Gunnerrific

Our win against Huddersfield was far tougher than it should’ve been. We escaped with a hard fought win, but it wasn’t without sacrifice.

Nasri is injured for 3 weeks. This is probably the biggest point of contention I have with the game. Nasri is our secondary, or some may argue primary, play maker.  He offers a lot of offensive capabilities in creating opportunities and space, but he is also capable of finishing things off himself. He’s been the first pick ahead of Arshavin, so Wenger will have some tough choices to make.

Squillaci saw red on his return to first team duty. Just as soon as we get a defender back, off he goes again. There’s really no arguing the red card. On another day, a different ref may have let it go. But on the replay, you can’t fault a ref for making that call. Squillaci was caught flat-footed, and he had the time to turn and let the player through, which he should have, but he chose not to. His arm was also up high enough to warrant further criticism. Aside from this incident, Squillaci seemed to be in the game and back to good form.

Fortunately, Song is a decent center back. Song was subbed in for Squillaci at the half to take over in the center back position with Koscielny. Now, let me be clear in saying that Song is one of my favorite players. He’s been exceptional this year, and is a necessary figure in our squad. However, if we’re going to be critical, he is only a decent center back. I say this only because he was caught out of position a number of times. However, what he lacked in defensive positioning he certainly made up for in a couple of runs up through the middle. Hopefully we won’t need him to do that much more.

Fabregas saved the day. No really. He pulled us out of that match. He was the playmaker that set up a number of opportunities. And then it was his interception and run into the box that created the penalty. And of course, he scored the penalty. It was a weird stutter step that made me hold my breath, but he sealed the deal.

Bendtner wants it. Bendtner had some much better moments in this match than any of his other recent games. You could tell that he was invested in the match from the first whistle, and he really did show some skill on the ball.

Almunia is back, for better or worse. Almunia had some good moments in goal and generally speaking had a good return to the first team.

The penalty call resulted in a yellow card. If Bendtner was the through on goal, and he was, then that should have been a red. Perhaps since he didn’t have possession quite yet, the ref hedged on his call. Fortunately this didn’t affect the game in the long-run, but it’s hard to understand how a ref can go against what is stipulated in the rules of the game. Even if that rule of the game is ridiculous (I think it should not be a red if a penalty is given… otherwise a red).

Kevin Kilbane is a prat. Just a stinking, festering cunt. He sounded like the sort of person that would preface a racist comment by saying “Now I’m not a racist but…”. He should know better by now than to make such stupid comments as to call out Arsenal players for fishing for penalties.

That’s it for today. Until next time, Come On Arsenal!

The Premiership… the final frontier. These are the voyages of the football club Huddersfield Town. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new stadiums, to seek out new players and new teams, to boldly go where no Terrier has gone before.

Well, it’s Huddersfield in the F.A. Cup today. At the Emirates, too. I’m curious to see what sort of side Wenger will be fielding against this smaller side. We still have some pretty good odds in this competition, so I would imagine he’s not going to go for a completely inexperienced side.

United pulled off an unfortunately unsurprising win against Southampton. Besides them, City and Tottenham are the other sides that could cause us any sort of issue. But with so much talk about the value of the F.A. Cup trophy to begin with, it’s all up to limitless conjecture.

On my mark. Engage.

Sagna's Huddersfield Joke. To each his own, number one.

Hi. My name is Will. And I’m addicted to Arsenal.

It started the first time I saw an Arsenal game, when Thierry Henry pulled off the goal of the season against Manchester United on September 20th 2000. At that time, it was hard to get your hands on Arsenal because in the States it was still a new thing. There weren’t a lot of places that you could go for an Arsenal fix. Not like today.

Anyways, that feeling I got from that goal was a rush I had to feel again. My eyes rolled back into my head and I just laid back on the floor. Seeing that game is something I’ll never forget, for better or worse. The camera angle at Highbury was unique. the crowd was right there almost on the pitch. And the noise was immense but comforting.

As I said, at the time it was hard to get your hands on Arsenal. There was only one dealer around, and they weren’t reliable. Sometimes you’d get the fix, other times they’d deliver weaker stuff. Like Leicester City. That’s not the good stuff. With Arsenal, when your eyeballs witness a perfectly passed play ending up in a brilliant strike, it’s like having your pupils dilate. Light becomes hard to look at. Your brain races a mile a minute. And you can feel your blood pulsing through your entire body. And all you want is for it to never end.

