Category Archives: Arsenal

Live-blogging Arsenal v. Hull — part 2

9:00am Taylor Twellman’s Kick medic it’s “TAYLOR MADE” HAR HAR. I can’s wait to see what these two geniuses have to say about the Arsenal match. Let me guess: “Arsenal don’t like physical play?”

9:05am Did you know that the number one search term that people use to find my blog is “Arshavin?” WTF? Oh well, Arshavin Arshavin Arshavin Arshavin Arshavin – he’s overpriced and talentless, he should play for Spuds! Arshavin Arshavin Arshavin Arshavin Arshavin !
9:10am gross, I’m watching the “highlights” and Christiano Ronaldo gets a penalty — I’m sorry but that was probably the only good tackle that Bolton put in the whole match. Too bad they’re going to get relegated.
9:20am “blah blah blah tackle blah blah blah Arsenal don’t like to get kicked blah blah blah.”

9:25am the lineups are announced and Fox Soccer channel is putting Eboue as the central midfielder — eye roll.

9:27am That guy’s name is “Warren Barton” and he was born in Islington but he played for Kelvin Koogan at Newcastile. Yay.

9:30 — that’s better, Eboue on the wing, DUH. God, Fox Soccer Channel sucks. They should hire me, at least I know where everyone plays on the pitch.

9:35 — kickoff, wheee, hey look Phil Brown has the same stupid headset that his evil mentor Sam Allardyce wore. And of course the announcer is already mentioning that Arsenal haven’t been scored on at the Emirates — that’s what we Americans call a jinx.

9:40 — hey look, three obvious fouls and no whistle.  Ok, so that’s how this game is going to be called. As long as it’s going to be called the same way on both sides.
9:42 — great pursuit by Denilson to save some blushes. COME ON YOU REDS!!!
9:44 — Jeebus, Denilson is everywhere.
9:47 — Jeebus Denilson earns a free kick on the edge of the box and Robin’s free kick is easily claimed by the keeper. Wasted chance.
9:48 — good call Matt — he looks tired or something and missed a wide open opportunity just now.
9:52 — bodies are flying all over the place and the ref has finally seen enough — stopping play when we have a clear advantage. Are you Tottenham in disguise?
9:56 — ok, so Hull can tackle rough but Arsenal can’t tackle at all, it’s going to be one of those games, got to play through it, ignore the ref.
10:02 — a real live injury to Eboue with blood and everything.
10:08 — that’s it, move the ball, make them run, Hull can’t keep up this pace all game.
10:13 — yawn… two consecutive offsides and Hull is sucking the life out of this game — exactly what they want to do.
10:20 — lots of chances in this first half but I’m going to give credit to Hull, they have executed their game plan to perfection.  They are closing space, roughing players, they’re well organized in defense and Arsenal is clearly frustrated. Let’s see how the Boss responds in the second half.
10:40 — oh good it’s back on. I’ve brushed my teeth and changed into my Fabregas jersey, clearly Denis Bergkamp wasn’t working.
10:43 — Theo with a mazy run and he pulls the ball back for Cesc who puts the ball in. The Jersey clearly worked.
10:45 — ONE NIL TO THE ARSENAL ONE NIL.. Come on boys get another! Christ, Eboue and Ade should have scored 4 goals on that last possession. PROFLIGATE!
10:50 — Jeebus, Theo has the speed of a thousand.. speeders, play every ball to Theo from now on, he can only get better. DANG! another missed opportunity, stop trying to set others up Ade you’re a striker, strikers SHOOT.
10:55 — fucking hell… no one closes down on Giovanni and he picks out the side netting on a great goal. There goes the Arsenal “clean sheet at home” that the announcer jinxed us on earlier. I was just about to comment that Arsenal looked like they had taken their foot off the gas for a bit.
11:00 — I had a bad feeling about that corner. 2-1 to Hull…
11:02 — off comes Eboue and on comes Bendtner. All hands to the pump. Eboue was probably most directly responsible for the extra passes and the first goal.
11:05 — what is this the 100th Arsenal corner???  How about a goal?
11:08 — Vela’s getting ready to come on and Arsenal’s going to switch to a 4-1-5.
11:11 — the 101st Arsenal corner, Hull look really jaded, Arsenal need to put this fucker away now. But instead, Marlon King latches on to a ball and has a good shot
11:15 — van Persie on the end of a beautiful Fabregas move and puts his left footed shot just wide. This is really frustrating.
11:17 — Arsenal waste their 108th corner — how does Gallas miss?
11:20 — 4 minutes, I want to believe.
11:24 — 4 minutes of added time too, I take back everything I said about your mother.
11:25 — YOU’VE GOT TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME.

