The Goon Blog

Morning,

I guess we are reaching that time when everything will start moving on from the weekends events and at the time of writing, nothing has happened, the FA haven’t commented on it to my knowledge and you would have thought that if they were going to have a say it would be out there by now.

Why do I think the FA have kept quiet? The England squad. Shawcross was called up to the national team on the evening of the tackle and the FA are hardly going to stick their necks on the line are they? Cowards.

So another leg break, and no change? How many more will it take? Four? Five? Hell, it might even take an England star getting his leg smashed into atoms in a World Cup or Euro’s year for that to happen. Its shameful but it is how things happen in this country, out of sight, out of mind. Ramsey’s injury doesn’t effect the FA so they couldn’t give a damn.

Yesterday Thomas Rosicky went onto Sky Sports News and said what we have all been saying, all it gets is a 50 second video on a website story and a few rounds in the news round-up every hour. The Czech captain said:

“I think you cannot blame the player (Shawcross) or to tell that he wanted to break his leg, of course not.”

He had to say that, if he didn’t the media would be all over him like shingles. He went on to say:

“But it’s always against us. The teams operate aggressively against us, that’s no problem for us, I think everybody copes with that but I think we have to be more protected from the referees. Because if you see, for example, how many fouls the opponents can do against us, five, six and after that it’s a yellow card, we are making one or two fouls and we’ve got immediately yellow cards.”

That is very true, a prime example of that happened against Stoke where Alex Song picked up a yellow card, the Stoke players persistently fouled and impeded the players and it went unpunished, but as soon as Song gave some back….yellow card.

This team doesn’t take being kicked, it does give it back. Rosicky himself ended up in the refs book and was lucky to stay on the pitch when he totally took out a Bolton player off the ball at the Reebok, the Bolton players went mental but what preceded it was Abou Diaby getting hacked to bits, Rosicky stuck up for his mate and thats the way it should be.

On the actual injury he said:

“It is something horrible of course. Aaron is a huge talent and to see a young boy suffer like this is horrible. I saw it when it happened and you do not want to see these things on the pitch.

“(I) just have to wish him a speedy recovery because he’s a great talent and such a young age. Of course, it’s not easy.”

I guess he knows what its like to be sidelined with a career threatening injury, personally, I thought Rosicky was a gonner and never expected to see him in an Arsenal shirt again. I think it was 18 months at least he spent out of the game after limping off against Newcastle with an injury that was expected to take “days” to heal.

I still can’t believe some of the tripe that is getting column inches and Newsnow coverage at the moment, but I think the best way of dealing with it is just to block it, either on Newsnow or simply don’t visit the websites, don’t give them the hits and encouragement to keep whirling out this trash. TalkSPORT seem to have riled everyone this week with their repetitive monotonous moronic trash talk, Stan Collymore in particular (so much so Gunnerblog has taken aim at him and well and truly fired). Stan has form for picking on the sites that criticise him, inviting them onto his radio show and shouting over them. Car crash radio I think its called. If it comes to that again I think every single Arsenal blogger should call up that show and let rip at him, one after the other after the other. That would be good radio. But, if that doesn’t happen, or until that happens, lets just ignore them and let them fester in their world of chatting total and utter rubbish.

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So….moving on. And it has to be done, we have a league to go and win.

The Guardian claim that the Boss is still interested in Brazilian Felipe Melo after being priced out of a move in the summer – or it could have just been that he wanted to stay in Italy rather than have his leg smashed to pieces – (sorry!). I don’t think there is anything substantial to the story to be honest, they have some quotes from the boss, mainly “We still think he is a very talented player and with Gilberto Silva, Brazil have a very useful pair in midfield. We are still looking at Melo.”. Has he had a press conference recently that he said this at? Are these comments fabricated? If anyone knows about where they came from feel free to say in the comments.

