Quick Arsenal-Portsmouth Preview

Morning all. Just a quick one today as I've got a busy day ahead and honestly I'm really so tired that I can barely write. We play Portsmouth in 45 minutes and see the first return of Tony Adams as an opposing manager. Pompey have been pretty terrible since he took over, and since we're playing at home we really need this to be a win.

While you never like to see anyone injured, I can't say I'm too bothered that Alex Song will miss this game through injury, and possibly Johann Djourou as well. Clichy should be back giving us a back four of Sagna-Toure-Gallas-Clichy, which on paper looks really good but we have seen that it is clearly otherwise. Emmanuel Adebayor is back after serving his suspension for a B.S. red card against the scousers. Obviously Eduardo, Rosicky, Cesc, and Theo are all still out.

We really need to pull off a win today. We're on our best run of the season, 5 games without defeat, and Pompey have had three straight defeats. Our class needs to show through to get a result here, and we could really use a Villa loss; and while we're at it how about a United and Chelsea loss too.

Arsene Wenger has said that Tony Adams will one day become a great manager, and I hope he does. I just hope it isn't today against us.

"He [Adams] was a great leader but there is a difference (between being a captain and manager).

"He will certainly be a great manager and he has the qualities needed to become one."

Alright that's about all the time I have this morning. Match is in thirty minutes so everyone kick back and enjoy what we'll hope will be a convincing win. Come on you Gunners!

Predict the Top Scorer and Win Arsenal Cash

Morning all. There isn't shite to write about today. Seriously there is nothing. I thought about doing my Fulham match preview today but I'll save that for tomorrow morning.

There is a hurricane going on outside my house right now (not even joking there really is) and it sucks because I haven't been able to leave my house at all. But that is beside the point, the point of this is yet another ArseNole Contest!

Today I've thought up a dandy. Pick who will be the top scorer in the Premiership this year and how many goals they will score.

Adebayor: 24 goals
Torres: 24 goals
Rooney: 1 goal

Something like that. You only have to enter who you think will be top of the scoring table and exactly how many you think they will get. If you are the closest at the end of the year you'll receive a 10 pound gift certificate for Arsenal.com's shop. If you get the player and number of goals exactly right then it will be 20 pounds!

To enter, you can email me using the contact me link, emailing me at ArseNole{at}arsenole.com, or leaving it as a post in the comments or forums.

Also, I still am looking for a new banner for the site, so if any of you know anything about graphics please make me a new banner and you will be justly rewarded I assure you!

That's all I've got. Hopefully we'll get a lot of entries

Join The ArseNole Premiership Fantasy League!

Morning everyone. I've got to leave for work in about twenty minutes so I can't be arsed to write about Adebayor yet again today, especially said I'd take a break from all that. There really isn't that much other news for the day so I've decided to do something fun and I've made a Premiership fantasy league for all of us to play in. It's really easy so I've got it in steps for you.

1: Go to http://premierfantasy.soccernet.com/

2: Click on Register and go through the registration and team selection process - it's totally free to play

3: Once you are on your team line-up page click on Mini League and type the following information in the Join A Mini League boxes:

League Name: ArseNole Premier League
Password: arsenal

Just make sure you go to join a mini-league and type the League Name and password in correctly and you'll be good to go! Hopefully we can get a lot of entries and make it a fun competition.

I'm deciding on a prize to give away to the winner of the league, it will possibly be a new Arsenal kit or who knows what else. It'll be something good though because it's a very long contest. So everyone please join and make it fun for everybody.

I'll tell you right now 3 of my 4 defenders are Gunners, 2 midfielders are, and 1 striker who's currently on the bench. And no, I have no Chelski or ManUre players on my team. Cheers!

Arsenal-Everton Preview

I'm posting a quick preview now so it'll be up before the match because I know I won't have time to in the morning. Manchester United won today against West Ham so we can't win the Premiership any more. I was holding out hope that the Hammers would pull off a miracle but even Nani being sent off couldn't stop United. So that means this match against Everton is going to be all fun and no pressure. It'd be better if it was a no pressure game because we had the title wrapped up but we'll have to live with this this year.

Injury news ahead of the game sees Robin van Persie being sat out as a "precaution." Robin went off after the first half against Derby and let's hope it really is just a precaution and not something that turns out to be a lot worse. Sagna, Rosicky, and Eduardo will also miss the game due to injury as usual. I miss seeing Bakary out there. He's just so solid. Alexander Hleb will continue his suspension and will also miss the game. Mathieu Flamini could return after recovering from his ankle injury so that will be interesting. It could very well be his last home game in the red and white so if he does get to play we should probably let him know that he served us well this year but he is also a money grubbing cunt if he really goes to Milan and plays in the UEFA cup next year.

I think a lot of the younger players and fringe players will probably get another chance this time, maybe even more so than against Derby because this game really does mean nothing. We could get second if Chelsea slip up though. So I'll go out on a limb to pick the lineup.

Fabianski
Hoyte-Song-Gallas-Clichy
Walcott-Flamini-Denilson-Traore
Bendtner-Adebayor

I thought Fabianski was ok but not great against Derby and he looked a little timid at times, but it was his first start in the Premiership so he'll improve every time he gets a game. I hope Hoyte gets to play because I'd like to see him one more time at least this season and I'd also really like to see what Traore can do on the wing because by all reports he has played there well recently. Bendtner is going to get another run out after playing well against Derby and I'm hoping Adebayor will be out there too because it'd be nice for him to catch Ronaldo in the top scorer category.



Match Prediction: Four of our last five games against Everton have been 1-0 or 1-1 so I'm going for a 1-0 home win with Adebayor on the score sheet.


Now for some other news. With all the talk of losing Hleb and Flamini and not having the money we thought we had and all the other stories we get every year about how bad off Arsenal is, a good story has come along. Bakary Sagna is set to be rewarded with a new contract. This is great news for us because he is the best right back in the Premiership and he is only going to get better as he plays more and more for us. Nobody deserves a new deal as much as he does.

In the search for a new managing director, The Times reports that Arsenal are willing to pay big bucks to find and hire someone who is "right for the job." They say that Arsenal are prepared to offer more than David Gill of Man U and Peter Kenyon of Chelsea make. It could help us keep some of these players that seem to always want to leave if we got a new person in that could negotiate contracts better. This could be a big deal for the club so I'll be keeping you updated on the situation.

And the last thing for today is just something to think about. Gennaro Gattuso wants to play in England, and we are about to lose our holding midfielder to AC Milan, where Gattuso currently plays...catching my drift? If Milan sign Flamini I think we could get Gattuso for an affordable price. He is thirty years old but he is one of the best holding midfielders in the world and could easily replace Flamini in my opinion. He isn't the long term answer but maybe he could hold that position for two or three years while we groom someone to take over long term. What do you all think?

Here's to three points against Everton. Cheers all.