Sadly I’ve been slacking; haven’t made a post on this website for quite some while as I’d been busy with a few other things. I’m back now, and will make it short & sweet; the only purpose of this post is to gloat. Everyone knows Arsenal fans are cocky bastards; after going unbeaten when everyone wrote you off, there are few things we won’t be cocky about (the Champions League being one of them, but don’t worry; we’ll win it this year :lol:)
The more games I see this team play, the more I feel that we are going to win the league; it’s been four barren years and it has definitely hurt, especially with all the Utd, Chelsea and deluded Scouser pricks getting in their say in the deepest, darkest moments of the season before and the one preceding it; when we were at one of the lowest moments (in the league, at least) during the Wenger era and even had to suffer the ignominy of competing with Spurs (until they fucked it up, of course) till the last day of the 2005/06 season.
This year though, you can see great things ahead; Flamini has rose from a headless chicken to one of the best defensive midfielders around; the wastefulness of Hleb last year is contrasted with weaving footwork and killer passes this; the unluckiness of Cesc Fabregas last year followed up with the spate of goals; the injuries of William Gallas made up for with a genuine desire to take us to the top (and a couple of late goals, of course).
I could go on forever about individual players, but I won’t; the team as a whole has improved so much so that is is unbelievable. Yes, you see the frustrating football at times, but that is Arsenal, andnothing else will do; the eye-of-a-needle stuff has been complemented by a willingness to scrap for the points, and avoid defeat no matter what- see the late equaliser at United for at example of that.
What has surprised most Gooners is the making of Gallas as captain; whilst many thought, me included that he would not be up to it he has surprised all of us with his tenacity and sheer will to win. Wenger has been proven right to take that decision, just as he has been proven right countless times in the past; a victory in the league this year will see him hopefully being proven right countless times in the future as well. The one thing I’d say the manager was mistaken with was the reluctance to get in a winger during the summer; Eboue has failed to impress there, while Theo is still learning. Whilst he has said he is not currently considering anyone in the January transfer window, one hopes that we do get in someone who can cross the ball; we have been getting more players than ever before in the penalty box in recent times, and it would be a shame to let that go to waste.
For all those that haven’t seen yesterday’s goals yet take a look; the first one was pretty decent; the second had glimpses of the glorious counter attacking football played by the Invincibles in it. Nicky Bendtner was heavily involved in both, and surely must get more chances in the coming weeks; he is emerging to be every bit as good as he was hyped up to be, and while it is early in his career, I see great things ahead. As for Eduardo, a pretty lifeless cameo to be honest, but once he transfers his international form to the Premier League (and he will need time to do so, but I have no doubt that he will) we are in for a treat - and a big one at that. Enjoy the goals!
Decent result; we struggled at times, but pulled it off in the end. The game was tight and nervy until Flamini got a goal minutes before half time; after that it was fairly comfortable as Adebayor and Hleb notched decent goals; the Togonian also had one wrongly ruled out for offside. The two goal win of course takes us to the top of the league, where we will hopefully stay.
Italian football is a shambles. Teams are corrupt, fans are out of control and police have no authority at football matches. The problems in Italian football have been covered up by Italy winning the world cup and Milan winning the champions league. If Italy didn’t win the World Cup in 2006 and Milan didn’t win the champions league against Liverpool, Italian football would have been fucked. Fucked to the point where it should have been banned for months after the corruption between the Seria A teams a couple of years ago. But we’ll see what action is taken over the innocent shooting earlier today.
Moving on, Arsenal are playing tomorrow night. I predicted a tought game for us, but I’m sure we can win. We need some class, we need some strength and we need Adebayor to start scoring again. He was immense at the start of the season but his confidence has decreased over the past month or so. But Wenger will change things at Reading. He will bring back Rosicky and Toure, while Senderos is not fit enough to return even though he is not injured anymore. Expect a strong team with Theo coming off the bench.
So is there much else to talk about? No. But I will talk. I will talk as if my heart is attached to a life support machine and everytime I stop typing the machine slows down. So let’s talk. What about? I want to talk about Blackburn. Blackburn under Hughes have turned into a hard working, powerful and effective team. Hughes bought Samba for under £500,000, he turned Pederson into what he is now and he bought McCarthy for £2.5m. McCarthy is exceptional; every summer he literally begged the English teams to buy him from Porto but teams did not. Man City spent £7.5m on Samaras when they could have attracted McCarthy.
I like Hughes, he is a winner and he is tactically good. He has an eye for talent like Wenger, and talk is rife that he will take over a big team after Blackburn, aka Man Utd. I can see this happening, and if he takes over Arsenal when Wenger leaves, I will be happy. I will be happy because he will not spend ridiculous amounts on players, he will not ruin the tradition Wenger has built at Arsenal. He will be cautious and I like cautious people. I went into Ladbrokes on Friday and was standing next to an Iranian man who put £400 into the roulette machine, he put the money on numbers, all apart from 23. Guess what number came up. Yes, it was 23. £400 down the drain. He muttered, ‘Fecking machine, I’ve lost 400 on this one and 500 on the other one in the space of 2 hours’. He was not cautious, he did not show careful forethought.
Wenger is cautious. Hughes is cautious. Will Hughes take over from Wenger? Maybe. Maybe not. I have a soft spot for Scolari because he’s been successful for pretty much every team he’s managed. But it’s too early to talk about life after Wenger.