There is some good news for the Arsenal faithful in The Guardian too, the old stand names from Highbury are going to be incorporated at the Emirates and the clock is going to be moved from outside, to inside the stadium. Fantastic news, the concrete bowl (albeit a brilliant and expensive one) will finally become ours, its a fantastic idea and will have the support of every fan I’m sure. Its come a long way from this:

All that is needed now is to get rid of the horrible Elvis tune at the start of games and get something playing to really get the atmosphere going, maybe that will come with success though? Still, its great to have the return of the North Bank, Clock end and East + West stands. Maybe those two will get re-named after a club legend in time? Or even Arsene Wenger himself? Time shall tell. Theres some stuff about Cesc at the bottom that we already knew, too.

Johan Djourou has spoken!! I thought he had died. Honestly. We haven’t heard a peek out of him all season. At least hes alive, though.

I guess all thats left is to say to all these players please please please please please please don’t get injured in pointless friendlies!! We have had enough of that for one season.

Right, no blog tomorrow as I’m away but I shall return on Friday.

Til then.

Afternoon peeps;

first things first where were some real fantastic comments on the blog yesterday, people took the time to make their points not only eloquently but respectfully and I appreciate that and thank you all.

Ive moved on from the anger phase and now I just want something done – I stress, I’m not after a ban for Ryan Shawcross as such, I’m not going to say something outlandish like “BAN THE ANIMAL FOR LIFE!!!!”; that would get us nowhere and is not my personal opinion anyway, I still don’t think he meant it as such.

What we need now is for the FA to talk about this issue, not only this issue but the Eduardo issue which they avoided like the plague and the Abou Diaby issue which never even got into the spotlight like this – another one of these is Man United youngster Possiebon being very very lucky to survive an assault by Emmanuel Pogatetz who is a player with form for this kind of stuff, I think he was banned for 11-12 games before he moved to Middlesborough.

These unnecessary reckless tackles must be weened out of the game but the cowardice of the FA, UEFA and FIFA – the people with the power – means that these events will just keep on happening and in the end it will be to the detriment of the English game.

Excuses, excuses and excuses are made time after time – “hes not the sort”, “he’s a nice lad, salt of the earth kinda lad”, “he didn’t intend to hurt him” blah, blah, blah. I, and everyone knows that Shawcross didn’t intend to bust Ramsey’s leg like that so why can’t they face up to the fact that the tackle was reckless and Shawcross was out of control, it takes a hell of a lot of force to break a leg like that, it was not just a mistimed tackle but the force with which Shawcross went into the tackle was totally unnecessary.

The media have a responsibility too, and to the credit of some, the issue has been spoken about and they have focussed on how tackles like this have to be stopped because it is ruining the game – others don’t deserve the time of day, a certain ex-player demanding that Shawcross was the victim and Wenger should apologise to him is quite frankly, a lunatic.

If the FA and other authorities keep on living in their fluffy bunny land and don’t act on this, Aaron Ramsey will just be the latest in a long line of players who will have to suffer awful injuries like these and that is not right.

In the comments goonermagic and I came up with two proposals in the space of minutes so I’m sure the FA could do the same, but will they? No. I want to know why, they are pathetic, ignorant fools who do not have the best interests of the game at heart, their incompetence has been shown in many cases, the most high profile being the management of the Wembley Stadium project…all that money on one stadium and they still can’t get a pitch that won’t cut up and deteriorates at a laughable rate during a game. Ive seen better Sunday League pitches.

Back to the point in question anyway, why can’t there be a panel to review every single red card and determine the punishment? In that case not one issue such as this can escape because when a player breaks a leg its almost certainly a red card that is awarded.  In most cases I am sure that the 1 or 3 game ban will suffice, a system like this would be able to clamp down on players who are repeatedly sent off and address that problem too and nip it right in the bud and prevent injuries such as this from happening.

