Adebayor Destroys Derby

Morning everyone, what a game that was yesterday. It had me ecstatic when taking the lead first, then pissed off that Derby could possibly score on us, then thrilled when we put five more goals past them, it had everything.

We started off with almost the lineup I had predicted, it went like this:

Fabianski
Toure-Gallas-Song-Clichy
Eboue-Gilberto-Denilson-Walcott
Bendtner-RvP

So it was a weakened side from our usual starting eleven but still a strong enough squad that I expected us to beat Derby comfortably. However, it didn't start out that way.

Derby really were fighting for it and kept us on our heels at times during the first twenty minutes. They had a shot deflect off of Alex Song that would have gone in if it had been two feet to the left and they had a good low cross that nobody could really get a foot on.

Our first goal came a bit against the run of play I'd have to say. We weren't looking all that much like conceding but we certainly hadn't looked like scoring either. Bendtner got the ball off a horrendous pass from the Derby defender and played a quick one two with Nicky B who slotted it into the corner through Roy Carroll's legs.

Robin van Persie should have made it two just a few minutes later as he was fed by a beautiful pass from Walcott but he somehow managed to miss with no defenders anywhere near him inside the box. You have to say that it was a shot he would have made last year or the beginning of this year.

Just a bit later though Derby got back into it. Alex Song gave away a free kick out near the sideline which Robbie Savage took. There was a goalmouth scramble a little bit and eventually it wound up in the net to make it 1-1. Probably not the best defending or goalkeeping examples on that play, it was just poor all around.

We got back on track though a minute later, when Kolo Toure played an absolutely perfect ball over the top to van Persie who made no mistake and volleyed it in. It was a wonderful goal and it reminded me of Dennis Bergkamp a lot. So we went in to half time up 2-1 and while I didn't think Derby looked like coming back, you can just never tell with our shoddy defense.

The second half brought the introduction of Emmanuel Adebayor, our savior of this season, due to the injury Robin picked up. They said thigh strain but we'll have to wait and see after they check him out. Just a shame he's always injured.

We had a couple of good chances to start the second half. Walcott made a good run into the box, avoided a challenge the squared for Eboue, who flopped around and somehow the ball came to Adebayor who of course scored. 3-1 to the Arsenal and it was looking much more comfortable.

In the next few minutes Kolo Toure had a couple of shots that blazed just over the bar and Bendtner led Theo through for one that he shot from outside the box when he probably had more time. He hit it low to the corner with some spin on it like Thierry used to do but it just didn't have enough spin and it went outside the post.

Next thing you know though we had conceded another goal. Rob Earnshaw got by Gallas and finished it nicely past Fabianski to make it 3-2.

We got back on track right away though. Gilberto played a pass across to Theo who ran into the box on the left, cut inside of a defender and quickly fired a curling effort that there was no way Carroll was going to stop. Great goal by Theo and we were up 4-2.


Adebayor felt like a bit more scoring and he got on the end of Clichy's cross first time and knocked it in the net to make it 5-2.

The last goal was really nice though, Cesc played Adebayor through who outran the whole defense, calmly nudged it past Carroll who was charging out, then fired home from an acute angle to make it 6-2.

So it finished 6-2, and while our defense was shaky, our offense got in full flow, especially in the second half where we really could have made it about ten goals.

Man of the Match: Emmanuel Adebayor. The man has thirty goals this season. Not one person out there predicted that and yet he still gets crap every day from people who say he's no good. Where would we be without Adebayor this year? Our next highest scorer (Cesc) has thirteen goals. People should really give Ade some credit because he has kept us near the top all season.


Needs Work: Defending, yet again. Mostly just central defending though. Gallas looks more and more shaky and while Clichy and Toure I think played well, the second goal Derby scored was just too easy and it came down to poor central defending. It needs to be addressed.

And that's your match report. Feel free to check out the new forums section and add your input! I'll be back tomorrow with lots of transfer news and looking ahead to our game against Everton. Cheers!

Arsenal-Derby Preview, Bring Back The Noise

Morning everyone. Should be a fun day today. The sun is shining here in Florida and we play Derby County today, which makes every day better. We beat them 5-0 at home earlier in the year and I'll be hoping for a similar result today. We may also get to see some fringe players because we have injuries and also the boss has said he wants to rest some Euro2008 players.


Team news ahead of the game sees Sagna, Flamini, Eduardo, Rosicky, and Diaby out with injuries. It's really hard to pick a team not only with the injuries but you don't know who Arsene is going to decide to rest. I think it could be Ade and Cesc though. So going by that I think the lineup will look something like this:

Fabianski
Toure-Gallas-Senderos-Clichy
Eboue-Gilberto-Denilson-Walcott
Rvp-Bendtner

He made decide to put Eboue at right back or maybe even bring back Justin Hoyte (where has he been all year?) and Song could start instead of Senderos maybe. Like I said I think Ade and Cesc will be rested which gives Bendtner and Denilson starts and I really hope Walcott will get another 90 minutes, whether it's up front or on the wing, I'm looking forward to seeing him play again.

