Merry Christmas From The ArseNole

Hello all, just wanted to say a Merry Christmas to everyone that supports Arsenal and reads the site. Thanks for that. Cheers to being top of the league halfway through, and let's hope it continues.

AC Milan? Bring on the Bastards

So the Champion's League draw was today and it came out a nice one for us. We were drawn against AC Milan. The first leg will be played at the Emirates, followed by the return trip to the San Siro two weeks later. Remember playing Inter in the San Siro? We ran train on them.

Honestly, I'm not that worried about playing Milan. Everyone says it is the toughest draw we could have gotten, but has anyone watched Milan this year? They have Kaka and a bunch of old cunts. They have been terrible in the league. They won the Club World Championship or whatever it's called but there weren't any teams that could compete with us or them in the tournament.

I think we can and will beat them. We've done well in big games this year. Two draws and a win against the top four and we've looked good in the Champion's League. Who here would like another 5-1 in the San Siro?

Here's to Captain Gallas

So work is killing me. I have 42 and a half hours just this week, which is ridiculous since I work a part time job. But since I last wrote, we've had two matches and won them both, in the league against Chelsea and in the Carling Cup against Blackburn.

So first, the victory over the scum from across the Thames. Can anyone on Earth feel better than William Gallas right now? He's scored against Man United in the 93rd minute to earn a draw, and he beat his former team with a goal that he scored. I was thinking it was a bit of a stupid move to make Gallas the captain, but now I see whatever Wenger saw. The guy is massive for us. I'd say after Cesc and maybe RvP he is our most important player to the team right now. He is always steady at the back and he has shown he knows when to get forward. More importantly, he knows how to finish when he gets there.

As for the game as a whole, we pretty much had the better side in the first half. We were passing well but didn't get the goal until the 45th minute. Cesc sent in the corner and Cech made an arse of himself and forgot to grab the ball and Gallas soared to head it into the corner. The second half was very fast paced both ways and we had two more good chances to score. RvP and Cesc were both returning form injury and you would think that they both would have scored if they were up to their normal fitness levels. Chelsea had a few chances but Almunia was very solid in goal saving a few good shots from them. So it was a good win that put the pressure back on Man U and we are top of the league again. Liverpool are now ten points behind us and you wonder how long it will be until they win another title. It could be a long time with Benitez in charge.

On to the Blackburn game. We changed the entire side from the one that played against Chelsea and started such well known players as Mark Randall against Blackburn's first team side. We scored in the fifth minute when Bendtner crossed for Abou Diaby and he sent a swerving half volley into the opposite corner. Friedel never had a chance at it and it was a great goal. We almost scored right after that when Bendtner hit the bar with a good effort. The next goal didn't take long after though. We went up 2-0 on a good finish by Eduardo. On 41 mintues though Blackburn pulled one back through Roque Santa Cruz, who I've decided has too much skill to play for Blackburn very long. So halftime came and it was 2-1, but not for long as Santa Cruz put in another shortly after the restart. So it was 2-2 and the game was wide open for the taking. Randall came off for Barazite and in the 90th minute Denilson got his second booking and was sent off. It went into extra time and in the 105th minute Eduardo got his second. Alex Song of all people made a great run from the back with the ball and sent Eduardo through and he made a great finish of it. We held on with 10 men after that and got the 3-2 win.

I've been quite critical of Eduardo, but he did have a good performance in this match. Maybe this is his level though...he doesn't seem to perform at all in league matches and maybe at least for this year this will be where he makes his mark. He's been a bit shite every other time he's played. We will see.

As for Lasagna Diarra wanting to leave Arsenal, let him. He isn't all that good and if he isn't willing to work for playing time then we are better off without him. Every player that comes to Arsenal has to earn their spot. Very few times has an established player come in and just gone straight into the team. You can think of Pires, Gallas, Sol Campbell, and maybe Rosicky, but other than them, every other player has had to prove he can play to get into the team. See ya Diarra.

Alright that's all for today. Have to finish Christmas shopping. Later all. Cheers to Captain Gallas.

Middlesbrough 2-1 Arsenal

First loss of the season, and we played terribly...more to come later on today.

