sunday mornings now?

Anyway that is my post over.  Good night