Team news for Derby is, well that they are shit. They only have 11 points from 35 matches, which is absolutely incredible. I'm pretty sure the record for lowest point total is Sunderland of a couple years ago with 12 points so let's not let them beat it!

Seriously though we should expect nothing less than a win here today. My prediction is 3-0 to the Gunners and YoungGuns agrees with me. Leave a prediction. I'm hoping RvP and Theo both score, because they both need that confidence boost that only a goal can give you.


Now on to my brilliant idea:

If you didn’t know already, the atmosphere at the Grove is a bit lacking, so a couple of us Arsenal bloggers started a "Bring Back the Noise" campaign to start getting it louder again. So I had an idea. I am thinking of making t-shirts for the campaign, on the front they would have the "Arsenal, we love you" song lyrics on them and on the back it could have a cannon or something else goonerish and the words "Bring Back the Noise." If we got enough people to wear them to the games we think it might help everyone that wants it to be loud at the stadium to recognize each other. If this is something that would interest you, please let me know because we are trying to figure out how much interest there is. I can send you a preview of the shirt if you want, just message me on here, leave a comment, or email me at Arsenole@arsenole.com.

i think it’s a good idea so please let me know if interested!

For more on Bring Back the Noise check out:

http://le-grove.co.uk/bring-back-the-noise/

http://www.arsenalnews. net/comments/38266/bring_back_the_noise_update_thoughts_on_loyalty_and_the_leaky_blues/

http://arsenole.blogspot.com/2008/03/fifa-really-hate-martin-taylor-walcott.html

Sunday News

Hello all, it's Sunday and there is absolutely shite for news today. I've been looking for interesting things for the last twenty minutes and there isn't anything that interesting so I'm just going to put some shite together and hope everyone likes it. If you don't like it just talk about how we are going to sign David Villa, Kaka, Ronaldinho, and Messi in the comments or something. Yeah.

This article from Sportingo links us with Ribery, Huntelaar, and Yaya Toure. It seems like everyone in the world wants us to sign Huntelaar besides myself, and I suspect a very large portion of the people that say we should sign him have never watched him in matches and they only watch youtube videos of him. Ribery will not be happening. He only just signed with Bayern Munich last summer and his price is too high. Same thing goes for Toure. It does make me think about Toure though. Remember the last few summers before he moved to Barca how we were always linked with him? What a great time it would be to have him now. If Flamini leaves we'd have another wonderful defensive midfielder that can go right into the side and on top of that, he's Kolo's brother! It makes me wish we had made a move.

In other transfer news which is probably bollocks, we've been linked with someone named Nikolai Dimitrov , Gareth Barry, and Miralem Pjanic. I haven't heard of the first or last but there is a lot of talk among fans that Barry would be a good signing. Honestly, I'm not a fan of him but some people think he could take the place of Flamini. I don't think Arsene would pay that much for him though when he could get a foreign player for cheaper that is just as good.

If you're into comedy, you can read this post by a Sp*rs fan who thinks the balance of power is shifting from Arsenal to his shite club. I'm pretty sure they have thought this since they were created, but it's never quite worked out for the cunts. You can't help but laugh.

Young Guns gives us an update on our Under 16 team, who thrased Toulouse 8-0. Now that's a real hammering.

And last but not least is Arsene Wenger talking about Flamini and how he really wants him to stay. He says the decision shouldn't come down to money, because an extra 10,000 a week or so isn't all that huge in the grand scheme of things. Now I personally wouldn't mind an extra 10,000 quid a week, but then again I think I would take 50,000 a week to play for Arsenal. Shoot, I'd pay THEM to let me play for Arsenal. Flamini has two days left after today to sign his deal, as Arsene has set an April deadline for him, and then we'll know his future for sure. Let's hope he signs it. C'mon Matty, save us a lot of trouble this transfer window and just re-sign!

That's it for today. I'll get a Derby preview up later tonight or tomorrow morning. Cheers.

Robinho Arsenal's New Target?

Hello everyone, just got back from coaching my Under 7's to victory to bring us to 3-2-2 on the season. I just saw that Chelsea beat United today so we're effectively stuck in third place this season. I think that this means we may see a lot more younger players in our remaining league games, which I will enjoy but I know there are some groups of fans that feel like it's an insult to the fans to put out a weakened side. I'd love to see what players like Nordtveit and Barazite can do though. What do you think?

