The Goon Blog

I have nothing to back that statement up but it is just a hunch I have.

I like making predictions and my last one turned out to be true, I said Fabregas would play against Villa, and he did.

For the best part of January and February the squad at Arsene’s disposal will be threadbare, especially after Fabregas and Denilson were injured yesterday. Cesc could miss the best part of a month if he has injured his hamstring again and with Song on ACN duty we have no defensive minded midfielder and we will also miss the world-class bit of cutting edge Cesc gives us.

Up front we should have Bendtner returning in a week or so which will mean we have some physical presence and

Timely return of the Big Dane

therefore my reckoning is the boss will focus on defence and midfield which as I said before, will be getting pretty lightweight.

Whilst I don’t think our forwards will start smashing in the goals like Pele I am backing Eduardo to recover his form and enjoy a better 2010 than ‘09, an in form Eduardo is one of the best predators in the league, Vela will hopefully get some confidence and prove his talent and Walcott is starting to show signs of an upturn in form after an injury plagued last 6-12 months and his performance on Sunday showed that his pace scares defenders. We won’t see van Persie back this season if we are going to be realistic but we will have to make do, we have Arshavin who really comes out in the big games and our attacking threats match any of those in the league.

With the absence of the brilliant Alex Song, the hard working and industrious Denilson and our talisman Cesc Fabregas we will be reliant on the enigmatic Diaby, tenacious but peripheral Nasri and the outstanding talent of Aaron Ramsey – but his youth means he is prone to both brilliant and awful performances.

We will have Rosicky returning but who’s to say he won’t get injured again, a short-term problem is again turning into something more sinister.

The main problem, and you won’t guess it, is our defence. Senderos if rightly going to leave after some diabolical treatment from the club, Djourou is not going to re-appear in the near future and with Gallas picking up a bad injury in every season he has been with us… the chances of his missing games at some point this season is pretty high. The only back up is Silvestre who is not all that convincing. A center back with experience who is happy to play second fiddle to Vermaelen and Gallas would be most welcome and not all that expensive, that is why I think the boss will look into this area.

Arsene has done some of his best business in the January transfer window and this month could be just as dead as it is active, but my gut feeling is that we will see a new face or two. A midfielder and a defender, a striker is not a matter of urgency – Bendtner is rated very highly within Ashburton Grove’s corridors.

The comments from the boss yesterday seem to hint at his looking for new players to add to his squad: “I’ve said we will keep our eyes open and if a good opportunity turns up we will do it. But at the moment I haven’t got any. I will have to look maybe as well at midfielders and how big the damage is. If we lose Denilson and Fabregas we will be short there. I don’t know yet.”

It is a massive month January, we can’t miss out on success because of injuries again and the boss won’t let that happen again. We have to keep our consistency because as Wenger has said; it is the most consistent team that will win the title this season.

Til’ tomorrow.

ARSENAL BOSS Arsene Wenger has emerged as the leader of the pack in the chase for Bordeax striker Marouane Chamakh for the millionth time as Chamakh joins the list of players endlessly linked with moves to Arsenal. Marouane joins the likes of ‘keeper Sebastian Frey and midfielder Blaise Matuidi, names whom Arsenal fans have seen written more than the names of players actually on the books at the clubs.

You may have clicked the headline of this blog in such expectation you choked on your Christmas turkey and were forced to wash it down with copious amounts of alcoholic beverage – if this is the case I do apologise but I do have a penchant for a bit of Christmas Day tomfoolery. Just check out the blog saying Kaka arrived in Arsene’s Stanta stocking last Christmas !!

I would like to take this opportunity to wish all the readers of this blog a very Merry Christmas and heres to a win on Sunday !!!!!

Hello there, its been a while hasn’t it.

Work commitments meant I missed the Hull game the other day and have also restricted me to only being able to update my Twitter ( @thegoonblog ). I now have a couple of days to chill and hopefully write a few blogs.

So, where to start? The win against Hull seems a decent place….

From what I saw we got the job done well and also kicked a few lumps out of the big orange shites, there was a lot of hoo-ha on some websites claiming Nasri kicked/shot/stabbed/stamped on that Hull player who’s name I really can’t remember. All he did was tread on his foot, it wasn’t a stamp or a kick as some claim it to be.

It was wrong no doubt, but then again, so were the reactions of the Hull players. It was good to see our boys involved in scuffles though and you just have to love this picture:

Nick Barmby was trying to play the hardman, which you can’t really do on the football pitch. What an odious little prick Barmby is.

That incident seemed to fire us up a bit and the goal-scoring started when Denilson curled home a beauty of a free-kick. Maybe it means he will take more in the future, I remember a few years back when Beckham trained with us that he was teaching Denilson how to take free-kicks after training… it really was a beauty.

