Spurs Preview: A massive North London derby 20 April, 2011

The North London derby is always vitally important to any Arsenal or Tottenham fan but today is yet another one that is just that little bit more special. A win always means everything to both sets of fans but we’re at a point in the season where we genuinely need the points, never mind fan pride. With Man United dropping two points at Newcastle last night we have an opportunity to close the gap which we must take. We’re not going to get a lot of chances to catch up on United so we have to take them when they come. We’re seven points behind them today so a win tonight could bring that back down to a much more manageable four. Four points is definitely a title race position especially when United have to play Chelsea and us.

Spurs are desperate for points too though and they will take confidence from beating us at our place. They can go level on points with Man City in 4th with a win over us tonight and they will be desperate to not only get back in the Champions League but end our title hopes. Let’s be honest, a loss tonight would pretty much be the end of it, there’d be a slim hope but nothing more than that. Also a loss for us and a win for Chelsea against Birmingham tonight would see us drop down to third, which is a bit shocking.

Lets not think about losing though, we have to have our eyes on the prize. We’re in a title race and we need a win at White Hart Lane – if the players aren’t up for it tonight well then they’re never going to be. We might have some complaints about Liverpool but that’s behind us now, we need to take confidence from Newcastle’s result last night and close the gap. Wenger says, “I still believe it is absolutely important, essential that we give absolutely every drop of blood to do it.” I hope that ambition is shared with the players. You’ve probably seen this interview with Cesc Fabregas that emerged yesterday and he talks about a difference between pretty football and winning things. This season was our chance to make the step up, we may have missed it but we’re still in there and I hope Cesc et al. have got the desire to make it happen this season.

We might not deserve the title this year but so fucking what, I want it. It’s still doable and to come from behind in the position we’ve been in would be great. Imagine what winning the league would do to the players, that experience would be invaluable. A win at Tottenham would be the perfect catalyst to the end of season run, Wenger spoke about trying to remain unbeaten until the end of the season but it’s wins we need. Three points tonight would set up a massive game on May 1st between Arsenal and Man United so lets make sure we’re in that position come May and win tonight.

In the reverse fixture earlier in the season we lost a 2-0 lead to lose 3-2. That fucking hurt, and I hope it hurt the players too. They should be going there tonight not for revenge but just to put that right. We cannot let them take more points off us, it’s just not right. We’ve played there already this season in the Carling Cup, it was 1-1 after 90 minutes but we ended up beating them 4-1. We need to show that kind of dominance we showed in extra time that night, we need to remind them who owns North London and who is the team celebrating 50 years without winning the league.

It should be a pretty decent team playing tonight. There’s some great news that PFA right back of 2010/11, Bacary Sagna is back, not only will that strengthen us at the back but it means we’ve got no clown ready to give another 100th minute penalty away. Vermaelen is a bit short for tonight, it would’ve been great to have a player of his calibre available but Wenger is right not to rush him back. I feel that Jens Lehmann might fill his kind of void tonight, I’m sure the German will be making his voice heard in the dressing room. Arseblogger this morning speculated that Wilshere could be rested after Wenger spoke of Jack’s fatigue. He was withdrawn early against Liverpool and he did look quite tired. I think he’ll start him tonight though, his desire to win is something that we need tonight and hopefully that can rub off on his elders.

So here’s how I think we might look:

Szczesny
Sagna – Djourou – Koscielny – Clichy
Song – Wilshere
Fabregas (c)
Nasri – van Persie – Arshavin

I’ve chosen Arshavin over Walcott for tonight, I feel that (if he’s up for it) he can offer us that little extra something special out of nowhere which might be what wins the game. Theo was a little bit disappointing on Sunday but I’ve always preferred him as an option from the bench anyway. However it might be a good idea to start him though to deal with Gareth Bale on his wing, Theo is good to deploy there not only to track Bale’s runs but also to use that space on the counter. It’s up to Wenger – Arshavin or Walcott; now I’ve thought about it more I think he’ll probably go for Theo but we’ll see.

Talking of Bale, Wenger says he and Van der Vaart are their main threat. Bale is decent but I can’t believe the hype over him this season. It’s an absolute joke. He won the PFA player of the year for basically one hat trick against a tiring, and shit Inter Milan side. And they lost that game anyway! I saw a stat recently that he’s got the same amount of assists as Van der Sar in the Premier League and that says a lot. He is going to be tricky down that left hand side but I really don’t rate him anywhere near some people do. After saying all this he’ll probably go and score tonight but fuck him, the chimp-looking, banana-peeling shit cunt. As for Van der Vaart, he’s a good player but gets tired easily, mark him out of the game and we’ll be fine. Tonight is about closing down every player in possession, think back to when we beat Chelsea in December, I want a performance like that tonight – I want to see the players really want this as much as the fans.

The nerves/excitement have kicked in already, I’m buzzing for this one. It could be a massive disappointment but at the same time it could end up being the result that we look back on as the one that changed our fortunes in the title race. I’m being optimistic but I believe we can do it, I’ve seen how we can fuck things up in the past but I truly think we’ll go there tonight with a huge desire to win. I wish I could be there tonight with the couple thousand Gooners travelling down Seven Sisters Road. I was after a spare but it doesn’t look like I’ll get one now so Sky Sports and a few beers it is.

There’s nothing left to say now, it’s up to the players to win this one for us. Believe in them and they will deliver. COME ON YOU GUNNERS.

Oh and finally…

The wanky Tottenham Hotspur went to Rome to see the Pope,
The wanky Tottenham Hotspur went to Rome to see the Pope,
The wanky Tottenham Hotspur went to Rome to see the Pope,
And this is what he said…
FUCK OFF.
Who’s that team we call the Arsenal,
Who’s that team we all adore,
We’re the boys in red and white and we’re fucking dynamite,
And Harry Redknapp’s mother is a WHOOOOORE!

Arsenal 1-1 Liverpool – 17/04/11 – (Premier League) 19 April, 2011

I’ve had a couple of days to calm down from this one but to be honest I was never really angry once I left the stadium. I was fucking furious at Eboue for that ridiculous push and the rest of the team for not just booting it out whenever possible but then I soon went into the all too familiar state of disappointment. I’m just about beginning to accept being constantly let down, it sucks but it’s been a recurring theme. If I earned a pound for every time I’ve used the words frustrating or disappointing in response to Arsenal then, then I could probably buy us a more intelligent reserve right back.

Although Eboue is a fucking idiot, you can’t blame the result all on him. Yes, he was the one that conceded the most stupid penalty I’ve even seen with my own eyes but once we’d gone 1-0 up in the 97th minute there should’ve been no chance for Liverpool to come back. We had just a few minutes to hold out and surely that’s not too much to ask? Oh, it is? Okay. Is it so much to ask to stick your boot through the ball just the once when there’s literally seconds left to play? That’s too much as well is it? Fucking hell are we trying to work counter attacks with one minute to go and 1-0 up now are we?

I asked before the game if we would stand up and show how much we wanted to the title and I guess we didn’t want it enough, especially not in those final few minutes. I’m not saying we didn’t try to defend but if it meant that much to us there would’ve been no team able to get through us never mind how weak our defence is. Well it didn’t happen and it ended up 1-1. I’ve almost accepted the result because it was 0-0 for so long and a draw looked likely but it’s just such a shame to take the lead and lose it like we did.

We dominated the most part of the game, Carroll and Suarez didn’t click and without Gerrard I’ve never really been that scared of Liverpool. We looked alright but we didn’t create enough proper goal scoring chances and Wenger has admitted it was a bit of a problem. He also said that Liverpool had a lot of men behind the ball defending which is also true. They did make it quite difficult for us and I’m surprised they played so negatively but I guess it worked if they came for a draw.

Over the course of the game, other than the penalties there were only a handful of chances for either team. Liverpool had a couple of half-hearted shots and we hit the bar from a header, had one disallowed for offside and the best chance was from a little flick from Fabregas to van Persie in the area but he couldn’t score one-on-one with Reina.

It was a frustrating game, Liverpool didn’t deserve anything but we weren’t doing enough to take the points for ourselves. I’ll just move on to extra time because that’s where all the action was; At the 90 minute mark it looked like it was heading for 0-0 unless there could be any late drama in the 8 minutes added on for a head injury to Carragher. We won our penalty when Cesc burst into the area and was tripped whilst dribbling – definite penalty. Robin van Persie had what looked like the chance to keep us in the title race. It was a massive, massive penalty and when he sent Reina the wrong way and stuck it perfectly inside the post he ripped his shirt off and the ground went mental. It was a huge goal and one that surely, surely would win it.

There couldn’t have been long left to go, but we knew we were going to have to soak up a bit of Liverpool pressure. They did plough forward and we defended it but we didn’t just boot it away, instead we fucked about with it on the edge of our own box, gave it back to them and then conceded a very dangerous free kick. It was surely one of the last kicks of the game and it was too unbearable to watch for a lot of people. In the end the free kick wasn’t good but what followed was infuriating and hilarious. The ball dropped to Lucas but had no choice to run away from goal towards the left corner flag. Eboue was tracking him but for some reason far beyond my intelligence he ran into the back of him allowing him to go down for a penalty. He definitely dived and made the most of it but I probably would’ve given a penalty too, Eboue stupidly just went into the back of him.

I mean if he’d let him run and given it a few seconds I reckon that could’ve been it, as Lucas got the ball, referee Andre Marriner was probably thinking about blowing up. He saw the foul though and had no choice but to give the penalty. It was a chance for the returning Szczesny to make himself a hero but Kuyt scored and the final whistle blew immediately.

I have no qualms about the 11 minutes of added on time. It all makes perfect sense, there was a minimum of 8 minutes and then there was the foul for our penalty, the time it took to take it, the minute or two of celebrations, the minute before they took their free kick and other things it was perfectly acceptable to still be playing past the 100 minute mark in my opinion. He could’ve blown the whistle after the free kick but there was probably about four or five seconds between that being taken and Eboue’s foul.

We’ve had some terrible, terrible luck this season but I feel like a lot of bad days could’ve been avoided if we had just been more cautious. We’re very accident prone and it has ruined our season. I’m upset because I don’t know if this group of players will ever get a better chance to win the league with Chelsea being as shit as I’ve seen them since before Mourinho and Man United having terrible away form. Also I don’t know how long this group will be together also, it’s possible for quite a few players to leave this summer, some for better some for worse but what really worries me is if both Nasri and Cesc leave. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it though.

It’s disappointing times yet again but we must pick ourselves up. Another loss and it really is over. Our next game is Tottenham away and how much they would like to inflict the result which ends our title hopes. We can’t let that happen, and after what happened in the home game against them this season I’m expecting the players to finally show some fight. If we can show it in just this one game then I’ll be slightly relieved.

We might have to win every game until the end of the season and three points at White Hart Lane is a good place to start. Szczesny believes we’ve got what it takes, I just hope the rest of the team does. This North London Derby is huge and I’d be lying if I’m not a little nervous.

See you tomorrow for the usual build up. Until then.

Liverpool Preview, Spurs 50th Anniversary & RIP Fitszman 17 April, 2011

Sorry for the lack of posts this week, I’m going through an extremely busy period work-wise at the moment and I got a bit carried away with that. Also this is going to have to be as quick a match preview as possible because late last night I got offered a ticket for today and my train is leaving Bournemouth in an hour.

So what’s the news? Szczesny, Djourou and Song are back which is a big boost for the defence. We had more good news in that department this week as Vermaelen has returned to full training. He won’t be involved today because he hasn’t played in months but Wenger has changed his stance on the Belgian and says he could still play a part this season. Sagna, Ramsey and Rosicky are likely to miss out today with niggles, hopefully they’re back soon especially Sagna.

So with that, I see us looking like this and it looks like quite a decent side again:

Szczesny
Eboue – Djourou – Koscielny – Clichy
Song – Wilshere
Fabregas (c)
Walcott – van Persie – Nasri

For once we’ve actually got options so you could see any of Arshavin, Diaby, Bendtner, Chamakh or Squillaci starting or being decent options from the bench. Apart from the injury that will keep Sagna out for the second successive game it’s been a pretty good week for injury news and I’m confident going into this afternoon’s game now.