Another player I've heard a lot of talk about lately is Robinho. He's an interesting one. He almost signed with us two or three years ago but ended up going to Real Madrid. Lately though he hasn't been playing much for them and there is talk of him coming to Arsenal. I think his transfer fee would be about the same as Ben Arfa's so it would be a matter of who do you think brings more to the team? I like both players but I think Robinho's technical ability and versatility makes a better option. If he wants to go to Arsenal shouldn't we consider it? Tell me what you think.

Tony Adams as you probably know is currently working with Harry Redknapp at Portsmouth and his contract is up at the end of this year. He hasn't been offered a new deal there so there is talk of him coming to help out at Arsenal. I think he could really help out our defense and hopefully Wenger can work something out to bring him in because I'd love to see him back at Arsenal.

“I always tried to lead by example [at Arsenal] and get out there and make sure they realised they were playing for the Arsenal. I tried to install in the team a kind of ‘over our dead bodies’ kind of attitude.

“I just feel that people don’t realise that the best back four win the league. The last two seasons Manchester United have had the best back four and, before that, John Terry and his men were fantastic for two years.

“We’ve kept more clean sheets at Portsmouth than Arsenal have, but I’m not going to question the great man [Wenger].

“I love the club, it was part of my life for so many years and if anyone at Arsenal wants to invite me back, I’m willing to give it a shot. I’m fully prepared and willing to do what I have to do.”

That's all I've got today, sorry it's so short but it's a busy day for me. Have a good one.

Could Arsene Bring Henry Back?

Morning all. We start today with a story that is possibly complete rubbish but since Arsene is quoted it does make for interesting discussion. Thierry Henry proffessed his love for Arsenal over and over again in an interview and really made it sound like he was trying to get his way back into Arsene's good books to maybe work a move back here.

"There's only one team in England for me. Everybody knows the love and affection I have for Arsenal. I was so into it, I became a fan.

"There has been since I arrived here a lot of speculation from day one but, hey, go back where?

"There's only one team for me in my heart. It took me a while to understand what that club, Arsenal, meant."

We all knew Henry was an Arsenal fan but what made this interesting was Arsene Wenger's comments about Thierry. When asked if he would consider ever bringing back Henry he answered with this:

"In our situation you can never say never. He only left last year and I think Thierry is disappointed because things haven't gone as well as he would have liked them to go. “I still feel he is a world-class player and I think he will prove in Barcelona that he is one of their better players.”

To me that is saying that he thinks Henry will want to prove himself there but if he doesn't and he tells Arsene he wants to come back that he might consider it. Would we even want him to come back? I know he's an Arsenal legend, I know he still has some left in the tank, but what about his attitude and his injuries the last few years he was here? I don't know if this story has any credence at all but it does make it interesting and I can't wait to see what happens.

Captain Gallas has hit back at the media for them blaming our loss of form on his actions at the Birmingham game.

"They [the media] can say what they want... they will not bring me down, I'm stronger than that."

“It makes me mad because I don't think [what happened in Birmingham] was our problem. How can you summarise our season with that thing at Birmingham? That is not why we stopped winning matches."

Well he's right about one part, his actions didn't make the other 10 players on the pitch suddenly be shite at football, but it does seem in retrospect that that game was the start of the decline of this season. I know Gallas has his critics and his supporters, and I honestly count myself among them, but I just don't think it's right to pass all the blame onto him for this season.

Arsene Wenger is really pissed off at Inter Milan for continuing to declare their interest in Alex Hleb. Hleb is under contract for two more years and he says it is disrespectful coming from the club and not just the media. He's right, I mean it's still in the season for us and them. There is no need for the distraction right now. Arsene said next time it happens he will just report them straight to FIFA and send them to 5 minutes time out.

Kolo Toure spoke of possibly becoming the captain next year, and also about William Gallas. He said he would be "very, very proud to be captain." Kolo as I have already said would make a great captain I think. He loves Arsenal and has already said he wants to spend his career here, he is a world class defender and his team mates love playing with him. He'd be my choice over a player like Cesc who I feel like we all think is going to leave someday. But for now Gallas is captain so we will have to see where it goes this summer.

Flamini on the Way Out, Hleb Banned

Hello everyone. More grim news for us today as Hleb officially got his three match ban and will not play the rest of the season. That means more playing time for Theo so we have that to look forward to.

The important news though still regards the Flamster, and now it really does look like he's halfway out the door. Peter Hill-Wood spoke about him and he seems resigned to losing him.

"We have made what we think is a pretty generous offer and we are waiting to hear whether he will accept or not."

"You just don't know nowadays. You think players have a pretty good life, but, somehow, someone persuades them the grass might be greener somewhere else.

"So I don't know the answer, all I know is we think we have pushed the boat out."

So that seems like it's pretty much it for Flamini. Too bad he was one and done. He had a great year but if he's going out like this then I'm gonna be right pissed off. Once again we made a player into what he is and then as soon as he gets another offer he's gone.

