Arsenal’s Champions League knockout stage qualification is pretty much academic at this point. If Olympiakos lose we’re in. If we get a point tonight, we’re in. Basically, Arsenal have to lose tonight to fail to qualify. Which brings me to the point of the blog: we’re not going to lose, we’re going to stuff Koemann’s supposed “hoodoo” over Arsenal and Arsene Wenger down his Dutch throat. We’re also going to stuff the League title down Fergie’s whale-sized throat. While we’re at it, we’re going to stuff Tony Cascarino’s “5er” down his throat. And well, I could go on about throats and stuffing but suffice it to say we’ll be throat stuffers!
That is, if we can stay healthy. It turns out that Clichy’s injury is not a repeat of the stress fracture that he suffered at the end of last season, but a stress fracture… on the same vertebrae, but on the other side. He was out 11 weeks with this injury last year, I don’t see any reason why it won’t be the same again this year. 11 weeks means that Gibbs will be starting left-back until February. A quick word about that; Gibbs will make mistakes, he might even cost us points, but we all need to get behind him and keep his spirits up. We need Gibbs to play the best football of his life for the next three months and the only way he can do that is if we stay off his back and support him. He’s a young player and every mistake he makes will be magnified in his mind already, he won’t need us groaning at every stray pass.
The groaning at stray passes is something we need to stop doing anyway. If we don’t, opposition managers like Harry Redknapp will use it to motivate his team against our boys. Harry tried to do so on Saturday as evidenced by his post-match interview where he mentioned, specifically, the crowd groaning and how that motivated his players. He pointed to the crowd “getting on Arsenal’s back” as a reason why he thought his tactics were working.
The good news today is that United manager, Ferguson, has stated in United’s official magazine about who he thinks the real title challengers are this season and has dismissed Arsenal’s chances. Stating that he thinks it’s a two horse race, he said only Chelsea will be pushing United. It’s a well known fact that anyone and anything that Ferguson dismisses he actually sees as a huge threat. In fact, the more vitriolic, the more of a threat he sees them. That’s why he’s been going after the referees so vociferously these last few weeks: Man U are used to getting all of the calls and with his team basically a defensive shambles they need the refs in their pocket even more than ever before. Expect to hear more vitriol from Whiskey Face as Arsenal close the gap.
And finally… fuck Tony Cascarino. Sorry if that offends you, but read the link above and see if you don’t agree.
Right, that’s it for today. Arsenal will be beating the pants off AZ Alkmaar today at 11:45 am PST on Setanta in the USA. After Koeman shot his mouth off some more about how he beat us before, I’m so confident of a win that I have my unlucky Dennis Bergkamp strip on. If you’re in town, I’ll be down at Doyle’s after work today (3:45pm or so) watching a tape delay of the match, join me.
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Wow, that is a pretty liberal interpretation of Fergie’s words there. He makes comments about Chelsea, in the week that he’s playing Chelsea, saying that they’re the team to beat (which i don’t think anyone will argue with) and that’s “writing off” Arsenal and Pool?
I love the British press sometimes.
No use getting worked up about that cunt cascarino. he’s got pundit’s disease: ignoring what’s right in front of his eyes. spuds have spent more and had less success meaning they buy crap players. look at those he lists: palacios and bassong arsene looked at and rejected, crouch is a one trick pony whom vermaelen shut down. only defoe is a useful player but has the added disadvantage of being a cunt.
also the spuds board having ambition makes me laugh because their only ambition is to be arsenal. doesn’t that put them miles behind us.
actually your right tim, that witless know-nothing should just keep his mouth shut
A stray pass will always end up with a negative reaction,unless we are 3 up!
The fallacy in Cascarino’s argument that Sp**s are closing the gap on Arsenal w/ regard to having ‘Arry at the helm and the players he’s brought in is this: ‘Arry is a solid competent manager doing an average competent job. “Arry is a maintenance manager, he will never be a an innovative manger capable of changing the way others approach the game for the betterment of the game.
The players that Sp**s got rid of were below to low average players for the most part(the exception being Bent). The players they’ve brought in are average at best w/ Defoe being the lone exception. The players (Nasri, Vermaelen, Arshavin) we’ve brought in that the same relative period of time have all been exceptional. The fact that ‘Arry w/ King, Woodgate and Dawson brings in a Bassong and passes on a Vermaelen is all you need to know about the gap.