It’s a huge match today, Liverpool always is but we’re very much at the business end of the season now and points are more than vital for both teams. It should be an interesting one, our recent form hasn’t been great but hopefully the win at Blackpool wil inspire a bit of confidence today. As United played in the FA Cup yesterday, today’s game will take us level on games played. A win would take us a very tasty four points off the top but a loss would leave us a very bleak seven points behind. With so few games left a result like that could mean the end. After Chelsea’s win yesterday they’re now just a point behind us too (also played one more) so we need to win to keep them off our backs also.

I do think we can win today and before I go I might bet online on a 2-0 Arsenal win. If we can keep a clean sheet with that stronger looking defence then I think we’ll do it, plus the attacking threat of Walcott, Nasri, van Persie, Arshavin and Fabregas should be dangerous enough to score goals. It really could go any way but I’ve got a good feeling about today.

In other news well today is the 17th April 2011 and do you know what that means? It’s 50 years ago today that Tottenham last won the league. A lot has happened in 50 years, for example we’ve won the league title six times and have challenged for it for the most part of that. Today might be a nice anniversary for Spurs fans but it’s even bigger reminded for us of our dominance. ’61, Never Again. I haven’t got enough time to go into this too much but I kind of feel that they don’t deserve the time anyway, just a short reminder that yet another decade has past since they won the league and we’ll carry on with our business trying to win for ourselves it yet again. Here’s to another 50 years! Hey you never know, Nike might bring our a commemorative shirt for it.

And on a more serious not this week saw the sad and untimely death of board member and Arsenal visionary Danny Fitszman. The man did so much for the club that he will unquestionably be remembered forever. In fact I wouldn’t be making the pilgrimage to The Emirates Stadium today if it weren’t for Danny and that legacy will live on for decades to come. I wish I had more time to pay my respects to him but I’ll try get over to the newly re-named Danny Fitszman bridge later today. It’s a shame that the unveiling ceremony came just too late for Danny to be there or see the plaque but plans have been in place for this for some time so he will have known that his name will be proudly imprinted on the bridge to Ashburton Grove and be seen by hundreds of thousands of fans young and old. Thank you for all you’ve done Danny, rest in peace.

Right I better get myself off to the station now. Lets get them three points today lads, lets do it for Danny, lets do it for the 50th anniversary, lets do it for the league title; I have a feeling today will be another test of how much we really want this.

COME ON YOU GUNNERS.

Arsenal in Usmanov’s hands, why United must win tonight & competition winner 12 April, 2011

The future of Arsenal Football Club still hangs in the balance today. We’re still waiting on Usmanov’s next move and it’s slightly ironic that it’s his action now that will have the biggest impact on the club’s future. Kroenke has been forced to make an offer for all remaining shares, Usmanov could sell up and walk away with a profit or choose not to sell and most probably not ever move off that 27% mark. If he sells, Arsenal belongs to Kroenke, if he doesn’t then not a great deal has changed apart from the small matter of a few hundred of million pounds.

I was shocked last night to log onto Twitter and see the strange and sudden warming to Usmanov that was going on. Somehow Kroenke was suddenly the bad guy and Jabba the Hutt was going to be the saviour. It was quite bizarre, I don’t get how he can be genuinely getting positive spin off this. I saw some rubbish about him planning to give shares back to fans or something but I feel like I’m being a bit gullible to believe that.

There was an Arsenal Supporters’ Trust meeting last night and there they agreed that they will not be selling up to Kroenke and instead campaigning for supporter ownership. Now for that to happen we basically need Usmanov to not sell because then it would all be over. So I think this is where he has become the good guy, people need him to keep his 27% to stop a complete takeover. But then at the same time you’ve also got Kroenke saying that he doesn’t plan to take Arsenal off the stock market and he believes in the importance of small shareholder fans. There just seems to me to be too much going on, too many conflicting ideas and too many promises set up to be broken.

I can’t decide what is best for us. Kroenke sounds like a reasonable guy and if anyone has to take us over then I guess I’d want it to be him but then I think that for Arsenal to be owned by a single owner doesn’t seem right. I feel like we’re far too important for that and once in control he has far too much power over something so precious. At the end of the day there’s not much I can do about the whole situation and in times like this in life I tend to just sit back and just let what happens happen. I don’t know what you think about that but it’s just my way of thinking, there’s no point in getting upset about something you can’t control I think. I guess I could start up or join in a campaign for or against Kroenke but I can’t decide what I want right now so I’m just going to sit on the fence and watch the world go by and wait on Red & White’s next move.

There is evidence to support the theory that Usmanov won’t sell up. Upon hearing of Kroenke’s offer for Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith’s 16% the Uzbekistani offered an improved price for the stake. Stan offered £11,750 a share whereas the improved offer was £13,000 a share adding up to just under £130m for her stake. It’s a considerable offer but Lady Nina said she did not want to go back on her agreement with Stan and will be selling to him. So it does look as if Usmanov isn’t giving up just yet. We’ll see what happens in the coming days, weeks or months but at the moment no one knows what’s going to happen.

Lets move on to matters on the pitch, after all that’s what matters most in the long run; Jack Wilshere reckons Man United’s involvement in Europe will eventually effect their Premier League form. He says that we have the advantage by having a week’s rest between games. This is true, however United could be out of Europe tonight if Chelsea play well at Old Trafford. It’s the second leg of their quarter final tonight, Man Utd are 1-0 up going into that but it’s not unthinkable that Chelsea can turn that around. If they do then the league leaders will be in the same position as us with a week’s rest between games and this weekend they’re playing in the FA Cup anyway so fatigue from tonight will have no effect on their league form. Plus, next week we have a midweek game against Spurs so we will be the ones without a full week’s recovery.

That’s why I’ve been hoping United progress in Europe, the only way it’s going to effect the Premier League is if they get into the semi finals. And which game falls between the two semi final legs? The one against us. So that will be an advantage knowing we’ll be more prepared for the game plus it could effect their other matches – they might be tempted to rest players against Everton the weekend before the first leg and they play Chelsea the weekend after the second leg so that might have a knock on effect there too. You’ve got to take what you can get in the season run in, that’s why I’m cheering on United tonight in the hope that Europe and the league gets too much to handle.

There’s also this story about an argument between van Persie and Diaby at half time in Blackpool this weekend. I’ve never got this term ‘blast’. “So and so BLASTS another guy!” Don’t really get it, sounds a bit stupid I think. All I can imagine is van Persie with a Super Soaker in the dressing room at half time with a very wet Diaby. Anyway yeah apparently Robin was reminding Diaby about his costly red card at St. James’ Park and having a go at him for picking up a silly yellow just before half time on Sunday. If true, then I guess it’s good to see that the players are passionate about these games and know the importance of them. Diaby said he would learn from his sending off against Newcastle, it changed the game resulting in disastrous circumstances so you can understand RVP’s frustration. But then again, it could all be made up bollocks.

Okay regular readers will know I’ve been running a competition this week to win a retro shirt from Toffs. The competition ended at midnight last night and the answer to the question: What year is the earliest Arsenal shirt from that Toffs currently offer on their online store? was A. 1913 not B. 1927 as many people put, you need to look closer I’m afraid! There were quite a few people who got it right though and I’m going to now open a new tab and select a winner at random… LIVE. Oh how exciting.

And the winner is… James Warrener. Well done James, I will be in touch about choosing your shirt and getting that to you as soon as possible. Thanks to everyone for entering, I’ll try and get another competition up and running soon. I’ll also see if I can get a discount code for you guys on the Toffs store, until then though all the shirts are still available to buy if you really had your heart set on winning one you can check them out by clicking on the banner below.

That’s it for today then. It’s going to be weird cheering on Man United tonight but at the end of the day I fucking hate John Terry. So it’s acceptable.

Thanks for reading, speak to you soon.

Kroenke thoughts + Blackpool 1-3 Arsenal – 10/04/11 – (Premier League) 11 April, 2011

So yesterday was a pretty eventful day for Arsenal, we beat Blackpool 3-1 ending our run of draws which is pretty good but that was quickly forgotten as Stan Kroenke looks like launching a takeover of the club. The three points at Bloomfield road were vital in the short term but yesterday saw the biggest announcement financially involving Arsenal in a long time and it is set to change the future of the club. So I guess it deserves a bit of a mention…

Yesterday it was announced that the American would be buying out Danny Fiszman’s and Lady Nina Bracewell-Smith’s shares which bumps Kroenke up from just under 30% to nearly 63% of shares. He will now make an offer for the remaining 37% but those shareholders are currently under no obligation to sell. The majority of that 37% is held by Alisher Usmanov’s Red & White Holdings who currently own 27% which is just enough to stop Kroenke reaching the magic 75% mark which would mean he could force any remaining shareholders to sell.

The ball now lies in Usmanov’s court, although Kroenke is stood waiting, racket in hand, in a much bigger court. Red & White have no obligation to sell but they could cash in now and have made a profit on their investment or they could keep the shares but have no real say in the club or anything like that. I can’t guess what they’re going to do but it does look now that sooner or later Arsenal will become yet another club to be owned solely by an investor. I’m no financial expert whatsoever and I’ve never really had much to say on this whole business in the last couple of years. Partly because I don’t understand the stock market well enough and secondly because it’s out of our hands really, whatever happens will happen and we’ll just have to accept it.

I’m perfectly happy with the club being run as it has been for years, with the club jointly owned by numerous shareholders. I’ve never really properly thought about what it would be like under a single owner but it does seem that if it is going to happen then Stan Kroenke is probably the best man for the job. He wants to keep the current board, he will make no personnel changes there although they would no longer be shareholders of the club – just employees, he has also promised not to put further debt to the club’s name by using loans to complete the buyout and the man has plenty of experience in owning sports clubs. He currently owns a club in just about every top sport in America including our US football partners the Colorado Rapids. He will also bring valuable input into our commercial sector which will be used to grow the worldwide brand of Arsenal to generate revenue, that will mean pre-season tours in places like Asia and America rather than our usual low-key Austrian training camp. I know already we had plans to tour Japan and surrounding countries this summer but I think that might be falling through after the recent disaster there. This isn’t a Chelsea or Man City style takeover though, we might see some cash investment in terms of transfers but don’t expect him to be our Abramovich or anything like that. I think Kroenke will be a lot more sensible and will be looking at the long-term future of the club rather than short-term investment.

It’s all very early days but it does look very much like the beginning of a takeover. The next step now is to see how Usmanov reacts to this, he could sell up to Kroenke and be on his way, he could stay put and decide not to sell or he could launch a counter bid. Now as accepting as I am with all this news, a takeover attempt from Usmanov would not be anywhere near as welcome and would cause up quite a stir. I’m not sure if he’s actually eligible to buy Fiszman’s shares as part of the lockdown agreement anyway though but I’m not exactly sure how all of this works as I mentioned.

Lets move on anyway and leave it at that. Those are the facts and that’s that for the moment. I don’t want to dig too far into it because not only is my knowledge going to get badly shown up but we have a game to discuss!

So three points then yesterday and we’re back on track. There were no slip-ups from United or Chelsea so our position in the table is unchanged but we kept up the pace which was important. We’re still seven points off the leaders with that game in hand. Dropped points yesterday would’ve been a disaster but we’re still there going into two massive games against Liverpool and Tottenham.

You could say we were a little bit lucky yesterday but I feel like we’ve deserved a bit of luck recently. We did well to get an early two goal lead but when we inevitably let the home side back in it we were on the ropes for a while and did well not to concede. I guess if you’re a Blackpool fan you’d be livid at the chances missed yesterday or the lack of penalties given but for once luck was on our side.

We never should’ve got into that situation though. Blackpool started the better side but we went 1-0 up in the 17th minute and doubled the lead three minutes later. Diaby almost lost the ball just outside our box but managed to win it back and the ball found its way out to van Persie on the left who took it into the box and put a great ball across to Diaby who had carried on his run and tapped it in for 1-0. In the 20th minute a great pass and move on the right and drive into the box from Eboue put him in a shooting position and what a clinical shot it was with the left foot to make to 2-0. Two unlikely goal scorers but two great goals and we had a (fairly) comfortable two nil lead. We really should’ve gone in at half time about 4-0 up though, we dominated for the most part and thanks to some good goalkeeping, a bit of luck and us not getting a shot away when we should’ve done, Blackpool kept it at 2-0 until half time. Nasri will be disappointed not to have scored yesterday and Robin will fell like he could’ve had more too.

