Posts filed under '2004-2011'
February 11th, 2008
Arsene Wenger can join David Beckham, Michael Owen, and The Fake Sheikh in the list of people who probably owe Sven Goran Eriksson a beer sometime. The Swede yesterday completed the extraordinary feat of beating Manchester United home and away in his first season as Man City manager.
That’s six points that could prove absolutely vital come the end of the season. As it stands, we’re two points ahead of United, and five in front of Chelsea (who also failed to win yesterday). A win tonight at home to Blackburn would put us in a tremendous position. Still, you wouldn’t know that if you were watching Sky’s coverage of the footy yesterday: perhaps not wanting to draw attention to our fixture being on rival stations Setanta, they barely mentioned us in the title race.
I feel that we’ve been somewhat disrespected by the media over the course of this season. Despite leading the table for the majority of the time, the press have talked a lot of rubbish about our inevitable collapse and United’s impending triumph. Well, United needed a stoppage time equaliser to draw with Spurs last week, before yesterday’s defeat with City.
Meanwhile, with certain sections of the media claiming the African Cup of Nations would decimate our ‘thin squad’, we’ve won our last three league games, scoring nine goals and conceding just one. Hopefully the fact that we seem to be continually written off will only serve to further motivate our squad.
In last night’s ACN Final, Alex Song was withdrawn with an injury just twenty minutes into Cameroon’s defeat. Nevertheless, he deserves praise for an excellent tournament.
It’s hard to predict what kind of team we’ll put out tonight, with up to 11 players injured and Toure and Eboue having barely had a cup of tea since touching down at Heathrow. Hopefully the players will smell blood after United’s defeat, and go all out for the win.
February 10th, 2008
After being rested in the Ivory Coast’s 4-2 defeat to Ghana, Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Eboue return to London today facing the prospect of being plunged straight into action against Blackburn tomorrow night. With injury problems mounting both at centre-back and on the wing, it would be no great surprise to see the Ivorian pair feature.
Alex Song, meanwhile, is set to start in tonight’s final for Cameroon against Egypt. Best of luck to Alex: a win would only increase his confidence on the field, and when you look at his development in recent months, an increasing sense of self-believe seems to go hand-in-hand with improved performances.
There really is nothing else to say. Goodbye.
February 9th, 2008
The last few days have seen two announcements which could change the shape of the Premier League as we know it. The first is the more minor confirmation that from next season, Premier League clubs will be allowed to name up to seven substitutes. Whilst for smaller clubs this probably means increasingly stretched budgets, for bigger clubs it simply allows greater flexibility and makes it easier to keep unsettled squad players happy.
The second proposal, which is still a long way from being confirmed, is that the Premier League may introduce a ridiculous 39th fixture in each season, which will be sold to the highest bidding location. In my opinion, we’d be whoring out our game for a few extra million quid. The rest of Europe would look at us as a laughing stock, and it wouldn’t be long before we had about as much credibility as the Harlem Globetrotters.
Anyway, Arsene is yet to pass proper judgement on a scheme he doesn’t know too much about, which is probably a wise stance to take. However, if you (like me) are strongly opposed to this proposition, there is a petition here.
All of our players are injured. It’s lucky we don’t need to find enough to fill seven substitutes spots (yet).
We don’t play till Monday. I don’t know about you, but I intend on spending the entire weekend twiddling my thumbs.
February 8th, 2008
Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Eboue crashed out of the African Nations last night in a 4-1 defeat for the Ivory Coast against Egypt. Toure in particular put in a less than satisfactory performance, criminally turning his back for the critical fourth goal. Hopefully he’s got all his mistakes out of his system whilst away from the club.
However, neither Toure nor Eboue will be returning to the squad just yet: they have to play out a fairly meaningless 3rd/3th play-off with hosts Ghana on Saturday. It is therefore very unlikely they will be fit and available to face Blackburn on Monday.
Alex Song will take part in Sunday’s final, after a Man of the Match performance in Cameroon’s victory over Ghana. Since being introduced as a half-time susbtitute during Cameroon’s insipid first performance of the tournament, he has gone on to become a vital cog in the side, playing in the holding midfield role. His coach Otto Pfister was moved to say:
“Alex Song – the way he plays is amazing. He is a wonder.”
It’s very good news for the club – the tournament could well prove to be a coming-of-age for the young midfielder. The player we get back next week could be significantly more assured than the one that departed in January.
Finally today, Mathieu Flamini has moved to calm any injury fears, saying he could be available by Monday’s game with Blackburn. Let’s hope so.
February 7th, 2008
There was a time, when the Welshman was banging in goals at West Ham and Wimbledon, when people questioned the wisdom of Arsene Wenger’s decision to let John Hartson go. Now that he has retired aged just 32, citing a lack of desire to go into training, Arsene can feel pretty vindicated by one of the first decisions he made upon arriving at Arsenal.
The photo above shockingly exposes the condition Hartson had allowed himself to get into. The striker, like many sickeningly fat people, blames external factors rather than his own greed and laziness:
“I have been fighting my weight for 12 years. I can’t have a burger without putting on half a stone.”
Never mind that fact that that’s physiologically impossible:
JOHN: YOU’RE A FOOTBALLER – YOU SHOULDN’T BE EATING BURGERS.
One wonders how he managed to continue for this long with an attitude like that. And then one remembers: he played in Scotland.
There isn’t much else news around, because International football is rubbish. Emmanuel Adebayor has been named Arsenal’s Player of the Month for January, taking over 70% of the vote. But more importantly, he’s still Top Gunn.
Today our players will be returning from International duty so Arsene can assess the damage. However bad our injury situation might be, I don’t think Hartson need wait by the phone. See you tomorrow.
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