November 4th, 2009 at 9:39 am
@ctpa, Yeah i don’t really get why he connects their “success” with ‘Arry.
They were far more threatening under Jol, the lasagna on the last day of the season and all that, and since they fired him i really don’t see them as a threat anymore.
November 4th, 2009 at 10:15 am
@ctpa, I like ‘Arry – always have. However I’ve never ever seen him as being a top four club manager. He’s had the expected level of success with every club he’s been at until now. Spuds expect him to break the status quo but he simply cannot. He’s a very good mid-table manager and it’s guaranteed that ‘Arry can save your club from relegation but topple the establishment? That’s a bit out of his league.
November 4th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
@WC, My point exactly.
agreed with kidkle about cascarino. if you get worked up about every joke of a pundit painting the doomsday scenario for arsenal, you would be having major stress issues. besides, the article came out before the derby. it’s already been proven that he hasn’t become any less stupid than he was last year.
November 4th, 2009 at 9:24 am
I’m far from worked up, worked up is a 1300 word column!
Hell yeah! Let’s start stuffing things on throats today!
November 4th, 2009 at 9:51 am
My feeling exactly.
You know what’s hilarious about Cascarino’s article? The comments. There’s a whole flurry of Spuds and non-Arsenal fans supporting this whole idea of Tottenham being competitively close to Arsenal. There’s a ton of comments dated Oct. 30th, the day before the game, bashing Arsenal and supporting Spuds and then there’s literally no more comments until today Nov 4th from only Arsenalists. ALL of the Spuds who were mouthing off on the 30th just up and lost their tongue after their 3-0 drumming of 3 master class goals.
Back from pub, back from Italian restaurant where we went after for espresso and creme brulee and to gloat over the Special One losing, only to find they’d scored at the last minute – they’re Inter supporters in that restaurant). Am mildly drunk and very cheerful. Pretty flawless performance, I thought.
November 4th, 2009 at 6:01 pm
@Mia, This is for you. Even if you don’t speaka da language you will note that the announcer is what we in America call a “homer”.
November 4th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
@ctpa, http://www.101greatgoals.com/videodisplay/3830768/ Oops, here you go.
November 5th, 2009 at 2:21 am
Thanks. Pretty standard Italian commentary in fact. That keeper!
Tim: Congrats! The boys have answered your call. You called for them to “stuff Koemann’s supposed “hoodoo” over Arsenal and Arsene Wenger down his Dutch throat.” And to “stuff Tony Cascarino’s “5er” down his throat.” Well they have done that comprehensively tonight. Our boys were simply majestic “throat stuffers!”
Yeah! We stuffed throats all over the place! Chesk is definetely on another level this season.
Pity we didn’t get the clean sheet. But, job well done.
Simply a brilliant performance. Clean, sharp passing and sublime well taken goals. Everyone on point.
I want to note the Setanta announcer who commented that Arshavin was not in the game. Within 5 minutes Arshavin delivers the first of his 3 assists to Nasri. We don’t care or worry about how Arshavin ‘looks’ do we? We know that his play is all about deception.
I must note William Gallas who along w/ Vermaelen are developing a new position (at least since Beckenbauer at sweeper), the attacking CB. It’s hard enough when you’ve got the front 6 dancing all over your sh*t and you now have CBs marauding into your 18yd box, holy mackerel.
November 5th, 2009 at 2:14 am
Gallas is a number 10 after all.
November 5th, 2009 at 2:52 am
This is why those solid no-nonsense English central defenders people were calling for over the summer would be a total disaster for us: they’re too slow for a team where the defenders are in front of the strikers. It’s also why Senderos will be sold, I’m afraid, much as I like him.
I can’t believe how sublimely good we were. As the Sky commentator said, no one is going to want to draw us in the next round.
Screw SAF…that is all
The moaning brigade has, in recent weeks chosen two new victims. Diaby and Arshavin.
Useless, not interested, not good enough, should never play, off to Spain … these are the things that we can read on many blogs.
After the game against Spurs it was told once again by some and despite the fact that our arch-rivals were easily beaten, they barely had 1 dangerous shot on goal in 90 minutes and we could have won by much more.