After missing all those chances to put the game to bed it was inevitable that Blackpool would find a way back into it. They ended the first half well and carried that on into the second. Five minutes into the half they got one back, Taylor-Fletcher the scorer after the referee played two advantages in the build up, one of which was Lehmann bringing down DJ Campbell in the area before the ball was put in the net. With no ‘keeper on the bench Less Mason could’ve easily sent the German off and left us in a bit of trouble but thankfully he allowed play on and didn’t go back to book Jens. Almunia was apparently injured in the warm up handing Jens a shock 200th appearance for Arsenal, which meant there was no goalie on the bench and afterwards Robin van Persie said he would’ve been putting on the gloves if Lehmann was sent off. As exciting as that would’ve been I’m glad it didn’t materialise!

As to be expected, an extended period of Blackpool pressure followed that goal and on another day we might’ve gone back to 2-2. Had that been the case and we ended up drawing I think we might’ve been waving goodbye to the title so I’m glad we held out. Wenger brought on Walcott after an hour in an attempt to keep the home side back or catch them on the break and it was the latter that worked in the 75th minute. Squillaci made a good tackle at the back and gave it to Diaby who showed good strength to keep the ball and turn up the pitch clipping it to Fabregas, he touched it first time on to Theo who was away down the wing and in a matter of seconds we had turned danger into attack. Walcott was in loads of space running freely towards goal, RVP kept up the pace and Theo was able to pick him out with a good ball and Robin made it 3-1. Game over.

There was still time for one last shock, Gael Clichy got caught in possession on the edge of the box but Lehmann did well to come out and get a good block on the shot showing that he’s still got what it takes after an otherwise fairly quiet game.

So next Sunday we face Liverpool at home and what a game that is set to be. I have to say I fancy us and hopefully we could have some players returning from injury next week. If we’re lucky we could have all of Szczesny, Djourou, Sagna and Song back making us a lot stronger in defence – or certainly less for us to worry about! Plenty of build up to that to come plus undoubtedly more news on the takeover situation. We haven’t got a game in 6 days but it’s set to be a busy week. Come back tomorrow where I will be announcing the winner of the Toffs competition, you have until midnight tonight to enter that one so make sure you get your emails in if you haven’t already.

Thanks for reading, speak to you tomorrow.

COMPETITION: Win a Toffs retro Arsenal shirt 8 April, 2011

Hello to everyone on this fine, fine Friday afternoon. What a glorious day, I’ve missed this sun I really have. Sorry for those of you stuck at work, the weekend is set to be a belter too. I’m here to try and make your weekend even better by giving you the chance of winning a Toffs retro Arsenal shirt of your choice. All you have to do is answer this simple question:

Q: What year is the earliest Arsenal shirt from that Toffs currently offer on their online store? 

Is it: A. 1913, B. 1927 or C. 1950

If you know the answer email your entries to: competition [at] the-cannon.com replacing the [at] for an @ sign.

If you don’t know the answer well click the banner at the top and you never know, the answer just might be there. I’m not saying cheat, just look for reassurance I guess. The prize is a Toffs retro Arsenal shirt of your choice so you can have any one of those beauties, I’ve got a few myself actually and you can’t go wrong – they never go out of date because they’re already out of date! If that makes any sense.

Good luck everyone, I’ll close the competition on Monday at midnight (GMT) so get your entries in. In the last competition I ran I didn’t get loads of entries to be honest with you so give it a go you never know you might win. Please enter just the once though. The winner will be announced on Tuesday.

A quick round up of the news and we’ve got some fresh injuries surprise surprise. Song is out and Sagna and Walcott are big doubts for Blackpool. Cesc Fabregas is fit to start but it’s a shame we’ve picked up more niggles.

I’ll fully look at the news tomorrow and build up to an important game in Blackpool. Speak to you then, make sure you get those entries in.

Enjoying Madrid and trying to stay positive 6 April, 2011

Tottenham fans sang “Are you watching Arsenal?” as they progressed into the quarter finals of the Champions League after a famous 0-0 home draw against AC Milan as we had been knocked out a day earlier to Barcelona. Yes, we were watching and we fully expected you to progress against of the weakest AC Milan sides in years. We were also watching when you played Inter Milan in the group stages; again, a big name side but one showing the decline in Italian football proven by the hammering they took from Schalke last night. We were watching again last night as you found out what the Champions league is really about. I’ve been anticipating this game for a while to see how Spurs got on against a side as tough as we face year in year out, and they flopped as expected.

Yeah Tottenham fans reading this will probably go straight to the comments section with something like ‘We got further than you lot! COYS!’ but you played fucking AC Milan and we played Barcelona, bit of a difference there. And in Barcelona we gave them a game for the majority of the match. Until Robin van Persie was sent off we were holding out their attacks and we could’ve gone through, it didn’t work out in the end and these things happen. However now Spurs now know what it’s like to play in Spain with 10 men and they got walked over trampled on. The 4-0 loss renders the 2nd leg pretty much useless, they might get a memorable goal but they’re not going to beat Real Madrid by a four goal margin. Not in a million years.

This day has been a long time coming, the day when Spurs found out just how hard the Champions League really is. It’s exciting, but bloody difficult. What’s also pretty hilarious is shouts of ‘We’re gonna win it’ and ‘Bring on Barcelona!’ from a few weeks ago have turned to ‘Redknapp out! He hasn’t got a clue.’ Brilliant. I can empathise with Tottenham fans, this year must’ve been exciting for them but I hope it’s their last. There’s a good chance they wont make it into Champions League next season and be back on Channel 5 where they belong. There’s one thing I enjoy nearly as much as an Arsenal win and that’s a Tottenham failure. And seeing as I haven’t seen us win for a while I’m going to enjoy this for a little bit!

Yeah you’ll probably think I’m bitter or whatever, frankly I don’t care. Football is there to be enjoyed and this is how I’m going to enjoy it. And don’t you dare bring up the whole representing Britain bullshit.

Anyway moving on to Arsenal and there really isn’t a lot to talk about hence the Spurs rant. It’s all gone a bit quiet which is probably the best thing after a third disappointing draw in a row, so you have to enjoy the little things like last night, just as much as they would’ve enjoyed our night in Spain. Unlike Tottenham, we’re still in a title race and I’m not going to give that up just yet, I’m enjoying it too much. Yeah we might have slipped up a little but I’m still hoping there’s room for United to do the same. They play Chelsea tonight in the Champions League and I’m hoping that will have some knock on effect for their weekend league game. It’s a slim hope though, their game this weekend is at home to Fulham; one look at the form guide shows that they haven’t won in their last five away games and it also shows that Man United have won all five of their most recent home matches. According to the stats it doesn’t look good, I’m expecting another three points for the league leaders but anything other than that would be a massive bonus.

We’re away to Blackpool who sit 18th in the form table but will be difficult to beat at their own ground. We’ll go into the game conscious of the fact we haven’t won in three games but this weekend is the time to rectify that. To put it simply, if we don’t then we’re out. I’m not saying we have to win every single game from here on in but if we don’t beat the lesser teams we have to play then we don’t give ourselves much of a chance.

I’m going to try and stay positive for the rest of the season. I was quite critical in my last post and I think rightly so but hopefully this week is a week for Wenger to sort things out with the team, get the most out of players and make sure we perform to our best again. We need to win on Sunday and I’m sure Wenger will be doing everything possible to make that happen this week. You have to be critical of the manager and players sometimes but now is the time to just get behind them and see what they can do in these 8 remaining games. The summer is the time to judge the team and that’s exactly what I’ll do, I think there is room for change this close season but there’s nothing we can do now so just get behind the lads, please.

The only news worth mentioning is Samir Nasri’s agent denying there has been contact from Italy about a move and saying he is happy in London. All this whilst a deal is still yet to be signed and he is just a year away from the end of his contract. I have no idea what’s going on there, whether Samir wants more money, his agent does, he’s had enough of this team, wants to play elsewhere or what the problem is, but there must be some issue otherwise he should’ve singed on by now. I’m praying a deal can be sorted because the loss of both him and Fabregas would be huge blow and I don’t know how we’d deal with it. I don’t want us to get to the situation where we have to decide whether to sell him this summer or keep him for one more year and let him go for free. Only Samir, his agent and Arsene Wenger know what’s going on but hopefully something will be sorted. After all, his agent does say in that link that he is happy here so hopefully that is the case.

There are also doubts over Gael Clichy’s future after he pulled out of talks last week. A move away has been on the cards for a while and as dodgy as he can be sometimes I’d be a little bit gutted if he left. I’ve always quite liked him and he’s shown this season that he can perform near his best but maybe his consistency has run out. I guess it’s up to the manager but I fell like we’re changing our defence far too much at the moment and a bit of familiarity would be good for us. More on those two stories as they develop.

Okay that’s it for today. More looking forward to the weekend’s game in Blackpool to come this week. Thanks for reading.

Arsenal 0-0 Blackburn – 02/04/11 – (Premier League) 3 April, 2011

Well yesterday was a shit day to say the least. Watching West Ham go 2-0 up on United I was suddenly optimistic about the day’s football ahead but the league leaders showed exactly the sort of spirit, desire and fight that we so very rarely show. Arsene always goes on about our ‘spirit’ and our infamous ‘mental strength’ but more times than not I believe he’s saying that in order to make it seem true. I hate it immeasurably but we have one of the worst ‘spirits’ in the league.

It makes me quite sad that we’re in this title fight yet there is no ‘fight’ about us at all. We’re lacking leadership and togetherness and no matter how many times the manager comes out in a post match interview using those words I’m still unconvinced. The West Ham vs. Man United game was similar to our game at the Hawthorns a couple of weeks ago but United did what we should’ve done that day and showed our superior class and quality to win the game comfortably. Arsene praised the lads for coming back from 2-0 down against West brom but frankly we should never have been in that position in the first place and we didn’t do enough to come back and win. I don’t want to sound greedy but if we want to consider ourselves Champions we have to do what United did yesterday. So as you know, they won and we coughed out another draw to fall now seven points behind. My response yesterday was:

Out of the title race for the moment.—
lasagnechef (@the_cannon) April 02, 2011

That might sound a little harsh but it’s true. Until Man United drop points we are out of this title race, seven points is a huge gap when you’re talking about a team of their quality and as you can see there’s only us and Chelsea you can see them dropping points against – and I’m not very confident about May 1st:

We knew the run in favoured them so we knew we needed to make sure we pick up three points on every possible occasion and just be hoping for good results in the other latest football scores. However from being neck and neck we’ve absolutely blown it with three draws in a row against Sunderland, West Brom and Blackburn. I had us nailed on for 9 points there and I think those 6 points dropped are what will lose us the title.

I don’t blame people for not wanting to read the Arsenal news today but those of you that are here I apologise for the negativity today I’m just being honest – I think it’s over. Unless United have some kind of collapse or drop in form it’s looking too hard for us now. I am ever the optimist but I’m also a realist. If we win our game in hand at White Hart Lane and somehow manage to beat Man Utd then we’ll be just a point behind them but who knows if we’ll still even be seven points behind them when it comes to then; one point doesn’t sound like much but that’s assuming we win all of our other games and I just don’t see that happening at all.

I should probably move on to the game yesterday, but hopefully you’ll excuse me today for looking at the big picture. I really thought we were going to win you know, with all those players back returning from injury I thought we’d find what was needed and do the job with relative ease. We started really well but one break in play was enough Blackburn needed to get back in the game. It was a bad tackle on I think Sagna that had two players down for around three minutes and the rush of energy was broken, Blackburn could take it to half time at 0-0 and from there on it always looked like being a draw. It’s like we gave up after that initial first period, it sounds crazy but it looked to me a little like we couldn’t score when we were playing well to begin with so gave up thinking we could do it. This ‘belief’ that Wenger says we have is not translating itself to the pitch.

