Gunnerblog

See Andrey Arshavin’s stunning solo goal

Add comment March 14th, 2009

Hello all. I’m back. Fantastic win today, and we’re back in the top four.

Andrey Arshavin scored his first goal for the club, and the 100th league goal we’ve scored at the Emirates. I think, frankly, it deserves that honour:

Stunning. Write-up tomorrow.

Gunners hold their nerve on tricky night in Rome

33 comments March 12th, 2009

Roma 1 – 0 Arsenal (Juan 10) (agg 1-1)
Highlights here, Arsene’s reaction here

Thank God for that.  After an incredibly tight second leg, close primarily because of the failure of either side to seize the initiative in the tie, Arsenal qualified for the quarter-final of the Champions League after defeating Roma on penalties.

After some terrible defending allowed Juan to draw the tie level early on, penalties felt somehow inevitable. With our flight to Italy having been delayed by three hours, the game itself seemed destined to drag on for what felt like an even longer period of time.

Still, end it had to, and end it eventually did when Max Tonetto blazed over Roma’s eigth penalty.  Credit must go to our takers – even Eduardo, who missed, showed great courage to step up first after a year out with injury.  But Van Persie, Walcott, Nasri, Denilson, Toure, Sagna, and Diaby all held their nerve in the face of a hostile Roman crowd.

I really have no time for anything more this morning.  I am actually awake at this un-Godly hour (it’s 5am right now) and I have to head off to a work thing.  I’ll be away for a couple of days, but expect to be back to report on the Blackburn match on Sunday.  In the meantime, you can stay up-to-date(ish) over on twitter.

To sign off, a hearty thankyou to our incredible away fans, who were audible over the din of the Italians throughout yesterday’s game, and an even heartier ‘Get Well Soon’ to the unlucky Arsenal fan who fell victim to one of Roma’s despicable Ultras.  Frankly, the rest of Europe ought to thank us for putting a team with such ‘fans’ out of the competition.

Have a good end to your week, folks.

No-one wants to be the odd one out

1 comment March 11th, 2009

Well, Liverpool and Chelsea set the bar last night with two excellent resultsm, meaning 50% of the English contingent have now qualified for the Champions League Quarter-Finals.  Responsibility now falls to Manchester United and our own Arsenal to end the remaining Italian interest in the competition.

Chelsea too travelled to Italy defending a 1-0 lead.  Although Juventus equalised early on, the tie was immediately put beyond them by Michael Essien’s goal, which meant Juve would need three on the night.  With an away goal having such extraordinary valye, it’s unsurprising that Arsene is insisting that we will attack Roma:

“I believe it is down to achieving a good balance between attack and defence.  We always have an offensive attitude, sometimes that’s the best way so you do not come under pressure defensively.”

If I was a horrible sarcy snide little thing, I’d say our attitude was particularly offensive in some of our drab 0-0s this season, and laugh to myself out of sheer smugosity at my punning greatness.  Fortunately for you, I’m lovely, and would never do that.

That said, an away goal really would be invaluable.  I’m quite prepared to say that if we score tonight, we’ll go through.  If not, it might prove a little dicey.

The squad has been announced, and the good news is that Kolo Toure has travelled and is “fit to start”.  I suspect the team that starts could be the same one that faced Roma last time out, with Nicklas Bendtner wide on the left and Nasri playing just off Van Persie.  Unlike in the first leg, however, we’ll have Eduardo and Theo Walcott available from the bench if we need something special late on.

In many ways, I’m less motivated tonight by the prospect of us winning the Champions League (something I consider deeply unlikely) than I am horrified by the idea of being the only English side to go out.  Whilst that would allow us to concentrate on our bid for fourth place, which is a pursuit of the utmost importance, it would be horribly embarrassing – especially considering the manner in which we dominated the first leg.

In other news, after Gunnerblog told you the other day that Havard Nordtveit was in talks about a loan move to Lillestrom, it was yesterday confirmed that Nordtveit has joined the Norwegian side until August.  He will play under former United defender Henning Berg, and will hopefully get the first-team football he needs at this stage in his development.  Some might question the standard of the Norwegian league, but it’s worth remembering that the much-heralded Brede Hangeland was playing there little over a year ago.

I’ll leave you with some happy memories of our last game over in Rome, in November 2002.  There is not a single survivor of that squad in the group who travelled to Italy (albeit a little delayed) last night:

I hope in seven years time (yes, that was SEVEN years ago) I’m showing you highlights of what happens tonight. For good reasons. Come on you Gunners.

Bassong urgently needs to learn how to flirt

1 comment March 10th, 2009

Newcastle’s French defender Sebastien Bassong has revealed he is “interested in” a move to Arsenal.  Thanks for the scoop, Sebastien.  I suppose that what we’ll have to do now is sit back and wait to see if that interest becomes formalised.  Perhaps eventually he’ll declare that he’s made an official offer of himself to the club – one that we simply can’t refuse.  Or perhaps he’ll stay at Newcastle, be relegated, and fade into obscurity.  Who can say.

