Arsenal Leaves A Sour Taste Yet Again

Our third 0-0 draw in a row in the Premiership. First time it's happened in ten and a half years. The last time that happened, I was only eleven years old. I cant remember anything more frustrating in my entire life than watching this season's Arsenal team play. When a match is at home to Sunderland, you expect Arsenal to take care of business. You know they are only going to defend, so you should be prepared for that, but in the past we've been able to beat teams like this and that is how we have won titles. Our inability to break down opponents seriously has to be right up there with shooting yourself in the leg like Plaxico Burress. It's painful and ridiculous.

Let me first start with the good. Is it just me or did Kolo and Gallas magically become the partnership that we have all hoped they could be when Gallas first got here? I know it's Sunderland and they barely attacked but three clean sheets in a row is impressive no matter who it's against. They looked comfortable with each other at the back and while they are still shaky on high balls they are still both very good defenders.

The frustrating thing, as I said, is in attack. It's bloody Sunderland. It's not Barcelona, Milan, Man United, or Chelsea. It's Sunderland, and it's a game where you have to be able to score. Vela, RvP, and Bendtner all had decent or good chances, yet none really looked like scoring. Vela especially was poor in his short cameo. I feel for him because he doesn't get to play very much but when you are paid like these players are you expect him to convert some of his chances. I thought van Persie was going to score for sure when he had his chance in the 94th minute but even he kicked it straight at the keeper. I'm not sure what the team needs really. We had Arshavin, Vela, Nasri, RvP, Bendtner all in the game as attacking players, and on paper that seems like a group that should be able to create one goal. Alex Song is certainly no help to all that, because I can pick out a pass better than he can.

I think one of the real problems is our lack of a player who can just create that magical moment like Thierry could. RvP is the closest thing we have but Thierry was someone who could get the ball anywhere on the field and take it for a goal. I can't ever see Bendtner or Adebayor having a moment like that, and I think it hurts us. We rely too much on the creativity of Cesc Fabregas for goals, and while he's been out, they have dried up.

I don't really know what else to say, just a bit frustrated again. We needed to make up ground after Villa lost today, and yet we couldn't even manage it against a weak side at home. Fifth place is starting to look like a real possibility if something doesn't click into place soon.

Leave thoughts. Cheers.

Arsenal - Sunderland Preview

I titled this post wrong. It's called an Arsenal vs Sunderland Preview, but really there isn't going to be a whole lot about the match. The news today is all about Andrei Arshavin, who is probably going to make his debut tomorrow. This was something we all expected anyway so it doesn't really count as news. There isn't much that annoys me more than having multiple articles all on the same story, which isn't really even a story at all. The headlines on Sky Sports' page today:

Arshavin Set For Arsenal Bow

Wenger Ponders Arshavin Role

Sunderland vs Arsenal Preview, Arshavin Set For Debut

Is there even a point in all three of those articles being posted? They all say the same thing, that Arshy can't play against Roma so he'll get a lot of hard work in this week. He'll probably start I think, and if not then I'd expect him to play at least thirty minutes. There, I just summed up three articles for you in two sentences. That's talent.

So without going into all that Arshavin nonsense, we do have some bad news, and it is that Eduardo will be out for at least two weeks with a minor hamstring injury. It's a shame that he's hurt right away after his amazing comeback, but hopefully it won't turn into a long term injury. He's really a spark for us for the rest of the season and we need him back.

And my last piece of Arsenal news today is that Barcelona and Arsenal are arranging a friendly in the summer. It hasn't been confirmed by anything or anyone but apparently there is some discussion about it. How exciting.

So the Oscars are this weekend so everyone is talking about terrible movies winning awards. The favorites for Best Picture are Slumdog Millionaire, Gran Torino and some other shite. I've seen Gran Torino and Slumbdog Millionaire, and I thought Gran Torino was good and Slumdog sucked. But thinking about the Oscars made me think about something, and it's how the movies that I really like never are the ones to win awards. If I thought of my top FIFTY movies of all time, I would say that none of them have won an academy award. I don't really know how they judge these things. Like how did Top Gun not win like every award ever when it came out? Billy Madison, that should have won best comedy in my book. But yeah this segment really doesn't have a point but I just wanted to see if I could think of my top ten movies and see if any of them have ever won an award. So here goes.

1. Die Hard
2. Top Gun
3. Green Street Hooligans
4. Billy Madison
5. The Departed
6. Clerks 2
7. Blow
8. American Gangster
9. Lucky Number Slevin
10. Half Baked

After extensive research I have determined that the only one in the group to actually win an academy award was The Departed. So basically the judges don't have any clue about these things.

There that probably wasted at least five more minutes of your time, but feel free to leave your lists of movies or Sunderland previews or anything else. Cheers.