I spoke before the game about us having to dig deep and play well. And we didn’t. I also spoke about how the crowd needs to get behind the team. And we didn’t. I wasn’t there yesterday but I know what it’s like when the team isn’t performing it’s easy to just sit there and sulk about the performance. A lack of inspiration on the field is quite contagious and can easily transfer to the fans. I just disappointed that, that happened though. We’re in a title fight for God’s sake and if we can’t cheer, sing and get behind the team now then when are we ever going to? It’s sad, it really is.

The same goes for the team though. It’s really exciting and uplifting just being involved in the title race but when you see the players on the pitch not giving everything for the cause it’s depressing. I’m so sad we haven’t shown the desire that say Man United do in this time of importance. I really thought that we had what it takes to do this but after three bad draws I question the ability of this team. I’m sorry for not talking about much of the game itself but hopefully you’ll excuse me for that. I just did watch it but thinking back to the game is still pissing me off.

I’m still hoping but for today I am going to sulk. We’re still in there and I still hope we can turn it around but today I will be like a Mother who’s child has forgot to send that card – not angry, just disappointed.

Thanks for reading, lets hope for a more positive week of blogging.

Blackburn Preview / Come on West Ham 2 April, 2011

Things are really heating up in this title race now, we lost ground on Man United last weekend so we need to make sure we don’t drop points two games in a row otherwise we could find ourselves out of this race very quickly indeed. Man United kick off at West Ham now and if they manage to win there we will be 8 points behind the leaders going into our 5.30pm kick off this evening. In that scenario a win for us would take us back to 5 points behind with that game against Spurs in hand but if United do win I think a draw or loss for us today could be devastating.

I’m looking at this optimistically though. United lost 4-0 there in November in the Carling Cup and I don’t think they will find it easy at Upton Park today. It’s a ground where any team can drop points and West Ham will be well up for this one. I wouldn’t like to bet on this being a win, loss or a draw today – it’s one of those ones that could go either way but I’m hoping the Hammers can do us a favour and help us make some ground on the league leaders. It’s one of United’s remaining fixtures that I picked out as a potential day for dropped points and to be honest there isn’t a lot of those days so I’m really hoping West Ham can get something.

However whatever happens there we need to do the business ourselves. Whatever the result at Upton Park 3 points it’s absolutely vital for us. We just have to win as many as we can until the end of the season to give us a chance and I believe we should be winning today. Blackburn haven’t won at the Emirates in their last four visits and they’re currently without a win in seven league matches leaving them a point off the relegation zone. Now if you’re a team that’s looking to win the league like Arsenal – you have to take advantage of that and make sure you win.

The team news is good. RVP, Cesc, Walcott, Song, Diaby and Bendtner are all in the squad, just Aaron Ramsey and Denilson miss out; the new Wales captain has picked up a groin strain but I don’t think it’s anything to worry about too much. The return of Fabregas, Walcott and Song is a huge, huge boost. It’s exactly what we’ve been missing in recent weeks; the skill, vision and passion of the captain, the pace and danger of Theo and a bit of stability in defense and midfield from Song. With those three back, I fancy our chances a lot more. We’ve really missed them in recent weeks and where we’ve dropped points at West Brom and Sunderland I think they probably could’ve been avoided with those three in the side. It gives the line up a more familiar look, more stability yet more danger going forward and this afternoon I think it will look something like this:

Almunia
Sagna – Squillaci – Koscielny – Clichy
Song – Wilshere
Fabregas (c)
Walcott – van Persie – Nasri

Other than the goalkeeper and centre backs that’s the best side we have, however with Song back those three will get more cover. I’ve got my fingers crossed that Almunia is going to have one of his good days, he’s shown he can do it he just needs to concentrate and make no more silly errors. He’s got the backing of the manager and a mad German waiting in the wings if he slips up again.

Blackburn have got some injury boosts of their own. David Dunn, Samba and Phil Jones are all back in the side. They’re now too somewhere near their strongest XI but I still think/hope we are better than them and will take the three points today. It’s great to be able to type that front line up of Walcott, van Persie and Nasri with Fabregas behind once again, that four will threaten any defense around and I think that will be what wins us the points today. I can see us conceding but I fancy us to score at least a couple ourselves today.

The time to start digging in was ages ago but today it’s another massive day for Arsenal. The players need to be giving their all now every single week. The fans too, we need to support the boys, get behind the team and shout and scream us all the way over the finish line. Emphasis on that word ‘support’ there, now is not the time to be criticizing and moaning – that’s not going to achieve anything. We just have to get behind them whoever is out there on the pitch. I’m talking about people like Almunia, he might not be the most popular of guys at the moment but he’s all we’ve got and we have to try and give him some confidence. I’m hoping that there will be a decent atmosphere inside the ground today, we’re at the stage now where every game is huge and I’m hoping that’s enough to generate some decent noise today.

The United vs. West Ham game has just kicked off so I’m going to wrap this up and go watch that. It’s set to be another exciting afternoon of Premier League football, I’ve missed it. Come on West Ham, come on Arsenal, lets do it.

Enjoy the game.

Back to business + RIP Rocky 31 March, 2011

Did everyone have fun in the international break? No, neither did I. I watched England’s game with Wales and most of their game with Ghana but I still wasn’t convinced I’m much of an international fan. I mean if I can’t celebrate our goals then something must be wrong, right? It was good to see Jack Wilshere involved though but I spent most of the time worrying he’d get injured off one of the many hard tackles flying in on him. He does seem to attract bad challenges but luckily he gets up every time, I just wince every time I see someone go in though hoping that it’s not this one that breaks him. He came through it though and as far as I’m aware he’s good to go for the weekend.

There were fresh quotes on Jack’s potential involvement in this summer’s U21 Euro Championships. As you would expect Wenger doesn’t want him to go for fear of burning him out but it looks like he wants to play; and there’s not a lot we can do about that I’m afraid. He’s had a busy season this year and it’s his first full season too, the rest this summer would be really beneficial to him and we’ve seen time and time again what it can do to players who don’t get a proper rest. Fabregas and Walcott are most recent examples of our players that have devoted that extra time to playing for their country and it has affected their fitness badly. For once it looks like we have a player that can actually stay fit but I don’t want that to change simply down to a passion to play.

He says he’s going to talk to Stuart Pearce, Fabio Capello and Arsene Wenger about it but I don’t think anything will change. Stuart Pearce wants the best squad available to him and Capello will see it as beneficial for England – neither of them care one bit how it will affect Arsenal. Why should they really? England is their concern and any other team their players play for has nothing to do with them. Arsene will argue our case but I don’t see him stamping his foot down and refusing to let Wilshere go, that could piss Jack off and you don’t want an unhappy player. Maybe right now all he wants to do is play games but I don’t want this to be something he’ll look back on and think maybe he should’ve sat it out.

On the subject of Jack Wilshere, It appears he might be becoming a father at 19. No idea how valid that Sun article is but if so I guess congratulations are in order.

Any international break would not be complete without a Robin van Persie injury scare. He scored for Holland as they beat Hungary 5-3 but was withdrawn at half time after taking a knock in the first period. All our players will be back at London Colney today so we will be making our own assessments and I expect confirmation on his condition today or tomorrow. Fingers crossed because we really need him now. From what I’ve read and seen it looks like it could just be a bad dead leg but you never know with van Persie… We’re just going to have to wait and see, I’m eager for a story to pop up on Arsenal.com any minute but I guess no news is good news right? Please Robin, be ok.

If he pulls through then I think we may have passed an international period injury free. I don’t want to say that with too much confidence just yet but there is a chance we may have seen a miracle before our very eyes. I spoke previously about Bendtner twisting his ankle but it turned out to be okay and he ended up playing 90 minutes at the weekend and 76 minutes on Tuesday night.

Jens Lehmann was also in action this week, he played for the Arsenal reserves who lost to Wigan 2-1 after Ignasi Miquel’s red card. If you read our official match report it sounds like it was a solid comeback for Jens but read it anywhere else and it sounds like he had a dodgy game. Apparently he went rushing out for some ridiculous ball Almunia-style and only escaped conceding thanks to a goal line clearance. I don’t expect Arsenal.com to slate any of our own players so it’s to be expected that they reported the game in the way that they did. What should be clear though is that Lehmann is not the answer to our problems, he’s simply a reserve ‘keeper and I’d be very surprised to see him start ahead of Almunia this weekend. No matter what happened in the game, conceding two goals to Wigan’s reserve is hardly something to be proud of. Aliadiere also started for our reserves on Tuesday, he’s back at the club trying to get some fitness but some of the things I’ve read sound like he’s desperate for an official move back to Arsenal. Now as nice a guy as he might be, if Middlesbrough don’t want him then surely Arsene isn’t mad enough to be tempted by that one. I know he’s made some odd signings in recent years but Arsene, not this time please.

So in a couple of days time we play Blackburn and it’s back to the title race. I can’t wait. We’ve been away from Premiership football for too long and I’m glad there are no more pointless breaks between now and the end of the season. Going into the game we will already know how Man United have done as they play at Upton Park in Saturday’s early kick off. West Ham have a knack of getting points off them so I’m hoping they can do us another favour this weekend. If we can close the gap this weekend it will be a massive boost. More on this game in the next couple of days.

Now before I go it’s time to pay some respects. As I’m sure you’re well aware today is the 10th anniversary of David Rocastle’s death and it is a day of mourning for Arsenal Football Club. A true great of not just of the club but also the game, was lost to cancer at the age of just 33. There are many tributes doing the rounds on Arsenal blogs today but I’m afraid I can’t offer you anything as good here; as much as I try I can’t remember ever watching him live as a kid. I was quite young when he was still playing for The Arsenal and even watching back old clips of him in action doesn’t rekindle any memories. I remember his death though, it was a very sad time and I remember being told that an important Arsenal legend had died. I think it’s a real shame personally that I can’t remember his playing days because he was so highly regarded by fans it would be nice to have something to think back to. However it shows the nature of Arsenal Football Club that his name is still sung proudly around Ashburton Grove and many of those voices are probably in a similiar position to me. It is a true loss to the Arsenal family and that can’t be escaped, no matter that I cannot remember him personally I still feel a connection to him through the Arsenal family.

There is some great stuff on the Arsenal website today to remember Rocky. There are some touching videos here and a great photo album here.

10 years on and he is still remembered and celebrated as a true great of Arsenal Football Club. RIP David.

“Oh Rocky, Rocky! Rocky, Rocky, Rocky Rocastle!”

International Injury no.1: Bendtner + Djourou & Szczesny news 23 March, 2011

It was inevitable really, wasn’t it.

I had hopes that we might escape just this one international period without injury but just three days into the break we have a player being taken to hospital. Nicklas Bendtner has twisted his ankle in training for Denmark. The striker was doing shooting practice when he picked up the strain and had an ice pack on the ankle immediately. He was soon taken to hospital for scans and I’m hoping it’s nothing too serious.

The one thing we need at the moment is numbers, we cannot afford to deplete our squad any further. Whatever you think of Nicklas he will be vital to the run in, he got an assist for the equalizer at the weekend and he’s great to have in the box when chasing goal. Striker is the one position where we don’t have too many injuries but we know how quickly that can change, I’m hoping Nick has had nothing more than a nasty fall and he’s back out playing for Denmark as soon as possible; after all he could do with the match practice and a good performance for his national side could bring him back to Arsenal with even more confidence.

I expect we’ll hear news on his ankle in the next 24 hours.

Moving on to another injury and I got a bit of a shock yesterday when I saw Ray Parlour declare Djourou out for the season on his twitter after a trip to the training ground. However in the afternoon news went up on the Arsenal website that his shoulder isn’t looking too bad and he’ll be back in training in a month.

I don’t know who to believe to be honest, the optimist in me wants me to believe Arsenal.com because a return before the end of the season for Johan would be a big boost. However I know that you have to take any ‘official’ Arsenal injury news with a pinch of salt so I wouldn’t be surprised if the Romford Pele knows more than Arsenal are letting on. I don’t know, we’ll see.

