Sunday is not a game of two giants; it’s a game of two titans. But the tale of the two titans were hugely in contrast at the beginning of the season; Liverpool were regarded to win the title, and Arsenal were regarded to finish 5th. But at the moment the reverse is happening. If Arsenal lose, momentum is lost and it could change our season. If Liverpool lose, Rafa will be a step closer to losing his job, although he is very far from doing so at the moment.
Torres is back. Those 3 words are what the Arsenal back line should have feared, but are not fearing. Why? Because the Arsenal back line have come off a clean sheet. Arsenal would have taken 4-0 rather than 7-1 against Slavia… why? Because of the clean sheet. A clean sheet brings confidence to the back line and helps gel the defence more efficiently. A clean sheet going into Liverpool on Sunday brings calmness to the defence and Almunia. It reassures us, that even if we play badly, we have the personnel to keep a good clean sheet. This is a great asset to have.
Arsène Wenger was right. After the departure of Titi, he has trusted the group, the young players. What has changed this year is drive, collective desire, and fighting spirit.
Thierry wanted success instantly, Gallas understands this might not happen but is making the most of our exceptional run of form. Arsenal had enough of being written off. Arsenal had enough of being classed as poor, and when Henry left they wanted to prove a point. The point has been partially proven, but we need to capitalise on this great run of form to prove a point to the tossers who write in the newspapers.
On another note, Jens said Wenger is humiliating him. However, Jens is humuliating himself. He needs to shut up and work hard. Wenger likes players who don’t complain, the track record proves it; Aliadiere didn’t complain thus Wenger kept him for 8 years even though a normal player would have been sold after 4. Almunia didn’t complain and has now been given his chance. Parlour never complained about being bit-part in the team and he turned into an unsung legend.
Jens will be going soon. But one person that has already gone is Martin Jol. Jol left last night before the game with Getafe kicked off. He waited to choose to tell the players after the match, which is fair; if he was sacked before the match Spurs would have lost 4-0. But in the end only ended up losing 2-1. When will Spurs understand that they cannot become successful until they back a manager and keep him at Spurs for 5+ years? When a manager is given backing, no matter how bad the run of form is, it can only get better. When a manager has the board breathing down his kneck, it’s only a matter of time before he gets sacked. Why? Because pressure in football is a colossal force that only results in the downfall of a club.
Jol would have turned it around. He was the manager to take it to the next level. He just needed time. He was given money, but needed time. He also needed the team for himself, not Comolli butting his nose in on who to buy and who to sell. Jol wanted to keep Carrick, but Comolli called Levy and said, ‘I have a player better than Carrick for half Carricks price. Sell Michael, it will not affect us’. The board sold Carrick and bought in Zokora, who was nowhere near the standard of Carrick. They needed Muntari, Appiah, Yaya, someone with great passing ability and great physical presence, not the King of laziness a.k.a Zokora.
To conclude, I came across this picture of Paul Robinson which had me in stitches for around 10 straight minutes, hope you enjoy it:
All I have to say is… what a F**KIN’ brilliant performance. Walcott, Hleb, Cesc… orgasmic pleasure at its finest. No time to write a detailed review, so here are the goals (sadly without the first, which was f**kin’ ace too).
Good to see Hleb score, and hope the midfielders continue. And Walcott… WTF! Thierry who?
Luckily for Martin it only finished 3-1. Jol lives for another week. Last night I opened a can of Stella Artois, poured it in the pint glass, and relaxed in front of the television. The first half was scrappy, neither team settling down. Then Martins scored a scorcher. A simple long ball from Given went straight to Dawson who fucked it up, and Martins was there to volley it in the net.