So as phatbastard wrote in the comments on yesterday's post, it's time to look at our options for the holding midfielder role. So first I'm going to lay out all of our options in the center of midfield, not just the holding role. Currently in the first team we have Fabregas, Gilberto, Diaby, Denilson, as well as Song and Djourou who can both play there. I think of Cesc and Denilson as similar players even though Denilson is thought of by some as a holding midfielder. I think Gilberto is obviously the best candidate in the current squad available, so if Arsene doesn't bring anyone in than we need to keep Gilberto and have him teach someone else the role throughout the season. Djourou and Diaby could both do the job if they just got some time playing there, which they haven't gotten.

The other option is bringing someone in. Now chances are if we do bring someone in, then as usual it will be someone we have never heard of who is young and will probably piss off as soon as he is good (although I hope he won't). We've been linked with a few central midfielders but I think if Flamini really does leave then the speculation at the position will really pick up. Anyone have any suggestions? And please don't say Mascherano, Gattuso, etc...

Also, we could bring someone up from the reserves. Again, as phat pointed out in the comments, most of our highly touted young midfielders are more attacking players than holding ones. We have Gibbs, Lansbury, Wilshere, Randall, Merida, etc, but not too many holding players ready to break into the first team. I've emailed Young Guns writer J. Sanderson to ask him to let us know about who he thinks are our best options coming up in that position so hopefully he will get back to me.

In other news, Lukasz Fabianski looks set to get to test his skills in the Premiership in the last three games this season. Arsene said he wants to play him a few times to see if he is ready to be the number 2 keeper next season. I'm looking forward to seeing how he does and while he shouldn't face too much of a test against Derby, Everton should provide a good test for him.

Havard Nordtveit is looking to be our "New defender" that we all want to see brought in this summer. He's been playing well and he is the reserves team captain and hopes to get promoted to the first team squad next season. He is only 17 but everyone speaks very highly of him and his head is in the right place judging by his comments. He said he's hoping to get in the squad for next season's preseason games, which is a good goal for him to have and I think he will be in that squad. He's working hard and playing well and I'd like to see him get a run out. Keep it up lad.

And that's all I have for ya today. Cheers all.

Hleb Charged With Violent Conduct

Morning all. The news this morning is from the fallout of the Reading game. The FA have reviewed the footage of Alex Hleb's slap on Graham Murty and decided to charge him with violent conduct, which most likely means he'll receive a 3 match ban and end his season early. It was about the same as what Aliadiere did to get a red card earlier in the year and so I suppose he deserves it if we're going by that standard. Just a shame he'll get the same punishment as that cunt Martin Taylor.

So now we have a problem on the wings yet again. The boss may decide to play van Persie out on the left wing and put Bendtner and Adebayor up front, or he could play Walcott on the left and put Eboue on the right, or maybe Diaby or Denilson will get to play on the left wing if they are healthy. It really shows yet again that we need another winger this summer.

Some transfer news has one source claiming that Liverpool are going to bid for Theo Walcott in the summer, which right pisses me off. If Arsene sold him to the scousers I would be instantly at the front of the "Arsene has lost his mind" bandwagon. The way Theo has played the last few months has been incredible and shows what we have all been hoping for since he signed with us a couple of years ago. He's a guy we NEED in the squad right now. Arsene Wenger spoke about him and said he'll most likely get to start the rest of the games this year. I'm looking forward to seeing him in those games.

Also, there is more news of Juventus chasing Matty Flamster.

"This is an important player who we have been chasing for some time."

"And it will have to be good to take him because many teams are interested.

"In order to convince champions you need to take into account their ambitions. To get champions you have to think big."

Arsene has already said that he has set a deadline for Flamini at the end of this month. If he hasn't signed by them we can safely say he won't be with us next year. I've said before that I don't think he's staying and each day he doesn't sign just adds to that. I'm getting very annoyed by the way he says he wants to stay and then never signs. If you want to stay, sign. If not then just say you are pissing off to Juventus instead of leaving us hanging. It'd be much appreciated Matt.

The Reserves beat West Ham 2-0 last night and young Jack Wilshere lit up the park, scoring a goal and creating another. He's been looking very promising and remember you can get all your reserves and youth team news at Young Guns!

That's all I've got for the day. Going to watch the Chelski-Scousers borefest that is about to take place. Have a good one.

New Captain For Arsenal?

Hello everyone, sorry I haven't gotten to you all in a few days. My girlfriend was over and I really just didn't get around to it honestly. But now we're back and we have some interesting news, Arsene is considering appointing a new captain for next season. This goes right along with everyone and their sister bashing Gallas as captain this year and Wenger seems to have jumped on board. He said he has made no decision for sure yet but he will look at it at the end of the season and make a decision for next year.

