Archive for November, 2009
November 12th, 2009
Football is on its holidays. There are some items on the official site masquerading as ‘news’: Jack Wilshere might be fit to face Man City next week, and Arsene Wenger will have Man City quaking in their boots after declaring his intention to field ELEVEN PLAYERS against them in the Carling Cup clash:
“If you call a full side 11 top players, then we will play a full side. For me a full side means a team who has a chance to win any game.”
After losing against them at the City of Manchester Stadium earlier this season, fielding any less than eleven players would’ve struck me as a very risky strategy.
Honestly, that’s all I’ve got.
I hate the International break.
November 9th, 2009
Not only has Robin van Persie been chatting about rejecting the dark side, but studs-up.com‘s Chris Toy has produced this cartoon:
Lovely.
There isn’t really any news at all, and we’re right at the start of the dreaded International break.
Just grit your teeth. It’ll be over soon enough.
November 8th, 2009
Wolves 1 – 4 Arsenal (Zubar og 28, Craddock og 36, Fabregas 45, Arshavin 66)
Highlights | Arsene’s reaction
When facing the league’s biggest goalscoring threat, you don’t want to set yourself on the backfoot by scoring an own goal. Or two. Yet that is exactly what Wolves did, throwing away an impressive start with some haphazard defending.
First Ronald Zubar (presumably named after this West End establishment) nudged a Fabregas corner into his own net under pressure from Eduardo. Then the Croatian joined Aaron Ramsey in a two-on-one breakaway. Receiving a pass from the Welshman, Eduardo’s chipped effort on goal looked to be drifting wide before it clipped off Jody Craddock’s head and dropped in to the top corner.
If there had been a degree of fortune about our first two goals, there was nothing lucky about the third. A storming run up the right by Bacary Sagna ended with him crossing towards Van Persie. With Cesc Fabregas rushing into support, Van Persie killed the ball dead with his weak foot, meaning the Catalan barely had to break stride to tuck in his ninth of the season. It was a stunning goal, and the sort of moment that makes you realise why the likes of Cesc and Robin really do love playing in this team.
Our fourth was another smash-and-grab. A corner from the left was punched out, but met immediately by a precision volley from Andrey Arshavin, which nestled neatly in the bottom corner.
Conceding is frustrating, but when it’s the last minute and you’re 4-0 up it’s hard to have too many griped. Craddock, who can’t seem to stop scoring at either end, got away from Vermaelen to plant a header into the top corner.
So another stonking win and we’re up into second place. After Chelsea and United face each other today we’ll not only have a better indication of how strong the competition is, but we’ll also have our game in hand back.
As City and Liverpool fall away, we’re keeping pace. The press and the public are waking up to the idea of this Arsenal side as contenders. Now it’s the job of the players to make sure we keep in it after the forthcoming International break.
November 6th, 2009
Hello ladies and gentlemen. This is what I will classify as a speed blog. I have about ten minutes to get this out then I’ve got to get on to a work enagagement.
I didn’t see the entirety of the Alkmaar game but by all accounts it was a cracking performance. The goals were stunning, and having Nasri join Arshavin, Fabregas and Van Persie for the first time this season obviously galvanised our attacking force. I was particularly pleased to see the Frenchman on the score-sheet – although he faded in the latter part of last season, he still racked up a decent goal tally, and obviously has an eye for the back of the net.
A lot of the talk was about Arshavin, who provided three assists, but for me the stand-out performance looked to have been from Cesc Fabregas, whose two goals took his total for the season to eight in fourteen appearances. To say the 4-3-3 suits him would be an understatement.
Wolves away at the weekend will be a test for this side, who have excelled at home but had the occasional blip on the road. A quick scan of NewsNow yielded a headline which suggested Mick McCarthy wants his boys to attack. I’m sure Arsene Wenger’s response would be, “Feel free”. I’m not convinced by any of their forwards, but I am absolutely certain of our ability to do damage on the break.
As I’m sure you all know, Stan Kroenke has bought enough shares that he now sits at the 29.9% precipice. His steady accumulation of shares has a bit like one of those slot machines you get at arcades where you keep inserting 2ps, each time expecting the next one to be the catalyst to all the coins tumbling down, whilst instead they just keep piling up, making the situation ever more frustratingly precarious.
Kroenke Sports Enterprises will, I’m sure, one day own most (if not all) of Arsenal Football Club. I don’t, however, expect that to happen in the immediate future.
November 4th, 2009
It’s been a mad seven days. After the North London Derby and the launch of TwoHalves, I then had just a couple of days to finish another non-football related work project. Thankfully, it’s now all done, and the only price I’ve paid is my health – I’m lying in bed, feverish and somewhat grumpy.
The derby itself was a fantastic day for Arsenal fans. There’s no point me writing up the game now – you’ve all digested it elsewhere. My broad thought about the match was that we encountered a Spurs team without several of their best players – Modric, Lennon and Defoe – and whose threat was nullified by the selection of Peter Crouch, which encouraged them to play an ineffective long ball game. Vermaelen and Gallas were both outstanding and made sure that Crouch’s impact was minimal.Â
That said, we were comfortably the better side and kept up our fantastic record in derby games. With Liverpool and City stuttering, there’s just the slightest sense of a breakaway by Arsenal, Chelsea and United. Whatever you might feel about the latter two, we’re keeping fairly illustrious company, and so can be pleased with our start to the league campaign.
As I mentioned, Saturday also saw the birth of TwoHalves, and whilst the day itself was fairly hectic it was also incredibly rewarding. Following the link will furnish you with a pdf printout of the paper or, should you wish, contact details to get your own sent out by post.
Since I last saw you there’s been some unfortunate injury news: Nicklas Bendtner could miss a month, while Gael Clichy is expected to be out for at least that if not longer with another back injury.
Perhaps surprisingly, I consider the loss of Bendtner to be the bigger blow. Whilst Kieran Gibbs represents a natural replacement for Clichy, we do not have another forward with the physical presence of Bendtner. Deploying him on the flank gives us an early out-ball as well as a threat at set pieces. That said, we still have plenty of options for that position, even with Theo Walcott out: perhaps one of Eduardo, Eboue, Vela or even Wilshere will take the opportunity to shine.
Tonight we face AZ Alkmaar in the Champions League. Doubtless Ronald Koeman will set out to frustrate us again, but I suspect we may have too much for the Dutch champions. We should have beaten them in the away tie, and will be keen to set things right tonight. I fancy Eduardo to start and score.
It’s nice to be back on the blog. It’s going to be busy here over the next few weeks. I can’t wait.
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