Archive for July, 2007
July 20th, 2007
As the final tome in the Harry Potter series is leaked throughout the web, viewers of ArsenalTVonline will yesterday have caught an advanced glimpse of our own boy wonder, Theo Walcott, firing on all cylinders. The teenager scored the second and layed on the first for Robin van Persie in an impressive 3-0 victory.
The players who had been involved in International fixtures returned to the squad yesterday, most prominently in the case of Bacary Sagna, who started at right-back. Indeed, he was the only change from the game at Barnet.
It was a Sagna through-ball that set Walcott away to cross for Robin van Persie to tap in the opener. Then in the second half, an Adebayor pass was dummied by the Dutchman, and Walcott produced an accomplished finish.
A third was added late on, when more good work from Adebayor culminated in him laying the ball of for Robin van Persie to score with his right foot, of all things.
With twenty minutes to go, a flurry of substitutions saw Eduardo make his debut, and gave Niklas Bendtner his first Arsenal appearance in over a year. There’s a match report here and all the goals are viewable here.
It’s always hard to guage performances in friendlies, but Eduardo looked lively and showed unsurprisingly good technique. Sagna seemed solid enough at right-back but wasn’t really tested, and Adebayor and Van Persie combined well – we’ll need them to if we’re to have any success this season.
Afterwards Arsene denied he held any interest in signing Nicolas Anelka, and said the purchase of Eduardo meant that no more strikers would be coming in. Annoyingly, he wasn’t asked about whether or not he might pursue a wide midfielder. Although this interview with Eduardo intimates that he can play wide, I suspect he means in a 4-3-3 rather than a 4-4-2.
Theo Walcott showed glimpses of his potential yesterday, but I personally don’t believe he has the maturity to hold that position all season long. Neither do I believe Alex Hleb or Freddie Ljungberg to be penetrative enough. I don’t mind if we bring in someone on the right, or shift Rosicky out there and sign another left-sided player. It feels like we’re one player short of a very solid squad, and I hope Arsene ammends this before the season starts.
Well, at least we’ve signed someone: 17-year-old Brazilian (yes, a proper one – no Broatian or Crazilian splices here) left-back/winger/striker called Pedro, who was presented at Salamanca yesterday. They were the club who took Carlos Vela on loan last year, and it seems that they might become quite a useful “parking” club whilst we wait for South American youngsters to become eligible. Although it’s as yet unconfirmed, Pedro could be joined by Angel Di MarÃa, a 19-year old Argentinian midfielder who is obviously a bit special.
ps. I like the white kit. Sue me.
UPDATE 9.33am: according to this Swedish newspaper and some people who understand Swedish, Freddie is staying. My dreams of a new winger are slowly dying.
July 19th, 2007
Does anybody know? Does anybody care? Is this just normal? Is “Oh Alex, why won’t you ever put your shorts on?” a regular cry at Colney? Come to think of it, does he know how to put shorts? It requires a level of co-ordination which he has yet to demonstrate in an Arsenal shirt.
Granted, it’s not an original observation (I have Che Grimandi from the arseblog forums to thank), but it is a fascinating image. I for one know I’ve spent many hours staring at it.
Arsenal are in Austria, where tonight we will face a side whose name sounds like, but isn’t, GerkinBurger. Find out more here. It’s possible Eduardo could make his debut but I believe he could well be held back until the next game.
Which trophy do you think we’re most likely to win in the coming season? My money’s on this one.
Don’t forget you can win a t-shirt if you look up some stuff and send me an email by Monday. Which isn’t too bad.
Tomorrow there’ll be a full match report and some properly reported news. I’m just very busy today, honest.
July 18th, 2007
“Why Frank McLintock?”, I hear you cry.
“Stop crying”, says I. “That’s for girls.”
And as you dry the tears from your eyes, I will explain just why it is that it could, and arguably should be Frank McLintock’s face adorning your torso next week.