Pele Wants to Join Arsenal

Not that Pele though. Just some other dude named Pele who I've never heard of or seen play. If there were any other headlines I could have used today then I would have. It would be easier if you didn't have to have titles for posts. This one would be called Post 277. Christ, 277, that's a lot of posts. Considering sometimes I've disappeared for like a week or so every couple of months, that's a lot of shite I've written. You know how many hits I got on my first ever post on this site? Three. And I think one of them was me. You should go back and read it though, it's pretty hilarious and terrible. On to the news though!

So about that Pele guy, it's a goalkeeper that plays for Le Mans named Yohann Pele, and he says he'd be interested in a move to Arsenal. Really? You play for Le Mans and you'd consider playing for Arsenal? Wow what a shocker. I can't believe somebody would make that move. That'd be like if I played for Oxford United and I said, "You know, I think I might be interested in a move to Real Madrid." Ok it's not quite that big of a step up but really, not many people would not be interested in a move from Le Mans to Arsenal. His contract runs out at the end of the season and we're reportedly interested in him, along with Bordeaux. As I said, I have never seen him play and don't know anything about him, but I suppose if he's any good then it wouldn't hurt to have him. Fabiasnki does look promising though.

My brother just brought me in a quesadilla for lunch. Pretty exciting stuff.

Remember Martin Taylor? He's the wanker that broke Eduardo's leg and then said he went to the hospital to apologize to him. Well according to Eduardo, who is most certainly a more trustworthy, kind, and generally is a better person, says that Taylor has never spoken to him, even to this day.

"I have received lots of mail from other people. I've had around 25,000 emails - from Croatia, Brazil and England - wishing me a speedy recovery and I've had letters by the sackful.

"But he's never sent anything directly to me.

"But I don't want to talk about the incident. It's probably best left alone now."

What a horrible cunt that Martin Taylor is. Hopefully someone breaks his leg, then rips the lower half off, beats him over the head with it, then feeds it to a pack of lions.

Emmanuel Adebayor has said that he is putting his personal accomplishments far behind the club's goals.

"I know having scored 30 goals in a season that people will always be waiting for more this season but the most important thing is to keep on going and to progress. "I have 12 already but to score another 18 now would not be easy. "But I don't care if I stop on 12 goals if we win something with the club. "To win trophies is more important than scoring goals but if we are to win trophies I will need to score some goals.

And that's the kind of attitude you want from your players. Adebayor has taken a lot of shite this season, and I've always probably rated him higher than most Arsenal fans. I think he really, really wants to win, and I think his words there are genuine. So no, he hasn't scored as many goals as last year, but wouldn't we all take a trophy over a 30 goal scorer? The answer better be yes.

That's about all I've got today. Time to go eat this quesadilla and play some rugby on Xbox. I start culinary school tomorrow too. Craziness. Talk to you tomorrow. Cheers.

Edddduardo! Edddduardo! A Magical Arsenal Moment

What up dudes? Yesterday was a pretty awesome match wouldn't you say? I won't bore everyone with a match review that includes a minute by minute rundown of all the action, but I will just go over what I think are some of the most awesome parts of it.

Obviously the important thing of the day was Eduardo's return to first team action. And what a return it was. Eddy scored the first goal as well as the third goal from the penalty spot. The response from the first goal was immense. The roar from the crowd was deafening, and the joy shown by Eduardo and the rest of the team made it even more special. I've got the clip right here.



The most amazing thing happened when the whole stadium started chanting Eduardo, Eduardo. It was the first time in a long time I've heard the Emirates sound like that. What I also noticed about the third goal that Eduardo scored was when he was fouled in the box he picked the ball up with resolve, almost as if he was going to prove a point right then and there with that one kick that he was back. When you saw the look on his face you knew there was no chance he was missing that kick, and once again the crowd broke into chanting of his name. It gave me shivers hearing it like that, and I wish it was like that all the time, but we all know there are some fans there that just aren't going to chant and sing no matter what. It does make me very proud to be a fan though when we see someone so deserving get such a warm response. I was singing along way over here in Florida.

I think Eduardo may be just the inspiration this team needs to get the season back on track, in the same way that his injury sucked the life out of the squad last season. He certainly looks like he's fully recovered and ready to roll, and he's already scored half as many goals as Bendtner has scored the entire season, in only one appearance! Keep it up Eddy, we all wish you the best.

There weren't many downsides to the performance yesterday, as it was pretty much vintage Arsenal, but I thought Song in particular was pretty bad. His passing was miserable, it seemed like every time he tried to pass it went straight to a Cardiff player. The good news of course is that we kept the clean sheet, so it didn't hurt us too much. After having such a good performance against Sp*rs though, I was hoping for much more from Song.