As time went on, more and more Arsenal games became available. More and more matches were being broadcast live, despite the time difference. I remember the first time I woke up at 4am for a match. That’s when the addiction really hit full steam. If you are out a bar late and then waking up at 4 or 5am for an Arsenal fix, you know you’ve got a problem. But sometimes it’s a problem worth coping with.

Nowadays, Arsenal is easy to come by. Pretty much every match is broadcast live. And when I really need a fix, there’s YouTube and Arsenal TV Online. It’s not quite the same as watching things unfold live, but it gets the job done. I just have to make sure I don’t get caught at work… just stepping out for a quick highlight or two. It helps me concentrate, what can I say.

Sometimes I feel so filth-ridden in this addiction that I have to take a shower at halftime. Then it all sets in again. Don’t judge me, you’ve done it too.

I think my family and friends might cut me off. I keep telling them that if they love me they’ll let me watch whenever I want. And that I just need a little bit more. But they know that after this season, there’s another one right around the corner. My wife knows know that until I get help, I’ll be waking her up with loud cheering at all hours. And that in every single conversation I’ll find a way to bring up football. Hell, every time we go out that Arsenal crest will be somewhere on display. It prevents the shakes from setting in.

Fortunately for me, I’m going to get another fix tomorrow.

Theo Walcott has really come into his own in the 2010-11 season. Proof: He has more goals already this season than any of his previous seasons. Supplementary proof: He already has more assists than any of his previous seasons.

Theo’s maturing nicely, and his game shows it. As we all know, a key aspect of Walcott’s game is his blinding fast speed.

My favorite super hero (come on, everybody’s got one) is The Flash. He’s the fastest man alive after all. It’s not a far cry to think of Theo as The Flash. If Arsenal would just come up with a fourth kit combining the red and the yellow, my dream of seeing Theo skipping up and down the pitch as The Flash would come true.

Theo Walcott - The Flash

The only issue that has been creeping up a bit is that his speed doesn’t come into play quite enough in some games. The style of play from the Invincible season, fast breaks and passes at a lightning pace, may suit his style more. But when we get a bad case of pass-the-ball-around-goal-itis, the options for his breaks become shorter and narrower. Regardless, when he still gets those shorter breaks inside his box, his crosses and passes have been spot on.

I wonder who the second fastest Arsenal player is… I would guess Clichy… Are those stats available somewhere?

Let’s all have a moment of silence for the career of Richard Keys. Or not. Speaking of… that interview he did where he tried to defend himself was unbearable. It was like watching David Brent in team training.

Guess what? Sagna joined twitter! All you technophobes are probably rolling your eyes… well pick them up off the floor already and listen up. Having any of our players on twitter is great because we get to hear directly from them about their lives, their matches, and all the other behind the scene goodies.

Since Sagna is one of my favorite players, I’m definitely psyched to hear what he has to say before and after matches. It’s a particularly good time for him to jump on board the twitter wagon because of the injury he sustained against Ipswich. Now we get to hear directly from him about it.

He seems to be in good spirits and sounds like he’s doing just fine. If he can joke about how his post-concussion head feels, he must be in in good shape. He specifically described it as feeling “like ‘an after party’ in my head“.

I wonder if he meant that there are actually 100 drunk ravers dancing to an overly loud DJ inside his head, or that his head feels like it would after leaving that very same party. I’m reminded of ‘The Simpsons’ episode in which Radioactive Man proclaims that his googles do nothing. Shouldn’t Sagna’s beads have helped prevent this sort of thing from happening?

All kidding aside, I’m sure everyone would agree that we want Sagna to make a speedy recovery. It sounds like he’s definitely out for the weekend match, but hopefully he’ll be good in a week or so. He’s a rugged stalwart. A true world beater!

Birmingham managed to pull a surprise upset against a West Ham side that was up 1-0 at the half. Good for them. I think they’ll be an easier side for us to face in a month’s time. We’re going to Wembley. We’re winning a trophy.

Come on Arsenal!

Yesterday we won against Ipswich at home in a 3-0 victory (a score I predicted). It was a great game that had a fair amount of tension built up after a scoreless first half. We never really looked in doubt though, given the amount of pressure we were putting on their goal.

