Thierry, we didn’t boo you 30 October, 2006

I’m rather shocked today because this article says that we booed our captain Thierry Henry on Saturday. I’m proud as a Gooner that we don’t sink to those levels, you see alot today teams being booed off by their own fans but never have I known Arsenal doing that. Apparently in the 66th minute Rosicky worked hard to get the ball to Henry but then he lost the ball easily, they may have been “aaaaaargh” sounds from the crowd but I could not hear a “boo”. If you were one of those people you should be ashamed really, it’s not going to help anything, ok it is frustrating when Henry is not on top of his game and it seems like he’s not bothered but booing won’t help that. Hopefully it is just a bit of journalistic exaggeration when Russell Kempson said, “boos rained down from the top tiers.”

However, Henry did have a little pop at the Arsenal fans saying their cries of ‘shoot’ are not helping us. He is right, alot of the time at games you hear people screaming ‘shoot’ when we are a ridiculous distance from goal. For example at the weekend Kolo Toure had just passed the centre circle when people were shouting, “SHOOOOOOT!” He responded to this by going for goal, ok it was on target but it was about 45 yards out and had nowhere near as much pace as it would’ve needed to make Howard struggle. I think we started these pleas of “SHOOOT!” when we passed it around the box and indeed inside the box endlessly, then it was right for us to scream ‘shoot’, but not when we are just in the oppositions half. I’m sure for the players it is frustrating because they will be hearing the cries but will know it will be impossible to score from their position. A few weeks ago I think these shouts helped, especially with Alex Hleb who’d find himself set up for a shot on goal but would square it and most of the time, lose possession. So, I think we either need to stop screaming ‘shoot’, or just use it for when we are actually in a shooting position. This is what Titi had to say about it:

“I would die like that, playing that type of football. There are no questions about that, no questions. I don’t know if the fans are frustrated. I keep on hearing them shouting ‘shoot’. “I don’t know what they’re trying to say or trying to do, but I think they’re getting sucked in by what some people are saying. We scored some amazing goals at Reading last week and nobody said ‘shoot’ then. Against Everton, we created the same chances, but the finishing wasn’t what you expect. That’s just the way it is. Fans are fans and like to express the way they feel. That’s the way it is, but as soon as we came back into the game 1-1, we went forward.”

He has always played the sort of football of passing it around beautifully for the perfect goal, he loves it and he is (most of the time) great at it. So he’s right about saying he’ll never stop playing the game like that, I don’t blame him. But we are not telling him to just ‘ave a dig whenever he gets the ball, I think we as Gooners love the style of football we play and fans from other clubs admire it too. It’s just sometimes it doesn’t work out and we have to have a shot more especially in the last few minutes of a game where we’re trying to find a last minute goal. I know Arsenal players and staff have read arsenal blogs in the past, hopefully someone will read my little shitty one somehow and tell Thierry that we didn’t boo him and we love him and especially love his football. I just don’t want our captain to feel that the fans don’t like him and are booing him. Don’t believe everything you read in the papers.

Recently Wenger said he feels the squad needs no more additions in January but I think this might have slipped the medias attention as we’ve been linked with Ahmed Apimah Barusso, Julian Esteban, Chinedu Ogbuke, David Beckham (again) and even Ruud Van Nistelrooy! None of which (apart from the last two which are just ridiculous anyway) I have ever heard of or can spell their name.

Arsene Wenger has said he’s not looking for a contract extension at the moment, on his 10 year anniversary he said that he won’t be here for another decade but would like to stay a bit longer. Here’s what he had to say recently:

“I have no plans to talk about a new contract anytime soon. At the moment I’m happy and first I want to see how far I can take this side. I’m confident I can go very far with the new team I have here. The contract is a really minor problem for me at the moment.”

I’m not bothered about this, we learnt with Henry last year that there is no rush to sign a new deal; Arsene will probably wait until the summer to have a think about this one anyway.

No more real news, only this caught my eye. It’s Ashley Cole talking about how he’s afraid that there might be hurtful chants when he goes over to Spain. Just wait ’till you fucking make the trip to North London you twat

Ok, see ya later, have a good day.