I also have to show you this, yes, it is another incident involving Ryan Shawcross:

He is a player who is 21-22 years of age and he has already caused two serious injuries in his career from over aggressive tackling, this is just another case of him using ridiculous force in tackles, I have pointed out the Adebayor challenge already in a previous post I believe (tackled Adebayor about five yards off the pitch and put him out for 3 weeks).

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I also have to take issue with the Media, again. How many headlines saying that Wenger had said there was a “conspiracy” against Arsenal were there this weekend and early this week? Two I can think of.

Anyway, they got those headlines from the quote (and I’m paraphrasing) “its happened 3 times now, I don’t believe in coincidences”. I spoke with John Cross of the Mirror on this issue and he defended it (fine by me) and explained:

“Conspiracy means to conspire against. Therefore, Stoke, Brum & Sund conspired against AFC. And I’m on your side!

“I urge you to think again about the conspiracy theory in relation to it not being a coincidence. He is effectively saying there is a calculated campaign against Arsenal by smaller clubs. A conspiracy. How is that twisting words?”

I still think it is twisting Arsene Wenger’s words, maybe its me just being picky? What do you think? Let me know in the comments.

Anyway, I think I will leave it there for today, it would be great to see you in the comments again. Before we go, theres a picture that the press (you could call it that, I’m on about Talkshite Radio and all the half-wit pundits) should take note of, a message from our captain Cesc Fabregas:

Till tomorrow

Am I going against the grain by saying this? – I don’t give a toss how bad Ryan Shawcross feels. “But he’s not that type of player” bleat Tony Pulis, Rory Delap, Match of the Day and Sky pundits. Try telling that to Aaron Ramsey, he’d want to kick you to death with his only working leg. Well, I would if I was in that position.

A precociously talented 19 year old, Britain’s best young talent in my book, has no certainty as to whether he will be able to return to the game, his leg snapped like a twig thats just been stepped on. All I seem to hear is sympathy for the aggressive oaf who has inflicted an absolutely horrific injury on Ramsey, an oaf whom has also broken the ankle of Francis Jeffers in the past. (surprise surprise, the same things were said about his character then). Remember that horrific tackle he made on Emmanuel Adebayor when he was miles off the pitch at the Brittania? Un-needed, reckless. He put Adebayor out the game for a month. He was lauded for not accepting reputations, so why should we accept the reputation of a savage leg breaker.

“But he is innocent!!!” – no he is not. He was out of control, much the same as that if you were speeding home from work, lost control of your car and ploughed into a child, injuring them or worse – you are out of control and its your fault. No excuses. You could be Saint Nick for all anyone cares, you are responsible.

So Ryan Shawcross is responsible for Aaron Ramsey’s injury – and should be punished as such.

Do I think he meant it? Of course not, I’m fed up of hearing about his innocence, “he’s not that type of player” (though Adebayor, Jeffers and Ramsey might beg to differ). – Shut up. Just shut the hell up. Its not a Roy Keane scenario. He didn’t intend to bust his leg nearly beyond all repair but he intended to let Ramsey know he was there shall we say, it wasn’t ever intended as a cuddly challenge. I and the country do not need informing as to this guys innocence, his statement did that. If he can’t tackle safely he should be made to learn it in order to continue his career.

This is just the latest incident though:

Dan Smith on Abou Diaby…. (‘06)

I think this one was intentional, Dan Smith got peeved and decided to take it out on Abou Diaby in the last minute of a game where Sunderland were 3 goals down. A broken and dislocated ankle later, Diaby returned but has struggled with constant niggling injuries since.

Martin Taylor on Eduardo da Silva…. (‘08)

Intended as a softener, you all know the damage. Compound fracture of the leg and an open dislocation of the ankle, the bone poking out his sock. Disgusting injury, which was of course unintended. But the tackle was a result of the “lets rough ‘em up” style that people go on about. Is breaking someones leg roughing them up? Eduardo took a year out of the game but still seems slightly apprehensive of some tackles. I don’t blame him.

