For those of you that don’t know, we had a goal-less draw with Cardiff City of the Championship. The damn Championship. We played poorly and the only player i saw with intent was Van Persie who really did not want to face another game, or to put it another way, he didn’t want another game to drag this team through.

Arsene Wenger has a big problem in the motivation department if im honest with you,it seems the players are never up for the games against opposition that isn’t fellow top four or Tottenham.

Do you remember the days where we could come out of the tunnel trying to finish the game in the first twenty minutes? The times we did that we had someone like Tony Adams or Patrick Vieira who were a massive presence and were very, very motivational players. We lack that kind of player now, and the emphasis of motivating the side now falls on Arsene Wenger because at the moment we really lack that motivation and drive at times we really need to nick wins, save games and end potential bannana skins early.

Another point that i have spoken about before is the decision to give the captaincy to Kolo Toure, i think it was a massive mistake.

The reason is Kolo is not assured of his team place, yes he is one of the most experienced players out there but he has been crap over the past year. Gallas has a big shout to be in the team instead of him as much as i hate to say it. I have covered this before so I’m not going to go over old ground but its just my opinion on the matter.

Today i thought Wenger made a mistake by not giving Adebayor a start today. He has not played as many games as Van Persie recently and he is in desperate need of games, but for some reason Adebayor was on the bench and Bendtner was partnered with Van Persie. I really don’t see Wengers logic here because i accept we need creativity but why not stick Nasri behind the strikers?

If Van Persie gets injured we are royally fucked and we really need him for the next two games that come in quick succession.

Yesterday – and today so far – have been rather silent on the Arshavin front as he gets his inevitable mention here.

I take it two ways – no not like that you dirty minded arsebandits- either the deal is over, kaput, done, dusted and having had a big F slapped on the documents or negotiations are so intense nobody has managed to shout their mouth off. I think it might be the latter as Zenit would have inevitably been mouthing off if the deal was kaput.

Right im sorry its been such a negative blog today, i really do admire the big man Wenger but i do feel he has made a few mistakes recently.

But on the plus side we are still on this unbeaten run, we kept a clean sheet and… and… and… and…

We still look rather tepid, like a wine that has been corked, like a tea bag left in the cup for too long. Like a saggy carrot. We are looking rather anemic.

Just one thing that has rather pissed me off this weekend is the FA are an English association for English clubs. Why are we playing a Welsh side in an English competition? That also play under Welsh FA rules? What do you think of that? Let me know because I’m not so sure i support it.

If they want to play in our competition they should bloody well play under our crappy associations rules!

Thats your lot today from the rambling git i am. Why you read this i don’t know.

Well, ’til next time.

Last week The Goon broke exclusive news of Stan Kroenke’s plan to take over Arsenal. Today it has emerged that Alisher Usmanov, the clubs biggest shareholder, has no interest in buying the shares of Lady Nina because, quite frankly she wouldn’t sell to him in a million years. Usmanov has said:

“I haven’t seen her and so far she has not announced that she wants to sell. There is no point in discussing something that doesn’t exist.”

Firstly take everything this mongrel faced criminal says with a ton of salt. Plain and simple Usmanov can’t afford to buy another 50 millions worth of shares because a lot of his money went down with the Russian stock exchange. He lost billions.

You can find his interview here, don’t believe everything he says.

Adebayor has also spoken about the treatment the side got on Sunday and has branded Alonso’s tackle on Cesc as dangerous:

“You can see the tackle on Fábregas before he went off was a little dangerous but there was no card, not even a foul.”

I feel the tackle was 50/50, Cesc came off worse and he is really due a nasty injury, hopefully Guilliem Blague is wrong when he says the injury is worse than first feared:

“there is a real fear that Cesc has torn a cruciate ligament in his right knee – meaning he would face closer to three months, rather than three weeks, on the sidelines.”

I hope he is wrong, he got the information from a Spanish radio station that allegedly spoke to Cesc after the game, hopefully its just the Spanish media playing us.

Solution?

If he is out for a long time we have a problem, who do we play in the middle? Denilson? Nasri? Bischoff? Ramsey? The depth problem is there for all to see, we have Cesc or nothing, no matter how well they played after Ade’s sending off they will not re-create that again, the scenario will not occur at Villa Park on Friday to inspire them like they were inspired on Sunday. Tomorrow i will put forward a list of possibilities that could fill that role taken by Cesc, be sure to return for that as i will try and analyse the situation as well as i can. There should also be much more news on the injury to our captain.

There is also speculation kicking around that Man Citeh’s Elano is set to join on a six month loan deal, with a view to a potential move in the summer, there is something about this rumour that might just be true, a Wengerism. Elano could play in the Champions League as he has only represented Citeh in the UEFA Cup (i think), and there would be no significant money paid out to Citeh, making the finances look good for when they are published.

I think he is pure class, he does not get on well with Mark Hughes but who would? His man management skills are poor and this shows by the Brazillian’s at Citeh all being frozen out. I think it is a possibility.

Wenger ruled out the possibility of moves for Tevez and Arshavin in his own fairly blunt way after the Liverpool game:

“No, no, and no.”

