Why do I sweat so much?!

So my time in the gym now equals 2.

Yes that is right, I have been twice in two days.  First for my induction and a light ease in session, then today a full blown sweat-fest.

Yesterdays induction was as good as me entering the gym and pressing a few buttons on the machines.  The woman literally just said:

“You put your key thing in here and follow the instructions….Now do you want to have a session now….OK then heres your key, off you go. Bye”

Now I am not the one for the weight machines, especially on my arms. I can not doing looking like a top heavy gym tool.  I would rather work on my cardio and maybe a few weights on my legs.  Over the past two days I have been doing mainly running, rowing and what I can only describe as pushing off a wall with my legs, with some weights on.

I have always been into getting my leg power good, for acceleration purposes during football.  As I have long legs it takes me a while to get doing, so I need to improve my chances as much as I can when it comes to getting off the mark.

People always say to me, “Why do you go to the gym to run? Aren’t the roads your gym?”  And to be honest I love running in the gym more than outside.  I think its easier to control your speed, time, distance and most importantly for me the incline.  I live in a very hilly area and I really can not go on a run without running up and down a hill.  Also I love the fact you dont have to plan a halfway point on your run, because generally if you run somewhere you have to decide when to start heading back.  I’ld much rather set myself a distance or time on my machine and meet that target.

Finally, I love doing the rowing in the gym. Alot of my friends row for real and I have been told I have the perfect physique for rowing.  So I tried it out once and from then on I have really enjoyed it.  It is a bit of a whole body work out and that is what I want if I want to lose weight and have a better engine!

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Now lets get a little bit personal

So I am going to start to talk slightly more about my sporting/physical activities from the week on the blog to give you an insight into my quite sporty life.

Badminton

So lets start at the beginning of the week when I played my weekly dose of badminton with my dad and a few of his Cabbie friends (including his uncle).  I try to play badminton every Monday with him so I can have a bit of father son bonding and also to try and keep fit.  I have not been able to play as often as I would have liked recently due to my broken wrist. But now I am out of plaster I wear my support and I am fine (as it is on my non playing wrist).  That is not to say that I am free from the dangers of hurting it.

I take you back two weeks, I decided to play without my wrist guard:

1. Because I forgot it and could not be bothered to reach into my bag and put it on and

2. Because I felt normal for once!  Playing a sport with no sporting aids.

So I begin to play and do my usual start well then fade off towards the end. But at some point during the day I find myself heading towards a wall and instinctly put my non playing wrist (left) up to stop my face eating wall.  OOUUCHHH I thought to myself. In protecting my pretty face I had hurt my wrist again. However, the pain soon went after wiggling it around again and I was fine to play and lose again!

Things have got better since then.  I have begun to actually play well and I am able to read the opposition players a bit better now.  I used to me a certaintly to not be able to reach a drop shot infront of me.  Due to my slow moving-foward-ness and the fact I am very tall it takes me a while to get down to them!

This Monday was my best playing week by far.  I played 3 games and won two.  Now that is good for me, I am used to coming away with no wins and a very annoyed partner!

Football

So badminton on a Monday, I would usually be playing 5-a-side football on a Wednesday evening, but again due to the fact my wrist is not 100% perfect yet, I have opted out to returning to the place where it all started.

Our team FC Dan play at Power League in Friern Barnet, North London. We often come across teams who are much smaller and younger than us, but we can never seem to win.  Whether, it is our lack of knowing how to play as a team or our lack of football intelligence (looking at other teams, I do not think it is that) we just can not seem to be a team well enough.  I played the first game and got injured during it, I was not happy.  But from then onwards my team mates just could not seem to muster together a win.  Finally, towards the end of their season they won a game!  Hallelujah!!

FC Dan have since been demoted and now have a win loss ratio of 3 and 3.  So well done them.

