Archive for February, 2009
February 17th, 2009
He broke his leg but now he’s back and Darren Bent is still about as much use as an ejector seat in a helicopter. You know who I’m referring to:
Eduardo da Silva; Arsenal’s Number Nine
Arsenal 4 – 0 Cardiff City (Eduardo 20, 60 (pen), Bendtner 34, Van Persie 89)
Highlights here; Arsene’s reaction here
There are matches one knows will stay in the memory. Some because they are landmarks in the clubs history – bookends, say, in the life of a stadium. The last day at Highbury and the christening of the Emirates with Dennis Bergkamp’s tesimonial will be remembered for obvious reasons.
There are other games that linger in the consciousness because they have exceptional sentimental value, and last night was one of those. Ordinarily there’d be little reason to recall a comfortable FA Cup fourth round victory over a Championship side like Cardiff.  But last night, one Brazilian/Croatian hybrid with an eye for goal and an extraordinary capacity for recovery etched this fixture firmly into my mind.
I hadn’t expected Eduardo to start, but as soon as I heard he was going to ‘the goal’ seemed inevitable. As it was, it arrived after only twenty minutes: an emphatic header to meet the impressive Vela’s flighted cross. After the ball hit the net, the striker knelt on the ground, fists clenched, silently celebrating having ascended the final step in his monumental climb back to first-team football.
The catharsis of that moment seemed to liberate the team, and the chances flowed. Nicklas Bendtner, who on another night might have had more than just the one goal, nodded home expertly, and only an excellent performance from Tom Heaton in the Cardiff goal kept the score to 2-0 at half-time.
Before Eduardo departed to a standing ovation with an hour or so gone, he had time to add another goal from the penalty spot, before running to embrace Tony Colbert – the man who has overseen the number nine’s year-long recuperation. Eduardo’s replacement, Robin van Persie, was just as effective, finishing Cardiff off with his ever-solidifying ‘chocolate leg’ after being slid through by Nicklas Bendtner.
Four nil was probably an accurate reflection of the dominance we displayed, and having scored just one goal in our last four games, it was a welcome return for exciting, attacking football. Cardiff were poor, but hopefully this will give us confidence going into the weekend’s game with Sunderland. And now we know our draw for the next couple of rounds will be bereft of big teams, we have a really good chance of going some way in the FA Cup.
More on Usmanov and all that nonsense tomorrow. In spite of an excellent team performance, today’s blog only really ought about one man. Welcome back, Eddy.
February 16th, 2009
Hello all. No blog today as I’ve been flitting in and out of meetings like a very flittery thing, or a butterfly executive.
I’m already in Islington and going to grab some food before the game – this is my first ever attempt at blogging from my phone, so let’s hope it works.
I will endeavour to microblog during the match over on twitter – see the big shiny link in the sidebar.
Come On You Gunners!
February 15th, 2009
If I owned a house, I would stake it on the above fact.
While I’m here, I might aswell break it to you that we will also never sign Stephen Appiah.
Today the News of the World runs its billionth “Yaya Toure to join his brother at Arsenal” story, and one that even by their standards is spectacularly devoid of any kind of fact.
If Arsene rated Yaya, he would’ve bought him when he cost little more than a few hundred thousand pounds. I myself saw the younger Toure head in a goal at Underhill in an Arsenal shirt a few pre-seasons ago. Arsene won’t now go back and pay big money for a player he neglected to sign for next-to-nothing – just as he would never have contemplated competing with Spurs for Wilson Palacios.
It is a story I am a fool to have wasted breath over.
Not much, though. Till tomorrow.
February 14th, 2009
Hello old friend. There won’t be a match preview today, as we don’t play till Monday. That means we’ll be playing our fourth round tie after most sides have played their fifth round tie. Confuddling, eh.
This whole ‘waiting till Monday’ rubbish gets old quickly. Plus it leaves one in the position of having to spend a weekend longing for Monday, which is not simply confuddling – it is plain wrong. I am fairly confident that by the time Arsenal play Cardiff, it will have been approximately 457 years since our last game. At least, that’s how it feels.
Not a huge amount of news floating about this week, but Arsene did speak to ArsenalTV yesterday, in disguise as Fabio Capello. Unsurprisingly, he leapt to the defence of sacked colleagues Phil Scolari and Tony Adams, saying of the former Arsenal skipper:
“I believe that Tony will be a very good manager and I don’t believe he was given the needed time. It is a big surprise that so quickly they made a big decision because when they made the decision to give him the job they knew he has worked there for a year and a half and they knew him. When you give a young manager that much responsibility you have to give him time.”
That said, reports coming out of the Portsmouth dressing room don’t reflect too favourably on Adams’ time in charge, and it’s hard to see him getting a plum job anywhere now. Perhaps if he swallows his pride and accepts he needs more time as a lieutenant there might be a place for him on the Arsenal coaching staff in years to come – Arsene clearly thinks highly of him.
Elsewhere, Eboue is suspended and idiotic, yet it’s a good thing that Arshavin is not available on Monday. Interesting. I suppose the only sense in which I’d consider that a good thing is if it allows us anoter glimpse of Jack Wilshere on the right-hand side.
That’s all for today. Come back tomorrow, when there’ll invariably be even less news.
February 13th, 2009
Some of you may have been wondering what happened to yesterday’s blog. Apologies: I was on International duty.
Returning striker Eduardo has warned expectant fans that he’s not quite “The Old Eduardo”.
He’s not kidding:
Funky new look aside, Eduardo’s twenty minutes against Romania was certainly the highlight of a decidedly (and as far as injuries go, pleasingly) uneventful International break – Arsenal.com has all the details.
Although Arsene sounds cautious, I still expect Eduardo to make his long-anticipated return to the first-team at some point in the game against Cardiff on Monday. Early team news suggests that Abou Diaby will miss out, but Gael Clichy should have recovered from the cut he picked up against Tottenham.
Amaury Bischoff, who scored for Portugal U21s this week, has spoken of how Arsene Wenger saved his career. The next few months are crucial to Bischoff: he only signed a one-year deal, and having finally reached something approaching full fitness, he now has to prove he’s worth a contract extension.
Andrey Arshavin, meanwhile, has expressed his desire for new Chelsea boss Guus Hiddink to remain at the helm of the Russian International side. I can’t say I agree: one can hardly imagine Hiddink being particularly helpful when it comes to not over-using one of his rivals’ star players. That said, I do think the Dutchman is a good appointment for Chelsea, and he’ll certainly make the fight for a Champions League place a very tough one.
That’s it for today. More tomorrow after Arsene’s press conference. Doubtless he’ll have plenty to say about the sacking of his pals, Adams and Scolari.
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