Gunnerrific

In the match against Everton, or should I say the match against that joke of a ref Lee Mason, a great celebration took place after the game winning goal.

Koscielny smashed the ball into the back of the net with a perfectly timed header. In that moment of surprised euphoria, he ran to the corner with his arms spread wide. And then he dove into the grass.

And then Eboue of all people jumped on.

And then came everyone else.

The dogpile is one of the best celebrations around, simply because it is ridiculous and over the top. A sausage fest of manpile proportions, it is unique and not often seen in the wild. The best part was when van Persie came changing in on top.

I’m sure Koscielny could feel that.

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.

I am back from the dead! It’s been quite awhile since I posted so I decided to get off my lazy ass and get back into the swing of things. I’ve been getting numerous requests for wallpapers, which I’ve been dutifully ignoring as hard as I can. Perhaps I’ll stumble upon some extra free time in the near future and I can actually make some more.

The season is over and we managed to take 3rd place. I think this is a pretty respectable finish. We were looking primed for 1st through the end of February or so, but everything started to fall apart after the Eduardo injury.

Low points of the season:

1. Van Persie was another disappointment after being injury ridden for a majority of the season. Couple that with Eduardo and we were in a world of hurt.
2. Flamini is leaving us… how dare he! He was really an integral part of the team and we are definitely going to be hurting without him.
3. Eduardo’s injury… it was the beginning of the end for the season.
4. Wenger??…. I’ll go ahead and say it… There were some pretty interesting squad selection decisions made towards the latter 1/4 of the season. Also, continually relying on Eboue is clearly not going to win us any medals. How much blame do we put on Wenger for not winning the title?
5. United taking the double. Cunts.

Regardless of the problems through the season, I’m pretty satisfied with the results. I think it’s a bit ridiculous to expect to win the league every year. Out of 20 teams, only one can take it, yet everyone is rather harsh on their club when they don’t. It was definitely upsetting to have Chelsea surpass us, but the gap narrowed on the last day. Thank God they didn’t win the Champion’s League.

I’m looking forward to Euro ’08 this summer, but it’s really just a filler until the next season starts. Come on Arsenal!

I just read a story over at the guardian in which Dominic Fifield (great name) interviewed Dave Kiston after Reading’s match with Arsenal. Kitson, who has nothing but good things to say about Arsenal, played a terribly minor role in the match with Arsenal. The interview was a great read and had plenty of insight into what it is like to face Arsenal these days. The interview starts out with a wonderful quote.

The Reading striker Dave Kitson has offered an intriguing insight into the nightmarish reality of confronting Arsenal at present, labelling the swashbuckling style which has hoisted the Gunners to the top of the Premier League both “magical” and “unbelievable”, if hellish to counter.

I think we should have more players calling Arsenal magical, unbelievable, and hellish to counter. Reading played United early on during their slump to a 0-0 draw. Reading have also played Chelsea to a loss right after that. I’m guessing Kitson could have come out and said anything after those games, but instead he chose to talk about how magnificent the Arsenal are.

The thing that amazes you most is they are not just passing to each other. They are passing so that the next person can run on to the ball and, by then, his mind is already made up with what he is going to do next. It is unbelievable.

I like this previous quote because he isn’t just complementing the players, but the brand of football that they play. I’d imagine that after Wenger saw this article he’d have quite the grin on his face.

We beat Reading convincingly. It took us the first half to really settle, but we were dominant the whole way through. Chances were aplenty in the second. The only bad part of the game was the fact that Reading pulled one back. Also, the goal Adebayor had recalled was a complete farce. He was completely onside. That linesman had no business calling him offsides. It’s a shame too because if that goal had counted, Adebayor would be tied for most goals in the league.

Come on Arsenal!

I’ve finally gotten off my lazy ass and produced another wallpaper… the first one in a long while. Go check it out in the wallpaper section, as well as all the other ones that are still hanging around. I’ve gotten all sorts of requests to make new wallpapers, but I don’t think there is any way I can do them all. As I get going again I’ll definitely take them into consideration, but I make no promises.

Something interesting I noticed about my wallpapers… when you do a Google Image search for Van Persie, Arsenal, The Gunners, or Thierry Henry, my wallpapers show up. Granted for Henry you have to go to like page 8, but still, pretty cool.

A little while ago I wrote this post about how I disliked the way Hleb played. I still stand by my arguments (and laugh at the comments) that I made in that post. However, Hleb has certainly done his best to prove me wrong and make me want to like the way he plays.

