Gunnerrific

Apparently it’s not appropriate for a guy who writes a blog to speak his mind, especially when it comes to a certain player’s future with our illustrious club. I’m talking about Fabregas.

Let’s look at some reader comments shall we?

Steven writes:

They want our captain and playmaker, he is under contract for 3 more years and he also wants to go. No problem, we have put a price on him: 80 million pounds or no business. The ball is in their court now…the either put up with the way the transfer market is or they simply shut up, Barca players, presidents, press and all! When you want a top player, you pay top dollars!End of.

I couldn’t agree more. Well… maybe the price tag is a bit too high, but I agree with the sentiment. The issue though is that Barca is a massive and resourceful club, who despite having money problems, will surely scrounge up the funds necessary.

A chap named ‘jammer’ provided 5 decent reasons as to why Fabregas has ample justification and reason to leave, if he really wants to.

The writing is on the wall. Barcelona want Cesc. Cesc wants Barcelona. This is the way it was a year ago, this is still the way it is now. Wenger managed to persuade Fabregas to stay for just one more season, but given the same-old lackluster could-have-been-a-trophy performance, he has no reason to stay.

We have lost a lot of players to Barcelona. I have no doubt in my mind that Cesc will be the next. I have resigned myself to it, not just because we are seeing the same patterns in the media from all sides on this story, but also because Cesc himself has said he wants to go back to Barcelona. Qualifying such a statement by saying “but I’m still under contract with Arsenal and the World Cup is next” doesn’t really mean anything.

The more important question that Arsenal supporters should be asking at this point is how exactly the team is going to look next year without Fabregas. Who else can Wenger bring in?

There isn’t too much to say about this.

Come on Arsenal!

I can’t believe how many news stories I’ve seen over the past couple of days analyzing Arsenal. Our beloved club has become the foremost subject of scrutiny. It’s as though every journalist, analyst, and commentator has come out of the woodwork to take a sliver of Arsenal and put it under the microscope. If Arsene Wenger reads the news like the rest of his he must be feeling a bit overwhelmed for a manager that has managed to finish third in the English Premier League (or so we assume at this point).

Is this all deserved?

Wenger Overhwlemed Much?

I don’t think it is. Yes, we should all be talking about Arsenal. Yes, we should all be critical of Arsenal. But no, we should not talk as though the club is ending as we know it… or that Wenger needs to be let go… or that huge drastic changes must happen immediately… it’s just too easy to try and sensationalize the situation we are in. I will not play into the histrionics, but merely laugh at it. I bet Arsene Wenger is doing the same. I imagine him to be daydreaming about responding to all of this with just one long, drawn out, Frenchly accented, “Uhhhhhhhhhhh…”

Rumors today swell about Arsenal making a bid for City keeper Joe Hart. The part of the article I love the most is “A fifth consecutive year without a trophy…”. Great. Because we need more reminders of that, and using that sort of statistic is pretty ridiculous. Am I wrong here? I mean, it’s not like there are 10 trophies handed out every year to all the different teams… it’s hard to win a trophy. And for each competition, there is only one winner. Sure, given our history, we are expected to be winning some silverware. But at the same time, a dry spell for five years surely can’t be used as a statistic in every single case one makes. If that’s the case, let’s start talking about United and Chelsea as the teams that ‘have never had an unbeaten season’.

There’s not too much news today ahead of the Manchester City match. Bayern beat Lyon. Inter surprised Barcelona. Frankly, I hope Barca come back to win it. It would look better on us.

I’ve added several mobile resolution versions of my popular Arsenal in Gold wallpaper. Go check it out and snag one for your mobile. All my new wallpapers will have mobile versions, and I’ll start adding them to my older wallpapers as well.

Arsenal in Gold became a pretty big hit with the Arsenal fans. I regularly see it on message boards, other sites, and even videos. I figured it would be the right choice to start with mobile backgrounds. I’ve even got it set on my Droid right now.

Three ex-Gunners, yes three (or four if you count Sylvinho, like you should), are playing for Manchester City and it would seem as though at least two of them actually respect their former club. It should be no surprise that it was Toure and Vieira that had a little talk with Adebayor about ‘keeping calm’ in this weekend’s match against Arsenal. We wouldn’t want a repeat of Adebayor’s behavior from the match earlier this season, so it’s good that more respectable ex-Gunners are stepping up to the plate. Thank god for the classy ones.