Martin Jol is a dead man walking. Let’s not fool ourselves, if Ramos was available Levy would take him in an instant. Spurs need to keep a consistent manager to run the team, not change the manager when things aren’t working. That’s why they should not sack him. That’s why they have been useless for the past decade or so. But they will, and as long as they don’t get Hiddink I will be happy. Why? Because Hiddink will turn them into a top 4 team. Ramos will do nothing. Ramos has been underperforming with Sevilla, however his two consecutive UEFA cup runs have turned him into a ‘world class’ manager… that’s ridiculous. Ramos has walked/been sacked more than I’ve said ‘Debra let’s have an early night tonight darling!’ … which is a lot believe me. But never mind. Spurs are Spurs and I’m here to talk about Arsenal.
But to talk about Arsenal I shall not do yet. I will talk about a crazy, deluded man called Rafa Benitez. With 30 mins to play in the Merseyside derby, Rafa said to himself ‘Gerrard will either a. get sent off b. get sent off, or c. get sent off… so I must take him off’. This is what he done, and luckily for him, it worked. Why? Because the referee was a fecking joke, but I can’t be arsed to talk about refs once again so I’ll leave it for now.
Rafa needs to understand there is a right time to rotate; rotation is good but only at the right time. You rotate when players are either tired, injured or you are going through a tough patch of games so you need players to be at their best. You do not rotate at the beginning of the season when players are playing well and need to gel. Rafa reminds me of what Wenger used to be 2 seasons ago; stubborn. Wenger never changed tactics/made correct substitutions. Now Wenger has changed and everything is clicking for Arsenal. Why? Because people only realise their mistakes in the future. Rafa will keep rotating, but in 2 years time he will look back and say ‘I rotated too much. I was wrong’. Until that day he will keep rotating Crouch, Torres, Kuyt and Voronin, and until that day Liverpool will not win the premier league.
Recently, Gallas has said he’s back in love with football. Well it’s good to hear that, I mean he’s only getting 80 grand a week and playing for one of the best clubs in the world. More to the point, Gallas being happy means Arsenal as a whole are happy. When the cub captain is unhappy, it drags the team down and morale plumits i.e. Vieira was unhappy in his last 2 seasons, hence why we weren’t playing too well, Henry was unhappy, hence why we were diabolical. Gallas has an attitude similar to Henry’s; in fact, they are long lost twins. Both want to win things, and both aren’t scared to voice their opinions. However Gallas is more realistic than Henry. Henry expected us to win something last season and splash the cash; Gallas knows this is not Arsenal’s style, he knows we are young and instead of having a go at the team like Henry done, he is motivating the team by saying:
‘We can win trophies this season’.
Arsenal have a strong unity within our players, a bond that will never break under Wenger. This is the opposite to Chelsea, where Drogba has said he wants to leave, then to everyone’s amusement changed his mind and scored against Boro to seal a good win for them.
Sorry to keep you waiting. But I had to clear things from my brain concerning other clubs before I could talk about Arsenal. Arsenal host Prague tonight, at 4.10pm I rubbed my crystal ball and it showed ‘Arsenal 2-0 Prague… Walcott and Eduardo’. So I guess that’s my prediction. Walcott will start tonight, my gut feeling says so. Slavia will try and stop us playing our beautiful football but Walcott will score in the first half to give us a lead, then Eduardo will double it in the second half. The scoreline doesn’t really matter at the moment, the most important thing is to keep momentum going as it is crucial to get a good run of successful wins on the trot.
Walcott will be immense tonight and Eduardo will play well, so will Almunia in goal. Jens is getting frustrated at not playing, that’s why he will be sold in January. Jens is past it, he will go back to Germany and play for a top German side before retiring a year later. How do I know this? Because I know everything. I said Jose will walk, and he did, I said England will beat France in the rugby, and they did so, I said this season we were going to better without Henry, and so far I’m right. The best thing to do is believe me because my track record proves me to be excellent at predicting. What do I predict will happen at 10.42pm tonight? I think I’ll be sitting at home eating a dominos pizza, half full house and half mighty meaty.
