Gunnerrific

Well I think I need a stiff drink after that. We can’t make a habit of coming from behind to win… we need to just win outright. Here are the five things that struck me most during that match.

Firstly, thank you Tomas Rosicky. That header was brilliant and it saved the Arsenal from more potential embarassment. Adebayor sent Baptista through on the right and the Brazilian sent in a perfect cross just a yard or so out for Rosicky to smash in. Rosicky is starting to get an eye for the goal and he had a great effort earlier on too.

Second, thank you Fitz Hall. Sure, you may be a Latic cunt, but you scored on your own team for us. I appreciate that, I really do. In any future enncounters with Wigan I’ll surely be cheering for the Arsenal, and you.

Third, Mr. Dowd, you are incompetent. There were too many calls on both sides that were way off. Be it yellow cards, fouls, or offsides, this ref is right up there with Mike Riley as far as I’m concerned.

Fourth, Lehmann is hilarious. Just flat out hilarious. Sitting there bouncing the ball against the back of the advertisement boards to waste time like that, I’m surprised that he was so surprised to get a yellow. Not many goalies suffer the 5 yellow card fate but not our Jens Lehmann.

Fifth, Henry got a bit of that Fabregas fire in him today. After the Wigan own goal Henry pushed the ball into Kirkland’s chest as if to suggest he could waste more time if he wanted. Granted, Kirkland was definitely taking his sweet time with the ball after they went up a goal. Henry was yellow carded for the incident and the spat between the two continued for the rest of the game. I never saw if there was a handshake between them at the end of the match. In all a total of 6 of our players were carded. Ridiculous.

Over-all the match was as exciting as it could be. We went down at the Emirates yet again, only to find the net twice to escape with a win. We remain undefeated at the new stadium, but we’re getting too damn close.

If you haven’t noticed I’ve acquired an assistant blogger in the form of Otto. He’ll be helping me fill the void when I’m unable to keep a constant flow of posts coming. Don’t bother being kind to him, he’s too drunk to care most of the time.

Or maybe it’ll be Arsenal Colorado. Whichever name is ultimately picked, the MLS is set to announce a partnership between Arsenal and The Colorado Rapids.

What exactly does this mean? For The Arsenal – not much. For the Rapids and the MLS – a whole heckuva lot.

While details of the agreement haven’t been officially announced, for Arsenal it sounds like it basically amounts to the addition of the Colorado Rapids into Wenger’s considerable pool of talent from which to pluck new players, giving promising youngsters from the United States a chance to train and potentially play with the Gunners. The deal will also allow the Rapids to change their name, colors, and branding to incorporate “The Arsenal”.

While I think the deal is fantastic, particularly for the MLS, I’m not a huge fan of the name change. I feel like the best course of action to increase the popularity of the MLS is to emulate some of the more successful parts of European Football. Sponsors on shirts, David Beckhams, partnerships with European clubs to swap talent, bigger television deals, etc. are all helping the state of the MLS immensely, but I think they would be better off building their own brand with their own team names and not copying European team names or conventions too closely. I mean, who honestly thought that “Real Salt Lake” was a good idea for a team name? Just watch, we’ll probably see “AC Galaxy” soon.

Anyway, Arsene Wenger cleared up some of the confusion here: Wenger dismisses Colorado Rapids takeover talk. He also claims there will be no pre-season USA tours by The Gunners. While it would be nice to see them in Los Angeles at some point, avoiding tours like that for the time being is probably for the best. Barca did a US tour in late 2006 but I didn’t go because, well, it was Barca.

While our main blogger Will has been mauled by an elephant or some other sufficient excuse for neglecting Gunnerrific, I’m going to try to put a few posts up. No guarantees they won’t be complete shit, but at least they are words on a page. This being my first post here, it might not be wise go out on a limb with an opinion that could prove to be unpopular but I’m going to go ahead and do it anyway.

I like Aliadiere better than Adebayor.

Don’t get me wrong, Adebayor is a fantastic player at times and he’s come through in some very important situations (his winning goal away against Man U immediately comes to mind), but I get tense watching him these days. It seems like more often than not his first touch betrays him and he gives the ball up when with a bit more control he could be set up in front of the goal with a good scoring opportunity.

Jeremie’s last few appearances and especially his work this season in getting us to the Carling Cup final have been phenomenal. His skill, vision, and ability to play in teammates is something I don’t see as much in Ade. It was quite something to watch he and Baptista work together to tear Liverpool apart in that 6-3 hiding at Anfield in the Carling Cup quarterfinal.

When Jeremie is on the ball and facing the opposing defense, he is confident, controlling, and determined. I don’t see that same sort of behavior from Adebayor, who flails around the ball only to have one touch do him wrong.

As much as I like Aliadiere and want to see him play more (as long as Van Persie and Baptista are both injured) it’s difficult to fully support him knowing how injury-prone he can be. However, I don’t think Wenger is doing him any favors by bringing him on in the 80th minute of games. Ten minutes just isn’t long enough for most players to get into the game and make an impact.

Here’s my plea: let Jeremie start a few games up front with Thierry and see if he doesn’t make a worthwhile contribution. I don’t think he’ll ever be on the same level as RVP, but as a third choice I think he could be the right man for the job.