I have mixed feelings when former gunners play against us. Only in so much as I want us to make them ashamed to have left, to be honest. In Vieira’s case, it will be fun to watch him playing at the Emirates. Let’s not forget that Vieira played at the Emirates on July 22, 2006 at Bergkamp’s testimonial. I certainly expect to hear the Vieira chant from the stands as I watch the broadcast on Saturday. Woa-oh-oh-oh.

Manchester City is in danger of becoming Formerly Arsenal Football Club if they get any more ex-gunners. Just wait, over the summer they’ll pick up Flamini, Hleb, and even make an offer for Henry. If you can’t find success on your own, why not go buy a bunch of good players from other teams? If only we’d thought of that.

Hopefully the rift between manager and players that Carlos Tevez has exposed will grow between now and the match. We could really use every advantage possible. Our youngsters will need it.

Arsene Wenger has been suffering under a media  frenzy as people from all over have been climbing out of the woodwork to hurl insults and questions at him. According to the Independant, he says that Arsenal have improved. Hmm… I think I would agree with him on the condition that we only improved as much as we could have given the fact that he didn’t buy any players outside of Arashavin and Vermaelen (2 great buys). We may not have gotten any worse, given that we were contenders for the title for much longer, but that doesn’t mean the improvement has been significant. To really improve, he has to get some experienced players in the squad.

Campbell's Soup

Sol Campbell has been left wondering if he will be playing for Arsenal again next year. He still doesn’t know if Wenger wants him or not, which now has him talking to the press about it. I’m sure if there is anything that will tip Wenger in his favor it’s going and talking the rags about all his problems. Typically Wenger gets a hard-on for those sorts of things, right?

I think, at this point, it would be good to have Campbell around next year. He has proven surprisingly quick and capable. Although you could place some share of the blame on him for the recent goals that have ruined our season, I think that over-all he has helped far more than he has hurt. What’s the consensus here?

I wore my pull-over jersey for the second half of the day since it is miserably rainy and windy in Los Angeles. It’s tough wearing the Red and White right now, given the terrible last two games and the fact that we are now out of the race. But, if you are going to call yourself an Arsenal supporter, you’ve got to get out there and do your part. Thanks for reading, Go Gunners!

The Daily Mail has a new article up in which 6 ’stark’ questions are posed that could Wenger should answer. Then, Jamie Redknapp and Andy Townsend wax philosophic about the possible answers. I don’t really know what makes these questions ’stark’ other than that it sounds like a nice headline. No, Tony Stark doesn’t answer them. The questions are:

1. It’s five years without a trophy for Arsenal. How has that happened?
2. What should Wenger have done differently this season?
3. Do we still admire Wenger’s football philosophies?
4. And anyone who questions if he is the right man for the job should be locked up, right?
5. In which areas does he need to strengthen the side?
6. Liverpool have been caught and overtaken by Manchester City and Spurs. Are Arsenal vulnerable next season?

Some of these questions are silly and can be answered rather quickly. So I will.

1. It’s been more than 5 years for every other club in the premiership except Chelsea and Manchester United as well. Go ask those clubs first, since we’re consistently in the top 4.
2. He should have found a way to prevent such a big number of significant injuries (which may be impossible) and he should have bought players that have more experience to the squad.
3. Yes.
4. Pretty much.
5. That was the same as question 2 but asked differently.
6. As long as its mathematically possible, yes.

I have some questions for Jamie Redknapp, but I don’t know that they are fit for print.

Ian Wright for The Sun (WTF?) has come out and said that Arsene should step up and admit he has been stubborn about the money situation. I agree, if this has been the case. I’ve always read stories that say Arsenal has no money… and then other stories that say they do and Wenger just doesn’t want to spend… and like usual with these news sources it’s one day this and one day that.

If it is true that Wenger has opted to not spend money on more experienced players, he should fess up. In the long run, these last two losses, which is the main source of all this controversy, are down to the fact that our uninjured players don’t have the fortitude, mental strength, and discipline that they should.

