Arsenal-Manchester United Reaction

Morning all. Well, it was pretty bloody awful wasn't it? This match is like Chlamydia, it's awful and disgusting and yet it just will not go away. While I'll admit to not being confident heading into yesterday, I was at least hopeful. I thought maybe we could at least get the first goal and give ourselves a chance to prove we could hold them off, but I was wrong. Most of the match, I sat in my chair, not making a sound, just kind of absent-mindedly gazing at the screen in hopes that maybe an Arsenal goal would snap me out of my trance.

We did start brightly, holding the ball for just about the whole first five minutes of the match and flowing well. No real end product though meant it all went to waste, and it only took United one attack to deal a hammering blow to us. Ronaldo crossed into the box low, Gibbs tripped and fell, and Park finished. The crowd was stunned, I was stunned, I think everyone in the world was stunned. Nobody had envisioned it going like that. Three minutes later, Ronaldo went down from a soft foul, rolled around like a girl, then got up, took the free-kick from 30 yards out and of course sent it right into the net.

The tie was pretty much over after just 11 minutes in the second leg. Watching the rest of it was like sitting through torture. We couldn't get a goal back and we really went off of our game after that second goal. It sucked the life out of the players, the fans, and even Arsene Wenger, who was visibly shocked. I have never seen him with his hands over his face so many times in one match. To the fans' credit, they did keep singing a few times even though we were dead men walking. That always makes me proud to be a Gooner.

The second half wasn't really any better. They scored another on a ridiculously good counter attack while we were pushing everyone forward to try and score four goals in 45 minutes. That one really put it to bed. We managed a consolation goal from an RvP penalty, but it didn't matter. I didn't cheer when it went in or anything. I was just too downhearted. In our biggest match ever played at the Emirates, we failed miserably.

I felt bad for Kieran Gibbs. While he's certainly at fault for the first goal, he's so young and inexperienced and was forced into the match by a lack of cover for injuries to our defenders. With experienced players like Gallas and Clichy out, we have to turn to Gibbs against a team with Ronaldo in it, and that's a tough matchup for anyone in the world, and certainly for an 18 year old. I hope he recovers from this one. Mentally it can be a huge blow when you make such a big mistake so early in a huge match.

Nobody really had standout performances for us, but if I had to pick two players that I thought did well I'd take Nasri and Song. Nasri was running everywhere chasing the ball, and when he got on the ball he made some really crafty runs with it. Sure, the end product could have been better but that's a given when you look at the scoreline. Song did pretty well breaking up play in the middle and worked really hard again. He's definitely having the best few months of his career lately.

Although it's unpopular to say, Cesc had a pretty bad game. He didn't get on the ball much, and when he did, a lot of his passes missed their targets. I said yesterday that he would be the key to the match, and he never really got into it. I'm definitely not blaming him for the loss, because that would be incorrect. I'm only pointing out what I saw in the match, and I didn't see a lot of Cesc Fabregas.

So it's another season without silverware. That makes four straight years. It is what it is. When you have a manager like Arsene Wenger, you can always expect a few things, including beatiful football and stubborness. The board have backed the youth project, and that's how it's going to be. We have to remember that Cesc, Theo, Clichy, Bendtner, Song, Nasri, Denilson, and Djourou are all under the age of 23, so it's not like the window to win trophies is closing. We need to be able to keep our players though and also add some more. We've seen the impact that Arshavin has had on this team, so why not add a few more players with his type of experience in the summer?

Remember Gooners, we're all Arsenal supporters. Some people are mad at Wenger, some are mad at the players, but nobody should be mad at the other supporters. We're all one club, and we all want them to win everything every year. Sometimes it just doesn't go that way. Arsenal have gone a lot longer that four years without a trophy before, so let's be patient. Manchester United were a much better team this year, but we've seen that we can beat them on our day, and I think we're only going to get better. So while it feels miserable right now (and believe me, it bloody well does) tomorrow is another day. They'll be giving away trophies again next year, so let's all hang in there and be ready to back the team again next year, hopefully to many finals and championships.

Come on you Gunners!

Nil-Nil Has Become The Norm, And That Needs to Change

What's up all? I'm now 22 years old, having had my birthday last Friday and contributing to my absence from writing for almost a week. I had a great time, got to hang out with my best friends in Orlando and it was pretty much awesome/crazy/hilarious, so what more can you ask for?