11:28 — Incredible result, nothing to complain about as far as Hull’s tactics, they won doing what they wanted to do and no matter how much they tried Arsenal just couldn’t put the ball in the net.  More about all this tomorrow, I have stuff to do around the house now. Fuck.

Live-blogging Arsenal v. Hull — part 1, enter the Stoke.

I did some “liveblogging” last season as a test but I didn’t have anywhere near the audience then as I do now, so I thought I’d give it a whirl again and see what the response is. I’ll be honest and say that the real impetus behind these is that since I write the blog in a half a day away different time zone the news stories generally dry up by Saturday morning and I’m left with just a few dregs.

So… without further ado.

7:50am the Stoke v. Chelsea game is at a break and none too soon, Chelsea is up 1-0 off an own goal. This is like watching a root canal.

7:55am ha ha, my daughter is crying, probably because she just realized that Arsenal don’t play for an hour and a half. Or maybe she just learned that Thomas Rosicky’s magical mystery illness is causing all Arsenal fans great consternation.

8:03am Fox Soccer Channel is so low rent… they never tell who the commentators are (I wanted to look up this English guy’s name so I could see why he was chosen to represent anything much less Football in America) and just now as they went to break they were announcing their sponsors and couldn’t even get the sound right so the American dude was drowned out by their closing music.  Plus, the commercials are funny. Thomas Kinkade paintings of NASCAR? Who do they think is watching this, the Beverly Hillbillies?

8:09am Chelsea are hurting people, again.

8:10am mmmm… Raspberry pancakes, thanks babe, you rock!

8:15am these pancakes are awesome, and hey look at Chelsea fouling and cheating and wasting time: they’re so classy.

8:20am Stoke’s 8’11″ stiker is giving Chelsea all kinds of problems. I’d be so stoked if they equalized.

8:25am It’s called “NASCAR THUNDER!!!” and I give it 4 whore diamonds.

Thomas Kinkade Gallery of Horrors

Thomas Kinkade Gallery of Horrors

8:35am Stoke is making a game of this, but you just know that Lampard or Dogbag are going to get a second goal.

8:37am Disgusting, Anelka lashes in a goal after a shockingly poor clearance by Faye.

8:43am disgusting, the announcer just said “John Terry… sheer brawn.”

8:50am sorry, this game is deader than corduroy so I was just geeking out on stats. Did you know that Frank Lampard had 60 shots in the EPL last year and only scored 10 goals? HA HA PROFLIGATE! Come on ref, blow the whistle…

8:55am I agree Matt, but Lady Liberty is currently living with her abusive boyfriend in a trailer park in Tennesee, and she’s all corpulent from downing a fifth of Jack and a handful of pills every day.

Thank god, that game ended.  Ok, I’ll be back in a second with the actual Arsenal thread.

What are you guys still doing over here? Go to the Arsenal thread already!

Same as the Old Boss

Already the whining has started.

Arsenal are often painted as a whining club, our manager complains about officials, we all complain about the overly physical play of teams like Bolton, the fans complain when our team doesn’t beat clubs that we’re “supposed” to beat, in general we get a lot of stick for being a bunch of whiners.

What’s funny, though, is that Arsenal aren’t really that bad: if we make a mistake, we generally apologize for it (which is what adults like Pogatetz do when they make a mistake) and generally the Boss will have a word or two after the match and that will be it. What the boss never does (as far as I know) is whine about the refereeing before the match.

