The Goon Blog

Yesterday I asked for the team to show how good they can be, and they did. The 2-0 scoreline does Olympiakos a favour, they were under the cosh for 99% of the game and the movement, speed and creativity you get from Arsenal at their very best lit up Ashburton Grove last night. The 60 odd thousand people in the stadium got a real glimpse of football at its most beautiful.

On the other side they got a glimpse of football at its most fustrating.

Olympiakos, managed by a Brazillian, conspired to keep as many men between the ball and their net, and for the majority of the game it worked. If it wasn’t for their keeper it would have been a cricket score, he put in one of the best goalkeeping displays I have seen for a very long time, it was similar to Almunia’s display in the Champions League away at Old Trafford last season.

I was starting to get twitchy, for all the beautiful football I would have given anything for a goal and when it came it was a massive relief. It was an acid test, can Arsenal now get three points from a game where the other team parks the bus in front of the goal? The answer it seems is yes.

Eduardo, who I thought should have started in a game like this, was fed the ball by Cesc within minutes of arriving on the pitch, he produced a lovely little pull-back for van Persie to slot home and get a goal he really, really deserved. His celebration showed the team-spirit that is in the squad this season, he didn’t race away lapping up all the applause from the crowd, he wanted his team-mates to celebrate with him.

Eduardo is one of those players that can produce something that can win the game, yes Arshavin and van Persie are capable of that but neither of those possess the natural predatory instincts that Eduardo has. He will be important this season, very important.

The second goal was a thing of beauty, after some lovely passing the ball was slid across the box to the offside Arshavin to back-heel home, it was a deserved reward for him after a frustrating game, he was sublime in phases and towards the end of the game was running around like he was getting chased by a swarm of wasps. In a mood like that nobody can touch him. At one stage earlier in the game he seemed to get a bit of a bollocking from the boss on the touchline but when a game opens up, there are not many finer exponents of a situation like that than Arshavin. It shows why he is one of the worlds best footballers.

It was a fitting way to end the scoring, none of the goals came from scrappy goal-mouth scrambles it was pure football, the type Zico would be proud of, sadly he seemed to be a little bit angry with the French officials, accusing UEFA of being pro-Arsenal.

There were welcome returns to form for Cesc and Clichy who despite having the odd wobbly moment was sublime in others, his interceptions were brilliant and he attacked with the kind of force we saw a few seasons ago. Cesc was everywhere, he had numerous attempts on goal and on another day would have got himself on the score-sheet more than once, the woodwork denied him what would have been a quite stunning goal. It was good to see him back, a relief.

Praise must go to Emmanuel Eboue who is probably playing some of his best football in an Arsenal shirt, you can see why Wenger sometimes goes with him instead of Sagna to offer an extra bit going forward and in the final third Eboue can come up with the down right awful, and some down right excellence, there was some of the latter last night.

The concentration the center-back pairing showed was impressive, along with Vito Mannone who was a passenger for much of the game, when called upon he did his job well and made one good save. Sadly for him it seems Almunia may well be back at the weekend and hopefully Mannone has given him a kick up the arse.

It was a great performance from the lads last night and so far this season we have shown that we have the class, grit, and determination to get us through the toughest of games. Yes, have have lost two league games already but there will be no team this season that goes to Citeh, Everton and United and comes out with more than 6 points. We got 3 from those games, thats 3 very tricky games out the way.

Bring on the weekend. More tomorrow.

Apologies for my absence over the past few days, my server has been somewhat temperamental.

It is a bit late to tell you about the game on Saturday night but you can see my summary here on my Sunday column:

Yesterdays win was fantastic in my book, we were made to show a few characteristics that have been beyond the side in the last few seasons. It was one of those days that we had to really dig in and grind out a result, it was a chance to close the gap on Chelsea and a chance that we couldn’t afford to miss.

If you take stock now, our start to the season has not been a bad one at all, we have been to Everton, United and City and got 3 points out of it – its not form that would set the world alight but many teams will go to those three places and get nothing.

Read the whole thing here.

Tonight we take on Olympiakos at the Grove and they are a decent side so its not going to be the rollover some people seem to think it will be, Olof Mellberg and Enzo Maresca are players I rate pretty highly and we all remember when Mellberg scored the first ever competitive goal at the Grove.

Pic from The Sun

We have yet more absentees for this game, Bendtner has had a very lucky escape from a car crash but will miss the game after not training as a precaution, Walcott is still not back and Denilson has been ruled out for two months with a broken bone in his back. He is the third player in the last six months to have damaged their back with Clichy having what sounds like an almost identical injury at the end of last season, Walcott has had back problems too. Is it something someone should be looking at in the training routines?

Tonight is a chance to show how good the team can be, we saw the ugly side of the team on Saturday and we battled out a win, now is time for the convincing win to back it up. We have to win all our home games in the Champions League, and all our home games in all competitions, if we are going to win something this season.