Ryan Shawcross on Aaron Ramsey…. (‘10)

You know what happened…

I’m fed up of the innocent parade, the pathetic excuses and the tossers saying Arsene Wenger’s comments were out of order after the game. Alan Green said he should pick his words more carefully after a game. Oh really Alan? He’s just witnessed the third compound fracture in a little under four years, I think hes entitled to say what he thinks… if you want him to be more considered in his opinion don’t send a journalist to bait and pounce on any anger he is feeling after one of his youngsters legs has been bent beyond all recognition. Its people like HIM who portray Arsenal as a team that needs to be kicked to be beat that have caused these injuries.

The punishment:

A three game ban. THREE games. Thats what? A week or just over out of the game. Aaron Ramsey will be lucky to have anything under 50 times that amount of time. Alex Song got booked and will miss two games. It wasn’t even a foul, he was the one fouled!  Remember Jereme Aliadiere brushing Javier Mascherano’s face the same day as the Eduardo injury and he was banned for what..three or four games? Martin Taylor got 3 games.

FINALLY it seems some members of the more respected press are starting to agree with us, Patrick Barklay (Times) was terrific on the Sunday Supplement - as has Martin Samuel in the Daily Mail, not quite to the same extent but people value his opinion on the game and he is one of the journalists I admire. Talksport, The Mirror (publishing Lipton and Stan Collymore’s opinions… I’d rather bathe in acid than listen to them), and Eurosport (Paul Parker…you astound me. Idiot.) *Not linking to the articles. Not going anywhere near them ever again. They have all published utter trash, what are their opinions worth? They can hardly string a sentence together, I don’t have to read what they have to say.

People may disagree with some of the things I have said and I would like those people to explain where they take up issue with me, I won’t stoop down to insults (unless your a right prat), but I appreciate different points of view. Its an issue thats enraged me as an Arsenal and football fan and a player of the game, why should we put up with these tackles? Why should someone so young and talented have their entire career at risk laying in a hospital bed as we speak with more metal in his leg than one of those motorway barriers?

But heres one thing, Ive had my say, now lets go win this bloody league.

A blogger stuck for words, savour it.

I missed the game, and I’m glad I did because god knows now angry I would be if I had seen the tackle leading to Aaron Ramsey’s leg as it happened. The similarities to Birmingham two years ago with Eduardo are eery, the reaction by the team was much stronger.

We were one down, the goal was strangely reminiscent of nearly every goal we have conceded at Stoke – from a throw in.

The way we fought back, even after the horror injury to Ramsey, was biographic of our season so far, so many times we have been knocked down but we get up and give everything. Bendtner scored a fantastic header, it was of the highest quality.

Then there was the penalty, our captain stepped up in the final minute to put it into the bottom corner – the celebrations were for Ramsey. Vermaelen sealed it with a tap in after Cesc had been first to the ball after Sorensen fumbled it, Cesc and Sol Campbell went bezerk. The passion was there, and in the team huddle at the end.

This is all overshadowed by an injury to a promising youngster, one of the brightest talents in the English game. It wasn’t intentional but where do you draw the line? Who cares if a tackle is clumsy and the damage in unintentional when careers are at stake?

Look at the state of his leg. Look.

It was good to see Glenn Whelan stay with Rambo from start to finish, holding him whilst the medics got to him. Cesc had tears in his eyes, he’d seen it before: “In five years I’ve seen three of them”.

Right now is not a time for thinking much about the game. Its time to be wishing a 19 year old all the luck in the world in what will be a torturous comeback – lets just hope he can.

Come back tomorrow for something more substantial, I don’t want to write something OTT.

Til then. Get better soon Gordon.

We know what has to be done today – win.

With City and Chelsea meeting in just a few minutes there is a chance Chelsea could drop a point or two, if this happens we have to capitalise, if it doesn’t we need to keep snapping at their heels like an angry Pacman.