Newcastle vs Arsenal Preview

Hello everyone, another away league fixture today against a team coached by one of the fatest twats I know. It's up to St. James' Park to play Newcastle, a team that have really just been terrible so far this year. They defend about as badly as the scum and they haven't really scored goals either. However, this isn't one we should be taking for granted as they do have some quality players and could give us a game, especially away from home.

Some team news ahead of the game, Cesc, Hleb, Diaby, RvP, and Flamini are all out with injuries. I would assume it will be Diarra and Gilberto starting in the midfield. Denilson is the other option. Up front I can see us going with Eduardo and Adebayor, and the usual back four of Sagna, Toure, Gallas, and Clichy. Rosicky on one wing and Eboue on the other even though I don't think he's very good there. RvP is reportedly two weeks away from returning to action. Wish it was sooner.

That's really all I have for the preview so now just some news.

Bacary Sagna (my new favorite player) has delighted Arsene Wenger at how quickly he has adapted to the English game. He really has been quite good in defense AND going forward. Hoyte was better than Eboue at defending, while Eboue was the better attacker. Sagna is better than both of them at both. I didn't think we needed him during the summer, but Wenger yet again has proved me wrong.

Emmanuel Adebayor says he wouldn't mind staying with Arsenal for the rest of his career.

"In a way, Henry's departure has liberated me. Today I know I will play, so I can dare much more.

"Deep inside of me, I never wanted to leave. Arsenal is a family club, where I hope to end my career.

"The team is young and we want to win a lot of trophies together."

And you can't really say it any better than that. Ade is having a much better year this year and if you don't like him by now remember that he is still only 23 and will keep improving. He is a beast and I'd love for him to stay until his career is over.

And here is Arsene Wenger yet again talking about how we can win the Premiership.

And that's all I have. Here's a Nicky Bendtner to Chelsea story but I couldn't be arsed with it. Come on you Gunners!

Monday Morning

Yes, it's a bit of a boring title because there really isn't shite to talk about today. We had our 1-2 win over Aston Villa on Saturday, which I couldn't write about at the time because the team I coach (also named Arsenal) was playing a tournament all weekend so it took up every waking second just about. We won one game in it and lost two, although we should have and could have won all three of them, we just didn't make the most of our chances and it reminded me of Arsenal vs CSKA Moscow two years ago when we had seventy million chances and no goals.

So about the Villa match, Adebayor and Flamini were the scorers as we came back from one down to win away from home. I think this was really a quality win. Villa are a tough side to play especially away from home and to fight back from losing is really a great feat for us. That win put us five points in the clear at the top of the table still with a game up on most of the teams. Chelsea then jumped to second though with a win over West Ham. United play tonight against Fulham so that's another three points for them as well. But the point is, we are still taking maximum points from all of our games which is what we need. If we don't drop points, we can't be caught, it's as simple as that.

Our largest, Togolesist striker says we need to stay focused on every match. He's got quite a good quote on it too.

"Three or four months ago there were people saying 'we are not sure Arsenal are going to finish in the top four', and now they are mentioning we could go unbeaten for the season.

"The most important thing is to focus on our job. We don't care what people are saying. It is good that people are talking good things about the club and we are very happy about those things.

"But the crucial thing is to keep our head on our shoulders, keep on doing a good job, keep on performing like we are now and at the end of the season we can talk about whether we finish unbeaten or not."

And he is exactly right. The same people who doubted we would even have a competitive side (who clearly didn't watch us last year when we could compete even with Henry out for more than half of the games), are now saying that we can do another unbeaten season. It's still way too early for that kind of talk and for now we need to just concentrate on winning each game. We play Newcastle on Wednesday and while we should win it's these kinds of games that you can slip up on. We have injuries to some key players (Cesc, Hleb) and it's away from home against a team that can score goals. We have to keep focused and play our best and keep up this run.

Felix Magath says he is thinking of making a bid for Jens Lehmann, and thank God if he does. That man is one headache after the other this year, and hears to hoping he pisses off to Wolfsburg. Apparently he and Almunia no longer talk. That seems pretty cunty of Jens but that's what he's done best this year. It's really time for us to be rid of him.

That's really about it for today as there's horse piss for news. Get back to you all tomorrow.