I would like to see Eduardo given a start down the middle tonight, its games like this when he can grab some important goals to get the game over and done with without much hassle, Arshavin will probably start on the left again and there is a chance Eboue could slot in on the right, van Persie could get a rest and be introduced in the second half.

In midfield I hope to God we don’t see Diaby again, though I fear we will. I said last season I wouldn’t give a toss if he was sold on and I stick by that, he is giving more of the ridiculous that sublime at the moment, he unbalances the whole of the midfield when he is playing. If Wenger wants a tall player in the middle of the park why doesn’t he just buy Peter Crouch and stand him in the middle of the pitch? Thats all Diaby offers at present.

I’m looking forward to this game but a win is far from a certainty, I don’t think we will lose the game but a draw is a possibility, another clean sheet would keep Mannone’s confidence up and the confidence of the defence as a whole.We might see Carlos Vela tonight as well, he needs to start performing and pressing for a starting birth.

More tomorrow.

Over the past few days the blog has had a few technical issues, I don’t know what they were or why they happened but it looks like everything is working again.

The blog will resume as normal tomorrow.

Afternoon all,

this was supposed to be written this morning but you know how it goes, you wake up…snooze for another five minutes…wake up again…snooze for another five, then your alarm goes off just as you are comfortably in that dozy warm phase and in a moment of madness you punch your phone as hard as possible and it no longer makes any sound.

Of course…that didn’t happen to me this morning.

Anyway van Persie has been motoring his mouth overnight and is being pretty honest when it comes to making the most of fouls, admitting he and 99.9% of other strikers do it. This is something that will probably be spun in the press and he will get flack for admitting to it, my opinion is that he should be applauded for his honesty.

“It is not my intention to dive, I’m against divers because it is not honest.

“But I had a little moment against Manchester United the other week after the whole Eduardo thing. I had the ball on the right side, cut it back and Evra gave me a little push. It put me off balance.

“I fell down and the whole stadium started to boo me but I was like ‘come on, Evra pushed me!’.

“I do exaggerate. Sometimes, for example, when you are in the middle of the action, you get a little push and your opponent has finished the attacking action. Then, you are in the right to show the referee you were pushed. That is not diving. That is saying ‘come on, this is not honest play from the other players.’

“Sometimes you have a little movement with your arms or your body but I do not believe that is cheating. But it is difficult.”

In my mind it is the opposite of tactical fouling, buying a free-kick when there has been contact but not enough to make you hit the deck. Again, like diving, it is part of the game that will never be eradicated. Maybe it is not the most honest thing to do, making the most of a tackle, but its part and parcel of the game and players need to guard against it.

He also talks about the team spirit and the lanky streak of piss we don’t like to talk about anymore.

Peter Hill-Wood has put his faith in the boss and declares that there is no better judge of when to sell a player – and he has no regrets about the big names that have gone out the exit door in the past:

“Arsene thought long and hard about selling Adebayor. But there were pretty strong rumours last year that he wanted to go. Perhaps it was time to let him go. I don’t regret losing him, in fact I don’t regret any of the sales made by Arsene, he has pretty good judgement as it has been shown time and time again.

“He doesn’t always tell you, i.e. the press, or even me exactly why he is selling them, he might not always give me the reason, but we always back his judgement.”

He also talked about the future of Wenger – there will probably be some speculation that starts building up again as his contract runs out in 18 months but ever the professional, Arsene will not concentrate on his contract because there are more important things to sort out:

“Don’t ask me what we would do without Arsene. I don’t want to think about it. But I am hoping and, in fact, confident, we will not have to address that for some considerable time.

“He seems happy in his job here, it is very fulfilling for him, and I can see him doing it for another 10 years. But, of course that is up to him. He is showing no signs of slowing down, he’s perfectly fit, and he knows perfectly well my feelings about him.

”If I said, ‘Arsene, let’s talk about your contract as it runs out in 2011′, he would say ‘no need, I have other things to think about at the moment.’

Wenger always honours his contract so I think we can all be safe in the knowledge that he won’t just ditch the club, what I suspect he will do is take a good hard look at how the club is in the summer – the state of ownership etc and make a decision. PHW is confident his future is nowhere else though:

“We both know where we stand. I don’t want him to leave, but he is very mcuh his own man. I don’t think any amount of sweet talking from me will make any difference. He has a nice job here, he is well paid, no interference, he is allowed to get on with his job.

“He doesn’t have a President buying players for him and telling him to coach them and also to pick the team for him – he would tell us where to go, if we ever suggested that, not that we ever would.”

I couldn’t imagine an Arsenal without Wenger, it is one of the best stories in football and Wenger has revolutionised the English game along with Sir Alex Ferguson, who as annoying as he is, is a great manager

Last season at Craven Cottage

Time to concentrate on the game today at Craven Cottage, its the late kick-off so I guess that somehow saves my late blog to an extent. Its a very important game and at the start of a run of games we have to get the full three points out of if we are to pressure the teams at the top, it is an ample time to really build up some consistency and start a winning streak.

An early goal would settle any jangling nerves out there after last years disaster but I have full confidence we will get the win today, if we concede early things could get interesting. Sagna and Clichy need to continue improving their games today and support the Gallas/Vermaelen partnership in the middle, a strong defence is imperative with an inexperienced ‘keeper.

It will be interesting to see if Rosicky starts, I hope he does and lines up alongside Cesc and Song but in all probability it will be Diaby that plays there. Arshavin will start up front alongside van Persie and it gives the manager the option of playing one of Eduardo or Bendtner, Eduardo is our form striker at the moment so putting him on the bench may prove counter productive. I think he is the type of player we need on the pitch on those tricky away days to nick a goal or two as we know he can.

I’d better leave it there, enjoy the game wherever you are watching and if you have the pleasure of going to the match, take care.

More tomorrow

Nope, not the Gunnersaurus, the little man next to him, Andrey Arshavin. He offers another dimension to the team and is one of those players that when you see their name on the team-sheet you are either very wary of them, or excited to be alongside them. Of course, depending on what side you are on.

We have an array of attacking talent at the club, that is beyond doubt. There are not many clubs in Europe that can boast the talent of van Persie, Arshavin, Eduardo, Bendtner, Walcott and Vela in the striking department. If that attack clicks the opposition are in trouble, especially if Fabregas is on his game in midfield, add Rosicky and Nasri into that creative mix and we have a lot of strength and depth there.

Tomorrow we make the short trip along the Thames to Craven Cottage to take on Fulham, and we all know what happened there last season at a similar time and it was that very result that spurred me to start this blog, my first post being on that game.

One player who was off his game that day was Robin van Persie, who after the game said that the attitude amongst the players was just not right that day, speaking yesterday he said that this time around things are different and the same mistakes will not happen again:

“I had a look at the fixtures coming up and on paper they look all right but we lost to Fulham last year and it is very, very tough.

“I saw their game against Everton and they were very decent and it was a very good goal from Damien Duff It’s going to be hard but as long as we can put the pressure on the opponent, play together and share the goals then I’m quite confident.”

Going into that game last August the team seemed lethargic, lazy and toothless. We were shorn on the services of Fabregas due to injury and nobody stepped in to fill the breach, if my memory serves me right Eboue was probably our most dangerous player that day.

Another player making a return may be Theo Walcott who has not featured so far this season and has hardly had any pre-season of note. In the past year his injury record has been pretty poor, since last November when he suffered that shoulder injury he has only appeared in a handful of games. He is confident he is back stronger than ever though:

“I think my game was going to a new level before I got injured but you always get the odd injury, hopefully this will be my last one.

“I haven’t had much of a pre-season or any games. I’ve had 45 minutes and that’s it – it will take me a few games to get back into the flow but I am raring to go and I am sure it will come.”

Hopefully it is his last one… imagine that, a player with no more injuries from the age of 20 right up until they retire. Impressive. Anyway, he reckons the new 4-3-3 formation will suit his game after playing in a similar system in the Southampton youth teams:

“The boss has changed the formation to 4-3-3 and I think that will help us play more attacking football and free me up down that right side,” said Walcott.

“I played for Southampton Under-17s in a 4-3-3 formation on the right wing and I really enjoyed it. It gives me the chance to go and attack defenders and I can’t wait to get back into the team and show what I can do.”

I think its the ideal formation for him, he is too young to play central in a 4-4-2 according to Arsene and is better off learning his game out wide. Well in the 4-3-3 he is not too central and is kind of out wide so everyone’s a winner, right? In all seriousness he is a major asset to the team, he is the only real speed merchant in the final third and using him as a outlet worked pretty well last season, especially at the start.

Theodore also natters on about taking inspiration from Thomas Rosicky’s comeback after 20 months out, don’t jynx it you little rascal.

Theres some stuff thats popped up on arsenal.com about the finances and why Wenger has not spent any of the profit from the sales of Adebayor and Toure, hes said its his money to do what he wants with.

I guess if I’d just made a 22 million profit on a lanky greedy stamping kneeslidey streak of piss like he did I might be tempted to keep it.

“ITS MINE I TELLS YA, ITS ALL MINE!”

It also seems that Arshavin wants to join in freshers week with all the students.

Jokes aside, I really thought that was what the title was when I first clicked onto the site, ‘Arshavin: I will be a fresher now’. He looks about old enough to get served anyway.

Thats about it today, you can hear Young Guns’ Jamie Sanderson making his Arsecast debut over on Arseblog today. Go listen. He’s talking about his blog, the kids, and stuff. Its all interesting and worth a listen.

More tomorrow.

Afternoon all,

the findings of the last 24 hours have shown that A) Bordeaux president Jean-Louis Triaud is an idiot. B) Bordeaux president Jean-Louis Triaud is stupid, and C) Bordeaux president Jean-Louis Triaud needs to be put to sleep like a rabid dog.

He has accused the boss of distracting Marouane Chamakh and making his interest in him public before talking to Triaud:

“What I do not like in the behavior of Arsene Wenger, who is doing this again today, is that at the beginning, he declared his interest in Chamakh, a long time before calling me, then he ended up doing so.”

Hang on. You are talking about Arsene Wenger here, the Arsene Wenger that is notorious for not giving away his transfer targets. Have you ever thought that it may have been the media just whipping up a story that just happened to be correct you weedy little man?

Wenger only commented on the Chamakh situation after he made his bid, I do not remember him making any comment on the player until the article on the official site saying ‘WENGER: I DID BID FOR CHAMAKH’. Before that there was nothing from him.

If Triaud was president of a club in this country that happened to have a player that takes the fancy of Real Madrid, Barcelona or AC Milan he would be not liking the behavior of a lot more people than Arsene Wenger. Imagine him being at a club with a player like Cesc Fabregas, perused in the press every summer without contact actually being made. The guy would explode.

Wenger has had a little dig at the latest crackpot scheme that has come out of FIFA and UEFA, the banning of transfers of players under the age of 18. This would prevent players such as Cesc Fabregas joining clubs like us, and you have to add the restrictions already put in place by the FA to prevent a player under the age of 18 living more than 90 minutes away from the training ground from joining that club.

Rightly, Wenger was a little miffed, he had a bit of a moan and it finished with this pearler:

“What can we do? We can only pray that somebody next to London Colney is as gifted as Maradona and says, ‘Please can I play for you’.

It does make the scouting system a little more pot luck. Why FIFA and UEFA are trying to meddle in everything I don’t know. Its not like they have focussed on Messi moving from Argentina to Spain when he was 13.

The authorities need to think of the players more than they are doing, talent will just be wasted, there could be the next Messi playing football with a tin can in Timbuktu but can’t sign for a European club until they are 18, by then, they have all the natural talent in the world but have missed 40% of their footballing education. Just think, think of the game and not of asserting power for the sake of it.

More tomorrow, and hopefully some team-news.

So last night saw the kids, with a sprinkling of experience, safely negotiate the challenge of West Brom.

After the last few years there was a bit of expectation on them and if they went down at the first hurdle it would have been a major disappointment. I couldn’t see the game and all I have see of it is a few highlights hastily assembled online, the most controversial moment of the game seemed to be Jerome Thomas hitting out at Jack Wilshere and getting himself sent off.

It was a red card, Thomas had his elbow in Jack’s face so after exchanging a few pleasantries Thomas thought it was clever to slap/push Wilshere in the face and neck region whilst he was on the ground. Jack exaggerated it slightly for sure but you can’t hit out at people, it was a certain red card and an important moment in the game that swung it in our favour.

We left it late to finish the game off and from what I have read we deserved the victory, it wasn’t a performance to match that battering we gave Sheffield United last season but the performance was grinded out and from that perspective, the result is just as good, just less headline grabbing.

The introduction of the half-fit Carlos Vela seemed to swing it one last time, setting up Sanchez Watt to finish neatly after a superb turn from the Mexican, Mark Randall then had a lovely chip come back off the bar for Vela to snaffle in the area, round the keeper and poke it home. Game over, bring on the next round.

I think it was a shame the game was not televised, our youngsters receive a lot of attention not just from Arsenal fans but fans from all clubs, I know fans from many other clubs that take a big interest in how our youngsters are progressing. At the end of the day there is a chance the next generation of England players could have a distinct Arsenal contingent. The players out there last night are just the tip of the iceberg as far as youth quality at the club goes.

After the game Wenger was understandably pleased with the result, saying:

“I feel overall it was a good game. It would have been a great game certainly if it had stayed 11 against 11 but we were patient, we played with cohesion and intelligence. We didn’t make mistakes and in the end the natural outcome was there.”

Dare I say it but is he hinting at a bit of maturity being shown last night? The team were patient and were made to battle against a decent West Brom side.

Wenger was also on great form last night when he was asked about the incident between Jerome Thomas and Jack Wilshere. When asked about whether he heard what Jack the Hobbit said Wenger replied…

“I don’t know. My eyes are not great and my ears are even worse”

ahhh, great again from the boss.

So we have been given our first glimpse of the future this season, heres hoping we can go all the way this year. The focus shifts onto the weekends game now and over the next few days we should get bits and pieces of team news, Arshavin could be back in contention but the game may still come too soon for him and Walcott. I guess we will have to wait and see.

More tomorrow.