It’s quite a long story, and one that dates back to Thierry Henry’s transfer last month. Henry cited the departure of David Dein as a key factor in his decision to leave. Whilst most of the media took the opportunity to rattle off a load of “Arsenal in crisis” stories, McLintock broke the mould. Although he could’ve got more press coverage/money out of jumping aboard the crisis bandwagon, he stood right beside the club he loves:
“I can’t see the relevance of David Dein’s departure. I don’t know how a player can get caught up with a director’s departure and that making a difference to a player’s performance.
“I’m sure he was a great ally to Arsene Wenger but I don’t see how a player comes into contact with a director day after day.
“I’ve never heard such talk in my life before.”
Good on you, Frank. And now, thanks to our friends at RetroFootballShirts.co.uk, you can celebrate our former club captain with a lovely free t-shirt.
All you have to do is answer these three questions correctly, and email the answer to frankcompetition@gunnerblog.com. Here we go:
- Which other goalkeepers joined Wookash Fabianski in last year’s Polish World Cup squad?
- During his time at Dinamo Zagreb, Eduardo spent some time on loan at a second division Croatian club. What was the name of that team?
- Bacary Sagna will wear which squad number at Arsenal next season?
One wonders if Wikipedia has made online quizzes somewhat redundant. We’ll see, I guess. You’ve got until 11.59pm GMT on Sunday to get your answers in – the winner will be revealed on Monday morning.
And now, the news.
Arsene has explained why he hasn’t appointed a new Director of Football. It’s just like his player transfers: any excuse not to bring someone in. Joking aside, it seems like Ole’ Ken is doing a fine job of things, with no pressing need to make a change before September.
The manager has also asked fans not to compare Eduardo da Silva with Thierry Henry. Presumably because he is not as good. The manager says:
“Eduardo is a completely different player. Thierry Henry could take ball in the middle of park and score a goal that no one else in the world could score. Eduardo is more of a mobile guy around the box with a nose for a goal. He is more a team player but he does not have the individual potential that Thierry had to score from anywhere.”
“Different”, eh. Let’s hope that when Arsene says “different”, it’s not the same kind of “different” as my GCSE art teacher muttered when I proudly presented him with a poo on a stick.
Finally, a fantastic piece of backtracking from ANR. Myles was probably just trying to jump on the back of the Palacio bandwagon.
Good luck in the competition.
July 17th, 2007
Journalists are the laziest people. In my brief lifetime, I’ve worked in and around them, both on a national newspaper and a popular football magazine. I have never come across people more dedicated to doing absolutely nothing. That’s why we get on so well.
When I was at the newspaper, the sports journos would take three hour lunches, and get so drunk that the afternoon would be spent watching horse-racing and betting with their stationery as currency.
On the magazine, things took a turn for the surreal. Editors, writers, and designers fought it out in a game of “Office Polo”, riding unicycles and impossibly small bikes whilst brandishing hockey sticks. I kid you not.
So it was no surprise to me yesterday morning when I awoke to discover that The Sun had pinched a story from a little-known Boca Juniors blog and plonked it on their back page. Spectacular. Presumably it was 11pm, the game of Office Polo had gone into extra time, and they desperately needed something to sell a few papers. The Fake Sheikh was playing a blinder in goal, so they decided to let him be and run with the Palacio story.
And then The Daily Mail, that bastion of integrity, spied the story and nicked it for their own website, and the back page of their sister publication, The Evening Standard.
Late last night the Boca Juniors President came out and denied knowing anything about it. I could give you a link but seeing as it’s entirely in Spanish, it seems slightly pointless. And then the great conductor behind this orchestral lie revealed his genius. Though to be honest, what allowed him to succeed was approximately 10% his own ingenuity. The other 90% was made up by the complete idiocy of the press.
The Arsenal squad has headed out to Austria, and ANR say that Freddie Ljungberg stayed behind. To me, Arsene’s comments about Freddie being “90% likely to stay”, as opposed to absolutely certain, were an invitation to Fiorentina to up their bid. Perhaps they have now done so.