In the most recent games, Hleb has shown that he is a masterful player on numerous occasions. His passing is precision, his tackling exact, and his running on the ball is quick. He has started to look much more comfortable this season. I would imagine a lot of it comes down to experience and feeling more comfortable on the pitch. His game is much more fluid and consistent and he could surely be called a staple of our squad now.

Let’s talk about Hleb’s hair for a little bit. It’s weird. Right? I can’t be the only thinking that he has a pretty weird look going on. It’s like soft blond feathers draping down from his scalp. I wonder if there are any Hleb look-a-likes out there that have the same thing going on with their hair. I digress.

We’re up against Reading on the Monday match at the Madejski. As of today there isn’t any significant team news. I suspect that we will see the return of Fabregas and Hleb in the midfield. Kolo and Rosicky are supposed to be fit in time for the match as well, so I’d imagine they’ll be called up. Reading are 12th in the league but have let in a massive 26 goals thus far. However, they’ve won 4 of their 6 games at home. Despite that, you’d have to go into this match expecting an Arsenal win. Reading have looked really flat and haven’t had a good start to the season. Here’s hoping we walk all over them.

Arseblog uncovered an interesting article about some Arsenal fans suing the club for ‘racist’ chants. I don’t really know what to make of that but it seems a little ridiculous. Wikipedia has some history on the word ‘yid’ which is pretty interesting. I am not going to off much commentary on this other than the fact if things keep going as is, every single word representing any group of people will at some point be called into question.

Come on Arsenal!

We’re top o’ the league right now and it feels damn good. What makes it even sweeter is the fact that we have a game in hand. So, realistically speaking, we’re top of the league and potentially a point or three ahead of Manchester United, the dastardly cunts. I’ve been thinking about the season thus far, and the season ahead, and trying to figure out what our chances of winning the league are. We’ve definitely got an uphill battle ahead of us.

First, lets look at the quantity of games. So far, we have played 11 games. Of those 11 games, we have won 8 and drawn 3. The interesting thing about these games is that a massive 7 of them have been at home. So, for you math whizzes out there, we’ve only played 4 away games, or roughly 36% of our games away. We’ve played the least amount of away games than anyone else. For the away games that we played away, two of them were in London (West Ham and Tottenham). Of course, we battled against an away crowd, but we didn’t have to travel far for those games. It would be within reason to say that we’ve only traveled then for two games this season.

Now, let’s look at who we have played against. Below is the list of teams we have played, and their current position in the league.

• 2 – Manchester United
• 3 – Manchester City
• 5 – Portsmouth
• 6 – Blackburn
• 7 – Liverpool
• 11 – West Ham
• 13 – Fulham
• 15 – Sunderland
• 17 – Tottenham (hahahaahahahaha)
• 19 – Bolton
• 20 – Derby

If you sample out the positions of these teams and divide by the number of games, it should equal about 10 (the middle of the table). This would represent a fair opposition in games played so far. If the average were less than 10 , the opposition would have been tougher than the average, and the same could be said for the opposite. Our average points of teams that we have played against is 10.72. So, we have had a slightly easier schedule.So, thus far we have had a *slightly* easier schedule than would be expected, and we have played 64% of our games at home. For a team of our caliber (and lets be honest we’re damn good) you’d expect that we should be at the top of the league. If you run these numbers for other teams, it’s not nearly as advantageous.

Now let’s move on to our games ahead. Specifically the next 9 games, which will take us through to the new year. Of those 9 games, 3 of them are at home. That’s right, just 2 of them. And, if you perform the same analysis on the opposition, you get the following.

• 12 – Reading
• 18 – Wigan
• 9 – Aston Villa
• 10 – Newcastle
• 16 – Middlesbrough
• 4 – Chelsea
• 17 – Tottenham (hahahhaahhaaha)
• 5 – Portsmouth
• 8 – Everton

The average position of these teams is 11, which is again a slightly easier position average. However, more of these games are away from home. So, does games away or position in the table matter more? An interesting note here is that Manchester United have 4 of their next 8 games at home, and it’s against considerably easier opposition.

Either way, it is clear to me that the next 8 games are crucial to Arsenal if we are to win the league. We need to take as many points as we can from these games. I wouldn’t be surprised if Manchester United overtakes us for a bit given the schedule, but that won’t worry me. We just need to keep scoring and winning! Come on Arsenal!!!!

Update: Thanks to AC in the comments for mentioning the Chelsea match.. It wasn’t listed on Soccernet.