Honestly, this kind of talk from players astounds me.  Imagine if in my current place of work I walked around wearing a sandwich board declaring my “interest” in working for a competitor.  Not only would I infuriate my current bosses, but I imaging that competitor might find themself asking some questions too.  And that’s without even mentioning how stupid I’d look.

It’s just trying too hard.  It’s too keen.  It’s like sending multiple texts without reply to someone you fancy.  Or having too much gel in your hair.  It is often said of footballers that they’re “flirting” with clubs.  Bassong isn’t flirting – he’s standing on a street corner with his trousers round his ankles screaming “Come and get me boys!”

He needs to up his game.  And, remarkably for a Newcastle defender, I don’t neccessariy mean on the pitch.

Perhaps he could learn a little from Emmanuel Adebayor, who is not only a player in the footballing sense, juggling (or so he claims) the affections of both Barcelona and Milan.  The fact our squad now contains Arshavin, Eduardo, and Walcott places Adebayor’s first-team place under the greatest level of threat since Thierry Henry left the club.  At some point in the next seven days I’ll be putting a piece together on Ade’s potential departure.  Needless to say, at the moment it looks an increasingly real possibility.

Roma preview tomorrow.

Midget gems run riot for on-Song Arsenal

352 comments March 9th, 2009

Arsenal 3 – 0 Burnley (Vela 24, Eduardo 51, Eboue 84)
Highlights here, Arsene’s reaction here

Occasionally, Arsene Wenger picks a side that serves only to exacerbate a healthy pre-game appetite to the point that it becomes full-blown hunger. By the time 1.30pm rolled around yesterday, I was positively salivating at the prospect of seeing Andrey Arshavin, Carlos Vela, and Eduardo da Silva in the same line-up.
Well, all that amylase was not secreted without just cause: the trio were terrific, and far too good for a spirited Burnley defence. After spending much of the season watching a frontline containing the comparatively oafish Adebayor and Bendtner, or awaiting the completion of the gigantic turning circle of the undoubtedly talented Robin van Persie , seeing these gnomish* figures zipping about the final third was enthralling.

It was like a footballing flea circus, and the ringmaster came in the surprising shape of Alex Song. The oft-maligned, occasionally mal-aligned midfielder was everywhere – crunching tackles at one end, and perceptive passes at the other.

However, it was the miniature Mexican, Carlos Vela, who opened the scoring. The ball broke to Arshavin just inside the Burnley half, and he played in Vela, who held his run just long enough to allow him to nutmeg Clarke Carlisle and race through on goal, where he was confronted with the rotund figure of Brian Jensen, whom Burnley fans have apparently nick-named “The Beast”. Julio Baptista famously earned that nickname because of his capacity to terrify opposition defenders. Jensen appears to have been awarded the moniker on account of his ability to consume an arresting number of pies in an extremely short space of time.
Vela, clever lad that he is, improvised. When you can’t go round a goalkeeper (for doing so would take longer than the allotted 45 minutes in the half), you go over him – and Vela did just that, with a delicious chip. He’s turning out to be a very chippy chappy. Inevitably our fans will come up with some ingenius and apt nickname for him. Like “Chip”.

It was in the second half that the Song crescendo truly occurred, with two assists to his name. The first was a beautifully clipped ball over the defence, which dropped towards the unmarked Eduardo. The striker is regarded by some as the best finisher the Premier League has to offer, and not since Ashley Cole was arrested for being drunk and disorderly has a reputation been so justified as when Eduardo produced this breathtaking effort, flicking the ball straight into the top corner off the outside of the ankle that he broke so badly little over a year ago. What a way to cap a day for which he’d been awarded the armband.

Arsene Wenger must have felt very satisfied sat on the sidelines. However, perhaps not even he could have envisaged that the third goal would represent the apotheosis of his faith in Song and Eboue – the former backheeling for the latter to fire home.

Were my glass half empty, I would say that this was only one game against a Championship team. However, seeing as I’ve taken more than one swig from it and it still appears to be at least half-full, I’ll say instead that I hope the likes of Song and Eboue can carry this form forward into the rest of the season.
The day got even better, with Theo Walcott coming on for a cameo and his first appearance since November. We’re assembling a collection of midget gems upfront that’d give that’d give sweet manufacturer Lions a run for their money, with Walcott joining Vela, Eduardo, Arshavin, and even Nasri in our stable of vertically challenged but outrageously talented schemers. The future looks small, and not only because we’re looking at it from a distance.

Now we move on to a Quarter-Final against Hull, where victory could see us move on to face Chelsea in the semi-final at Wembley. It’d be a tough game, but having had a fairly kind draw so far, we can’t really complain.

Yesterday was thoroughly enjoyable, despite the murky weather. I don’t expect Wednesday’s game in Rome to be anything like as one-sided. More on that in the coming days.

*I had to use gnomish to avoid ‘gnomic’. Arshavin, Vela, and Eduardo are many things, but I’m not sure that they’re either epigrammatic or cryptic.