I was a bit nervous after seeing the line-up. Leaving Nasri and Song on the bench always seems like a gamble to me. Song in particular acts as a real backbone to the team, and Nasri is better offensively than Arshavin. But in the end, despite some wayward passes and dispossession, Arshavin contributed significantly. He assisted the second and third goals.

1. Bendtner Scores When it Matters (and Shaves his Chest)

Bendtner - Aerodynamic

Yeah, they aren’t related.

Bendtner was pretty frustrating to watch in the first half. Thankfully he came through with a really solid goal in the second. A classy goal, even. It was the goal that was the most important and was desperately needed in that match.

Either Danish people aren’t hairy or he shaves his chest like some sort of underwear model. That or he has a full chest of thin, blond hair. I just gagged a little.

Does he also swim for the Denmark Olympics team?

2. Sagna the World Beater got Beaten

Sagna - Down But Not Out

Get this man some fire win, stat.

Sagna was taken out early after a bad collision with Szczesny. If Szczesny had been hurt who knows what our keeper situation would get like.

I haven’t heard any word on Sagna as of the writing of this post. Hopefully we’ll hear from the Arsenal camp soon about his condition. If there is ANY justice in this world, Sagna will be just fine.

Less relevant to Arsenal was the significant head injury that Rafael sustained, which sidelined the eventual Manchester win for a good 10 minutes.

Sagna would never need 10 minutes.

3. Djourou got his 100th cap

Djouro's 100th

This is what happens when you follow players on twitter. You end up seeing tweets like this directly from players. It was a fun way to learn that this was his 100th appearance.

Wikipedia seems to think he has more than 100, but I’ll trust the statisticians that told Djourou about it over anybody else.

Djourou has been great for us since coming back to the first team. As usual he was solid in defense against Ipswich. Here’s to 100 more.

4. Koscielny Scores… Celebrates Pregnancy

Koscielny

Koscielny scored the winning goal after a perfectly placed cross from Arshavin. Koscielny always look threatening in the box and it’s great to see him snag a header like that. I still think he’s a great signing and he fits in with the rest of the squad perfectly.

Koscielny’s goal celebration revealed that he’s expecting a newborn. I hadn’t seen anything in the news about that yet. Since he’ll have to drop out of the squad for 9 months we’ll definitely need another center back now.

5. A Voice is Silenced

Misogynist

In case anyone is wondering, it’s not okay to make completely idiotic, misogynistic statements in the work place. It would be one thing to say things like that as a joke making fun of misogynistic people, but to actually say that and believe it puts you on a whole different plane of stupidity and ignorance.

Fairwell to Andy Gray. I’m sure you’ll end up just fine, but it may be wise of you to think a little about what you said. And even more-so, why you said it. Unless you’re Will Ferrell’s hilarious “The Anchorman”, you can’t get away with saying things like that.

“You’re just a woman with a small brain. With a brain a third the size of us. It’s science.”

I hope Richard Keys gets what’s coming to him. After this video surfaced, the evidence is really starting to pile up (via arseblog). It’s nice that these old fuddy duddies who are making so much money think they have the capability to say such stupid things, let alone with cameras all around them.

Surely by now you’ve seen the photoshop of the female linesman as seen by Gray and Keys. I’m embarrassed I didn’t think of it first. Does anyone know who made it?

6. Blackpool Can’t Keep a 2-0 Lead

Blackpool - Football Club?

I guess that isn’t terribly surprising, if I’m being fair. It was really unfortunate that they dropped their lead. Manchester United is now 5 points ahead of us, and they are going to have to drop some games for us to have any change.

In addition, they’re long unbeaten run still continues. This threat of equaling the invincibles is worrying.

We still have United at home, so that might be the saving grace.

7. Adebayor Is Out of the EPL

Adebayor - Sayonayor

Adebayor. Adebayor. Adebayor. Good fucking riddance.

Now that Adebayor is leaving the EPL, hopefully for good, we’ll more than likely never have to deal with him showing up at the Emirates again. What a nuisance that guy turned into. He’s the very definition of a troll.

I’m really surprised that Mourinho picked him up out of Manchester City. For one thing, if a player can’t find first team action on Manchester City, that should tell you something. In addition, Mourinho has traditionally been a better judge of talent than this.

Who knows though. Maybe Ade’s lanky style of play will suit La Liga perfectly. That and the laziness.

The real thing worth considering is if this loan deal will really pan out for everyone. Ade may end up even worse off.

Come on Arsenal!