But that’s what Bolton, I mean Hull City boss Sam all… wait, his name’s Phil Brown? Oh. Well, whine before the match in order to get the officials to call this game their way is exactly what Hull City boss Phil Brown has decided to do. It comes as no surprise to learn that this guy, who thinks Kevin Davies’ tackle was a good tackle, is a former Bolton sub-commander under Sam Allardyce. It should also come as no surprise that Hull employ the exact same tactics as Bolton, and will go into tomorrow’s 9:30am pst kickoff looking to literally kick things off: off the pitch, out of the stadium, “up Wenger’s nose,” the tea lady, whomever and whatever gets in their way they will kick. Unashamedly.

For me, the Kevin Davies tackle, there was nothing wrong with that. If you take that out of the game Hull City might as well not play at the Emirates. If you allow Arsenal to dictate that that tackle goes out of the game, then we are finished.

We have got that tackle on our side – they have got the technical side of the game on their side. (emp. added)

If they are allowed to express that technical side without tackling, without physical contact, we might as well not turn up.

This is, honestly, the most cowardly, childish, churlish thing a manager has said all year. It is the adult equivalent of saying “if you don’t play by my rules, I’m taking my ball and going home.” What’s worse though is this insistence that if players aren’t allowed to tackle STUDS UP AND SHIN HIGH that there will be “no contact” in the game. There’s some kind of logic wormhole in effect here if people can seriously make the jump from “if illegal tackles aren’t allowed, then there won’t be any contact left in the game.”

But possibly the worst crime in this statement is the idea that all his team has is poor tackling: Arsenal play beautiful football; Hull City, they tackle poorly.

Hull City: we tackle poorly.

Arsene responded to Phil Brown with this simple statement:

A defender has to be tough and committed, for me if tough is committed I don’t have a problem with it. If tough is the desire to hurt your opponent it’s not acceptable because that’s not the game.

The beauty of sport is to win in respect of the rules. If us as managers start to say we don’t have to respect the rules then it can’t be accepted. That’s in boxing, in football, in every sport. You have to respect the rules.

Aye, and two-footed, studs up, shin high, aggressive lunges aren’t in the rules, Phil.

Since Phil Brown doesn’t understand what a proper tackle is I have designed a chart for him to show his players:

Good Tackle

Please note that while the player (Kevin Davies) is a bit behind his opponent, he’s trying to win the ball first and is not playing the man’s (Cesc) ankles or shins with a studs up lunge.

Bad Tackle

Note that Pogetetz had just won the ball in this challenge but he is very high, he leaves his left leg in, and he’s challenging studs up.

If Phil Brown would like I will give him a personal demonstration of both techniques. I’m sure he knows them though since that’s all his team has.

Enough of that, the two teams will have to play a match tomorrow and Arsenal know that they will have to play with a lot of grit, be wary of the long diagonal ball, and defend off set pieces. So far, the last item has been their weakest suit this season; while they haven’t conceded a goal off open play in 9 matches they have conceded off set pieces three times. Almunia will have a lot of work to do to command the box and the whole squad will have to pay extra attention on set pieces to make sure they clear the lines. If they don’t do that, it could turn into one of those games where Arsenal have 70% of the possession and Hull hit on a counter or a corner and steal a point.

Silvestre and Clichy are both fit for tomorrow’s match and we may see Gallas get a rest this week. I’m kind of excited to see what Silvestre can do for this team, we get a lot of criticism for being young and not doing well in the air, will Silvestre bring experience and aerial defense?

Nasri is still out, his knee is still bugging him, and Song was doubtful with some kind of hip injury but according to that link he’s available. That leaves just Nasri, Rosicky, Eduardo and Diaby in the infirmary. Not bad for this part of the season and considering that Eduardo had his leg broken. The one odd bit of news is that the article linked above says that Diaby is on the “long term injury list.” I’m not sure what to make of that as the team has been closed lipped about the whole affair.

Ok, that’s that. Like I said, the game kicks off at 9:30am local time and is on Fox Soccer Channel. I know a bunch of the locals are going down to Doyle’s to catch the Liverpool derby but I’m staying home because Doyle’s won’t be playing the Arsenal match until 11am and by then someone will have told me the score. Plus, there’s only one thing better than watching the match at home in your underwear while eating some fresh breakfast: seeing the game live at the Emirates.

Tomorrow.