Tomorrow, we shall see whether Arsenal can overtake United and take top spot off them once again. Going into December - where we have 7 games altogether in a space of 4 weeks - top spot is the best position to be in. If we can come out of December still top, our chances of winning the league will increase to 80%; at the moment it is 60%. Christmas is when the average and the good are distinguished.
Arsenal have changed. Before this season, Man Utd scoring in the 82nd minute would have seen them win the match. This season it’s different. This is down to Wenger motivating the team. In the past couple of years when the opposition took the lead, Arsenal would not be able to fight back. The classic example is Barcelona, we had 8 whole minutes to turn the game around but we did not. Todays team and tactics would have scored an equaliser against Barcelona in May 2005. We have changed our tactics thus when teams take the lead like Man Utd done so today, we can attack them through a number of ways.
Wenger is motivating players to perform even when we are losing. We are coming from behind and scoring goals. We still need Adebayor to be more consistent, however it takes time. Arsene has a special bond with the team, he is like a father figure to the players; he picks out the players he wants from an early age and nurtures them. Arsenal used to put their heads down when we went a goal down, fans used to shout ‘NOT AGAIN’ when the opposition scored, but now it’s changed. We can score, we can come back and we can play until the 90th minute knowing we are still in the game. Man Utd have played like this for years under Fergie, of course the perfect example being Fulham away last season when they were shit for 80 minutes, then Ronaldo pops up and wins the game for them. An even better example is 99′ Camp Nou where they won the game against Munich in the last 2 minutes.
Arsenal are only starting to do this. But the positive is that at least we are doing it. We have got two games against two top teams in two weeks. It’s good. It’s very good. Utd were lucky to get 2 goals today, they take 85% of their chances while we take 65% of our chances. It ended up feeling like a victory as we went a goal behind twice. Rooney was quite good, but not good enough. Evra was diabolical and Fergie was worried he was going to get sent off. In fact, if Evra hacked Toure the way he done so (just minutes after he took Hleb out to get his first booking) in the second half he would have got sent off with a second yellow. However, it was early in the game and Howard Webb didn’t take the challenge seriously.
Fergie preferred Giggs to Nani today, this was the correct decision. Giggs against Arsenal always performs well; his pace and experience gives him an upperhand over our team. He has been around for donkeys years and knows the big games inside out. Man Utd were nowhere to be seen in the first half, however once again Almunia was beaten at his near post. This is not a dig at Almunia, I’m a big fan of his. However, in the Champions League final he was beaten twice at his near post, and once again he was today. When the opposition cross the ball/run from the wings, Almunia is always caught flat footed and falls to the floor after the ball is in the net. This is ridiculous. If I was Wenger, I’d take him aside and work on Almunia’s sharpness to respond to bottom corner shots. Almunia has improved since his first year at Arsenal, but there is plenty of room for improving.
Where we good today? Very. This was the first Arsenal-Man Utd clash that made me excited after years, why? Because the passion was lost. When Vieira, Keane, Henry and RVN left, there was nothing there. Now we are back on form it means something to us. I went to The Gunners pub on Blackstock Road, it was excellent. The atmosphere was superb, we were singing songs and telling Ferguson to ‘FECK OFF!’ at every opportunity.
Clichy kept Ronaldo quiet throughout the game, Fabregas was good, Eboue was eccentric and Hleb was skillful. I was listening to FiveLive before the game and the presentor said he was talking to John Barnes last season and asked John who was the best player in the league. John replied with ‘Alexander Hleb’. This was last season. Therefore, this makes him the best player in the league by a mile at the moment as he’s improved immensely. I’m not debating whether John Barnes is correct, but it shows Hleb is attracting worthy praise.
Fact is, Arsenal are 24 games unbeaten in all competitions, beating our previous record. The signs are looking good and it looks like we are back on form. This will be a special team and we all know it.
Tonight, Calzaghe will fight Kessler. I was watching SSN and it all kicked off between Enzo and Kesslers trainer at the weigh in, Calzaghe got up close to Kessler and ran his mouth, Kesslers trainer didn’t like that and got in the way. Enzo was pissed off that Kessler weighed over the limit so let Kesslers trainer know about it. Kessler was twice as ripped as Joe, it was impressive. However, Calzaghe will win tonight. Calzaghe cannot lose. He will never lose. Joe is like a machine, something boxing has never seen before. He throws 1000 punches in a fight, and anyone who throws that amount of punches will win any fight. I predict Calzaghe to win but it will go 12 rounds. Calzaghe is the perfect fighter. However he does not have the final power punch to knock out his opponents (like Jeff Lacy’s right or Foremans right hook). Therefore I lied. Calzaghe is not the perfect fighter, he is the near perfect fighter. We’ll leave it at that.
All of you know what game is coming up on the weekend; if you don’t, sorry but you don’t care about the club enough. This weekend sees the clash people look for every single season- Manchester United vs Arsenal. Fergie vs Wenger, Fabregas vs Rooney, Adebayor vs Ferdinand; there are a lot of contests to be played all over the pitch, and if we come out the better in most of them we will win the game. I don’t have the time to go in depth for this; you can read my detailed analysis of the pre-game talk here but I’m sure it will be a cracking game, like most of the ones between the sides are. Up the arse!
Nice, detailed statistics for all the geeks stattos out there:
