Big Mouth Strikes Again.

Thursday, 29 October 09

We played Liverpool last night in the last 16 of the Carling Cup at The Emirates and it was a very enjoyable match to watch. The boss went with the expected team more or less with the inclusion of Eastmond the only real surprise. We played some very good football at times and the new system seemed to suit Nasri very well. He seemed to be at the heart of everything that we did throughout the game and he lasted very well considering that he had only played an hour of football before last night.

To be fair to Liverpool they played with 10 different players from their team on Sunday and we went 1 better by playing a completely different team. In the first half our 2 full backs looked a little lost at times and Gibbs in particular seemed to be caught out of position a lot but in the 2nd half they managed to up their game and Gilbert got in some very good tackles and interceptions with Gibbs also improving. Senderos had a fairly solid game with 1 or 2 lapses and to be fair to Silvestre he had a good game. Fabianski got his first game of the season and despite some good takes on some crosses he was still reluctant to come off his line too often and his kicking of back passes was not great either. In midfield I already mentioned that Nasri had a very good game in my opinion and Ramsey did quite well although he was careless in possession a few times. Eastmond played the holding role and he had a good game before coming off near the end looking absolutely knackered. Merida played well enough too although I would have liked to have seen him do a little more on the ball. He took his goal really well and he has a lot more to offer in the future I'm sure. Eduardo looked lively throughout and it would have been nice for him to mark his comeback with a goal but unfortunately he never really got any of the clearcut chances that fell to others. Bendtner had a very odd game as his passing at times was awful and he completely switched off as Liverpool equalised but he made up for it by taking his goal very well.

Early on there were chances at both ends ad Degen missed from 10 yards out for Liverpool and Bendtner from even nearer for us after some very intricate play. Our opening goal came when Eastmond won a tackle just outside the Liverpool box and the ball ran to Merida who buried it from the angle of the box on the right side into the top corner of the net on the keeper's near post. It was a great goal and I hoped that it would spur us on to more but Liverpool came into the game a lot more after that. A high ball was played to Babel who headed it back to Insua as Bendtner daydreamed and he ran forward and buried a fine shot over Fabianski to even things up. It stayed that way until half time and as the teams came off I was looking forward to more of the same.

In the second half Arsenal continued their good attacking play along with their sometimes nervous defending and eventually we retook the lead when Bendtner took a ball off Ramsey's foot in the box and turned and fired it into the roof of the net. As the game wore on Liverpool brought on Benayoun and Aqualaini to try to salvage something and they put us under a lot of pressure. At times we tried to over complicate things in defence when we should have cleared the ball but tried to be too clever. There was a good shout for handball against Senderos late on as he blocked a shot with his hands but it did seem like ball to hand to me. We brought on Randall, Watt and Coquelin for Eastmond, Bendtner and Merida in the second half and we managed to take the ball into the corners to run the clock out which was thouroughly professional if a little unArsenal like.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable game in which Liverpool played their part and our youngsters now face a quarter final tie against one of Chelsea, Manure, The Spuds, Aston Villa, Man City, Blackburn or Portsmouth. It's unusual to see all Premier league clubs only in the Carling Cup at this stage but it appears that the competition is being taken a little more seriously this season. I would imagine the quarter final draw will be on Saturday on Sky as usual and it means our rearranged league game against Bolton on December 2nd will have to be rearranged again.

Ahead of our Saturday lunchtime game against The Spuds Robbie Keane has been claiming that they have a better squad than us. I wondered to myself if they have any world class players in their squad and I realised that they don't but we have Cesc, Arshavin & RVP who are all far too good for them. We also have Gallas, The Verminator, Rosicky, Theo, Nasri & Eduardo who would all walk into thir team. He can talk all he wants about how good he thinks they are but our players will do the talking at 12.45 on Saturday as we put them in their place as also rans in the race for the league title and the bragging rights in North London. That's it for today.

Here's the goals from last night.

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And to finish today's title track from The Smiths which is for Robbie Keane and his big mouth.

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See You Tomorrow.

Stretch Out And Wait.

Saturday, 25 July 09, 07:30 AM
Three weeks from today we will all be at the heigth of our anticipation with the new season only a matter of hours away and the boring tedium of the off season will be banished for another 9 months. Until then we will just have to make do with the little bits of news that we can get and reports on pre season friendlies. Today is a day just like most of the others so far and there is very little happening. I will do my best to report what I can but it will have to be brief.

The boss has been talking about the international recession yet again and his belief that football is going to suffer as a result. He thinks that within 8 to 10 months football will suffer much more than people think. There are obvious exceptions to the current situation as Man City and Real Madrid seem to be exempt for their own reasons. It's interesting that Chelsea seem to be taking a back seat this summer as their owner has lost a fair deal of his vast fortune and they claim that they will be breaking even in the near future. Man City are loaded due to their owners having bottomless pockets and Madrid seem to be propped up by local authorities in Spain. If UEFA and or FIFA can get their house in order these clubs will have to get their books in order but that seems highly unlikely. If the manager's prediction comes true there could well be a number of fire sales as clubs try to clear their debts and I can't help but wonder if he is waiting for that scenario before he spends his money that he has available. There could well be a two tiered transfer market quite soon(if it doesn't exist already) wher players have a Real Madrid & Man City price and then another price if those clubs don't want the players. Wenger is a very shrewd operator but nobody can be sure how the markets(be they transfer ones or not) will go today, tomorrow or in the future.

We are still being linked with both Huntelaar and Chamakh but I don't think we will be signing either of them. It appears that Cana might just be a Sunderland player and he's one player we probably won't be signing. If it's true that his price is £5 million then it's obvious that our manager doesn't want him as that price is well within our range. A lot of Arsenal fans had wanted us to sign Cana and I'm sure they will be disappointed. I have only seen a montage of him on Youtube and I don't feel fully qualified to judge him but I would have to trust the manager's judgement on him.

Ex Gunner James Dunne who was released recently by the club has joined Exeter City. There are rumours linking Fiorentina with a bid of £10 million for Eboue and if it's true we should bite their hand off and add the money to our transfer fund. I know a lot of fans have come around to Eboue after his problems against Wigan last December and to be fair to him he has worked hard and put the effort in that Adebayor failed to do. I still think that his defensive abilities are poor, his concentration wanes and his temprement is a liability at the best of times. His diving and kicking of opponents have cost us in the past and they will again.

Carlos Vela came back from injury to play the last 10 minutes as Mexico won through to the Gold Cup final. He even managed to score the winning goal in the penalty shoot out and he put it away very calmly. Henri Lansbury scored a penalty to help earn England's under 19s a 2-2 draw Ukraine in the European Championships. Gavin Hoyte also played from the start and Rhys Murphy came on as a sub. Fran Merida played for Spain in a defeat against Serbia and both he and Lansbury are players who I hope will have a very bright future at the club. Lansbury has had his problems with injury in the past but he had a very successful loan spell at Scunthorpe last season and he has a lot to offer. Merida is another player who looks like he could have it all but because he hasn't stepped up to the first team at the same young age as Cesc some people are writing him off but he is still young and time is on his side. Well I've managed to babble on when I thought I had nothing to say so I'll leave it there for today.

Here's a clip of Eboue at his worst but at least it was Evra he was kicking.

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And to finish today's title track from The Smiths. We have 3 weeks to the start of the season and all we can do is stretch out and wait.

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See You Tomorrow.