Entries Tagged 'General' ↓

 

Firstly, at 10.42pm last night I ordered a small half mighty half full house pizza from Dominos. You are probably thinking ‘What the hell is he on about this time?!’. Well, I’m am the ultimate predictor. Yes yes I know, but I really am. I predicted Jose walking, I predicted England to beat France in the World Cup when everyone was writing England off, I predicted Arsenal to be better this season without Henry and so far I am correct. Then I predicted what I was going to do at 10.42pm last night; eat a Dominos pizza. And so I did.

Back to the real world… need I talk much about Arsenal? Not really. But I shall. ITV4’s presenter summed it all up in one line after the 5th goal by Fabregas:

‘This is perfect football from Arsenal. What an excellent display we have had tonight’

He was right. It was perfect football. Everything was clicking; Walcott’s pace, Hleb’s skills, Fabregas’ inch perfect passing, Almunia’s calmness, Sagna’s physical presence, Gallas commanding the back line. It all worked, it was like Pavarotti singing Nessun Dorma at the Opera; it was smooth and classy. Nessun Dorma translates to ‘Nobody Shall Sleep’, and last night nobody at the Emirates was bored thus didn’t fall asleep.

Jens is becoming ever more frustrated with Wenger. Jens will be sold soon. Whether it’s January or July, it does not matter. Jens will be sold; he will go back to Germany and then retire after a year. But it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter because we have Fabianski who in 4 years time will be as good as Cech. At the moment Almunia is getting his chance and fair play to him. I always backed Almunia, on Goonersweb I said he will shine once given a chance. He buckles on the big stage, but he will learn to handle the pressure once he gets big games under his belt. 

A keeper should be judged on his ability to save shots when not called upon for large amounts of a match. The perfect example is Cech; in 2005, Chelsea’s defence were the best around. Cech was not called upon for 80 minutes of most of their matches, then in the 85th minute, would save a header that was going in the bottom corner. That is the sign of a world class keeper, a keeper that can barely be called upon for 80 minutes of a match but is still able to save a good shot after 80 minutes. Almunia done that last night. Twice late on, Slavia had the chance to get a goal. Both shots were world class, and both saves were world class. I’m not saying Almunia is world class. I’m saying his saves were world class. Make of that what you will.

So Arsenal play Liverpool on Sunday, who lost to Besiktas tonight. Momentum is with us, and on paper we should easily win, however it will be a hard game. Gerrard will be eager to stop the humiliation Liverpool are suffering at the moment. I predict a draw, but at the beginning of the season I would have taken a draw, and so would every person reading this blog but you just won’t admit it.

Meanwhile, Saw 4 is coming out soon. Saw 4 is the most entertaining film I’ve ever watched. It’s logical, and I like logical films. At first glance it looks like a blood filled film with no real meaning behind it, however the morals behind the storyline are exceptional. The producers use horror to emphasise the importance of appreciating life. ‘If you don’t appreciate life, you do not deserve to live’. Jigsaw is right. At the risk of sounding like someone who works for the Saw PR department, I can easily say it’s one of the best films I’ve ever watched. The best however is Shawshank Redemption, which was rated the 2nd best film ever. If you have seen neither of the films, then get off my site and be ashamed of yourself. Never come back and never read my articles again… actually scrap that, read my next one then bugger off

I’ll leave it at that.

Ramin

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

Ramin

Hence why France will buckle under pressure and lose by 3 points tonight and England will sail through to the next round of the Rugby World Cup. On another note, England beat Estonia comfortably today. Owen and Rooney looked good, Gerrard and Barry were sound together, they knew exactly how to play with each other and when to cover for each other. But I’ve had enough of speaking about ‘England this and England that’, so we’ll leave that for now.

 

Betting firms such as Ladbrokes have made a fortune out of customers betting because guessing a scoreline is now unpredictable. Football has changed; teams are motivating themelves to win every game nowadays, when Sam Allardyce first started his reign at Bolton, he would have said ‘Let’s try and grab a point against the top 4 teams’. 10 years on he was saying ‘We <must beat the top 4. We can beat them’. Smaller teams, respectively, have also become unpredictable. Millwall, who 3 years ago found themselves playing Man Utd in the F.A cup final, went into todays game at the bottom of league 1. Who would have thought it? Certainly not me.

Joe Calzaghe, the best British boxer ever, fought Jeff ‘Hardman’ Lacy in March 2006. Lacy strutted into every press conference confidently taunting Joe saying he will beat him inside 6 rounds. The bookies had Joe at a shocking 6/1 to beat Lazy Lacy. Nevertheless, Joe ended up demolishing Lacy, who is still embaressed at the way Joe annihilated him.

But anyway, I want to focus on todays football.

More on todays international match between England and Estonia. England recalled Campbell. This was the right decision. Campbell was not dropped because he was crap, he was dropped because Mclaren wanted to please the media and of course, John Terry had turned into the best defender in the world.

Campbell was ageing, something every player does when they hit early 30’s. Now he’s back he was the same old, assuring Sol we know and love. Sol should have still been in the team as a bit part player, every team needs experienced players and at one point, with Becks, Sol and David James gone,

England lacked this severely. Becks and Sol have come back and changed it all.

France kicked off at 4pm. They did not land in the Faroe islands until 2pm. Their plane was delayed and they had the right to cancel their game until tomorrow, but SSN said they have decided to play the game at 4pm in order to give them enough recovery time for their midweek game against Lithuania. That is excellent committment and spirit by the French national team. To fly on a flight, which will take every bit of energy out of them, then to roughly run 11km on a pitch for 90 minutes, shows how footballers’ bodies are able to cope with excpetional strain. 20 years ago this game would have been certainly called off.

Finally, ArsenalTV is going to be launched in a couple of months with Setanta. This is good news, Arsenal are expanding their potential audience by setting up a TV channel for die hard gooners, or even people randomly flicking through channels. Hypothetically, this should raise significant revenue for Arsenal FC, which makes foreign investment even more attractive for the likes of Stan or Alisher ‘I ate all the pies’ Usmanov. It is only a matter of time before investment occurs, maybe months or years, but it will happen.

Dein will then ring Hill-Wood and hurl abuse at him down the phone in absolute rage; ‘Told you foreign investment would be needed at Arsenal you old twat! Now piss off and leave me and Usmanov to run the club you old fart!’.

Hopefully this won’t happen, because I am 100% against foreign investment in the premier league. But reality is time is ticking and it will probably happen. However until that day, we will stand together and embrace a team Monsieur Wenger has made with a limited amount of money.

Ramin