Stoke have no surprise up their sleeve, we know how they will play and it is the third time we have faced them this season. We won at home and lost away in the FA Cup, losing there last season as well means our record at the Brittania is shocking. Stoke are a team that we should beat every single time, no disrespect intended.

As it happens they are in very decent form, not losing since December and beating Man City midweek – hopefully we can put a spanner in the works and neutralise’s their most valuable and publicised weapon, Rory Delap. The way he gets built up in the press would have you believe he is a potent mixture of Ronaldo, Kaka with a sprinkling of Pele too, when in fact all he does is throw the ball a long way. Its a throw in, not a super-human capability.

As Arseblogger was saying in the Arsecast yesterday – just stand someone in front of him, he is flouting the rules wiping the ball down with a towel anyway.

William Gallas missing the game could be a blessing just this once because it means Sol Campbell will partner Thomas Vermaelen in defence and they are both good in the air, hopefully they can shore up the defence and mean the possibility of having a shaky keeper behind them won’t be so important.

You get the feeling that the first goal will be key in this game, its what undid us last time and we were always chasing the game. Hopefully Bendtner does some damage up front and I’m tipping him to score today. In midfield its important we assert our authority, we can’t match Stoke in stature but with some clever play we can drag them all over the place and if they go behind they should start feeling the game from Wednesday night, this is a game we must, and can win.

It feels like people are scared of Stoke but there is no reason to be, we should win games like this and we won’t win the title if we can’t. I think we will win today, two or three goals to one.

I’m gonna miss the game again through work, hopefully I can catch the highlights. Blehh, I hate missing matches.

Til tomorrow.

Evening all,

so on a day that history has been made by Portsmouth being put into administration Arsenal announce they have slashed the clubs debt in the past few months and as let you earlier, overtaken United in the income stakes.

Its sad for Pompey fans, they had the day of their lives just under two years ago when they won the FA Cup at Wembley and were seemingly on the rise and heading into European football (had a good game against AC Milan if I remember right). Just over eighteen months later, they are in administration and danger of liquidation. There are several other clubs slightly further down the league ladder in just as much danger too, I expect at least another club to be in administration by the end of the season and hopefully, by the start of next they will be some way to recovering even though its likely we will lose at least one English football league club completely.

It makes you realise just how lucky we are, there are some blogs out there that moan and moan and moan about us not spending money – but if it meant staying in business or not, I know I’d rather us save money and consolidate whilst building a sustainable business model to function on for the rest of the clubs existence. Maybe we could be less frugal, in fact I’m sure we could, but you can’t argue with the running of the club, there are clubs out there that are in a far worse state than we are, we are in the best position of any club in this country by quite some way.

The results in brief – taken from the official website:

• Profit before tax of £35.2m (2008 – £24.5m) with increased contributions from both the Group’s football and property businesses.

Not bad for half a year you have to say!

• Further significant investment in determined policy of re-signing first team players to new long-term contracts.

The club have been really busy in negotiating new deals for most of our players – and securing the next generation of players down to long term contracts to make sure the club benefit from them. The wage bill has probably risen substantially from last year, even with the sales of Adebayor and Toure who were on pretty big wages, especially Adebayor.

• By 30 November 2009, the Group’s total net debt had been reduced to £203.6m (31 May 2009 – £332.8m).

That is a massive, massive chunk of the debt gone. Remember we need be in no hurry to get rid of this considering the 17 year mortgage in place.

• Sale of part of the Queensland Road development site means that the Group’s other property activities are now debt free.

A big tick off the to do list that was set out during the financing of the new stadium – everything is falling into place.

Finance links – announcement on arsenal.com – Peter Hill-Wood’s entire statement – PLUS market details (too complicated for me!)

