Gunnerrific

A slew of Champion’s League matches took place on Wednesday as Barca lost to Chelsea 0-1. I have mixed feelings about this. On one hand, Barca beat us in the finals last year, so… fucking great. On the other hand, a loss for Chelsea would have hurt their morale, but it wasn’t meant to be. And yet still a draw would have hurt both of their chances of moving past the group stage.

At any rate, Drogba’s goal was a fucking humdinger. I’d like to show you a youtube clip of it, but alas, tis’ not of avail yet. In the meantime you’ll just have to trust me that after this goal, I now finally understand that Drogba is a world-class striker worth as much as Henry. Blasphemy, right? Just let me explain. Drogba and Henry play completely different styles of football, and I wouldn’t want Drogba in the Arsenal, but I still must recognize his skill and athleticism. He buries balls into nets with either foot, trapping aerial balls with chest, foot, or head, speeds by defenders, and even tricks them into falling down. He’s certainly been putting Sheva to shame as the former Italian league all-star is yet to find the net.

Chelsea held Barca in what can only be called uninteresting football. It was nothing more than brute force, long balls, and crowding the midfield/box. What’s surprising to me is that Barca was unable to find a way around it or capitalize on any of the chances that they had. There was a surprisingly small amount of diving going on from Chelsea, a rarity these days. For more information on this, I encourage you to watch the video in CaughtOffSide’s latest post.

Borat’s face was plastered across every photograph and video replay of poor Paul Robinson’s swing-and-a-miss in the England qualifier. Talk about a sweet marketing deal. I’m glad it was for Borat as I think his interviews and shows are quite niiiiiiiiice. At least it wasn’t for Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause. Marketing for that would have been a waste… the whole world is already planning on catching that on opening weekend!

I’d like to highlight Arseblog as he directed several thousand people at my site yesterday. My pic of a third-armed Henry has apparently taken kindly to the Arsenal internet-goers of the world. You can expect to see more of that photoshopped goodness, and some even-better wallpapers, in the future. Speaking of Thierry, he is apparently quite furious at the referee for what was undeniably a horrible call. *Shocker* He has recently stated that football referees should perhaps be more amicable to a bit of discussion with the players during a match. Hell, I’ll support that.

When you come at them, try to speak to them then they don’t give an answer and won’t even speak to you. That is difficult to take. You don’t want to have a go at them, but just to ask them what they saw at crucial times and yet you’re not allowed to do that in football.

I’ll also support some goddamned video replays that could have let that goal stand in the time it took that jackass to present Henry with a yellow card.

We’ve got Reading away this weekend on Sunday… should be a great match. I’ll have a preview and all that on Friday. Go Gunners!

Today is a sad day as Arsenal have lost one-nil away to CSKA Moscow. It was hard fought game all the way through and although we dominated possession we were unable to find the back of the net. Shots were sparse and the ref was unkind, but at the end of the day Moscow brute forced their way over us.

Moscow played rough. Players were pushed upon, the ball was crowded in their half, and they made it difficult to play our passing game. As a result, we had very little chances and couldn’t capitalize on the few that we did. It didn’t help that the pitch had more divots than the local public golf course and that half of the grass was dead or dying. Moscow had some very good opportunities and managed to sink an early free kick that snuck right between a turning Fabregas and Djourou. Unfortunate, lucky, a fluke. Call it what you will, but we lost.

The balls of this referee. The cojones of this man. To accuse Henry of an intentional hand ball and yellow card him like that is absurd. Henry is one of the classiest and most honest players around, he would never intentionally hand the ball. Besides, the cunt of a ref had his back completely turned to the play so how could he possibly have seen it? The linesmen had a better view of it, and he didn’t raise his flag. The goal should have stood. End of story.

Maybe Spanish referee Manuel Enrique Mejuto Gonzalez can see something in Henry that the rest of us can’t?

I’d like to write a review but to be honest I’m about to pass out from exhaustion. Goodplaya already did a fine job with it, so I’ll just send you there for now. Also, see Arsene’s comments:

The referee has not seen anything. I felt it was a goal. We have to accept sometimes the referee give goals because they do not see things. Tonight we have something new – that they cancel goals because they saw things which did not exist.

Oh well. This is only the qualifiers, and we’re already in possession of a meaty 6 points. Hopefully we can recover and continue on, starting with a home win against this Moscow boys. Hopefully they won’t be able to handle a real pitch.

Flamini, where is he? Last year Flamini played several roles, mainly as a make-shift left-back and make-shift left winger/central midfielder. So where the hell is he this season? He was essential in getting us up to 4^th in the league and crucial in reaching the Champion’s League finals. He’s better than Song from the way we have seen them play on the pitch, and he has more experience than Justin Hoyte or Djourou. I have no problem with the boss’s moves so far, but I am really curious as to what is up with Matty. Has he fallen out with Arsene? Did he suffer an injury that was hidden from the Injury News page? Or has he somehow declined in readiness? I watched him play against the Chelsea reserves today and he looked great. Help me understand Arsene, help me!