Also on twitter yesterday, Szczesny was saying he’s got a scan on his finger on April 5th. That date represents exactly 4 weeks since the Barcelona game where the injury was picked up and then he says if it’s good news then it’ll be two weeks before he can go back to full training. So in an ideal scenario he could return for the Spurs game which is 6 weeks and 1 day since the injury but I wouldn’t get your hopes up so soon, lets wait a couple of weeks and see how the scan goes.

He has still been training though. His finger is only in a splint so it’s not stopping him from getting down to London Colney and working on his distribution and a bit of gym work. Good to see he’s still busy. His kicking is probably the weakest point of his game so I’m glad to see he’s using this time to work on it.

By the way I’ve compiled a list of all the Arsenal players on twitter and you can view that here. It’s pretty handy for getting early injury news like that but also having the chance to win great competitions and learning that Jack Wilshere loves a bit of Gossip Girl.

In other news Alisher Usmanov has upped his stake in Arsenal but only by a small margin and I have to admit I’m a lot less worried about Jabba the Hutt taking over the club than I was about three years ago.

We’ve got 14 players away on international duty, that’s one down and 13 to go. Keep them fingers crossed. Unless you’re Wojciech Szczesny of course and leave them fingers alone.

It’s such a nice day in Bournemouth today so I think I’m gonna head down to the beach. I’m out of here, thanks for reading.

Possible leaked 125th anniversary home kit pictures – 2011/12 20 March, 2011

I did previously link to another leaked photo but it now looks like our new  home kit could be this. Emphasis on the word ‘could’, I have no idea how genuine these are but they look pretty real to me.

If this is the real deal, I guess i like it but I doubt I’ll be buying it. It’s too similar to our current shirt (which I love) and I don’t really see the need to spend £50 just to get a shirt that has got some leaves round the badge. It’s nice, don’t get me wrong but I dunno I kind of expected something a bit more special. It says ‘Arsenal’ though so I guess that’s all you can ask for with an anniversary kit.

I guess we’ll get confirmation on the new kits in the summer but until then this might be what we’re wearing next season. It would look good with some red and white stripy socks and matching gold Premier League patches on the sleeves…

As for the away, well Arseblogger said on his twitter that the new away could be based on this blue lightning kit from 1995:

That could be interesting! I had that kit when I was a boy with Wright 8 on the back so I’d be tempted to get that again over the home. We’ll see ay.

Tomorrow is the first day of the international break, our players will be jetting home to reunite with their national teams. It might be awkward but remember to keep those fingers crossed for two solid weeks in the hope that we get no more injuries. News is going to be pretty slow Arsenal-wise so I’ll try my best to keep the site updated in the meantime, but I guess no news is good news.

Feel free to spread these photos to your friends using the Facebook and Twitter buttons below. Also if you missed it my write up from my trip to West Brom yesterday is here. Thanks for reading.

West Brom 2-2 Arsenal – 19/03/11 – (Premier League) 20 March, 2011

Another match, another disappointment, another drama. Well it would just be boring if we strolled to a win every week wouldn’t it?

We could’ve really done with a win yesterday to end the bad spell we’ve been on and go into the International break with our confidence back but in the end we were lucky not to lose. A draw is a bad result but with the circumstances yesterday I suppose it’s not the end of the world; it could’ve been much better but it could’ve been a lot, lot worse. At 2-0 down I didn’t think we were coming back and I said to myself I’d be happy with a draw so I guess I can’t complain too much. We had chances to win it at the end and a goal then would’ve been absolutely massive but it didn’t come so I guess we just need to be glad we didn’t drop all three points. We’re still in the race for the moment.

My day started at half 11, getting the train up to Birmingham. The city centre was a loony bin; I saw all kinds of lunatics in my 10 minute walk from Birmingham New Street station to Birmingham Moor Street station than you’d see in a week in London. Well I guess that depends where you go! But little did I know the craziest motherfucker was to come, a crazy Spaniard about an hour into the match itself…

I got to The Hawthorns pretty early, I was there just after 1 o’clock and I was surprised to see the West Brom players walking to the stadium from the facility over the road. Good for the home fans getting a few autographs and that, bad for me as I had to endure the deformed face of Scott Carson up close. I stayed though to see if Carlos Vela was about and then hung around to see the Arsenal coach arrive and watch the players get off the bus. It’s not a sight I get to see much anymore, I used to watch the players get off the coach at Highbury, quite liked cheering the players in. Anyway if you’re interested you can watch a video of them arriving here. It was my first glimpse of the man, the legend – Jens Lehmann.

Inside the ground they were showing Tottenham vs. West Ham which was quite inspiring for a few lots of anti-Spurs chanting. A West Ham goal would’ve gone down a treat, and despite at half time the West Brom big screen saying The Hammers won 1-0, it was not the case and it finished 0-0. Nice to see them dropping points as always and we made our way to our seats in high spirits.

Whilst watching the scum I received the team news that Ramsey was starting via some kid in front of me jumping up screaming as if we’d just scored a cup final winning goal. I mean I understand he is liked amongst fans but fuck me that was an over reaction to 21-year-old who hasn’t started a Premier League game in over a year. I don’t know, maybe he had twenty quid on Aaron starting, then the reaction might’ve made sense. I was there at Stoke when he was Shawcrossed so I feel a sense of attachment to him too but I don’t exactly think he’s going to be our saviour right now. Aaron was joined in midfield by the defensive (and I use that term very loosely) partnership of Denilson and Wilshere.

Denilson has been bad recently but fuck me he was awful yesterday. He couldn’t hit a pass with any accuracy, conviction or creation. He looks like he’s completely lost any confidence and his defending was even worse. His idea of defence is loose your man, chase back and him then foul him. Surely he can’t play again this season and I’m glad Wenger shared my view as he was brought off at half time.

Any good feelings about the game or hysteria about Aaron Ramsey’s start were quickly diminished. West Brom won an early corner and Reid beat none other than Ramsey to the header and they were 1-0 up after two minutes. I wonder how that kid felt about his favourite Welshman now. Not a lot you can say about the goal, it was a good corner and a good header, I thought we could’ve done better to not concede the set piece in the first place, Sagna missed the clearance completely giving Koscielny no choice but to nod it out.

We only really had one chance to reply in the first half. Clichy put in a good cross to van Persie who’s looping header hit the bar and fell to Ramsey who couldn’t put it in from 3 yards out. Carson did well to get a block in but I hoped Aaron might’ve placed it in the corner rather than hitting it straight at the ‘keeper.

At half time we found ourselves in a very similar situation to 2004. Having just been knocked out of the FA Cup and Champions League we were trailing to Liverpool in the league and needed a big second half performance. Apparently that day Thierry Henry had some inspirational words to say in the Highbury dressing room but yesterday I couldn’t imagine any one of that squad grabbing the team by the scruff of the neck at half time. Maybe Jens Lehmann but he’s hardly in a position to be bossing anyone around just yet being at the club about three days.

It told and we didn’t exactly come out in the second half raring to go. The only boost of confidence was Denilson’s departure for Chamakh, which meant Nasri dropped back into midfield. I thought Marouane had a good half actually; he’s been a bit disappointing since RVP returned and took his place in the side but he was one of my men of the match yesterday. He was getting involved, looking for the ball and making moves, which unfortunately cannot be said of a lot of players. I have no problem with a lack of quality or skill but I love a player that puts the effort in and that’s exactly what Chamakh did yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised. He could still do with a goal though, he got an assist for Arshavin’s goal but if he could rediscover that goal scoring form from early in the season it could be vital to our title hopes. I wasn’t so impressed with Andrey Arshavin yesterday, he is miles ahead in the vote for Arsenal.com’s man of the match but he was pissing me off yesterday. It was just the typical Arshavin performance – do nothing all game, amble around and then two bits of magic and he’s a hero. He never got going until we were 2-0 down and that was true of most of the side. Why the fuck do we have to wait until we’re losing by two goals to actually have a go? It’s like we had no motivation, is the Premier League title not motivating enough? For fucks sake…

Anyway, Ramsey was taken off for Bendtner in the 56th minute as Wenger tried to do something about our game. I thought Aaron had an alright hour, he needs games to get back to his best but he can’t do a lot when the players around him aren’t helping and I think that was his problem yesterday. We were 1-0 down but we weren’t creating or doing much, maybe having Bendnter, Chamakh, van Persie, Arshavin and Nasri on the pitch would force something out of them. However it wasn’t the substitution that inspired us, it was another West Brom goal.

They went 2-0 up two minutes after that change and what a ridiculous goal it was. The ball was hoofed up field more in hope than anything else, Odemwingie had just Squillaci to beat but Almunia made it a whole lot easier for him by charging out of his goal for no apparently reason, getting nowhere near the ball. The West Brom striker  just had to take a touch and score into the empty net. I’d almost forgotten about this side of Manuel’s game, he made some good saves at Old Trafford and the Nou Camp but for every four or five good stops there’s a moment of madness. I don’t know what the fuck he was thinking, we were in trouble but Squillaci was there and if he had stayed in goal then Odemwingie would’ve had some work to do to try and find some room for a shot and Almunia might’ve saved it then. Instead he ran out of goal with no real confidence and made it easy for him. If you’re going to come out, you have to 100% commit and sprint to the ball, not just jog out and hope for the best. There was some calling for Lehmann but I don’t think he is the answer. I mean Jens is a legend but he’s just as crazy as Almunia and I wouldn’t put it past him making the same mistake yesterday. Not just that but he’s been out of football for ages and there’s a reason for that – he’s here simply in case Almunia gets injured so I’m not saying drop Manuel. He’s all we have so we can’t moan too much about yesterday calamitous error, all we can do is just get behind him and hope Szczesny recovers soon.

At 2-0 down it looked pretty dire and to be honest I thought we were going to lose seeing the way we’d been playing. There were a few Gooners who had seen enough and were making their way out. There was still half an hour to go though so there was still time to turn it around if there was some miracle. I was saying in my head that I’d be happy with a draw now, at 1-0 down I still thought we might come back and win but at this point I would just be happy with a point. We only needed a goal to inspire us and that came with 20 minutes to go.

We started actually showing some urgency after going two down. I was frustrated it had taken this long but at least we were playing now. Arshavin suddenly decided that he wanted to play and he was instrumental in our fight back. In the 70th minute he played a one-two with Chamakh, took a touch inside the area and finished brilliantly in the far corner with his left foot. That’s the thing with Arshavin, he can have an awful game then out of nowhere score a brilliant goal! We put the foot on the pedal even more and just seven minutes later we squeezed in the second. Arshavin did well on the left wing getting past two defenders and managing to put in cross. It fell to the back post, Bendtner got a knee on it before it went out and it fell to van Persie who slid in and the ball trickled across the line. It was a scrappy, scrappy goal but one we worked hard for and we’d got it back to 2-2.

We spent the remainder of the game pushing and we could’ve got a third but it never came. To come from 2-0 down to win 3-2 would’ve been brilliant and incredibly motivating for the rest of the season but in the end it didn’t come and I guess we just have to be thankful we got those two goals. To lose yesterday, well it would’ve been fucking shit to say the least. The team’s attitude was not right and I hope that it gets sorted out in the two week break we’ve got now. We’re lacking leadership and fight but hopefully that will return when we get some players back after these internationals. Fabregas, Walcott and Song are all due back for our next game, which will be a massive boost; we really miss the different qualities of those three players – Creation, leadership, pace and the ability to defend. However we always go into international breaks in this sort of situation – just as it looks like we’re nearing some degree of a full squad another group of players go and get injured. My money is on van Persie to come back crocked but my fingers are heavily crossed he can escape injuries just this once; we could do with a bit of luck.

Man United have got injury problems of their own and I think this break comes at a good time for them too. The lucky bastards got a last minute gifted goal yesterday to win 1-0 so they’re five points ahead of us now having played a game more but that game in hand we have is away to Tottenham and that’s hardly a guaranteed three points.

As frustrating and heartbreaking these sort of times are, it sure is exciting and I’m glad we’re in the mix. Thanks for reading.

West Brom Preview: 3 points needed before internationals 19 March, 2011

This is it now, there are no other distractions with cup competitions; we have one sole aim – to win the Premier League. Ten games stand between us and the title. Some very tricky ones, some winnable ones but today we start with a trip to West Brom and it’s one of the 10 I’ve highlighted as ‘must win’.

