Valencia Inflict First Loss & New Designs for Ashburton Grove 9 August, 2009
Posted by lasagnechef in Arsenal News.trackback
Last night we traveled to Valencia to for our trickiest and final pre-season friendly. Unfortunately we lost 2-0 with goals coming from Michel and Villa. I must admit, I didn’t watch too much of the game. I got home from work about 25 mins in and then when I did start to watch, the connection wasn’t very good and couldn’t see much on that tiny Arsenal TV Online screen – They should really sort that out, if they want to go on and on about their game coverage it should actually be a decent quality and then people might use it more.
Not only that, the Arsenal.com match reporting is awful. First off they reported the score as 4-0 to Valencia. I remember they got the score wrong a few weeks ago on our Austria tour too, it’s just the sort of thing you don’t do. Also they say that Fabianski saved a David Villa penalty midway through the first half despite also saying he came on for Almunia at half time…
I makes it even harder trying to report on a game I didn’t get the best coverage of. Arsenal.com, sort it out.
Anyway so yeah I didn’t get to see much of the game but I did pick up bits. Fabianski’s penalty save, whatever half they think it was, is good for his confidence but unfortunately we couldn’t keep the clean sheet for Lukasz. The first goal came from a free kick out on the right, it was put in low to a busy box and after a couple of touches it fell at the feet of Michel who smacked it inside the post. A lucky goal, the ball could’ve gone to anyone but you could argue that we should’ve cleared it first or thrown a body in front of the shot.
The second goal came right at the end. David Villa broke down towards are goal and despite being forced into shooting from an angle he calmly put it through Fabianski’s legs. Lukasz didn’t seem to be in much comfort though, it looked like he tweaked his hamstring minutes before and was just hanging in until the final whistle.
Oh and another dig at the official website, where’s the post-match interviews/transcripts? Nowhere yet anyway. So I can’t tell you how Fabianski is doing, if we got any other injuries or anything.
I hope no one is getting worked up by the result. Ok, we lost yeah but it’s only a friendly. We made a whole load of substitutions giving the whole squad a run out. The game was more about getting us ready than getting the result. We might even take a positive from losing, to lose any game isn’t nice for a player and the team should pull together and stop it happening again. Safe to say if this was a Champions League game it would’ve gone a lot differently.
Ok moving on and there’s been some images of Ashburton Grove artwork leaked. You know outside the stadium that big, gray concrete area behind the Arsenal badges and Emirates logos? Well we’re going to sorting that out in the new future with this new mural. If you click this link you can download the images that Arsenal sent to Islington Council for approval, including a mock up of the design actually on the side of the stadium. I guess I like it, it’s better than a big slab on concrete and it’ll take the attention away from the big Emirates logo.
I’ll wait until it’s actually up before I start thinking what it looks like. Apparently it’s all been approved so we could see it up in time for the Portsmouth, but you know what they’re like it’ll probably be around Christmas…
I’ve only got a couple of initial queries – where is Dennis Bergkamp? And what are those two guys on the end doing to Cliff Bastin and Thierry Henry?
And finally today, Theo Walcott’s been talking about how we must learn to grind out results and play a bit dirtier. He is right; we have in recent years been know sometimes as a team you can kick and bully and nick a result off. We have to dish some of that back and not take any shit.
That’s it for today then. This time next week we will have played our first game of the season. Who’s excited?
if you double click on the screen it enlarges
why is the banner on this site blue? new away kit is bad enough, we don’t need to see it on arsenal blogs too!
I’m not actually sure to be honest haha…
Living in Spain, I travelled to watch the Valencia game, my first time watching the Arse live for 17 years! Boy was I excited, really looking forward to watching Arshavin for starters.
To say I was disapointed in our performance would be an understatement.
Our first half team was pretty near our possible starting line up for next week but we never got in the game, Arshavin was a disapointment and shots were far and few between. All this before Villa got on the pitch. And Bendtner on the wing constantly, whats that all about?
Our second half team started brightly nice pass and move but soon faded as it was obvious the defence were crap. Wilshere finally proved why Wenger must pick and choose his games carefully, he looked out of his depth.
Hard to choose any good Arsenal performances other than Cesc who was below his normal high standards, but I was reasonably impressed with Traore, Ramsey, and Fabianski whilst Eduardo showed flashes early on.
@Ken Cross:
Before you start whining about how disappointed you were in our performance, please explain why you haven’t seen the Arsenal live in 17 years yet still claim to be a supporter? Spain is not that far from the UK and I believe the recent invention of the airplane has made the journey rather quick and affordable. Some of us live much farther afield than continental Europe and still make it “home” for at least one or two games a season. And it was a pre-season run-around in (what looked like on TV) very difficult conditions. Most important thing was to leave Valencia with no major injuries.
Someone else picked up on the messed up post match report then.
I had already posted something and didn’t realise it was wrong until a few hours later when I realised everywhere else was reporting it to be 2-0.
And Theo you MUST learn to fucking cross the ball instead of hitting it into the crowd and practice your fucking finishing
just because you attend the games does not make you anymore a true supporter than somebody who has arsenal red running through their blood , but doesnt live anywhere near london or due to work/cost cannot attend many home games, as roy keane(although not my favourite person/player) once said there are numerous people at prem games now that are just part of the prawn sandwich brigade, and are not geniune fans. i.e 10% of the crowd for every emirates stadium home match!!!
very true.
dont cyr no use arsenasl unless add squad
u kn wat we need 2 more players or els we r noting and i love my arsenal so much b4 i go 2 sleep i chick wat is the news and wen i wake up pace
looks a bit like a soviet promo banner. ao wheres Stalin in the line up?
garyf, more like 90% football died the day they took away the terraces and replaced with seats, for ALL clubs and priced out the hardcore fans and generally with stewards the PC brigade replaced them with£££ note tools(mugs) i’m more a fan than any one c@Nt thatgoes today and haven’t been to a game for over 5 years. was there when we were shit in the early eighties home and away! but the comaraderie between proper fans in those days is why i will never go to another game again in these times! i would probably smack about 50 of our ‘so called fans’ i live about 6 miles from highbury so distance or cost is not a reason either!
all you brain washed by sky/media/talk shit radio ex players selling there souls to slag our GREAT CLUB for a grand a time , should all chill out ffs, the season aint even started yet and most are moaning like bitches already!!
Don’t knock the supporters who do show up to games. You can call yourself more of a fan than anyone who goes to a game but that simply ain’t true if you haven’t gone in 5 years. You have your own demons to deal with as to why you’ve stayed away. Yes I agree it ain’t like it was with the terraces and I was there then, but that doesn’t mean we throw in the towel. I’m now stuck in California, yet make it to a few games a year home and away, including Dynamo Kiev away last year. Where were our so called fans at that game? I was shocked that the only Arsenal fans there were the Belarussian fan club singing their own weird Arsenal songs. I can’t believe our so-called hard core North London support shun away games like that.
@ lunatic asylum, your feelings are exactly the same as mine when it comes to our so called “fans” at the moment. i may be only 25 but i can still remember when we had a midfield with the likes of hillier/jensen/mcgoldrick…….yet these fools moan about losing a pre season friendly away from home to one of the top 25 teams in the world.
there was a skit in the fast show once about a bandwagon arsenal fan….that skit has actually become a reality.