I think this could be a really big ripple put into the lake that is the squad if Gallas is removed as captain. I think Gallas himself would surely want to leave. He is very proud and I think having the armband removed would make him a sure-fire candidate for a move elsewhere. This would also mean we would bring in a new center back in all probability. It would also reopen the debate as to who should be the captain of Arsenal. Right now my top three choices would be Kolo, Flamini, and Cesc. We'll see where this goes after the season ends but this could be a big story so we'll be on the look out.

Continuing his talk of next year, Arsene Wenger has said it would be criminal to leave Arsenal right now with such a bright future on the horizon. We really do have a good core of young players but we still need to bring in a couple of new guys. However, if we did lose some of our big young guns like Cesc or Ade or Walcott or Clichy it would really set us back.

“You can go to Real Madrid and Barcelona, but you have no more guarantees to win trophies. It would be criminal not to believe we could do it because we were so close this year. We have a very young team with a great future.”

He is right. Just look at Barcelona this year. Henry went there to win trophies and they aren't going to win the league and they probably won't win the Champion's League either. It's hard to get through to young, ambitious players and convince them that you can win right here at Arsenal but it is crucial to our future success to keep building with the base we have established now.

Gilberto, the man who probably should have been captain this year, (although we wouldn't have seen such a great year from Flamini) has a lot of praise for Theo Walcott who played very well against Reading on Saturday. He said that he has bags of ability and just needs time. When you read all that he said it shows you what a true professional Gilberto is and makes you wonder what happened with Gilberto and Arsene to cause him to be left out so many times this season. Yes Flamini is having a great year, but Arsene couldn't have predicted him to be this good, especially considering how solid Gilberto was for us all last year. I hope he gets a new one year deal honestly. I love having Gilberto around.

In the transfer rumors section of today's post we've been linked with some of the usual lot, like David Villa and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar, but we've also been linked with three new names, Niko Kranjcar, Amauri, and Kamel Ghilas. Now I have only see Kranjcar play out of those new names so I really can't tell you much about them but if anyone has any insight feel free to let me know.

That's all I've got for today, I'll be back with more tomorrow.

Arsenal Season Highlights

Hello everyone. Today will be different than the usual rubble because I'm sick of transfer news every day already. The season isn't even over yet and all they talk about is the 100 players we're linked with every day, so today I'm posting videos of our highlights. For those fans who are pessimistic or have felt this season was a waste and no fun at all, you need to watch these. There really were some great times this season. This first video is one of our run in the Champion's League.

Who can forget Cesc's goal against Milan? It really was just incredible. This second video is a Top 10 goals compilation from the season since I couldn't find a full season highlight video. The goals are great though and I can remember the moments when we scored them. It really makes me feel better about the whole year. Check it out.



Flamini's Goal vs Newcastle, Diaby's vs Derby, both Ade's and Cesc's versus Sp*rs. All of them were brilliant. And what more can you say about RvP's free kick vs Sunderland?

So I'm sorry if you wanted your news today because I just can't post more transfer rumors today. I'll make sure to do that all summer. Hope you enjoyed the highlights everyone.

David Villa To Join Arsenal?

Morning everyone. Got work in like twenty minutes so it may not be too long of a post today but I'm trying to get something together.


First off is David Villa, who says that Arsenal are the team he loves in the Premiership, and that he would fit into our style of play.

“I watch the Premier League a lot and the team I’m most attracted to is definitely Arsenal.

“Their brilliant one and two-touch football and the whole style of rapid counter-attack which dominates the top level of the Premier League now is the one which suits my game best of all.

“I think I’m made to succeed in England but of course it’s one thing saying it and quite another getting there and then doing it.

“The Valencia president always told me he wouldn’t sell me until summer 2008. If an offer comes in I’m hungry to test myself in England.”

He then goes on to say if he can't join Arsenal he'd love to play at Liverpool with Fernando Torres. Now that prospect is bloody scary, I'm sure you'd all agree, so maybe Arsene should just go ahead and sign him!

Now of course everybody loves Villa and we all wish we would buy him but just because a player wants to come does not mean Arsene will shell out the money for him. Remember what happened with Ryan Babel? He declared his love for Arsenal for like two years but Arsene wouldn't pay as much for him and what do you know, he wen to Liverpool. I know this story gets everyone's hopes up, including mine, but I'm just saying it's not usually how Wenger works.


We've also been linked with Feyenoord player Jonathan De Guzman. He says that Arsenal and Barcelona are his dream clubs and if an offer came in he would not turn it down. I don't know much about De Guzman as I have never watched him play. All I know is he's good on Football Manager, which clearly means nothing.


