Emirates Cup win

YES!! We won the Emirates Cup!  We must win the league now!

No we cannot defend and kill teams off.

These are two things that might be said after the Emirates Cup win.  I will be saying neither.  We must not get over critical of our performances as much as we must not be too overhyped with the performances of certain players.

While players like Frimpong and Wilshere have been pretty darn good in pre-season we should not be like the media and be wanting them in the England squad ASAP!  Yes they have been good but we need to see how they get along in the Premiership.  To do this we must bleed them into our team slowly and give them a good run in the Cup (like our 2nd choice goalkeeper).  So while I do not want to send them on loan, I do want to see them getting some game time with us.

That is all with regards too us getting too overhyped.  In other news (from my head) I thought that in addition to Frimpong and Wilshere were the performances of Chamakh, Koscielny, Nasri and Gibbs.

The new boys seemed to fit into our system very well.  Kosciellny seemed brilliant at timing challenges and being in the right place for to intercept the ball.  In the Milan game especially, he got infront of their players, beat them to the ball and in the tackle he was brilliant at winning the ball back and keeping it in possession.

Chamakh, was excellent at holding the ball up and playing it simple.  He did not want to run at players too often, letting other people do that by passing the ball simple and then running into another dangerous area.  Just what we need.  Like I have said before though.  He does seem awfully similar to our big Dane Nicklas.  Happy with the ball on the floor and capable of climbing high to win headers.  We shall see how Arsene plays them two and who he seemingly prefers.

Not much to say about Nasri, who continued his fine preseason form.  Running, passing and scoring with absolute class.

Same about Gibbs aswell really, he will give Clichy a good bit of competion down at left back.  He looks very good going forward, running off the ball and helping his wideman out in the attack. I am all for the competition it will make them both up their game and provide us with an excellent back up, if one gets injured.

In my opinion the Emirates cup as normal was great for our preparation for the new season.  It does not involve travelling to America to get some extra cash (Manchester Utd, Chelsea, Spurs, Manchester City).  It allows us for some altitude training in Austria, travelling back to London for the Emirates Cup then within half a day being in Austria and training again.  Genius from the professor Wenger.

Right I shall be back soon with my Defenders review

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World Cup and potential signings

Hello and welcome back to my blog.  I have been rather bad at posting recently and I do apologise!

So since I last blogged we drew 0-0 in a rather boring game, we lost 2-1 away at Blackburn and then we sealed 3rd with a 4-0 win over Fulham.

I am not going to go into the games that much because they were such a long time and I doubt I you will remember.  All I will say is that we sealed 3rd and deservingly so over much worse teams.  Hurrah.

Now.

The World  Cup is on and we are nearly near the end. England were shockingly poor.  The French were shockingly disorganised and Poor and the Germans have been amazing.

I have really liked how the Germans have been playing this tournament.  Losing to them doesn’t feel so bad, but then again we were still poor through the 3 other games.  Oh well, I care about Arsenal and the players I think we should buy!

Watching the tournament I have seen many a player I have been impressed with.  From the obvious Ozil (Ger) to the less players such as:

• Juarez (Mex), with his great techical skills
• Van Bommel (Ned), who I was impressed with his ability break up play, play it simple and be the typical villain, which I have not seen since Jens Lehmann.  
• B. Bradley (USA), who proved me wrong that he was not only in his team because his dad was the coach but because he had a good engine, could pass the ball and was comfortable going forward with it.
• Neuer (Ger) the goalie has shown a great shot stopping and catching crosses ability and we do need that at Arsenal.  He would be a perfect choice goalie for me.  If not a bit too expensive
• and mostly Mueller (Ger), to be honest my view of him before the WC, having seen him in the Champions League for Bayern was that he was a young striker that did not really offer the team anything, especially goals.  He has certainly proved me wrong.  For Germany he has been playing right wing in a kinda 4-2-3-1 formation and been amazing.  Where I thought he had a lack of pace he seems to disguise it with brilliant movement and for his lack of goals he has provided his team with 4 goals and 3 assists.  For a 20 year old that is pretty impressive.  It makes me want him at Arsenal. Although I am not sure where he would fit in to our team.  I can always wish though can’t I…

Speaking of signings and people I want us to buy.  We have signed Chamakh of Morocco and he will wear number 29.  From what I have seen on youtube and in the Champions League for Bordeaux he looks like a pretty good acquisition. Good enough on the floor to be able to come out wide and link up play and pretty darn good in the air.  This does make me wonder where he is going to fit in to our system.  I know that people will have to fight for their places but still Wenger doesnt like putting people in front of young players and Chamakh is certainly in the way of many players such as Vela, Eduardo and more interestly Bendtner.

I see Bendtner as a very similar player to the Moroccan.  Both tall, skillful and good in the air.  From what I have seen Bendtner looks better at being a fox in the box and putting chances away (as we saw with him playing for Denmark against Cameroon).  With van Persie in the team, with us playing a 4-5-1 and with Arsene liking RVP in that central role, we are going to have a lot of players battling behind RVP for first choice on the bench.

It is going to be an interesting time when the WC ends.  Being linked with Joe Cole week in week out, us being linked with many an average WC goalie.

I shall no doubt be in touch again soonish when the WC is near an end or we sign someone.