They’re a tough side and I know that because I was at the game earlier in the season when they went 3-0 up on us. They were under a different management then and they showed that they weren’t afraid to attack. They now have Roy Hodgson at the wheel but the players will take confidence from the way they were able to break us down in September. They know we are fragile at the back and they know that today we’re coming to the Hawthorns with a depleted defense.

Wenger says he’s not worried about Squillaci but I have to admit I am a little. I mean I’ve seen him do well and I’m confident he can step up his game again but what I’m worried about is if he can be consistent for 90 minutes of the ten remaining games. It’s a big chance for him to make his mark in his debut season and I’ve got my fingers crossed that he forms a solid partnership with Koscielny now. It’s not just down to those two though, the whole side must not forget their defensive responsibilities. That’s Denilson, Wilshere, Ramsey, Diaby, Nasri, Rosicky, Bendtner and especially Arshavin – not only do they need to be looking forward but also when not in possession we need to close every team down quickly and win the ball back. I’d love it if we could emulate Barcelona performance against us in the Nou Camp where we found it so difficult to keep the ball never mind attack.

We have a few injures for today so the side might look something like this:

Almunia
Sagna – Squillaci – Koscielny – Clichy
Wilshere – Denilson
Nasri
Rosicky – van Persie (c) – Arshavin

Bendtner could also come into that side at the expense of Rosicky but I’m not sure, Arsene likes the option of Tomas at the moment and he is better at tracking back than some of the others.

West Brom’s current form from the last five games is: LDDDW. That last win was against Birmingham City, it was a big win for them and they’ve had two weeks to prepare for this game. They’ll be ready and confident that they can nick something today to help their fight against the drop. It’s not going to be easy today but I still fancy us to win. We need to start well and put them under pressure from the first minute whilst not forgetting to defend with everything we’ve got. An early goal would be brilliant, I’m not saying by any means that West Brom are going to hold out for a 0-0 but the longer it remains that way the more tense it’s going to get.

I’m off to the game today, in fact I better wrap this post up quickly as my train is at half 11. I’m really looking forward to it, every game in the Premiership is massive now and I’m sure the Gooners will be in full voice today. It’s also going to be a chance to see Jens Lehmann in the flesh, the last time I saw him he was waving to the fans at Ashburton Grove to chants of ‘Leee-man! Leee-man!’ I’m expecting something similar today. I’ll report back on the game tomorrow but you can follow my trip over on my twitter – twitter.com/the_cannon.

Enjoy the game however you’re following it. Let bring back those three points from Birmingham. COME ON YOU GUNNERS.

News round up: Injuries, signings and bans 18 March, 2011

There’s quite a bit to go over today so I’m just going to jump straight in, been putting off this post for a while thanks to the Guinness headache this morning but it’s all good. There was a fresh press conference yesterday so naturally there’s fresh injury news:

“Cesc Fabregas is out for the game on Saturday. He should be back after the international break, maybe, he has a chance, but he is not available for the weekend. Walcott is not available for the weekend and he has no chance [for England]. He is not available for England.

Johan Djourou is out for at least six weeks. There’s a little chance [he will play again this season], he has an arthroscopy on Monday and we will know more about the damage in his shoulder. But anyway we hope we will have good news but no matter what happens he will be out for six weeks.

For Thomas Vermaelen the season is over. In fairness he has not played since September, I never expected him to be fit before the end of the season. He is not out on the field yet and it is impossible [for him to play] after six months without competition. I am confident he will have a full recovery but for this season we cannot rely on him.”

So nothing new on Cesc, Theo and Johann; I’m looking forward to the former two making it back after the international break but as for Djourou he would be a timely bonus if he can make it back for May. The news on Vermaelen doesn’t come as a huge shock, as Wenger said he has been out of practice for so long even if he recovered now he wouldn’t be fit and ready in time to play. It’s a real shame and I hope Thomas comes back raring to go in pre-season.

It’s incredibly frustrating for a fan though. We’ve been told ’10 days’, ’4weeks’, ‘another 6 weeks’ etc. etc. throughout the season being left suspended in hope that he might return. I know that he’s had setbacks that the club couldn’t predict but when Wenger says, ” I never expected him to be fit before the end of the season,” you can’t help but feel like you’ve been lied to. I was a bit pissed off with Wenger yesterday because I know he lies to the media a lot but on something like this I feel like I’ve been given the run-around on expecting him back. Not just that but if he knew that he was going to be out for the season why didn’t he strengthen the squad in January? That’s just negligence.

Well having since seen the video footage from the quotes I feel a bit better, I don’t think he’s saying he knew all along he’d be out for the season but I don’t know. I still feel a bit frustrated that he didn’t bring in a central defender on loan in January because now we find ourselves in a situation where we are in a title-winning position with 10 games to go and we’re playing our 3rd and 4th choice defenders. Arsene likes a gamble but this one doesn’t look like it’s going to pay off at the moment. If Koscielny and Squillaci can form a solid partnership between now and then end of the season then me and a load of others will be proved wrong but I’m getting a bit fed up of us taking these risks. As he said there’s still a chance of Djourou coming back after 6 weeks but how am I supposed to believe that after this?

Edit: Also forgot to mention that Abou Diaby is somehow injured again. Incredible that he’s injured yet again. Maybe his muscles run on a meter system and Arsene has run out of change. I dunno.

Anyway moving on and UEFA announced that Wenger and Nasri will face a one-match ban for their comments to the referee at the Nou Camp. I don’t know if we’ll bother appealing that as it’s such a small ban but I’m sure Arsene isn’t over the moon at being fined €10,000 for simply speaking passionately about that terrible, terrible decision. That’s all in the past now so lets just leave it but it means the manager and Nasri will likely miss the opening group game of next year’s competition.

It was also announced this week that Alex Ferguson will face a five-match ban in the league. Wenger thinks it won’t have an affect on Man United but every little helps and Ferguson is one of those managers that hassles the referees all game to get his side a decision. It might come to our advantage, it might not. The ban does mean that he could miss the game when United come to The Emirates, however their Newcastle game has still yet to be rearranged and if it comes before our game it might mean he misses that one instead and returns for the game against us. We’ll wait see on that one.

Also, the Champions League draw was made today and United play Chelsea. I was only interested in the draw to see how the fixtures will affect our title rivals, obviously they haven’t got far to travel by drawing Chelsea but the matches could affect team selections in the surrounding games. I’m not naive enough to think Ferguson will rest players in the League but fatigue could affect their performances. The first leg comes after their West Ham (a) match, which is followed by a home visit of Fulham, and then the second leg is a few days later but their game on the weekend after that is in the FA Cup. I guess we want United to beat Chelsea and cause further fixture congestion, if they did progress their semi final against Inter Milan or Schalke will be a few days before they come and play us with the second leg just three days later. So if they knock Chelsea out of Europe it might give a slight advantage for us when it comes to the league.

I’ve missed the excitement of a proper title challenge, looking so much at an opposition’s fixtures!

Moving on then and it was officially announced that Jens Lehmann has joined the club to help sort out our goalkeeping crisis. It’s an exciting move for the fans and I can’t wait to see Jens’ crazy warm-ups tomorrow. I don’t expect him to play much however if he did make an appearance in, or after the Liverpool game he would become the club’s oldest ever player. The record is currently held by Jock Rutherford at 41 years 159 days. He’s interested in breaking a record at the club but his main aim is to bring the Premier League title back to Arsenal. You can watch his first interview back at the club below.

Wenger says he will get the best out of Almunia and I guess that plus the motivational side of his game is just as important as his new role of back up goalkeeper. Szczesny or Mannone could return in May so Jens might find himself third choice before the season is out but that wont matter to him. His presence in the training ground and the dressing room will hopefully inspire the players to get the results we need. He mentions in that interview that he joins Gael Clichy as the only current players who know what it’s like to bring the title to North London. Hopefully that experience can be shared by the current group of players come the end of May.

He’ll be on the bench for tomorrow’s game away to West Brom and I’ll be there happily cheering his name once again. It’s not about Lehmann though, it’s about three points – tomorrow is a massive game and I’m looking forward to seeing how we respond at the Hawthorns. I’ll be there but I’ll preview the game in the morning before I get the train up to Birmingham.

Speak to you tomorrow.

An in depth look at the title run in 15 March, 2011

Well since we last spoke we have been knocked out of the third and final cup competition going. I really hoped that we might’ve be able to go on in the FA Cup this season, especially seeing the midfield that United started with but our defensive frailty, bad luck and inability to take our chances came to haunt us again. Van der Sar had a great game and kept them in it on many occasions but with the amount of possession, chances and attacks we had we should’ve really scored.

It’s over now though and there’s not much point dwelling on it. It’s strange to think that we only have one competition left to play for but we just need to get on with it. There’s 10 games left in this title race and we have a very good chance to lift the Premier League trophy if we can perform. United have nine games left of their league campaign but also have the FA Cup and Champions League to concentrate on so that might work in our advantage. It’s the one positive you can take from being knocked out of all the cups in quick succession.

So instead of criticizing the manager or the players I thought I’d be a bit more positive and weigh up our Premier League chances. After all, it is the biggest prize our of all four and if we were to pull it off then the FA Cup, Carling Cup and European competitions will be completely forgotten. Here is the fixture run in for the rest of the season.

So from that you can see we still have to face Liverpool and Tottenham before United come to us, plus we have some tricky away trips to the Reebok, the Britannia and Craven Cottage where we have dropped points before. United have got more home games than us but one of those is against Chelsea and they also have some tough away trips to West Ham, Newcastle and Blackburn. I think it’s quite an even run in though, maybe slightly leaning towards United because they rarely drop points at home but the match on 1st May is the big one. We’ve got six big games before then but I still feel that the title will be won or lost in May.

We look the busier of the two teams from that graphic I’ve made but what it doesn’t show you is that Man United will probably be playing European football midweek between some of those games plus they still have to fit in a trip to St. James’ Park in that schedule. So it’s really us that has the clear path to the end of the season with only the Tottenham match left as a midweek game; otherwise we will have full week breaks between each games, which is really important for our fragile looking side.

You could look at those fixtures and try to predict the results and see where we end up but that’s pointless at this stage. Anything can happen in the final few weeks as every team scraps for those vital last points. I could look back at the form book and see how well the two sides have performed against each team they have to play but it’s all meaningless now. It comes down to who wants it more and who is willing to give every last breath to earn the points each week. The facts are that United have 60 points, Arsenal have 57 but with a game in hand – it’s neck and neck and anything can happen.

I don’t want to say each game from now on is a cup final because we’ve shown that we don’t do very well in those but every single match is vital. We have to make sure we win 95% of the ‘lesser’ games, i.e. West Brom, Blackburn, Blackpool, Bolton, Stoke, Villa and Fulham. On paper those are all teams that we are better than and we should beat; too many times we drop points against those sort of sides but we can’t afford to let that happen now, we have to beat the teams below us it’s as simple as that. As for Liverpool, Spurs and United we are capable of winning all three of them but I’m realistic, they’re all going to be tough games especially as the opposition needs the points just as much as we do. I’d take 5 points from those three games now but you don’t know what we’ll need yet. Hopefully we don’t get to the end of April and we’re in a position where we need to win all three of them.

As for the squad available to do it well who knows what we’ll have. Year after year I’m astounded by the injuries we get and I’m sure if by some miracle we could stay fully fit all season we’d win the league and maybe even the Champions League but it doesn’t work like that. At the end of the season one name is engraved on the Premier League trophy and never has it said anything like: ‘CHELSEA (BUT ARSENAL HAD LOADS OF INJURIES THAT YEAR SO IT WAS A BIT UNFAIR)’. We’ve just got to deal with it and put out 11 hungry players that will fight for a win.

Goalkeeper
Who else gets injuries to three of their first team ‘keepers? Honestly! We’re left with just Manuel Almunia now but he’s shown against Barcelona and United that he can make some good saves. It looks as if we are bringing in Jens Lehmann as a back up to Almunia but I hope he’s no more than that. He’ll be a great character to have around in this run-in but unless we’re unlucky enough to get another goalkeeper injury he should move no further than the bench.