Oh and don’t forget to check out that new Fabregas wallpaper.

I have a new Fabregas wallpaper up in the wallpaper section. Even though Fabregas is down, he’s not out. I’m long overdue for a Fabregas wallpaper anyway, so the comments say.

But first, a limerick.

There once was a man named Fabregas,
who hit with his foot a magic pass.
Received deftly by Walcott,
in the defense, finds a weak spot,
and as for the goal, it was pure class.

Now that you endured that, I dare you to do better. It’s harder than it looks.

The new Fabregas wallpaper I made is really simple. I found a very high quality Fabregas photo on Flickr, via Fid aka Theo, with the Creative Commons license attached. The preview:

Fabregas, pure class

Check out the new wallpaper here, or the rest of my wallpapers here.

I don’t really know where to start. Everything seemed to be going so well for our makeshift squad as we were 2-0 up against a woeful Wigan in the 80th minute. That should really be the end of the story. Unfortunately, the B team we had on the pitch forgot to finish the game and allowed Wigan to score 3 goals in 11 minutes. Our title hopes were ruined yet again.

The first half was frustrating and full of the typical ‘Arsenal problem’ in which we pass the ball around a lot without taking a shot. At one point one of Walcott’s crosses was handled and it was an obvious penalty. This was missed, but it was clear at this point that we had an advantage. Later, while running down the right side, Walcott then chose to cross a ball that he obviously should’ve taken the shot on. He still seems gun shy at times.

Fortunately Walcott’s goal in the 41st relieved all the tension. A perfectly placed shot buried in the back of net and we were on top. This is the type of goal we need Walcott to score. He was on the run, receiving a well placed pass from Bendtner, and confronted with defenders all around. He still managed to pull his way through and muscle a shot off.

There was a brief moment of tension when Watson went down in the box. Anyone that is claiming that Nasri’s pull on Watson was a penalty is an idiot. Nasri barely tugged on him and he fell down like a huge sack of pitiful potatoes. It was embarrassing, and I’m glad the ref made the right call.

In the second half, Silvestre managed to find himself completely unmarked to receive a corner perfectly on the head. 2-0 and Arsenal was just having a walk in the park.

At the 80th minute everything fell apart.

The first Wigan goal was a fluke. We had men all over the box and the pull back from Moses seemed completely accidentally placed. Watson happened to be in the right place at the right time and drilled it into the back of the net. You could say that our defenders were misplaced, but in looking at the replay it seems like we were just unlucky. We had every passing lane covered except for the unlikely pull back, which wasn’t even intended. If anything, it was the play leading up to this goal in which we allowed far too much space for Wigan to move up the pitch.

The second Wigan goal was a fluke. Fabianksi was a nightmare. There’s no way around it. Despite it being his birthday he was completely unsure of himself. Throughout the whole match he appeared to be questioning himself and lacking confidence. When the mistake came, it was a bad one. He had both hands on the ball but just didn’t hold onto it. Of course Bramble was right there to nod it into the back of the net.

The third Wigan goal was a fluke. N’Zogbia manhandled his way across the outside of the box while Clichy, Silvestre, and Campbell all tried to prevent any sort of shot on target. The strike was perfect, curling inward and off the post.

Fluke fluke fluke. We are very susceptible them.

Here’s the deal.

We are missing Fabregas, Arshavin, Gallas, Vermaelen, and Song, and Van Persie is still not fit for a full 90 minutes. That is 6 players out of our starting 11! At the end of the day, with those sorts of injuries, we are just not going to win as much. Someone really needs to do some investigating to find out why we are susceptible to so many injuries that last for so long. I’m less worried about Wenger’s choice of Eastmond over Eboue or Traore than I am over the fact that we keep getting destroyed by these injuries.

Given the number of injuries we’ve had to deal with as of late, it could be worse. Given how long Van Persie has been out, it could be worse. As of this point, it seems as though our 3rd place spot is guaranteed, and it could be worse.

In other news, Torres is out for 6 weeks, making Liverpool’s attempt to take the 4th spot all the more difficult. It appears as though for the first time, in a long time, the traditional top 4’s reign will be over. Fortunately Arsenal isn’t the odd team out.