Will my prediction be correct? I think you better tune in over the next couple of days to see if I was right
This weekend was eventful. Very eventful. England lost to South Africa, but winning the World Cup would have truly been undeserved. The Springboks deserved their victory, but we all saw the passion the rugby team give compared to the football team. The country is proud of England for what they showed last night after their embaressing start to the World Cup. They were not at their best, but still managed to get to the final. Was it due to poor opponents, or luck? Both. But England weren’t complaining. I’m not in the mood to debate ‘England vs Rugby’ at the moment, I want to talk about something more important, so I will leave that for my next article.
Wenger has changed. Wenger done something we’ve never seen him do before; he made exceptional tactical subsitutions which changed the game for us. After 60 minutes, Wenger thought to himself, ‘Bolton are here for the taking. They have no manager and we are all over them!’. Then he told Pat Rice, ‘Time to bring Walcott on’. Pat replied, ‘Yes Sir, your wish is my command…. OI THEO GET WARMED UP YOU’RE COMING ON!’. What I just wrote is effectively not true, but something along those lines happened.
Wenger has never been a manager to make effective subsitutions; during the champions league final we had 8 whole minutes to throw the kitchen sink at Barcelona, but we did not. Wenger should have added an extra dimension to our attack and switched from 4-5-1 to 4-4-2. We had nothing to lose. We were a goal down, either two things were going to happen if he changed the tactics a. We would have scored or b. Barcelona would have scored. Losing 3-1 and giving everything to try and grab a goal would have pleased me more than sitting down the packed pub with my friends and seeing the most gruelling 8 minutes of football I’v seen as an Arsenal fan. Those 8 minutes seemed to last forever.
Walcott changed the game yesterday. He came on and we all saw his pace outlined on MOTD. Wenger must be applauded for that, because 1 year ago he would not have made that substitution. He would have sat there and remained stubborn on his tactics, opting to hold out and wait for a goal. This year Wenger has been more brutal then ever; he is dropping players that aren’t performing, he is selling players that are deemed surplus to requirements, and he is buying players to raise the competition levels for starting places.
Wenger reminds me of Oscar Wilde. Wenger has the class and wit of Oscar Wilde. He stood at the AGM meeting and made a remarkable speech without looking at his notes once. He answered all our questions without us needing to ask questions, because he knew what we wanted to hear and delivered it. Football has never seen a manager like Wenger, when he leaves I will cry and sob like a two year old because Wenger has given us the best football anyone has ever seen.
Arsenal compared to last season are a step above. When we miss a chance, we smile. When we mess up a pass, we smile. When we go 1-0 down, we smile. Why? Because we are enjoying our football. Arsenal play best when underdogs. When pressure is on Arsenal, Arsenal find it hard to perform. We were written off this season. We were told we would never win anything until Wenger bought experience. Thank fuck Wenger is in charge and not some idiot who believed all that.
However, all of what I’ve said is irrelavant when compared to my next point. It doesn’t matter how much of a genius Wenger was on Saturday with his substitutions, or how well we played. Arsenal needed a win after their two week international break to keep momentum going. A 1-0 win would have been enough. Why? Because after a break, the most important thing is to pick up where you left off. I said this in my article written just before the international break. I was right.
If Arsenal lost to Bolton, it would have changed our season. Momentum is a strong force which should not be messed with. We have now won 11 in a row in the league, even if we lose our game in hand, we have a 2 point league. That is a brilliant back up to have. I keep saying this, but this year we will win the league. We really will, and when we do, I will take a sip of my fine Chilean wine and laugh at all those who wrote me off.
Until that point, I will sit and write articles as if my life depended on it. Furthermore, you will read them as if you’re life depended on it.
An excellent result at home against Bolton, who have pulled off some decent results against us in the past; while we looked a gear short for a lot of the game, we turned it on in the second half and came away with the points. Kolo Toure scored first, finally netting one of the many free kicks he gets, and then Rosicky wrapped it up after Walcott’s good cross. Theo showed us some good stuff today, and more performances like this one will definitely be a good thing for the future of Arsenal football club.
