Newcastle thoughts, Bergkamp new Ajax assistant & 2011/12 Home Shirt Photo 8 February, 2011

Well Saturday’s game was interesting wasn’t it? Quite a bizarre game of football and one that you might never see again – two teams scoring four goals in separate halves. It meant we were on the losing drawing end of a four-goal collapse to a team in the Championship last season.

It’s a bit late to go into it all now, I’m sure you’ve read countless opinions of the referee, the red card, the collapse, the whatever. I haven’t watched the highlights or any post-match interviews back since the final whistle on Saturday afternoon and I hope you don’t hold that against me.

The first half was magical, Theo scoring after 45 seconds, Djourou a minute later, we were three up before the 10 minute mark and got another before half time. It was brilliant to watch and it really could’ve been more. Being a Gooner, at 2-0 I’m never comfortable, 3-0 is good and 4-0 should be plenty enough a lead for us but if anyone was every going to let a lead that big slip it would be us. The whole thing seemed inevitable really. Djourou’s injury just a few minutes into the second half and Diaby’s sending off a few minutes later had us scared shitless. With the out of form and confidence, Squillaci at the back and no Denilson, Diaby or Song protecting the back four we looked very week – even at 4-0 up.

Two dodgy penalties, a screamer and some other goal later and we find ourselves level. Watching it through it seemed like as soon as the first goal went in there was no stopping us conceding. It was strange; it was like there was no way we were going to hold out. The home crowd got right behind their team and guided them to a massive point. Without a shadow of a doubt, we would’ve won easily if this were at home. Those two penalties would never have been given without the roar of the home fans and possibly with a bit more noise for us / a bit less noise for them we would’ve seen out the victory safely. However when Newcastle did come to us this season they beat us, so I don’t know what to say.

What’s done is done and we have to move on now. We can’t dwell on this and maybe the international break came at the right time. Thankfully Chelsea and Man United lost making the whole weekend a lot, lot better. For United it was their first loss of the season, allowing Arsenal fans to breathe a massive sigh of relief and our famous unbeaten season record stays intact for another year. After the weekend we’re 4 points off United, 1 ahead of City (with a game in hand) and 6 in front of Chelsea. It does beg the question, ‘what if we could’ve held out for the win?’ but shit happens and I would’ve taken us drawing and United winning before the weekend started. Time to move on from it and win on Saturday.

OK well what better way to move on and raise a smile than talk of Dennis Bergkamp. You might have heard this season he took his first step into management by becoming the manager of the youth team at Ajax Amsterdam. Well he’ll be taking another step up the ladder next year as Ronald de Boer says he’ll be Ajax’s first team assistant manager. A lot of Arsenal fans foresee Dennis as our savior as manager one day, it would be a great story. He’s on his way to management now and you never know he might make the role day. There is still one big problem though – will he ever get over his fear of flying? To become a manager of a team such as Arsenal he would surely have to overcome his fear but you can’t just expect him to do that. We’ll see. Maybe by the time the Arsenal job is available we won’t have to worry about European trips. I’m joking

You might’ve seen an image before of Arsenal’s possible new home shirt for next season but today I found this, a much clearer photo of what seems to be our 125th Anniversary shirt. This leak is from artey sport is the same shirt as the one I saw before which for me pretty much confirms it as our shirt for the next season.

I’m not really sure what to make of it, for so long we’ve wanted red shirts with white sleeves back but this current season’s shirt is so perfect it’s hard to like anything else. This one above is very similar to what we have now actually just without the white neck and red trimming to the sleeves, and obviously with that new badge. I’m not really a massive fan of that badge, it’s a bit cliché and I don’t really represent it with Arsenal. I much prefer this rumored design from last year but I guess on a whole it’s much better than other recent kits we’ve had so I’m happy. What do you think?

Right it’s international week this week as I’m sure you’re aware and here you can see everyone that is away trying to avoid injury. We were just about recovering from all our injuries the other week and now it seems we have quite a few missing so the last thing we need is more. Defense is the biggest issue at the moment – Koscielny, Clichy and Sagna are all in Paris for France’s game against Brazil and we need all three of them to return unharmed. Please. Tomorrow night Walcott and Wilshere’s England will face Bendtner’s Denmark in Copenhagen. I’m hoping for a 2-1 win with all three Gunners scoring but I’d be happy for a 5-0 England loss as long as everyone comes back unharmed.

Robin van Persie, Cesc Fabregas, Kieran Gibbs, Johan Djourou and Aaron Ramsey have all withdrawn from their national squads. Cesc and Robin have both been excused with the flu, I’m not sure why Gibbs isn’t playing but Djourou and Ramsey are obvious. I’m glad to see that our top two players have not been allowed to travel, especially with Barcelona next week but I hope they’re fine for the weekend.

Before I go just a quick mention of PokerJunkie.com, I’m not much of a poker player myself but it’s a good website for checking out all the online poker rooms available – good for the amateur like me or the more professional looking to compare sites. So check them out for winner poker.

Well that’s it for today. Thoughts on Newcastle and that new possible home kit in the comments section please. Thanks for reading.