For some reserve team news, Nacer Barazite and Armand Traore are both feeling good about their progress. This is good news as I expect both will have a role to play in the first team squad next season. Barazite is our top scorer in the reserves this year, and Traore has moved up to play left wing for the reserves lately, which is his natural position. Let's hope he can do well at it so we'll have some options out there for next season to go with Diaby and Vela.


Mad Jens is in the news, saying he doesn't hate Manuel Almunia. In fact he doesn't hate anyone at all according to him.

“I do not hate anybody in the world,” said Lehmann. “I saw Almunia’s comments and they made me laugh more than anything else. I was just disappointed that I could not have prevented the defeat at Manchester United.”

And that's all I have time for today. Keep the discussion going guys it's been great. Cheers!

Wenger Ready To Spend Big

Morning everyone. The transfer talk has started in full since we're out of every competition, so there's going to be a lot of talk and very little action for the next few months by my estimation. It's amazing how every single year people, including the media, think we are going to go on a spending spree and by five great players for big money that are ready to play right away. It never ever happens. We'll probably buy one or two players who Wenger think have the potential to start, but not overpriced players, and then we'll buy a youngster or two. This is how it works every year.


So today we start with Arsene Wenger saying he is not "scared" to spend big money if he finds the right player whom he thinks is worth it.

"Scared of what? I would not be scared." "If we have the money, and I am convinced it is worth it, we will do it."

Now something interesting is said here. Wenger says "if we have the money." Listening to Keith Edelman and the rest of the board it sounds like Arsene has loads of money, in fact the stated number was 70 million pounds. So why would Arsene say if we have the money when clearly we do? Who knows? Maybe it's to try to work down other teams that would want more money if they thought we had tons. Anyways, I think maybe for once this talk from Wenger could be heading toward a signing we have heard of before.


Now for some exit talk, and of course it starts with Hleb and Flamini. Hleb's agent (who has become quite a prick) is linking his client with every team imaginable just about trying to drum up an offer for him.

"I'm often approached about Hleb...I have nothing to hide; Aleksandr is a world-class player. Real Madrid, Juventus and Barcelona are interested in him. But there are no official offers."

There are reports of a huge transfer fee for him, and if we did get an offer with anything over 10 million quid I say sell him. He is a good player but he never scores and if he wants to go we may as well let him.


As for the Flamster, he's wanted by Bayern and Juve. I want your opinions on Flamini, I really do. Do you think he's staying or going? I have to say my opinion is that he is going. It's mid-April and there's no news of him even being close to signing a new deal, while the list of clubs after him add up. I think he's gone, what do you think?


Now as for players coming in the player on most everyone's mind is Hatem Ben Arfa. He hasn't been playing as much at Lyon as he would like and seems to know of our interest because he says his future will be sorted out at the end of the season. He does, however, say that he is happy at Lyon and his talks for a new contract are progressing. I think it could be good that he is getting less playing time, maybe they are preparing to sell Ben Arfa so they want to give other players a run out. Guess we shall see. We've also been linked with his team mate Karim Benzema, but I don't see that one happening.


For news on the dressing room atmosphere, it is once again Emmanuel Adebayor saying to pick ourselves up and finish strong this season.

"It is difficult, but I know my mum will be somewhere watching the TV, so I have to play for her, all my family and all the people who love Arsenal.

"We have to win all those games now, to play for our honour and for our fans."

It's always Adebayor encouraging us on. Adebayor, Toure, and Gilberto are always the ones providing us with the motivation and are always willing to work for it.


This is going to set me off on a rant so here goes, scroll down if you want to skip it. I'm SO SICK of people criticizing Adebayor at every opportunity! If you read other sites posts or their comments all you see is how crap Adebayor is or why he shouldn't be in the team. He's scored 26 goals! Nobody else is even close to that for us. Not only that, he's scored important goals too. He scored in both legs against Liverpool, scored at Milan, scored in countless league games, and a lot of times he is playing up front by himself! Since when was 26 goals a terrible return worthy of you being shipped off to play for a shite team? Does van Persie ever score 26 goals? No, but nobody is saying how he should be sold or given away for free. Is it just because he is not Thierry Henry? No, his finishing isn't brilliant. But his work rate is unmatched and his runs are good and he is out there for us every single game without fail trying to get us wins. I'm sick of reading ridiculous articles like this one and reading comments like these. He is not to blame for us losing out on the title. There are, believe it or not, eleven players on the pitch at a time and they all had a part in it. Robin van Persie hasn't scored since his return except for that one penalty and nobody blames him because of the injury. But they blame a guy who is NEVER injured and has worked all year when he doesn't score every match. Point is, Adebayor is our best striker and we'd be well worse off without him so piss off you whining scumbag fans who hate him.

There, that feels better. Leave your comments on Flamini, Hleb, Adebayor, Ben Arfa, or anything you want. There's also quite a good discussion going in yesterday's comments if you wanna have a look at that. Good day everyone.