I also play football on a Saturday with my local team Southgate County *cough*4s*cough*.   We are a very inconsistent team, from one week we are Barcelona and the next we are Scunthorpe.  I play centre back normally, but last week I was asked to play centre midfield.  With me being one of the players in the team that can actually pass, I was confident.

When the game started I found myself wondering where to stand and when to go forward.  So I ended up playing like Alex Song rather than a box to box Aaron Ramsey. I was soon moved to centre back in the second half and a few mistakes later we lost.  Booo.  I shall update you on Saturdays game as quickly as I can.

Gym

My newest sporting activity is the gym, which I am about to go and undertake an induction for in about 5 minutes.  So I am going to dash and update you later…after a long bath.

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Stressed.com

During this post Im going to elaborate on my experiences of watching the last two games and stressing out.

After our impressive win at the Emirates against Porto we travelled up north for a evening kickoff with Phil ‘Orange man’ Brown’s Hull City.

I started off watching the game and was impressed that our form had continued from the Porto game.  Furthermore our lazy Russian Arshavin scored after ghosting through several Hull players and cooly finishing with the outside of his right foot to put us 1-0 up with only 12 mins gone.  I thought to myself that if we continued to dominate this game then it could be 4 or 5 nil.

But nooooooo, 14 mins later a ball over our defence to an ‘offside’ Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, a chasing back Sol Campbell jumped on to the back of him and was adjudged to have not denied a goal scoring opportunity (because the ball was behind him), was given a yellow card and a penalty was given.  Bullard stepped up and buried the ball into the net.

We pushed and pushed until the non stop pressure from our players wound their players up and Boateng was booked for being annoyed at Bendtner and deciding to poke him in the eye.  Somehow Bendtner was booked to for his part, maybe for shouting at him or something.

Boateng was later sent off for studding Sagna on the knee, which could/should have been a straight red itself.

We kept them in their half for the remainder of the game, threw on Eduardo and Walcott.  Their introduction nearly made an instant impact with Theo setting up Bendtner to have his shot deflected over by Hull defenders being committed.

Then in the 90th minute a Denilson shot from 30 yards was not handled well by the Hull keepers and he parried it to Bendtner who had to deal with a bouncing ball at waist height and showed composure and technique to knock it past Byhill.

Full time 2-1

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The next game against West Ham I watched in London with my friends after beating them all at ten pin bowling.  So to make my day, all I needed was a win against the Hammers to make my day.

This was a game of the first 5 minutes and the last 10 minutes. The first 5 minutes saw us playing some quite beautiful football and continue to dominate the half, with West Ham troubling us once or twice with a free kick  and Mido nearly latching on to a cross.

But then before the end of the half, our defence was caught napping and a ball over the top saw Franco and Vermaelen chase it down, TV5 was gently holding the Hammer’s man shoulder and Franco, being Franco an ex Villarreal player collapsed to the floor and the ref (on the half way line) gave a penalty and sent TV5 off.

Diamanti, a dead ball specialist stepped up and sent his kick to Almunias left, which he streched out and palmed the ball away.  “YESSSSS” I shouted.  The half time whistle was blown and Wenger was waiting at the edge of the tunnel to moan and should abusives at the officials.

Song moved back into the defence to partner Sol Campbell and Denilson played the holding role in midfield.

So at half time we was 1-0 up and we were down a man.  Not looking too good….if you were any other fan except an Arsenal fan.  For some reason we seem to be able to play as well, if not better than we would with 11 men.  I guess it does not change our system too much with leaving one man up front and the midfielders get the chance to join Bendtner at every chance they can.

Diamanti continued to try and make up for his penatly miss with a few shots from distance.  We also tried our luck from distance with Denilson and Fabregas testing the Hammers defence.

Wenger brought on Diaby for Bendtner to protect our lead, and us not to rely on Arshavin to chase back and defend.  He was allowed to stay up front and conserve his energy.

Carlton Cole who started on the West Ham bench (thank god) came on and barged his way through the defence to drive a low left footed shot on to the outside of Almunia’s post and our keeper celebrated like we had won the game.  Great to see passion like that from our players.