Defence
Vermaelen has pretty much missed a whole season and I’m not holding my breath about seeing him again. I heard whispers about him maybe being available for maybe our final few games but we’ll just have to wait and see. In his absence Djourou has stepped up and done brilliantly but he is now apparently out for the season after dislocating his shoulder at Old Trafford on Saturday. Also, what a freakish incident that was…just our luck… However there are rumours coming out of Switzerland that it might not be as bad as first thought and he could still play a part this season. We’ll see about that one but it would be great news as currently we have just Koscielny, Squillaci and Miquel available to play central defence, Song is out too but when he does return we miss him too much in midfield to think about playing him at the back. Koscielny is the only one we can count on in the centre of defence at the moment so we have to hope he can pull out more of those great performances week in, week out. I should also mention the brilliant Sagna and Gale Clichy who has also be looking near his best again. We need those two to keep doing what they do also.

Midfield
I mentioned Song already and he can’t come back soon enough. We’re struggling without a proper defensive midfielder in our set up but hopefully we just have one more game to play now without him. Wilshere has been incredible this season and the efforts he has made so far are enough to make him my player of the season already. It’s a shame to see someone work so hard and give so much in a team that doesn’t give half the effort he does sometimes so I don’t know where we’d be without him. Fabregas is ham-strung yet again but hopefully he’s not too far away from recovery as we could do with a bit of Cesc-magic before he (probably) packs his bags for Barcelona. One last push please Cesc. Ramsey is ‘like a new signing’ for this final part of the season so hopefully he can come in and do well but not just that – he can also provide a bit of competition for places which might hopefully improve the performances of Denilson, Diaby and Rosicky. As for Samir Nasri well he’s been a bit quiet recently but if he could re-find some of that form then he will make a massive difference, along with Wilshere he’s a definite contender for player of the season so we need him back to his best, scoring and creating goals please.

Forwards
We’re missing the attacking threat of Walcott right now, I guess he is still due to come back after the international break so I’m looking forward to his return. On the other side Arshavin did look like improving but put in a rubbish performance at Old Trafford so I wouldn’t be so bothered about him not getting in the side – we need players that want this. As for the central striker well I don’t have a lot of confidence in Chamakh at the moment but maybe he still has goals in him, also Bendtner could do with some goals to his name but he is currently sick with food poisoning but maybe he’ll be okay for this weekend.

I’m still not quite over Robin van Persie’s sudden fitness for the Barcelona game but it does appear he is ready to go after 90 minutes against Man United. You never know, there’s still time for him to get injured especially as he goes away with Holland next week but if he can stay fit we’re a lot more dangerous going forward. He is without a doubt our best striker at the club and he reminds us of that every now and again. He was on a good goal-scoring run but recently he’s let that drop a bit, a goal this weekend might put him back on his way.

It’s all well and good picking out individuals and asking for a hero to come along and bring us through but I also think it’s important this team fights for this as a team. We have a group of players here at should be hungry starving for success so if they are not ready to fight for the result every weekend then really I don’t know what to think. Some fans might be pissed off with the way we’ve dropped out of the cups this years but it’s about pulling together now for this title run in. I’ll be there at The Hawthorns this weekend and I’m looking forward to another vital Premier League game.

Build up to that one to come in the next few days but I’m hoping inside our London Colney training centre this week there are some serious talks about fighting for this prize.

Thanks for reading, if you enjoyed todays post don’t forget you can share it to your friends on Facebook or your followers on Twitter using the buttons below. I haven’t actually used them myself yet so I don’t know if they work!

Beating Man United will put Barcelona, Birmingham and Busacca behind us 12 March, 2011

What a week we’ve just had, not only the disappointment(s) of being robbed of a win against Sunderland last weekend but obviously going out of the Champions League in controversial circumstances on Tuesday. It’s been a week of terrible refereeing decisions against us and you know what, I just want today’s game to not revolve around the man in the middle. Unfortunately, Arsenal vs. Man United provides a perfect stage for an egotistical referee to make some headlines for himself but I’m hoping, please, just not today.

Anyway, that’s that out the way and hopefully it’s not something that needs bringing up again after the game. I won’t be here with a match report as I’m actually in Germany this weekend so I’ll just have my usual thoughts on Monday or Tuesday about the game when I’m back from Dusseldorf. I’m just about to set off for Gatwick now so I’ll be watching in some Irish Pub there this afternoon.

I feel that this game has become all the more important in recent weeks. When the draw was made, yes it was a massive game, it always is but what has happened since then has made it even bigger. Before both teams might’ve been expected to field a weakened line up and rest a few players but now I’m thinking both us and United will really go for it. If we had won the Carling Cup I don’t think the need would be as great for the FA Cup. Also if we had somehow beaten Barcelona then it would be fair to say that our priorities would be Europe and the Premier League. Now we have just this FA Cup game standing between us and a semi final plus the chase for the League Title. They’re two big chances for a trophy and I really think we need to win something this year to put behind not only that record but the losses against Birmingham and Barcelona.

As for United well they obviously didn’t win the Carling Cup either but they have still got a chance in Europe. They’re stuck in this title race with us but thanks to two losses on the bounce it’s right in the balance and they can’t assume they’re going to go all the way. Like us, the FA Cup to the represents a significant opportunity of silverware this season with Man City being the only top-four challenger standing in the way. Arsenal and United will be looking to avoid ending the season trophy-less so todays’s game has become much more important.

I always get excited about playing United; it’s the old school rivalry. I think it’s going to be a great game and the winners will have that psychological upper hand in the title race too. They will also be rewarded with a game at Wembley in the semi finals and as much as they might want it, I want it more. A chance to go back to Wembley so soon would be very welcome to quickly help erase those memories of the Carling Cup final.

Arsene says he will play his strongest team however we have got a few fresh injuries to deal with. Fabregas has done his hamstring again and Szczesny is out for six weeks with that finger injury. Almunia had a blinder against Barca so I’m not too worried about him taking over again but he is now our only fit ‘keeper. Mannone is on loan with Hull but he’s also injured so Wenger has said he might have to make an emergency loan. More on that when I hear but the name ‘Jens Lehmann’ has been talked about recently and that would be hilarious! It’s so crazy it might just work but at the moment that’s just fan speculation. Wenger has praised Almunia’s professional attitude having spent so long in the reserves and on the bench and now his time has come to potentially earn his place back until the end of the season. Whether he chooses to stay on after that is another matter but 2011 is in Manuel’s hands now. Literally.

Robin van Persie is fit though which comes as a bit of a surprise to me because I never really thought he’d be 100% for the Barcelona game so it must mean he has completed a genuine early comeback. It’s just a shock that it’s come from Robin! So if Arsene says we’re going to play our strongest possible team then I think it might look something like this:

Almunia
Sagna – Djourou – Koscielny – Clichy
Wilshere – Diaby
Rosicky
Nasri – van Persie (c) – Arshavin

I’ve said this before but personally I’d have Nasri swapped with Rosicky in Cesc role but Wenger has avoided that recently. Bendtner could start maybe ahead of Robin if he’s not fully fit to start or on the wing so don’t surprised to see him.

United will undoubtedly play their strongest possible side too but Nani got injured last weekend and Ferdinand is still out. Vidic will return to the side after being suspended for the Liverpool game.

I’m looking forward to a traditional Arsenal vs. Man United encounter. It’s always something special and a game that’s been fought right until the end. There have been some great memories in this game but also some moments to forget. Hopefully we will play our best side like Wenger said and we’ll avoid another thrashing like we’ve had in the past as that could be further damaging to our confidence. Like I said though, I just hope that today doesn’t become about the referee again and we can just enjoy a proper game a football without any controversy. A win would be great, I’d love that; however a draw would be a decent result as I fancy us against them at home. If it is a draw there is a bit of a worry as to when we’ll actually play to the replay because of upcoming fixture congestion but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. A loss, well that would be a bit rubbish obviously but if we do lose then please let it be by a slim margin. I can’t call this one, it’s a really even match up on paper so it could come down to one moment of magic. Lets hope our top magicians in Samir Nasri and Robin van Persie have dusted off their wands and are ready to pull a rabbit out of the hat. That all sounded a bit dirty didn’t it? Unintentional, I promise.

Right I’m off to Deutschland now, enjoy the game wherever you’re watching.

Come on you Gunners!

Barcelona 3(4) – 1(3) Arsenal –08/03/11 – (Champions League K.O. 2nd Leg) 10 March, 2011

I’ve had a couple of days to calm down about this result but nothing has changed for me, I might not be as angry but I’m just as frustrated as to the manner of our Champions League exit. It was set to be an incredible night of football at the Nou Camp, two great footballing teams coming face to face yet again but the match was ruined by one big headed idiot with a whistle and some cards.

Robin van Persie was a surprise starter which was great to see but just as surprising was the inclusion of Tomas Rosicky who was obviously deployed as a better defensive option that Arshavin. We knew that we’d be on the back foot for most of the game but we defended resiliently in the first half. Barca were all over us but every time we managed to keep them out and they could hardly test Almunia who replaced Szczesny after just 18 minutes. Memories of Paris ’06 came back with Manuel coming on after Lehmann’s red card but on Tuesday night Almunia was our man of the match and kept us in it in the second half. Hopefully Wojciech is alright but Almunia showed just why he has the no.1 on the back of his shirt.

In the first half some of our defending was last-ditch but we managed to keep them out. They always looked dangerous but we were giving everything to keep them out. It looked like we would go into half time keeping it at 0-0 but one silly, silly mistake from Cesc Fabregas gifted them the ball on the edge of the box and they worked quickly and brilliantly to make it 1-0. If he’d have just booted it clear we would’ve made it to half time still leading in the tie but it wasn’t to be and it meant we needed to score in the second half.

We’d found it very difficult to hold any kind of possession in the first 45. Every time we won the ball we soon lost it to Barcelona and we’d be on the back foot defending once again. We’re used to this now though and we had a lot of men behind the ball when not in possession. We played like I’ve seen many teams play against us before and it’s just a shame that after all that hard work one error and we’re behind.

I wasn’t too worried though, I knew we’d improve as the game went on. All we needed was one goal and we’d be winning on aggregate again and that goal came in the 52nd minute. Nasri won a rare corner and van Persie whipped in a dangerous ball which Busquets stuck in the back of his own net.

1-1 on the night, 3-2 on aggregate and the game was turned on its head. It meant Barca needed two goals to go through and we really had something to protect now. This was ours to lose and we had a massive chance of going through. It meant that they would have to come at us and with 11 men we could both be strong in defence but dangerous on the counter.

However it was all fucked up by one idiot of a referee. You all know what happened, a second yellow for van Persie having a shot ONE SECOND after the whistle was blown. It’s a joke, I have never seen anything like it before. Fair enough if it was four or five seconds later and Robin had blasted it into row Z then the ref might have a case but Robin had no idea he was offside, he never took his eye off the ball and it was a genuine shot on goal. He argued with the ref that there was no way he could hear one whistle amongst 95,000 fans and even if he had by the time the whistle had went he was already lining up the shot. I don’t think there was any fan, player, manager or even official inside that ground that would’ve booked him for that, this man had an agenda and he wasn’t going to back down.

If a Barca player had done the exact same thing the idea of a booking wouldn’t have even crossed my mind. Not in the slightest. I couldn’t believe what he’d done. Not only was it a joke of a sending off but also it had totally ruined the game. We were leading at the time but when we went down to 10 men I said that whatever happens now I will never be able to justify it because of that decision – we’ll never know if we could’ve knocked Barcelona out or not, that’s the annoying thing. With 10 men we didn’t have a hope, not only was there one less man behind the ball to defend but there was no longer an attacking threat – nothing for Barca to be wary of on the counter and they could pick us apart with ease. Maybe we should’ve put another striker on straight away but we needed as many men defending as we could at this point.

Yes, Barcelona were magnificent but you never know what might’ve happened with 11 men. That is what’s so frustrating. Wenger said afterwards he was sure we’d progress without that sending off – I think we definitely had a massive chance.