Well we’ve got Moscow tomorrow, and I can’t tell you how psyched I am about this match. We have never played this team, they are Russian, and it will be freezing. Talk about going in with nothing… there are so many unknowns in this match that Arsene Wenger might end up hosting Unsolved Mysteries. I’ll have to unfortunately record this match on Sky Sports as it is playing during work… I hate that. Watching recorded games is the worst. Go gunners!

Read this article on American sports and the rest of the world. I’ll discuss fully later today.

We’re in Russia today warming up for tomorrow’s match against CSKA Moscow. CSKA Moscow are currently undefeated in Cup play but shouldn’t pose too much of a problem for us. The bigger problem will be the weather. We’ll be seeing some leg warmers and long sleeves, that’s for sure.

Denilson is making the trip with the squad, no doubt due to the recent injury issues. I don’t know that we will see him on the pitch unless it’s late and we’ve clearly secured the win, but I’ve been wrong before. However, travelling to Moscow with the team will be great experience for him no doubt. He’s been mopping up in the reserves so Arsene must feel like he’s almost ready.

I suspect that we’ll see a pretty similar squad starting for this match. Adebayor over VP11 up front makes more sense in this game as it is likely to be more physical. Arsene Wenger is quite confident and has issued a statement on the match. Let’s keep our winning streak going!

CSKA Manager Valery Gazzaev has stated that Arsenal should have been champions last year. Hey I really like this guy! I think I have a new second favorite manager, even though I know nothing of the man. Hopefully he’ll let us run riot on his team tomorrow too!

Adebayor explains on video why he needed a goal so badly, and how fantastic Thierry Henry is for giving it to him. True enough. If you don’t have an Arsenal TV Online subscription, you are kidding yourself. It’s cheap, they have all the press conferences available, player interviews are frequent, and they also have a catalogue of seasons going back to the late 90′s with a fantastic search feature to find the goal or game you want to see. Do it.

And here’s a bit of loan news for the team. Arturo Lupoli scored a fantastic goal for Derby as they fell to a 10-man Plymouth in the Championship League. (The Championship League is right under the Premiership, so teams are promoted and relegated between the two. I need to write an article about this for my American audience.) Stokes also put one away for Falkirk.

What’s the point of providing a wallpaper for a match in only 3 sizes, with a horribly grainy photo? I do plan on having some wallpapers of my own, as I’m quite keen with the Photoshop, so stay tuned for that. Arsenal.com, you and I have been friends for a long time, and I don’t want that to change, but you will soon fear my wallpaper kung-fu.

Here’s a bit about our chum Gael Clichy and how he feels about returning to match play. I’m glad he is excited and wants to prove himself. His biggest hurdle? Not getting injured again. It’s like the guy is made out of glass. Don’t take that the wrong way though Gael, you know we love you.

An old England skipper by the name of Terry Butcher is acting like a giant jerk-face by once again talking about Wenger and the England squad. I think Wenger has made it quite clear that he doesn’t want to coach the English team and that he detests International football of all forms. From that you could even write off France as a potentially coaching opportunity for him. So shut your trap Butcher. Shut it.

Cech’s injury problems which I previously discussed are still fresh in the mind. Hunt has now come out to proclaim his innocence in that he attempted not to harm the keeper. Fine. You didn’t mean to harm him. But you came running in like a bat out of hell on a keeper who was on the ground, in possession of the ball. Maybe you didn’t mean to depress his skull, but you should have avoided it a bit better than that. You pull that kind of crap on Lehmann and you and I are going to have a serious problem.

CaughtOffSide has a great new article and comment contribution called ‘Five things we learned this weekend’. There are some interesting comments in there, you should take a gander.

Come on you gunners!

So we’ve dipped down to 5th after Bolton upset Newcastle in Sunday’s lone match. A bit unfortunate but we still have that game in hand, so this doesn’t concern me too much. Monday’s match between Charlton and Fulham won’t affect our standings at all, but I’ll be rooting for Fulham because of American Brian McBride. Certainly not because of Carlos Bocanegra, I don’t know how he even made it to the premiership.

Chelsea’s #1 keeper Peter Cech fractured his skull in the fist 30 seconds of their match with Reading on Saturday. It was quite a nasty bump that shouldn’t have even happened. I think Reading striker Stephen Hunt might face some disciplinary action, which I’m all for. He came in way late, and was never going to win that ball. It was also 30 seconds into the match, so why was he even attempting a slide like that? The Reading keeper, American born Marcus Hahnemann, has come to Hunt’s defense stating that he didn’t intend to hurt Cech. Of course he didn’t. But could he have done something to avoid accidentally hurting him, like not ram his knee into his head or give up on the ball?