But while I had a good weekend, Arsenal yet again did not. We played Fulham at home and you'd normally expect a win there, but as I was turning the match on I just had a feeling with this team that it wasn't going to be good. After three straight nil-nil draws in the league and four draws in a row overall, I'll admit that I wasn't too confident even against a weak team at home. Fulham actually played decently, their passing was pretty good but we really still could have won. RvP had a couple of chances, Bendtner had a chance, Arshy had a chance, but the theme of this season seems to be a lack of goals and we were fruitless in our efforts yet again. While our defense looked fairly solid again, we just don't look at all confident going forward.

The problem with the current team, as has been said by many, is that they play down to the level of our competition. We get up for Chelsea, Roma, Man United, etc; but then we lose to teams like Fulham and Hull City. Take a look here below. I've gone over the points that what we would consider "weaker" clubs have taken from Arsenal this season. It's quite stunning really.

Fulham - 4 points - Lost away, Draw at home
Hull - 3 points - Lost at home, won away
Sunderland - 2 points - Drew home and away
Sp*rs - 2 points - Drew home and away
Stoke - 3 points - Lost away
Boro - 1 point - Drew away

Not to mention the loss at home to Villa, the five straight league draws in a row, and more. All those teams I listed above are in the bottom half of the table and are teams we should be taking maximum points off of, especially at home, yet we have taken less points or the same amount of points from all six of those teams.

The most frustrating part of the whole season is that this team doesn't really have an identity. Half of the time we can't defend a lead against anybody (the 4-4 against Sp*rs comes painfully to mind) and now this second half of the season we can't score against some of the worst teams in the league. So is this Arsenal team one that can only do one thing at a time, whether it be attack or defend? Wenger buys Arshavin to help us score more goals yet we can't win any matches once he's in the team. I'm not blaming Arshy by any means, because he's been decent for us, but the fact is that buying Arshavin hasn't helped us to win matches at all.

The good news in all of this of course is that our injured players will all be returning in the somewhat near future. Walcott, Theo, Eduardo, Rosicky (hopefully) and Cesc are all big players from us that should be back in the coming month or so. When they all return that will take Bendtner, Eboue, and Song all out of the team which can't possibly be a bad thing.

We play West Brom tomorrow, another weak team that we need to beat. We actually beat them 1-0 the first match of the season, and I'd take another 1-0 win for us in a heartbeat. We've said lots of matches are must win matches lately, but I'd say this is the final must win. If we blow this one and lose or draw, we can go ahead and make plans for the UEFA Cup next season, although we really need to watch out for Everton who are sneaking up on us for 5th place.

Even Arsene Wenger seems at a loss lately, which is something I've never seen before from him. If you listen to his press conferences he really seems bewildered, and if he is bewildered then everyone is. It is his job to right the ship here though, so we have to hope he can do it quickly. Come on you Gunners.

Cheers all. Oh yeah and Justin I added your link. I've been meaning to do it before now but there you go. Oh and by the way wasn't it great watching Sp*rs miss out on the Carling Cup, even if it had to be to United? Love it. Peace.

A Disappointing Draw, But On To United

Morning all. It's a nice day here in Florida, which puts me in the mood to look ahead as opposed to looking back on the last week, which saw 3 crappy results for us. Our most important stretch of matches so far this season takes place in the coming month, starting this Saturday with Manchester United. It could either be the end of our title challenge or the start of some new momentum that could push us on to glory. It's a fixture where they really separate the men from the boys, and we'll surely find out what our squad is really made of.

We'll be without RvP, Adebayor, Eboue, and probably Gallas and Walcott, which leaves us in quite a bind for players. This isn't a match preview so I'm not going to predict a lineup or a score yet but the point is it's time to really show what kind of character we have. I'd love to see Djourou get to play in the match with Toure, but the boss seems to not like playing him very much. We need our key players like Cesc, Clichy, Toure, and Almunia to really have good games if we're going to win this one. I'm excited for the match, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little nervous about it as well.

The good news for the day is that Arsenal are top of the table...the Fair Play table. Arsene Wenger talked about it because he was still mad about Stoke "intentionally" trying to hurt our players, which was really just playing tough.

“You can look at the Fair Play table, who is top? Arsenal Football Club. So first of all we have no lessons to learn from anybody on that front. Look at the team with the least fouls in the Premier League - it is Arsenal Football Club.