I Don't Understand You Arsene...

Well how many times have we seen this happen lately? Take the advantage just to give it away and lose. It happened against Chelsea, Liverpool, and now United. I'll hopefully get time to do a match report later, although I am about to go coach my Under 7's team so that's the priority at the moment.

I really have one main concern about today though. It's not that we should sign no players, it's not that our defense can't keep goals out to save their lives, it's that I think maybe Arsene hurt the team today. As far as I know, and I have seen no story to go against this, Manuel Almunia is not hurt, he has not been killed, arrested, sick, or gotten into any fights with team mates or the manager today. So please, do tell me, why was Almunia not in the game today? Why would Wenger abandon the keeper that has played well for us all season in favor of a lunatic who has trashed the team and the manager all year?

I'm not saying Lehmann cost us the game. He had a decent game as far as I'm concerned. What my problem is is how is Almunia supposed to take this now? He's benched in favor of Lehmann who has trashed him all year, and I don't see a reason why. What's this going to do to his confidence? Arsene doesn't trust him in big games now? I just don't see the reason at all.

I think Arsene also made two more mistakes today. Starting Song at the back against United is suicide. I don't care how well he played at the African Cup of Nations, he is not who you should have in defense against United. Especially when he hasn't played in the first team in ages.

He also started Eboue again, over Walcott, who is clearly a much better option for us on the wing. I'm sick of seeing a waste of space on the pitch when our most electric player gets 20-30 minutes a game if he's lucky.

I know this is another rant but I'm really starting to wonder about Arsene. Let me know what you think.

Update: It appears that Almunia was indeed injured before the match yesterday so that would be the reason for starting Jens though. So I guess this turns into another Eboue rant.

Flamini Out Three Weeks, Some Transfer Rumors

Morning all, I'm really tired. Interesting stuff there I know. So I'm just going to throw some stuff together and hope you all like it since I'm really not up to the task right now.

First off is news of Mathieu Flamini's injury he suffered against Liverpool. It now looks like he is going to be out for three weeks. It's an ankle injury that happened when Steven Gerrard stepped on his ankle and you could tell he was in some serious pain by the way he was taken off. Flamini seems like a guy who would play through a broken leg if he could so it must have really been a painful injury. We're definitely going to miss him against United and for the rest of the way, but hopefully he recovers faster than expected.

Second we have Jens Lehmann mouthing off again about how much better he is than Almunia and how he could have kept us from going out of the Champion's League. Yes he brilliantly saved Riquelme's penalty in the semi-final against Villareal two years ago but that does not mean he would have saved this one. The goals that were scored against us were not down to goal keeping mistakes and I don't know why Lehmann always feels the need to kick us when we're down. You want players that will try to help morale after tough defeats, not say stuff like this.

In completely different news, Dennis Bergkamp is trying to become a coach. He has applied for his coaching badges in Holland and will be allowed to get them more easily because of his 79 caps for his country. Oddly enough, before he has even found a team to start with, they have already given him 1/16 odds to be Arsene Wenger's replacement somewhere down the line. I hope Dennis does well as every Arsenal would. He's a legend and I think smart enough to do a good job. What do you think of Dennis coaching? Anyone taking the 1/16 bet?

While Arsene Wenger may not see that Theo Walcott should be starting, Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Adebayor surely do. They both praised him for his run and assist (which was bloody brilliant by the way) against Liverpool and Kolo said he thinks he will be one of the best players in England. Arsene, we're pretty much out of every opportunity for a trophy this year, can we PLEASE see Theo get a couple starts. I think we all want to see what he can do and now would be the time to get him prepared for starting next season.

And now we'll just go through a couple more transfer rumors because that's what happens this time of year after some bad results.

Today we are being linked with 21 year old Cristian Zapata, who plays for Udinese. He's a defender and supposedly they are rating him at about 15 million quid. Now I for one never ever watch Italian football so I haven't seen much of him but from what I hear he is quite a capable player and could be what we need. I think 15 million is quite a lot for a defender though as we know Arsene doesn't like shelling out a lot of cash. We shall see.

Also we've been linked with Ajax's Klaas-Jan Huntelaar. This has been a name associated with just about every big club in England, which is a problem for us. This means a bidding war, and Arsene Wenger is not going to spend more than Chelsea, Liverpool, United, or even someone like Man City. He's rated at 18 million which is a ton and I really don't see it happening. If it did I would honestly be overjoyed and possibly run out and by a Huntelaar kit right away, but I just don't think it will.

That's it for now. More tomorrow, probably a United preview. Cheers.