I then was stressing out about them nicking a goal in the last 10 minutes. But a poor pass by one of the West Ham defender was intercepted by Cesc which landed at the feet at Eboue who ran at their defence and layed a ball through to Cesc.  With his first touch he chipped it towards ex-gunner Upson who handled the ball to stop our captain running on to it. Penalty.

Our spainard grabbed the ball placed it on the spot and showed nerves of steel to launch the ball into the net.

2-0 Game over.  THANK GOD THAT IS OVER.

Great character in the past two games, which really has shown me we have what it takes to win this title. I kept saying to myself, if we win this we really have got what it takes to win the title.  I am not saying these remaining games are easy, Birmingham away, Man City at home and the scum away.  Tough games who have got to fight for everything to stay up, get in Europe or just get their own back on the reverse fixture against us (think Everton).

So hopefully we can keep winning games and show the title winning mentality to win the title and bring it back to North London.

(picture courtesy of Daily Mail, Accessible: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1259614/Cesc-Fabregas-bans-Barcelona-talk-focus-title-charge.html)

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Six Two

With the Ramsey Saga over and the ‘Do it for Rambo’ posters up.  Everyone was expecting us to win the game against Burnley, and comfortably.

We took to the pitch with an attacking team, no Song due to suspension so Denilson took his place with Cesc and Samir Narsi operating infront of him.  Bendtner who was coming off of a 3 goals in 3 games record, was being flanked by  Rosicky and Walcott.

Theo who after his midweek showing for England, wanted to show his worth in a team was on top form.  Unlike his normal run past a ball whilst running with it, he was actually being effective and terrorising Burnley’s left back Fox.

Our first goal came at a time when our captain was struggling with a hamstring injury.  We played some neat football on the edge of the box (usual Arsenal), Cesc layed it off to Nasri who kept the ball twisting and turning, and saw Cesc making a piercing run behind the oppos backline.  Sam played a beautiful chip for Cesc to catch on the bounce and nutmeg the keeper.

They scored a goal which we should have defended better, from England one goal getter Nugent scored.

10 minutes later, Theo Walcott cut inside with the ball on the left wing, beating Fox and drilling a low left footed shot into the bottom left corner.  Finally, an end product from out young Englishman.  Will he make the England squad in the summer?  Who cares if he is playing like that for us every week.

Bendtner was missing chances all day, headers, six foot tap ins and long range efforts.  Now people are going to have a go at him for missing these chances, but I find it positive that he is getting in the places which could hurt the opposition.  He and Rosicky were replaced into the second half by Arshavin and Eduardo.  Walcott continued to terrorise the opposition and layed on attempts for them both.

Into injury time Eduardo miscontrolled a ball, which our little Russian collected the ball and drove a low shot into the near post.

3-1, a great result and would have been more if it was not for our young Dane’s missfiring.

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Now for the most recent match against Porto.  It was crucial we overturned our 2-1 defeat in Porto.

AND DID WE?!

Nasri and Arshavin started well, and I was always thinking we need an early goal.  Arshavin was on hand to win a header from a goal kick which found Nasri who layed it back to the Russian, who turned and lost his marker took a shot which was blocked by the keeper and our Burnley Badboy Bendtner (BBB) was on hand to knock in the pieces into the empty net.

15 minutes later Arshavin was on hand to assist Bendtner again, this time BBB had an easier task of knocking it in from about 3 yards.

Nasri was on form all night long and his consistency paid off in the second half. On the corner of the Porto box, he dribbled into the box twisting and turning inbetween the Porto players and drill the ball into the corner of the net. Goal of the night.

180 seconds later from their kick off we allowed them to enter our half for about 175  of the 180 seconds and from their corner Arshavin collected the ball and had two players to deal with whilst running into their half.  Eboue had made a run from the corner down the center of the pitch and soon started to overtake Arshavin and as he was about to overtake the Porto players, Arshavin played a perfectly timed pass Eboue latched on to it and rounded the keeper and knocked the ball into the net with his left foot.  A 2003-4 typical counter attacking goal.