“I am responsible for the behaviour of my team and when you look at the Fair Play table, you see that Arsenal are top. And that [includes] the behaviour of the manager on the touchline and the players on the field. I do not make that table."

A couple quick things on this point. First of all, you don't win any trophy for being top of the Fair Play table Arsene, and I don't think any of us fans are busy celebrating being top of that table either and thanking you for your leadership in guiding us to this accomplishment. Second, when we were winning titles, we got loads of cards. Patrick Vieira, the last real captain we had, used to get red and yellow cards all the time. There is nothing wrong with fouling as long as it leads to wins. Would anyone be mad if we were last in the Fair Play table and top of the Premiership? No we'd all be thrilled to have won the title. I've got a new slogan for Arsenal to use..."By Any Means Neccessary." We should go into every match thinking that and we would be a lot better off. If you have to foul someone and pick up a card, then do it. Quit worrying about the Fair Play table and make sure you win matches you should win. Get physical and grow a pair.

That's about all I've got. I may do a podcast tomorrow if you guys send some emails in, if not then I'll just do one next week. But yeah, send some emails in or leave some comments so I can use them in the next one. Let's hope some players get healthy before Saturday. Cheers.

Hleb Off To Spain, Euro 2008 contest.

Morning all. Nasri has again not been confirmed today in case you were wondering, but this is most likely due to the fact that he was playing for France last night. Awful hard to be in London when you're playing for France. Try it. Arsenal News Review says he played well. Le Grove said he didn't play all that well. I didn't watch it so take your pick of the reviews of his performance if you're that into it.

Nasri's agent did however confirm that the deal will be done in the coming days and it will be to Arsenal. Read this.

Biggest news we have today is about Alexander Hleb and if it is anything it's confusing. Apparently Hleb's agent met with Txiki Begiristain (nice name), the Barcelona director, yesterday in Germany. They reportedly reached a verbal agreement on the player's terms and now an agreement must be struck with Arsenal to complete the move.

At the same time, Real Madrid have declared their interest in Hleb, with coach Bernd Schuster saying this:

"Over the past two months we have had a plan and we know what we want, but now Hleb has been added. We did not know he could leave Arsenal but in recent days it has been more positive. We were surprised that he might leave there."

Remember also that Inter Milan was thought to be leading the race to sign him for ages until the Spanish gians got involved. Personally I couldn't give a shite where he goes to, I'm just ready for him to be off. This reminds me of the Jose Antonio Reyes story last year, where we didn't know where he was going to go we just knew we didn't want him back. It took weeks of him being linked with Real, Atletico, and Sevilla before the move finally went through. There are some people that may still want Hleb in the team, but I'd take 10 million quid for him right now in a heartbeat.


If you're looking for a laugh you can laugh at Mathieu Flamini, who was dropped from the France squad for Euro 2008. A lot of people probably feel sorry for him, but not me. I like ex Arsenal players this is true, but I only like ones who were great players here for years, like Pires, Henry, Vieira, etc, not money grubbers who leave after one good year. Flamini deserves all the hardship he gets in my book. If you disagree, please name your reason why.

Robin van Persie has said that Arsenal need to raise their wage limit to keep players happy and make them stay at Arsenal. Of course he wants the wage limit raised, he's a player and he wants more money. I like van Persie and all but he can talk about all this when he becomes club director, or at least stays healthy for a whole season.

As you probably all know, Cesc Fabregas' new agent is Darren Dein, David Dein's son. With Cesc getting ready to go into contract negotiations with Arsenal, the talk is that he's going to play some hardball with the club. Cesc is going to re-sign, trust me on this one. There is no need to worry that just because Dein is his agent he is going to go to Barcelona this summer. He'll probably get a deal about 100,000 quid a week. This story is meant to get all the Arsenal supporters nervous but don't worry about it.

And in other news Mad Jens made the final cut for the German squad for the Euros. Good job Jens.

That's about all I've got for the day. I'm pretty stoked for the Euro's so if you want to give me your prediction on the finals, give me the two teams that will play in the finals and the final score and I'll give the winner a free ArseNole stein mug and maybe some other stuff too. It's used to drink excesses of beer, like Yuengling. So post your prediction on the forums or the comments and I'll write em all down and the winner will get that. Or you can email your prediction to me at ArseNole[at]arsenole(dot)com. They have to be in before June 7th.