Finally, I can exclusively reveal that Arsenal have agreed a fee for Porto’s Lucho Gonzalez. He will fly in tomorrow for a medical. An insider at the club has faxed us through details of the transfer.
If that’s not on the back page of tomorrow’s Sun I’ll be pissed.
July 16th, 2007
And we’re back. Not just Gunnerblog, which took a one-day hiatus yesterday whilst I enjoyed the thrills and somewhat literal spills of a bout of food poisoning, but Arsenal. Over 5,000 fans saw an entertaining if not classic game in which we emerged as two nil winners.
Because I’d had to pick my ticket up from the box-office pre-game, I ended up being rather early, and by chance this led to me being almost at pitchside when our players first arrived. They were all very polite, as you’d expect, and signed plenty of autographs.
Theo Walcott in particular was remarkably friendly – we even ended up having a brief chat about his shoulder problem. There must have been fifty odd fans there by the time he arrived, and I think he signed every autograph. Impressive, particularly from one so young. The way he handles the pressure and responsibility is something to be admired.
Manuel Almunia was there with his new Vanilla Ice look (left), and it seems he will be staying at the club after Athletic Bilbao cooled their interest in the shot-stopper. He started alongside Mathieu Flamini – another who looks like staying.
The future of Kerrea Gilbert is a harder one to call – I myself had almost forgotten about him. With the arrival of Sagna, he’s now fourth choice in our vast collection of right-backs, and might find it hard to get game. Furthermore, in the flesh he really is absolutely tiny – I wouldn’t be surprised to see him moved on before September 1st.
It was great to see the returns of Robin van Persie and Theo Walcott after several months out. Whilst van Persie looked unsurprisingly rusty, Walcott’s shoulder operation seems to have given him greater freedom of movement, and his running with the ball was much more direct. Whilst I remain sceptical about his ability to come straight into our first team, there certainly were some more promising signs from the young winger.
One man who wasn’t in the side despite his presence at Underhill was Eduardo. Worryingly, he is very very slight in the flesh. If a breeze had struck up, he might well’ve blown over. People talk about missing Henry’s speed and finishing prowess, but let’s not forget that the man was six-foot plus and incredibly powerful. Our already small team is getting smaller.
In the first half our senior players were too much for Barnet, and it was overdue when Emmanuel Adebayor side-footed Theo Walcott’s cross home to make it 1-0. Although the game was fairly uneventful, I thought that Mathieu Flamini stood out with some excellent passing.
Alex Song played the first-half at centre-back, and to be honest, it was a complete shambles. I know many readers think I’m harsh on Song, and granted he was playing out of position, but it became ridiculous. When he was replaced by debutant Havard Nordveit after 45 minutes, our defending immediately improved.
A whole host of other youngsters turned out for the second half, of which Henri Lansbury’s performance caught my eye. He has a real eye for a pass, and an intelligence about his play not dissimilar to a certain Spaniard we all know.
The second goal came from Nacer Barazite – a tall, Kaka-esque (ie. powerful yet cultured) forward with obvious ability, as the second goal in this clip shows. At the moment his biggest problem is going to be finding his best position – he’s already played centre-forward, central midfield and right-winger in his short career.
There’s a written report here, and a video clip showing both goals and an interview with Arsene here.
In an interview with ArsenalTVOnline, Arsene intimated that there would be no further signings – the equivalent of telling your children that Christmas has been cancelled:
“At the moment, I don’t feel any need.”
Well, hopefully, Arsene’s mood is changeable. Once the sale of Jose Reyes is completed, added to the possible departure of Freddie Ljungberg (Arsene very carefully said that “at the moment” and only “at the moment” he is staying), there will be a very definite need for at least one wide player.
There are quite a few rumours about a couple of Argentinian players floating around the web. I’m not convinced there’s anything to them, but you never know. More later, perhaps.
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