Tarra

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Guess who’s back? VieAdeTour

I am not going to go on and on about where I have been or what I have been doing, lets just say that since I have been given the all clear to play football rather than watch it I have been taking FULL advantage of it.

So I come back at a time when we have drew to Birmingham, drew to Barca at home, beat Wolves, lost to Messi away from home, lost to some team who are our neighbours (can’t remember their name) and lost to Wigan.  All really really fustrating games to watch.

Since the begining of the season and beating teams like Everton 6-1, we have recently found ourselves struggling to put games away.  I do not think it it because our injury list has been being longer than Dawn French’s shopping list or individual mistakes.  But I believe it is because we have just not been desisive in the final third of the pitch.

Arsene always talks about us being good on the ball but making the wrong choices or not being good enough in the final third, and him being Arsene Wenger, I believe him.  Our movement off the ball, when a player has the ball in the final third is pretty poor.  Generally, this is to do with players within the width of the goal.

We have been technically brilliant with the ball at our feet, but players like Rosicky and Nasri are not having many options when they look up.  Bendtner generally moves to the back post position when the ball goes out wide, to get a run on a floated cross.  We need other players to make the right movement around him.  Theo done it against Wigan and he scored from it.  Now we need other players to step up and make penetrating runs in behind the opposition defence.  Hopefully, our prayers are answered tomorrow when Robin Van Persie will make his first start at home against Man Ci.

Since he has been back and on the field we have looked like a completely different outfit.  He has shown real class in the final third.  I am sure examples can be seen if you Youtube ‘Gomez saves Arsenal.’

Tomorrows game against the richest team in the world, comes at a time when we have not won in a while and our fans could really do with one.  Especially, being against people we used to pay the wages for.

You may notice from my three pictures that there is an odd one out.

Yes that is right.  I no longer remember Adebayor as an ex Gooner, he is now a full qualified TWAT Man City player.  I am sure many of you know why.  His absolute appauling behaviour when he left the club and more recently when he ran the whole length of the pitch and celebrated in front of our fans at Eastlands.

Do not get me wrong his finishing this season has been magnificent.  But Arsenal even if you come fourth this season please do one thing and beat City so we can celebrate on the pitch in front of their travelling fans.

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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

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

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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Play the Percentages!

Well…. 

I have just watched Arsenal lose to Manchester Utd 3-1. It was so depressing being 3 goals down with about half an hour to go and wondering whats the point. Manchester Utd were superb on the counter attack , I was scared for us when we were taking a corner.  It reminded me of the days when I saw an opposition corner and I would think, “We could score from this”.

I dont know whether to blame our defence for not getting back in position or just taking it on the chin and believing that Man U were just that good on the counter.

One person who I blame for their second goal was Denilson, I have never seen him running full pelt and having his head down with the aim of stopping an attacker, we saw it last week agains Stoke when Sidibe out paced him when he was just jogging.  This week it was seen when he was chasing back (well done him for doing that) but still he just focused on the ball and did not look around him until it was too late and Rooney was running off his back.

So I do not want to talk about the game too much to be honest I think we best forget about it learn from us not being able to defend on the counter and move on.

It’s not to say we do not need a striker because we created a fair few chances and come close to scoring if players like Arshavin would be less selfish and look up.  Dont get me wrong I love to see him running at defenders and knowing that he could skin any defender put in front of him, which he did on a number of occassions today.  Evans and Brown are not that good defenders and we should have made that show, Jermaine Beckford can do it for christ sake.  We needed to exploit them, but we hardly ever did and when we did players should play the percentages and know that there is a better chance of scoring by passing to a team mate.

Denilson needs a rest like he did this time last season, give Ramsey a few more games in there, he is more mobile, can still get stuck in and can make runs into areas that can hurt opponents.  Arshavin needs to play out wide and give Bendtner a couple of games up top.  Nasri and Rosicky played well today they are both skillful players who can keep the ball and will give the all if they lose the ball and try to win it back.  Denilson just did not do this, he was hardly ever running full pelt after he lost the ball, he would rely on other players.

Now that is probably the first time that I have ever tried to give some tatical help to Wenger (I know he isnt listening).  I just see why he has not had a word with Denilson about this, he just never runs.  Maybe he has told him this “Don’t worry, save your energy”.

That is enough of my Denilson rant, because it was not all his fault, there are 10 other players on the field that did not get themselves into that position that Denilson was in to stop that Nani through ball.  Maybe we dont leave enough players back from a corner or maybe Rooney is just that dangerous on the counter, and they certainly found him from defending our corners.  We hardly ever score from corners, maybe we should try something different, free kicks we occasionally do but corners hardly ever.

So overall conclusion to that game, we created chances and should be finishing them but defensively we were suspect against a good Man Utd team and we should be exploiting their average players more often and get them on the back foot scared.

Man Utd rant over.

I have missed our 4-2 come back against Bolton, being knocked out the FA Cup and rare 0-0 draw away against a good Villa team.  Against Bolton we showed that style can beat power by scoring  nice goals.  The FA Cup saw us be knocked out away at the Britainia, playing a team half full of reserves, so not much of a suprise for me.  Finally, Villa draw which saw us draw a blank against a team which can play effective football and cause problems.

Right I will be back soon no doubt.  Cheers for reading

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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*

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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.

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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.

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