The second really was a case of Eduardo trying his best to miss a chance but it was just simpler to score, hopefully it gives him a bit of confidence, he has the ability – you could watch that turn he pulled off time and time again.

The enigma that is Abou Diaby had a blinder of a game and rounded it up with his fifth goal of the season, despite numerous injuries once again. He was brilliant and hopefully he can keep this form long enough to see off Aston Villa on Sunday.

On another brilliant weekend for us we now sit only a couple of points off United with a game in hand and only a few more off Chelsea with a game in hand also, its quite some turnaround after the abysmal showing against Chelsea – what’s more impressive is that we have not really impressed in our performances but have still managed to close the gap. We can take great encouragement from that.

A January signing would be great and one name that has not been mentioned all that often is Goran Pandev who is able to leave Lazio on a free this January, this is a player who was valued between 10-20 million in the summer. Is he the type of striker I personally would like? Im not sure. Is he a Wenger type player? Most certainly. Lets see what develops.

What I can say is that in the next month we will see mountains of Dzeko, Gignac, Chamakh, Carlton Cole and Luca Toni themed stories on Newsnow.

The latest name is Louis Saha – the player who has not played much in the last 5 years through injuries. A perfect signing then !!! He would fit right in in the treatment room.

And as we all knew, Robin van Persie will probably not play again this season, and even if he did he wouldn’t have much form or match sharpness, he is a notoriously slow starter so our best hope is for him to be fighting fit for the start of next season. Annoying.

We wont see Traore, Bendtner or Clichy until the new year, Cesc will hopefully be fit for the Villa game after missing the Hull match.

So, things are looking up, lets hope they stay that way because the Villa game is important to open up a bit of breathing space, to shut up their fans and also get a bit of payback for the defeat last season.

Till tomorrow. I have my Christmas shopping to start. Oh joy …

So…it was a must win game, and we won it.

The first half was quite possibly the worst half of football I have ever seen Arsenal play, it really did look like the players just didn’t care, on the other hand, Liverpool were first to every ball, the 50/50’s the 60/40’s. the lot.

We got away with one when the usually clinical Torres missed what in effect was a one on one with Almunia. We got away with another when Gallas took down Gerrard in the area – it was a penalty but his reputation had came back to haunt him.

It got a whole lot worse when Gerrard delivered a free-kick into the box, Almunia swatted at it like a fly and the ball duly fell to Dirk Kuyt who was having a stinker of a game and he toe poked it home. Not only were we one nil down and looking like we could get thumped, it was that diving little peasant that had scored against us.

Back in the changing room the boss decided to ditch his calm persona and really let rip into the players, “you are not fit to wear the Arsenal shirt” being one stinging line. It clearly surprised them and afterwards Cesc admitted he had never seen Wenger that angry before. Oh how did it work, though.

Within 5 we were level, a nice move ending in Carragher getting caught flat footed by a ball into the area and Glen Johnson bundling the ball into his own net. We needed that break, it gave the team the impetus to go on and get the winning goal, and how they did.

Andrey Arshavin had had 4 shots on goal against Liverpool in his career before this game and scored 4 goals. When the ball arrived at his feet for his 5th shot against the Scousers, his first touch took it away from Johnson and he unleashed a demon of a shot, that Andy Gray said “not even three Pepe Reina’s could have stopped that !!!” 5 shots, 5 goals. 3 points in the bag at Anfield, and we all know, we only win at Anfield when we go on to become champions !!!

That is pushing the boat out most definitely but we are right back in the title race now, there is a hell of a lot of work to be done but we do have some good home fixtures coming up so hopefully we can keep the pressure up on Chelsea and United.

Defeat at Anfield would have made it nigh on impossible to get back into the title race, at half time I was seething. Heres a couple of things I wrote on Twitter @thegoonblog

“we dont want it as much. its simple.”

“we have created nothing”

“Should put Tiger Woods up front, at least he can penetrate”

“We are staring at 5 defeats in 7. When were we last in this position?”

I really, really thought the game was gone, should I have known better? I don’t know. It was like the game against Chelsea all over again, only we were getting dismembered by a worse team.

I look back now with so much relief, how much different do things look. We were choking on a golden chance, United lost at home, Chelsea were held at home, Spurs lost at home…. we simply had to pull it out the hat and we did.

Of course, the players deserve a lot of credit for getting their act together and grinding out the result, but what it does show is that the old boss still has the gift. Afterwards he said:

“it is good that after 13 years as manager I can still surprise the players like that”

You can imagine it having the surprise effect because he is such a calm character, it would be a bit like having Buddha scream in your face.

I think the situation we are in now is comparable to a tennis match where you have just broken your opponents serve and now have to hold your own service game to complete the break, we now have to go to Burnley and win tomorrow night. Nothing else will do, but more on that tomorrow.

Now, after re-living the game I think I need a rest. More tomorrow, no doubt.