Who remembers the Lehmann water bottle kicking incident at Manchester? Apparently the fans were screaming out our German keeper accusing him of being a Nazi and hating Jews. Wow. I’m surprised all he did was kick a water bottle at them. The fans then told the police on him, how quaint. Anyhoo, I haven’t a thing about this, so I assume it has been dismissed. At least he didn’t kick it at your face.

Ronal-dick-ho is silencing his critics by leading Barcelona to the top of La Liga. He knocked in a free kick and a penalty on Sunday against FC Sevilla. Good for Arsenal. (How you might ask? Well, Barca face Chelsea in the Champion’s League. Anyone beating Chelsea, in or out of the domestic league, will affect the team morale. If morale drops over-all then they could drop more points in the Premiership. Not complicated at all, right?)

I suggest you check out Goonerboy’s recap of the match, it’s quite nice and has some different points from my recap. In addition to the Arsenal are his comments on how Chel$ea conduct themselves.

Ribery. Back again? I don’t care. This is the last time I am posting anything at all about his situation and transfer rumors. This is getting flat-out ridiculous.

It was a splendid win for the Arsenal as we finish the day with a full three points, a climb up the table, and a 6 game winning streak.

Goals

The first goal came in the 33^rd from a Fabregas free kick own-goaled by Stewart under pressure from Toure. 10 minutes later Henry slotted home a rolling shot after receiving a deep ball from Lehman while brushing off American Jay DeMerit. Then in the 67^th Henry flipped a ball into Adebayor for an easy empty netter, with Hleb right behind him for double the pleasure.

Over-all

Wenger surprised me with the first eleven, electing to choose Adebayor over VP11 and Theo Walcott (Premiership debut at age 17!) in place of Hleb. Both alternates saw playing time in the second half though, with VP11 coming on for Rosicky. More on that later.

The team looked fantastic. Cesc had a great game, dominating the midfield in holding and attacking positions. Gilberto held the backline of the midfield like a champion as always while Theo made several penetrating runs and passes into the flanks of the Watford defense. Rosicky also looked fantastic, and frantic, making runs with and without possession directly at Watford’s defense.

The back line was a bit shaky, allowing 9 shots but only 3 on goal. Young gun Justin Hoyte dressed to impress in a hard-to-fill right back position. He’s no Eboue but he definitely filled the role more than adequately. Gallas, Djourou, and Toure closed out the rest of the defensive line nicely, slurping up loose balls and passes with acumen. Clichy subbed on in the last 10 minutes and looked desperately hungry for the game. A left-back playing left-back, fantastic.

Lehmann’s saves were textbook but critical. He had a couple of trips outside the box preventing lone runners up the flanks but managed to always keep the situation under control. He gave up a poor clearance while trying to pick out Walcott that nearly ended in disaster.

Up front Henry and Adebayor looked confident creating several chances. Henry called the shots and plays with his usual swagger while Adebayor was unable to make any serious contributions (his goal could not have been more straightforward).

Lows

Early in the match Fabregas made a brilliant run down the left side from a Walcott pass resulting in an open net shot, all be it from a hard angle, which he really should have put away. Lehmann’s poor clearance was another low point that could have cost us a goal but we managed to recover with a bit of luck. There was another flash of opportunity after Rosicky had a fantastic shot blocked by Foster. Adebayor picked up the deflection and put it back on net, but right into the keeper’s arms. Also, what the hell was Toure thinking with that free kick from Cesc’s roll-out from the midfield? Hilarious!

Highs

Brilliant breath-taking fucking football. The covering was precise, the passing was delightful, and the runs were exquisite. 17 year old phenom Theo (Huxtable) Walcott is going to be an amazing player, having already contributed so much at such a young age. Henry has got his game back (but lets be honest, he never really lost it).

Curiosity of the Match

Van Persie for Rosicky? Great idea, don’t get me wrong, but I’m not sure what Wenger’s reasoning was on this. I wasn’t really able to tell if VP11 was playing in the midfield or if we had changed to a 4-3-3. Either way after this change the team was just as good, if not stronger, than before. More please Mr. Wenger.

Man of the Match

Rosicky! Despite being subbed off, he had a great game. My other choices were Cesc for his midfield dominance and Toure for his tenacity, but Rosicky was just plain fierce. He threatened the Watford goal with 5 shots and 4 on goal. He held the ball well and created plenty of opportunity.

So we’ve marched up the table to 4^th but still have that game in hand. Chelsea has their first and second keepers in the hospital after serious injuries, which should cause quite a bit of problems for them. ManU looked great but Rooney still has his beard.

TheCannon recently posted a picture of their massive flag. Awesome right? Well, then ElstreeGooner snapped some photos of it from afar. Even better!

Come on Arsenal!