Ashburton Grove now ‘officially’ opened, but not by the Queen… 27 October, 2006

Yep, all those games that you thought had happened at our new ground didn’t actually mean anything because the stadium wasn’t even open yet. However yesterday our new ground was finally opened by the Duke of Edinburgh. The Queen was meant to be doing the opening yesterday but she picked up a back injury and is going to be out of action for a few weeks, luckily The Duke was able to slot right in…

Enough of that, really is quite a silly story. I mean if we did the officially opening before we’d played any games then okay, or even if it was after DB10′s testimonial, but now is just a stupid time to do it really, oh well. As you probably know I’ve been away for a few days and there’s been quite alot of news. I’ll start with the 2-0 win over WBA in the Carling Cup. I was surprised at the strength of the side and Wenger confirmed that he wants to do well this year which is nice, in the last couple of years the bigger teams have started to take this cup more seriously as Chelsea are making it very difficult to snatch the Premiership off them. It was a strong line-up but it was Aliadiere who stole the show, he bagged a goal in each half to take us through to the next round where we face Everton.

We risked it a bit with fielding a strong team and we were punished for that and now Adebayor will be out for three weeks after picking up a thigh injury after just 25 minutes. This isn’t a huge blow for us as Van Persie can fit in as the 2nd striker to Henry. However it does mean we’re a little tight for options up front and maybe after an impressive performance Aliadiere will be the back up striker on the bench. The 23 year old hasn’t had the best luck at Arsenal, when he joined all those seasons ago he looked like a great prospect but he never really developed as he should’ve. This was mainly to do with many injuries in his time at Arsenal and he spent alot of time out on loan at different clubs including one at Celtic, which lasted about a week. He does seem to be better this season than he was before but still he’s going to have to do very well to break into the team, a good performance mid-week and this injury to Adebayor might be exactly what the Frenchman needs. He feels he has a future here but I still think he’ll look for a permanent move to a smaller club in the summer.

Before I left for Scotland I mentioned that Toure might be signing a long-term deal at the club and he has, it hasn’t been confirmed yet how long the new deal is, all we’re told is it’s ‘long term’. This is more great news for the club, the past couple of weeks have been great for an Arsenal fan (apart from Moscow…) and hopefully things continue to be good for us. Ooh to, ooh to be, ooh to be a GOONA!

The only bad piece of news that came out whilst I was away was that Wenger will not be buying the January transfer window. This summer was very frustrating will the lack of signings but Arsene made up for it on the last day with the arrival of Baptista, Denilson and Gallas. I still feel there was room for one or two more in January but I’ll stand by Wenger.

And finally Thierry Henry has said Ashburton Grove feels like home now. The new ground changed from something new and exiting to a ‘home’ for me a few games ago, Titi says the first couple of games were a bit strange but everything feels right now:

“At the very beginning it was a bit difficult because we all miss Highbury, even people who don’t support Arsenal or don’t play for Arsenal knew it was special. On the other side, you can see it’s an amazing setting here. The pitch is great, the stadium is great. The first two games were difficult for me, now it seems like we have a home.”

We’ve done well at home recently and hopefully we can continue that form tomorrow as we face Everton, a match preview of the game tomorrow, I think that’s enough typing for today…Thanks for reading. Have a good Friday.