Man of the match, for me, without being too sentimental and giving it to Eduardo, goes to Bakary Sagna, who I thought was immense. His forward runs drove Cardiff mad all game and he was on top of every defensive situation on his side. What I like just as much as his play though is his attitude. I'm pretty sure if you looked at the statistics I bet he's played more matches in the past two years for us besides anyone but maybe Gael Clichy, and that is only because he was injured for the end of last year. He never runs his mouth, rarely even gets carded, and is one of our top players. I love the guy, and he played a great game.

Kieran Gibbs, Eduardo, Nasri, and Fabianski were the other players who I thought did quite well. Nasri is a real creative force and I really liked him up in front of Sagna. It will be nice to maybe see Nasri and Arshavin being able to switch flanks when needed to switch things up. Fabiasnki looked very comfortable and confident in goal all game, and while there weren't a whole lot of saves he had to make, he did what he had to do easily.

So hats off to the team, and specifically Eduardo, and let's hope his return is just the boost we need to really kick this team into high gear. Cheers all. Podcast to come soon hopefully. Maybe Thursday.

Nicklas Bendtner is an Arrogant Cunt, Usmanov Raises Stake

Morning all. It's been a while. First order of business is to tell you all that I'm growing my hair out like Sergio Ramos has his. Won't that just be pimpin? We play Cardiff today in the FA Cup 4th round replay, which is odd because they have not only drawn for the 5th round but also the quarter finals already. It's a game we should win today even with the injuries. Arshavin still won't be able to play because he wasn't registered for the first match but hopefully we'll be able to win even without him. I'd expect nothing less at home.

What I really want to talk about today is Alisher Usmanov and Nicklas Bendtner, who are both cunts. Yes, I just called an Arsenal player a cunt. Watch I'll do it again. Emmanuel Eboue is a cunt. There, twice. We'll start with Nicklas Bendtner, who never knows when to keep his mouth shut and let his play do the talking. He's about to (most likely) get a good run in the team with the injury to Emmanuel Adebayor, and instead of just trying to play well, he's gone off and run his mouth, saying he should be playing every minute of every game. There's only one problem with that Nick, and it's that all of our other strikers are much better than you.

'I'm very sorry to see Adebayor injured as we need him fit and to be playing in the league. But it does not really matter to me who is fit and available. I should start every game, I should be playing every minute of every match and always be in the team.''

Who filled his head with this nonsense? He's only scored three goals in 18 appearances this season, why on Earth would he play every minute of every match? I don't have a problem with confidence and swagger among players, in fact I support it as a needed part of the game to succeed, but this crosses the line. A lot of things in life are things where a big step is learning your place, and Bendtner has never done that. His cockiness and outright arrogance wear me almost as thin as his terrible performances on the pitch, of which there have been many. Adebayor has been in not so good of form this season, yet I'd pick him over Bendtner every time. Robin van Persie deserves a spot every game regardless of who it's against because he's been out best player for most of the season. Eduardo isn't even completely healthy yet and I'd still pick him ahead of Bendtner even before this quote came out.

Nicklas then went on to basically say he has no idea why we bought Andrey Arshavin, and indeed says he has no idea how he plays.

''I've never seen Arshavin. I did not watch Euro 2008,'' he said. ''I've no idea what sort of player he is.''

Here's an idea Nick, turn to your left or your right in training and he'll be standing near you! So not only is he completely oblivious to where he fits into the team but he's also a complete idiot. What a great combination. I used to like Bendtner and thought he had a lot of potential, but God is he not ridiculous?

Alright enough about Bendtner and on to Alisher Usmanov, the fat cunt. When last we heard from him, he owned 24.9% of Arsenal but seemed as if he was content with that as he didn't buy more shares for the greater part of a year. Well now he's back in action and today he's increased his stake to over 25% in the club. The official statement from his company Red and White Holdings read that the purchase was:

"In line with Red and White's previously stated intention to secure a significant shareholding in Arsenal and ensure that its position is protected. "We are pleased to have now secured over a quarter of the shares of Arsenal. "We are committed long-term investors and supporters of the club and are comfortable that we are now in a protected position."We also welcome the strengthening of the squad and look forward to a successful conclusion to the season."

The translation for this:

"Alisher Usmanov is a fat Usbek cunt who wants to take over Arsenal. We're going to act like we're just in this as an investment, but soon enough we'll be making a takeover bid. If your board had not signed a lockdown agreement, it probably would have already happened. If you guys liked the Abramovich thing at Chelsea, you'll looooove this. We really have no interest in the history of Arsenal or anything that the club has accomplished since 1886, we really just want to make it like Chelsea because hey, if you make all your money by sketchy means, you have to get rid of it somewhere right?"

So yeah, not good news. Thank God for that lock down agreement and let's hope it stands for a long time. That's about all I've got. Going to get some things done for a little bit and then watch the Cardiff match. Cheers.