Our players soon took the foot of the pedal, and the Porto players knew the game was over.

Bendtner got the chance to get a hattrick when Eboue was brought down in the 90th minute for an Arsenal penalty.  Bendtner confidently side footed the ball into the bottom left.  A fine performance after his unlucky one at the weekend. 6-2 on aggregate

Two great performances after the International break and what happened in Stoke.

Hull away on Saturday, lets beat the Orange man Brown.

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Style and winning>Passion and commitment

Well what can I say, it has been nearly a week now and I have only just calmed down about the whole Shawcross v Ramsey saga.  Now do not get me wrong Shawcross did not mean to break our young Welshmans leg but he did, so why the hell am I being made, by the media, to feel bad for Shawcross rather than A.Ramsey?

The media in this country can sometimes be a little bit too ‘England players are committed, you cant take that away from them’. But this commitment and passion is causing injuries like Ramsey’s leg break.  You would not see the media be more in favour of the legbreaker than the person who has had his leg breaked in Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Italy and Germany.  It is not just the media of course, you struggle to see these type of injuries happen in those countries.

Our English passion, commitment and determination has done nothing for our countries national team. International referees at that level will not allow our players to get away with challenges like Shawcross’s, so our players do not behave like this at international level.  When they do, they get sent off!

We can’t handle playing another way, this is shown in our lack of international achievement.  But hey, we did it once in 1966, so that is alright.

You do not see teams like Bolton, Stoke and Blackburn achieving anything in football with the way they play, Chelsea’s whose approach to the game is physical, but that does not mean that their players make stupid challenges and rash attempts at challenges. They mix their physical play with stylish football from back to front, occasionally adding in a long hoof by the goalkeeper.

Now if studying Sports Development has told me anything it is that, this is purely not a elite football problem.  From grassroots football to Semi pro football it is the same, grassroots English footballers from 8-55 years old are complimented on their hard challenges and their commitment.  If a player would to do a piece of skill and beat a player or two they would be called a fancy arrogant selfish player, I am sure more man of the match performances in grassroots football go to the player who was the most committed and showed pride.

Again this is not to say that all players should have less passion for their team that Robinho playing away at Scunthorpe, of course you need to be able to give as much as you can for your team and not come away from a game wishing you had done more.

From grassroots we need to start to introduce more emphasis on skill and ball control.  Arsene Wenger has always said that English players generally,  lack the general ball control compared to their European colleagues.  This is why Wenger will choose to buy a cheaper foreign player than a less developed English player.  Who can say that he is wrong?

I could go on all day about how grassroots football in this country needs developing, and the magnitude of volunteers who are underqualified to coach an appropriate way of playing football when young people start to play football as early as 7.

Sort it out the Football Association

………………………………………………………………..

Now what can I say about our league position. Since losing to Man Utd 3-1 we have lost to Chelsea, beat Liverpool 1-0 thanks to Abou Diaby (brilliant film by an Arsenal fan about ‘A Night At The Emirates’), lost to Porto in the Champions League but we got the crucial away goal, an Eboue inspired win against Sunderland and we beat Stoke 3-1 where we showed a great mentality to deal with a horrific injury to win the game.

Performance highlights come from Manu Eboue for his performance v Sunderland, Nicklas Bendtner for his goal scoring form (3 in his last 3 for club and country) and finally, Aaron Ramsey for his performance against Sunderland and then against Stoke, unfortunately his form was increasing rapidly and he would have continued to improve if it wasnt for a late challenge.  It really is a shame that such a young player is going to miss a crucial part of his development in football, while we are made to feel guilty for Ryan Shawcross who is not going to change his style of play.

Ramsey get well soon and I cant wait to see you back in an Arsenal shirt doing what you do best.

Cummon Arsenal do it for Rambo!

With all

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