This doesn’t mean that we will suddenly start spending silly money on players, the current policy will no doubt continue and it needs too really, the wage bill has risen by something like 11% and we only made that 25 million profit with the football part of the finances through the sales of Toure and Adebayor, we don’t have two players of that reputation to spend every summer to get us that money – that is the part that is of concern to me but then again, what do I know about this stuff? I’m a football blogger not a financial analyst.

Back to normal stuff:

Eduardo returned to training today so expect him to be on the bench tomorrow if there has been no reaction, he is the only player that will return but the injury list is still ridiculously long. Hopefully Arshavin and Diaby will be back for Burnley, you have to have concerns for Gallas though – Sol Campbell can’t play every game as soon as the fixtures get congested and then it really would get worrying. Hopefully he is back soon and with a fresh new inked contract extension.

Come back in the morning for a more in depth Stoke preview ahead of possibly the biggest game of the season, win and we are looking ahead at some tasty fixtures licking our lips, lose or draw and the league campaign could fizzle out. Its on a knife-edge.

Til tomorrow.

Afternoon, the biggest story of the day seems to be Wayne Bridge pulling out of the England squad after refusing to play in the same side as John Terry, its understandable, I wouldn’t want to play in the same team as him either.

With Cashley injured (wouldn’t want to play in a side with him either) it means that Capello is down to the bare bones at left back – meaning if Kieran Gibbs foot hadn’t have been semi-vaporised by a very disgruntled Standard Liege player at the Emirates, he could well have been in the starting line-up next week at Wembley. He’s really missed out on a chance this season with Clichy’s back injury keeping him out for a long time, before he got injured I thought it possible he could just have snuck onto that plane to South Africa in the summer. His time will come though, I’m sure.

What about Wayne Bridge though? Turning down the chance of playing for your country because your ex captain slipped one to your ex missus? Bad decision in my book, guess I’m not in his shoes though.

Back onto proper Arsenal matters, it seems that the media department have been in overdrive (well, sort of), in the last 12 hours. Two players have spoke! What a revelation that is. Its a shame they are just trotting out the same old lines though. Silvestre, speaking to Sky said:

“I think we’re still in the race and that’s important, we are nearly in March and that’s when things are going to be decided. As long as we are in it, we will fight until the end.”

“We’re going to be ready to face Stoke and get the three points.”

To be frank, the guy is not really going to get much of a look in over the season’s run in and will be off in the summer, hes handled himself well though and despite being a ex-United player his professionalism has shone through.

One player likely to have an important part to play over the coming weeks is Bakary Sagna, who said pretty much the same sort of thing as Silvestre:

“It’s still open, since the beginning of the season we were maybe ten points behind the first for a few months and we are not very far now, so we have maybe 10 to 12 games to play and we want to play game after game and we want to win everything.

“So we’ll see and and the title will be decided at the end. We’ll keep going and we’ll keep playing as a team until now and we want to win something this season. It’s still open and we want to achieve.”

The fact that we have been battered three times this season, twice by Chelsea and once by United, just shows the tenacity of this team – whilst not Wenger’s best side they sure do not give up. We do have to take it one game at a time as the old cliche goes. Stoke away at the weekend is a true test, they have been in great form.

It seems that during the week the players have been having a bit of the laugh whilst celebrating 25 years of Arsenal’s work in the community. Just look at these shorts.

Gotta laugh at Eboue, he looks like an 80’s drug baron / pimp. The afro, the mustache. He’s a true joker is Eboue, hes not the best player we have ever have but hes probably one of the most popular off the pitch.

Thats about all the stuff around for today, for a laugh check out arshavin.eu, some brilliant answers to some stupid questions.

Earlier I was on the Carlos Vela News podcast – Vela Interactive. We chatted about Carlos’ injury hit season, his chances to feature for Mexico at the World Cup in the summer, plus how he can make that final step into the first team. If you want to download the ‘cast click here.

Its worth a listen so let me know what you think either here or over on Carlos Vela News itself.

Till tomorrow.