Liverpool 4-2 Arsenal

We had it, and we blew it...twice. I've never felt as depressed after a single match as I did after this one. Which is right now as the match ended five minutes ago. I'm in no mood to write a match report properly for this, so if you want to read one I'm sure you can find one somewhere else. I'm just going to say a few things I'm feeling and it may quite possibly turn into a rant.

First off, the first twenty minutes were absolutely 100% the Arsenal we all know and love. It was beautiful football at it's best and Diaby took his goal wonderfully. The way we were playing at that point I thought we could go on to win pretty easily. When their goal came on 30 minutes, however, we completely shut down. Adebayor couldn't create any space, Cesc was too afraid to ever take a shot, Flamini got hurt and Gilberto brought nothing to the team in his place, and Diaby dissapeared. Add to that Eboue's usual rubbish play and it didn't look good for us at all.

I wasn't feeling so bad at half time with the score at 1-1 though. It still gave us a good chance to go through with one goal or if no goals came we still had extra time. But we were just as bad in the second half as we were after their goal in the first. We couldn't hold on to the ball and both wingers did nothing. I was shocked that we started Adebayor as a lone striker when we clearly needed goals to go through. I was even more shocked that Eboue got to keep his place in the team instead of Walcott, who made an absolutely beautiful run and cross for our second goal. He brings so much to the team that Eboue never ever ever could.

The penalty called on Toure was absolute shite. He jumped to avoid our own player, then moved his arms trying to stay off of Babel and Babel fell and he gave a penalty. The last goal everyone was forward for a free kick and there wasn't anything anyone could do really so I don't give a tit about that one, but the first two are exactly what I talked about in my preview. I said we would score first and they would come at us, and they did just that, and just like I feared, we conceded the goals. Senderos was at fault for both of them and it wasn't his best game by far.

I don't really know what else to write. I just had to get all of this off of my chest because I'm sick of all the goals we concede and the way we play after we do. We knew it was going to be tough but to be set to go through not once but twice and blow it both times something needs to be changed. We need wingers, and we need something else at the back. I don't know who or what but it's really come to show at the end of this season.

That's all I'll rant about for now. Leave a comment if you're as pissed as I am.

The Last Chance at a Trophy This Year

Morning everyone. Oh how I've missed you all. I've been gone at Spring Break for the last week and couldn't type anything up where I was but I assure you I am back with a vengeance now, and not a moment too soon. We've got Liverpool yet AGAIN today, who I am utterly sick of. We've drawn 1-1 in both of the previous matches with them in the past week which means we're going to have to score at Anfield today if we're going to progress.

Injury news ahead of the game isn't really a lot, Sagna and Rosicky are still out but Robin van Persie is in the squad after passing a fitness test.

So the lineup will probably look something like this:

Almunia
Toure-Gallas-Senderos-Clichy
Walcott-Flamini-Cesc-Hleb
RvP-Adebayor

Does anyone else wish we had another really good strike option alongside Adebayor? I know RvP is generally good but he hasn't done very well since he's come back from injury and I don't like the Bendtner/Adebayor partnership much. I'm being optimistic by putting Walcott on the wing, because there is a chance Eboue could start but Walcott is a much better option. And you probably saw this somewhere else but he's really wanting a start. He even went to ask Arsene Wenger what he had to do to start. Let's give it to him tonight Arsene.

So we know we have to get a goal, so we have to think where can that goal come from? The most likely candidate to me is obviously Adebayor, but he is on poor form so it may have to come from somewhere else. I think Walcott could maybe get one. He can get through the defense, it's just a matter of him finishing. Maybe RvP could do it but I for one am extremely frustrated with how little he has done for us since his return. But I really think the goal may end up coming from Cesc or Flamini. Cesc has scored this year, even though it's not lately, and he usually plays well in big games and comes through when we need it. Just look at the Milan game. Flamini on the other hand doesn't score that much but he seems to pop up with crucial goals in big games. I can remember him scoring winners against United and Chelsea in the past and I'm sure there are others but maybe he could nick one today.

The real key to the game besides that one goal is our defense. Liverpool are going to play Torres as the lone striker with Gerrard behind him, and we absolutely cannot let them score, which we haven't been able to do this year. In fact our defense hasn't stopped goals from much anybody this year. I blame most of them really on the Gallas/Toure partnership, as it looked like we conceded far less when it was Senderos and Gallas in the middle. I don't know what Arsene sees putting them out there together but they never look like they are organized and neither one of them is a real muscler. After we get that first goal though they are going to come at us and we have to be able to hold off that little girl Torres and that hubcap thief Gerrard. C'mon lads now is the time to hold it together!

So my final score prediction is going to be 2-2. I know that is a ton of goals but I feel like after we score they'll really come at us and we'll have to grab another one. Maybe I'm just being optimistic for a good game though. Probably be 1-1. Oh well.

Enjoy the match everyone. I hope we're back to face Chelsea or Fener next time. Cheers!