No spin there from Wenger, its a shame he can’t always be that blunt about things, there is also mutterings of an Edu return.

Not gonna happen im afraid.

The title race took another turn today; Chelsea failed to beat Everton meaning its ‘as you were’ before the weekends games, the only difference being Man Utd have an extra game in hand and it looks like they could well take another Premiership Title if they take advantage of this seasons strangeness.

Im going to have news to break of the future of this blog very soon, i can assure you its very positive news and there are changes afoot. I’ll keep you fully posted.

Right, i need sleep.

Til next time, leave me your thoughts on how this place can be improved and your opinions of the latest happenings at this great club.

T’ra

Update: Its bad. 4 months out for Cescy. Its true, been confirmed.

What a prat

Well that was a game and a half, its pretty much 3 in the morning here and I’m still pretty miffed with what i saw, not from Arsenal, but from a referee that isn’t fit to referee a pub game on a Sunday afternoon.

The start was cagey, everyone was a bit on edge and the first bit of controversy took just a minute, Triangle head Keane scythed down Gael Clichy, and if that was an Arsenal player that committed that challenge he would have been sent off right there and then.

Lucas fouled every time he tackled one of our players, no less than 6 fouls in the first half alone, Webb was waving his finger at him but failed to pull out his cards to the Brazillian. Wenger pointed this out after the game:

“I believe that (Lucas) Leiva made foul after foul without being booked. I don’t agree with the kind of attitude here today.”

Then Adebayor received a joke of a yellow card for protecting the ball, i admit it was a foul but it was not warranting of a yellow. Lucas had made about three fouls by then and has only received a finger wagging, this was Adebayors first foul.

We were 1 up when Nasri picked out Van Persie with a stunning long range pass, he controlled the ball expertly and lashed the ball home with his ‘chocolate leg’. Outstanding from one of the words most gifted footballers, maybe his second half of the season will be the best of his career, he has the world at his feet if he fulfills his potential.

Triangle Head

Triangle head then drew the bindippers level, a very good goal i do admit, a long pass over the heads of our defenders put triangle head through and he lashed the ball home on the half volley, just as we thought we were going to throw the title race wide open…

Alonso then slid through Cesc and damaged his medial ligament, meaning he faces three weeks out, with the Villa game up next he couldn’t have picked a worse time to do our captain. The bastard.

It could be a blessing in disguise, if Wenger gets a good support act for Cesc in midfield in January, a fresh Cesc and a decent midfield companion could cause havoc, short term pain for long term gain?

Adebayor was then dismissed for a tackle that was not even a foul. The arm was out to balance, he was defending the ball which is waaay within his rights and his studs were nowhere near Arbeloa’s leg. The Liverpool supporting referee then proceeded to send off our striker.

It infuriated the crowd, for the remainder of the game all you could here were boo’s it inspired the Arsenal and we came alive, they had determination, belief and lots of fight. The atmosphere came alive.

Sadly we couldn’t pinch the winner but 1-1 is not a bad result.

Adebayor described Arbeloa’s theatrics as like him stabbing him, he certainly reacted like it:

“I hope when the referee watches it on the TV, he will see it was a foul but I didn’t deserve a card. It was a mistake from him. He said it was for the leg [rather than a flailing arm that caught Arbeloa in the face] but if I don’t put my body in there I would never score a goal in this league. We have to protect the ball, which is normal and that’s what I tried to do.

“The defender threw himself on the floor as if I put a knife in him. Of course I’m annoyed. We are all here to play and if you win or lose you have to do it with 11. I cannot say he cheated but what he did wasn’t fair play at all.”

Ade didn’t remonstrate with the referee, i think he was in too much shock, how on earth could Howard Webb get it this wrong?

Lucas got his yellow after comitting far worse fouls, and more importantly three times more fouls!

It was clear what team Howard Webb supports, his performance in the Liverpool Utd game was pretty dubious as well.

Impartial?

He is about as impartial as Jamie Redknapp commenting on the North London Derby.

Alan Green of the BBC was an utter disgrace too, he found fault with everything to do with Arsenal, Wenger’s anger was a ‘disgrace’ according to him. After Rieira deliberately elbowed Van Persie who was understandably peeved with him, he said ‘we are all used to his (Van Persie’s) antics by now’, he also found fault with the fans for giving Howard Webb stick for his rubbish decisions and gave the fans more stick for shouting abuse at Liverpool players.

Now, he is supposed to be impartial. What is with all the Arsenal hating?

Now i have a message for Alan Green, your wages get paid by Joe Public, many many thousands, possibly millions are Arsenal supporters so i suggest you quit the bias and start treating the listeners with a bit of respect and give us a bit of honest commentary.

There was a fuss in one of the stands when a Liverpool supporter in the Arsenal section celebrated, i hope he got ten tonnes of crap kicked out of him because that is plain stupidity on their part, Alan Green called the Gooners ‘diablolical’ when it was suggested that he would have been in for some rough treatment.

If you were in that stand feel free to shed some light on the issue!

Right, Wenger reaction tomorrow

Til then.