Gunnerrific

For the first time ever, a football club was invited to Buckingham Palace to have tea with the Queen. That club was Arsenal, and it came about after Her Majesty had to cancel plans to open the new Emirates stadium due to a strained back.

Unfortunately, what started out as a quiet and respectful meeting and tour quickly degraded into an embarrassing spectacle as Freddie Ljungberg played a practical joke on Jens Lehmann by stealing his scone. Lehmann was then said to have gone into a fit of rage, producing a goalkeeping glove from his back pocket and pointing it in Ljungberg’s face while berating him.

Julio Baptista and Gilberto Silva were able to subdue the German keeper and restore order to the palace, but witnesses say the mood had turned irreversibly sour by that point.

Link to the full story »

Thus concludes two relatively poor performances in a row by The Gunners. While the game did have a few highlights we never really looked like we cared until PSV slid one just past Lehmann. It’s a familiar tale where urgency only comes out of the risk of a loss.

Instead of writing a full match report, which I’m pretty sure nobody really wants to read, I’m going to outline a few things that I’ve been missing from Arsenal’s game in the past few fixtures.

• Robin Van Persie, who’s obsession with scoring incredible goals has been sorely missed up front since his injury.
• Aliadiere, one of the few sources of creativity in Arsenal’s distressing performance against Blackburn.
• Henry, who despite a few nice chances here and there looked absent for huge stretches of the game. The way he receives a ball and holds it for 5+ seconds, standing still while looking for the perfect opportunity, frustrates beyong imagine.
• Top-form Gallas. It’s nice to have him back but it was painful watching him give up possession and get beat so often today. Our right side was entirely exposed as a result.
• The Beast. From underwhelming at his start for Arsenal, to overwhelming in his four-goal role in the Carling Cup evisceration of Liverpool, to underwhelming again. Why can’t we get “The Beast” on a regular basis?

So we look forward to meeting PSV again in two weeks at the Emirates. The pressure will really be on if we want to stay in the Champion’s League, but before that we meet Chelsea in the Carling Cup final. I’m hoping Arsene left Aliadiere on the bench to rest him for a starting spot in that game.

All that being said, I don’t think the loss today is going to be too much of a disaster for Arsenal. Considering some of the brilliant performances the team has put in, I would be more surprised if we didn’t find our form again in the next game. Yes, the last two performances have been pretty shoddy, but we’ve had an amazing run since the new year and it won’t be hard for the gunners to find their form again.

So what do you think Arsenal has been missing lately?

Jens is out of the squad for tomorrow’s match against Bolton. While that’s not really newsworthy it gives me a great segue into presenting a humorous video of our favorite keeper:

Hopefully Almunia can pull a few stunts like those tomorrow. Arsenal need to do their best to keep Jens around for at least a few more years, at least until he can impart a little of the unique mix of insane skills and hilarity that make him such a joy to watch. If he leaves, I’ll be sad to see him go. I can’t be the only one right?

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.

Well I’ve been away for quite some time haven’t I? My apologies. I was busy enjoying my time off during the holidays and getting engaged.

It was a splendid day today as Arsenal beat Liverpool 3-1 at Anfield. This is the second time we’ve beat Liverpool this season, the first at Emirates 3-0. It’s great to see our young side show up and play for such a big game. We’re playing them again on Tuesday with what will surely be a different side.

For my first post back I figured I would just share the Arsenal goals via YouTube.

My thoughts on this match: Flamini gave the Liverpool midfield a hard time by hassling their every move, Senderos and Toure were both mighty in defense, and RVP was amazing. I don’t know how he got that shot off from the right side with his left foot. Too bad it didn’t go in. I think Senderos cleared more balls from the goal front than Liverpool had shots.

Rosicky finally put some shots in the back of the net. It’s been a long time coming and I’m glad he’s finally done it. There were some potential injuries to the squad so we’ll have to wait to hear the news.

Oh and for those who haven’t found it yet, ArsenalClips is a great, great site with really quick updates and video. Check it out.

Come on Arsenal!