Despite Almunia’s best efforts Barcelona eventually scored and then got another from the penalty spot. At 3-1 we still only needed a goal to goal through but with 10 men and a knackered side we still didn’t have much of a chance. Cesc and Rosicky were replaced with Arshavin and Bendtner but it didn’t make much of a difference, it was now even easier for the home side to keep the ball and we could only muster one chance and that was when Wilshere put Bendtner through but Mascherano tracked back well and got something on it. Maybe Bendtner could’ve shot first time, scored and undone the injustice of the red card, that would’ve been sweet but on the night it just wasn’t to be.

So it ended 3-1, 4-3 on aggregate but it didn’t feel like we’d been properly beaten. If that had happened with 11 men on the pitch then I’d have no problems with being beaten by a brilliant side but you just never know how it might’ve gone if we weren’t robbed of a player. Yes we didn’t manage a shot on target but we held out Barcelona for an hour with all our players, it wasn’t until we lost Robin that they were able to break through much easier. Credit has to go to Almunia for keeping us in the game as long as he did. Well done to him.

Cesc revealed after the game that he picked up an injury after 15 minutes and that would explain his poor performance. He was anonymous. He also said this on his twitter:

I take full blame for the result tonight. One of the worst moments of my life. I apologise.

He doesn’t need to beat himself up about it but I can understand his disappointment.

There was some afters with the referee in the tunnel and Wenger and Nasri are facing a UEFA charge for their actions. I’ve got no problem with that, if I was allowed access to Massimo Busacca after Tuesday’s game I would’ve given him a piece of my mind and more.

We have to move on, that’s all we can do. We go out thinking that we might’ve had better luck on the day but in the end it went against us. It could’ve been a completely different story though, a ref that was so happy to dish out the red card saw these hands around the throat in the first half and decided to do nothing about any of them instead booking Robin a few minutes later for a reaction to these incidents. It would be nice if UEFA had a look at those images and did something about it but in the long run it won’t really change anything to us so I’ve lost the will to care now.

We’ve got a massive game on Saturday now and I feel that it’s vitally important we do well there. A loss will be quite damaging to either side not only obviously from going out of the cup but the damage to confidence that would go with another defeat, and one against a title rival. After everything that has happened this season we really could do with some silverware. We have a great chance in the two remaining competitions we’re in and picking up a trophy in May will make the whole season go down a lot better.

Being out of Europe might be blessing in disguise, we can now concentrate solely on domestic matters. I still believe that we can make 2011 a winning year for Arsenal.

Build up to the United game tomorrow. Thanks for reading.

Barcelona Preview: Score and we have a big chance 8 March, 2011

Tonight is the night. I’ve been excited/nervous/anxious for the past couple of days but now the time is here. I just can’t wait for tonight’s game, I’ve been looking at twitters, videos, blogs and forums frantically trying to get myself up to date ahead of the game. I’ve even had to have a couple early beers just to calm myself down!

Reading about all the Gooners out in Barcelona at the moment has been hard for me, I’m insanely jealous! I was there last year and it was an incredible trip, all I can think about today is imagining myself there. Although I’m 900 miles away in Bournemouth I feel the same emotions I did in Catalonia last April. I can’t even make it up to London tonight to join the rest of the Arsenal fans but I’ll be making my voice heard in Bournemouth even if there are just a couple of people in red and white shirts scattered around.

I can’t work out our chances tonight, we go into this game with a lead but we’re going to the most difficult stadiums around and will be made automatic second favourites. I’m okay with that but I think everyone knows we have a good chance of completing a historic victory. Obviously a win will put us into the quarter finals, a draw will also be good enough to see us through and a 3-2 or 4-3 loss will do it too. We won’t go into this game looking for a draw though, we certainly can’t hold out for a 0-0; not only is it against our style but I don’t think we have the quality to do it either. If we score just one goal Barcelona need three so I think this will be more our approach – we’ll be patient but we’ll be looking to add to our lead as a goal or two will give the home side a real problem. Plus, it’ll mean they’ll have to come out and attack which suits our passing and counter-attacking game.

I think Wenger will send them out there just to be patient and careful initially, it’s one of those games that you have to play by ear and see how it goes. The tactics will undoubtedly change throughout the game so we just have to see how it unfolds. I think we’re going to need to score though, for Barcelona to not score at home is some kind of freak occurrence, it’s only happened twice this season so we’re going to have to look to test their weakened defence. However if we do get a goal or even two, as I said it really looks good in our favour. I’d be very surprised if we kept a clean sheet tonight but I’m sure a certain Wojciech Szczesny will have something different to say about that.

The defence will need to have a good game and I’m confident they can do well as they have been in good form recently. We’re missing Vermaelen but Djourou and Koscielny have formed a solid partnership of late and we have Sagna available too who missed the first leg. We’re without Alex Song which is a shame so it’s up to either Denilson or Diaby to step in and have one of their better games. I’m not very confident in Denilson at the moment so I think Diaby will get the nod ahead of him tonight; defensive midfield isn’t really his strongest point but he’ll have to play well tonight.

As for the rest of midfield we’ll have Wilshere and Fabregas fit and available. Jack was man of the match in the first leg and we need him to play like that again tonight. He ran the midfield and against Barcelona that’s some achievement. If Jack and Cesc play well tonight then Arsenal play well.

Up front it’s a bit of a dilemma. It’s fairly certain that Nasri will play on one wing but it’s who accompanies him I’m unsure of. You’d think Arshavin is certain to start on the other side but his ability to track back will be tested tonight, it might be safer to go with Diaby or Rosicky because you can trust them to defend a bit better but then you miss Andrey’s talent. Also the Russian’s impact in the first leg was quite damaging and Arsene might chose to play him from the bench again.

As for the main striker role it could be any one of Bendtner, Chamakh or van Persie. I’d say it is least likely to be Chamakh but you never know, he has a good goal scoring record in the Champions League and he might be our man tonight. Bendtner will be disappointed if he doesn’t start but he couldn’t score against Sunderland so how well will he do against Barca? He scored in the Nou Camp last year and his height might be an advantage against Barca’s depleted defence so might be a good option still. And then there’s Robin van Persie who travelled to Spain yesterday and was due to have a late fitness test this morning. If he’s fit then, 1. It’s a miracle, and 2. He will be a big boost to our team. I think the likelihood is that he might be fit enough for a cameo performance but would we start him and bring him off early or have him as an option from the bench? I think the first goal will be really important tonight and dictate the way the game is played so if he is fit I’d be inclined to start him. Only Wenger knows how his star striker is doing so I can only guess but here’s how I think we might start:

Szczesny
Sagna – Djourou – Koscielny – Clichy
Wilshere – Diaby
Fabregas (c)
Nasri – van Persie – Arshavin

If Robin is not available then I’d go for Bendtner in that same line up. I’d also start Arshavin but drill into him the importance of tracking back, believe it or not I have seen him do it before and tonight is one of those nights where he has to put a proper shift in. if it knackers him out and we have to replace him in the second half then so be it but I think it’s really important that he plays, gets back when needed but also uses his pace, trickery and shots up front to help us earn that vital goal.

Barcelona will be missing both Puyol and Pique so it looks like Abidal and Busquets will deputise in central defence. That doesn’t mean they’ll be easy to beat but it’s certainly an advantage. However they did have Puyol and Pique missing last year and it didn’t matter too much as they were Messi was so lethal in attack that night.

That’s the nature of this game though; it’s going to be a case of who can score the most goals. It’s sounds a pretty obvious statement to make about a football match but it’s true! Both teams will have to defend to the best of their ability but it’s all about attack tonight. As amazing as a boring 0-0 will be I just don’t see it happening.

It’s going to be a great spectacle of football whatever happens. I’m going to wrap this up now and just say enjoy the game wherever you’re watching. We might be the underdogs but I believe we can do it.

COME ON ARSENAL.

RVP makes Barca Squad + Sunderland & Bad Refereeing 7 March, 2011

What a result at Anfield yesterday! I always hoped that Liverpool would do us a favour but I never expected them to win 3-1. Whatever way you wish to look at it we’ve closed the gap on United this weekend. Yeah it’s frustrating that we couldn’t win and be even closer to the leaders but overall I’m not too upset. The gap is now just three points and we have a game in hand.

I wasn’t able to watch Saturday’s game, I followed on twitter and listened to the last 10 minutes on the radio. I’ve since seen the highlights and it we were terribly unlucky not to have nicked a 1-0 win. Arshavin should’ve had a penalty and that goal he scored proved onside too, plus there was us hitting the bar and a few saves from the Sunderland ‘keeper. However Szczesny made a couple of vital stops too so you could say we were lucky not to have lost, with United losing yesterday it was much easier to deal with Saturday’s result.

By the sounds of it we didn’t really play that well anyway so you can’t complain too much. We just need to get back to winning ways against West Brom in a couple of weeks.

It was a bad weekend for refereeing. We had both that penalty decision and the wrongly given offside to complain about but there were all sorts of bad decisions over the weekend’s games. It’s incredibly frustrating to see goals taken away from you incorrectly but I can sympathise with the officials, that offside must’ve been a hard one to spot and the push on Arshavin in the box wouldn’t been difficult for the referee to see especially with Andrey doing his best to stay on his feet. It’s not the refs I am pissed off with, it’s FIFA. On a day when it was announced that snoods would be banned there was further controversy to spark a debate about video replays. It’s pathetic. I couldn’t give a shit about snoods, I’m about as indifferent with them as players wearing gloves so I don’t care if they’re banned or not but it’s typical that they’re so quick to sort that problem out than address the massive issue of technology in refereeing.

There was a FIFA meeting recently about the subject with a panel looking a number of propositions for goal-line technology. FIFA set a couple of requirements, that it be 100% accurate and that the information be relayed to the referee within 1 second. Fair enough it should be 100% accurate but what difference does it make if the decision takes up to 5 seconds? Anyway, they said none of the entries were up to FIFA’s standards and we continue with a game that is behind all the other major sports in terms of technology and accuracy. It’s a joke. Tennis and cricket haven’t been affected by the introduction of technology; it’s ridiculous that football is so far behind.

Anyway there’s no point me rambling on about it but surely there must be a day when we don’t have to talk about the referee because major decisions are corrected by video, infra-red or whatever it is. It wouldn’t matter so much if these decisions weren’t so important; say we lose the league this season by one point then we are out of pocket millions of pounds because of one incident of poor officiating. We shouldn’t have to have those thoughts in the back of our minds.

I’m not blaming the Sunderland result solely on the referee, it just so happens that FIFA banned snoods this weekend and a silly decision like that sort of rubs it in your face a bit when they’ve just denied technology again. There’s nothing we can do about it though, it’s going to take something drastic for FIFA to change their minds.

Moving on and it’s literally just been announced halfway through writing this post that Robin van Persie is in the squad for tomorrow night. He appeared in the photos of us training earlier today and I was thinking what a great option he would be if he was in any way fit and he has been added to the squad that is flying out of Luton today. He must’ve made some kind of animal sacrifice late recovery considering he isn’t due back until the beginning of April and Robin never makes an early comeback.

We’ve sent 19 men out to Spain today but the squad limit is 18 so either Arsene hasn’t quite made his mind up yet or there will be a very late fitness test on Robin which seems quite likely. I keep thinking about last year’s game against Barcelona, the first leg. We had a handful of players make unexpected returns in that game and it turns out we took a risk because they weren’t actually fit. I’d be surprised to see Robin start tomorrow night, I think it’s more likely that Wenger thinks he might be alright to play half an hour or so and will start him from the bench. Either way, it’s fantastic news to see him apart of the squad and having him involved certainly improves our chances of going through.

Cesc has been pretty much passed fit for tomorrow, Wenger described him as 90% so I expect him to start. I always thought he’d make it back for this one and it’s very important that he has. We missed him last year so hopefully we can do a bit better with out skipper available. Unfortunately Alex Song has been ruled out which is a bit of a blow especially when we’re going to have to defend well. I’m not sure yet who we’ll bring in to replace him but I’ll talk more about that tomorrow.

All day I’ve seen people I know making their way out to Barcelona and it’s horrible to watch. I should be there!!! To say I’m jealous is an understatement. I’m properly excited about this game already, I can’t wait for tomorrow. There’ll be a match preview at some point tomorrow so I’ll speak to you then.

Thanks for reading.