Because it was such a nice game and thanks to modern technology we now have at our disposal, I viewed the game again in a relaxed manner this time. Because we must not forget the way we look to a game live. Especially against the Tiny Totts it is full of tension and nervousness. And that’s usually not a good way to properly review a game. So I looked a bit closer at some “moaning victims”.
“Arshavin, not interested”. Arshavin is a special player with a special body language. When I re-watched the game against Spurs Arshavin really showed how much he was involved in the game. But the problem is that Arshavin wants to do special things and that can go wrong sometimes.
Passing a ball in to the space of a tenth of a millimetre at a certain player, with the outside of the foot. Those are things we should not even dream of but Arshavin does and he tries it. And if that fails a few times in a game then the moaning brigade steps in.
What Arshavin does sometimes is run or stand still with his shoulders hanging down in a pose of “do what you want, I do not play anymore”. It is just a way to deceive the opposition.
If you are an opponent and you see it you could think: “We have eliminated him, he’s finished”. And one could have the tendency to lose him out of sight and that is deadly.
Remember Liverpool last year? The first half hour the game passed him by completely, he just walked with drooping shoulders over the field and nobody noticed him and suddenly he stood there and was unstoppable. Arshavin is the type of player where anything can happen and sometimes there are those days that it works and sometimes it doesn’t. For those who forget easily: Not every ball that Bergkamp played in his days turned in to gold.
Now, how can one see that Arshavin is interested? If an attacker, like him, very regularly runs in to our own defence to help or tracks back with an advancing defender then you know that he is interested. I saw him working hard against the Spurs with moments and it tells us something about his commitment.
“Diaby, not good enough”. Diaby is a player who last season was notable for his regularity. He came back from injury, played an awesome match (the tiles of the roof as we call it over here), then played two decent games and then …. He fell back with a new injury for several weeks and so it went during most of the season.
This season, so far only one minor injury and for the rest always fit. Again great games (e.g. Portsmouth) and some lesser games. In reassessing the game against the Tiny Totts, Diaby played a very unlucky first half.
Misunderstandings, the ball that was not being played at the right speed and so it seemed he was doing really badly. Gradually however, he worked harder and harder and came into the game in the second half and he was really doing well. Of course, the moaners had found enough ammunition in the lesser first half to shoot him down.
Good advice: Review the game again in relaxed conditions and you’ll see things you have not seen the first time.
A very clever man made the comparison between Song last year and Diaby this year. If we could find web pages from last year we would now simply replace the name Song by Diaby. What was said last year of Song they now say of Diaby. However it is now for the first time since joining Arsenal that it appears that Diaby finally is fit enough to play weeks in a row without injuries.
And maybe now it’s his year to develop like Song did last year together with Denilson. And then maybe next year the enormous potential that Wenger sees in him and that we get to see in some games, comes completely out in the open for everyone to see.
If we should believe the moaners on Saturday’s match against the Spurs and that we only played with 9 players and to think we still won so easy 3-0 then that’s just a sign of our power and our strength. We should be happy with the fact that we have played only “moderately” and yet so easily won against a team that “would push us out the top 4″, once again.
Walter
November 5th, 2009 at 4:29 am
@walter,
I have no idea who is copying and pasting articles from Untold Arsenal into the comments here.
November 5th, 2009 at 8:33 am
Who have been copying my article from the Untold Arsenal ???
November 5th, 2009 at 9:07 am
@walter, It happened yesterday with a different writer at UA and they are both from the same IP.
If it happens again, I’ll ban the user.
Tim,
This could change Arshavin’s mind about the desirability – for tax reasons – of playing for Barcelona. Take a look at the ESPN story on Spain’s Beckham Law:
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/columns/story?id=694261&sec=europe&root=europe&cc=5739
Best
Jack
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1225440/One-Gordon-grabs-Aston-Villas-Isaiah-Osbourne-loan-Middlesbrough-boss-Strachan-ticks-shopping-list.html?ITO=1490
All I know about Gordon Strachan is he coached Celtic through some very successful campaigns. Now he is the Middlesbrough coach after Southgate got shafted. Since hell has not frozen over, one name on Strachan’s list will not be toiling at Lowbrough.
Fabregas apparently was subbed because he had a ‘tight’ hamstring.
Crouch and the Sp**s are calling their beheading last week a ‘blip’.
We should do well against the anti-football played by Rubin Kazan since we’ve get a lot of practice.