The Goon Blog

Morning All,

There isn’t a great deal happening in the wonderful world of Arsenal Football Club per se but today does in fact mark the beginning of an exciting yet equal testing week ahead for the club. Despite the upcoming games against Celtic midweek followed by those foul mancs, all talk still seems to be revolving around the Portsmouth Game (Rightly So).

John Utaka, claims to have been tripped by Gallas and our number ten then admitted to have committed the foul as well. He says:

“I asked Gallas and he said to me it was a foul. What can you say to that? It’s like everything is going against us. He was smiling, he knew it was a foul but it wasn’t his decision. It could have been 2-2, the game could have gone either way, but he then scored at the other end.”

“It was a foul because he pulled me from behind after I ran past him – he pulled me back. It was unfortunate the linesman didn’t raise his flag. I was shocked because on a good day it would have been given. We were unlucky and nothing was given.”

I’m not at all convinced, TV replays show Utaka clearly tripped over himself and both the linesman and the referee got it spot on, I can quite honestly label this the rant of a “skittish” klutz and nothing more.

I was reading around and I’d fancy we’d be finding out about the extent of Cesc’s injury either by today or by tomorrow. Senor Cesc has been speaking about his injury and blames Celtic for his predicament, he had the following to say:

“You never expect someone will kick you three or four times in the same place, which was my right ankle, but sometimes that happens. You have to accept it and all you can do is stand up to it, refuse to let it affect you and keep playing football. But I did have quite a few bruises after that game in Glasgow.”

You can’t argue with that, the overly physical approach by Celtic was poor and we’re lucky it isn’t anything more serious than I already is. The need for Fabregas at this critical juncture is immense and especially seeing as we’re a little light when it comes to replacing such a player, we’re really at odds. After such an impressive start to the season, we need to maintain it and that means taking those mancs down and doing it in style. It’s not an easy task but you can’t also argue with the fact that we’re fully capable of doing so and how important fabregas is to this cause. Fingers crossed our captain fantabolous can make it back as soon as possible, we are really going to miss him should this injury prolong.

Meanwhile, Arshavin has been talking about the dressing room talks Wenger had with the team during the half time team talk in the game against Portsmouth. Arshavin had this to say:

“We started the meeting well. I think that our two quick goals went a long way in deciding the game. Arsenal’s possession advantage allowed us to enjoy the game … Perhaps, after the second goal, we relaxed a bit. Arsène in the locker room told us about this. He reminded us that in the Premier League you cannot afford to be relaxed, because if you prematurely stop to fully concentrate on the game, this will immediately be followed by retaliation by the opponents.”

There isn’t any denying this fact that complacency has been the death of us in seasons past and it is alarming to see the signs of it so early in the season, but I’m hopeful the boss can sort them out.

Speaking of sorting out, we have roughly 7 days to go before the close of the transfer window. There isn’t a secret that we need to dip into the transfer kitty and buy us a player and there’s no secret where we need reinforcing either. We have had a few defensive scares in the games we’ve played so far and you can only imagine what better teams could do to us in that area. The boss has to sort it out and there aren’t any excuses not to either.

Finally, Tony Mowbray has been talking about the upcoming game against us and says he’s already picked his team;

“But I am pretty clear in my mind what my team will be next Wednesday. I understand that if we lose 2-0 again, I will be judged to have got the team wrong again but if we win 3-0 then hopefully everyone will be pretty happy.”

Kudos to you then, the article goes on and if you feel like reading it, here’s where you can do it.

Right then, thats the lot

Until tomorrow,

All Hail Arsenal.

Morning all, decided to leave it a little later this morning to see if there was anything new around but guess what, there isnt.

You will know by now that we have made our first first-team signing of the summer, and at 10 million euros, you would have to say he will probably be a starter next term. That of course leaves the question, who will partner him. Gallas is probably our best center back and if he was to leave we would definitely need a replacement, Toure just isnt as good as him and it saddens me to say it, but is in decline. If we got a big offer from El Arabi City I would bite their hand off and use the money towards a better defender with experience.

I don’t think our defensive options now will remain the same for the start of the season, one would expect Silvestre to be long gone by then *please God, please get rid of this hapless monstrosity* and the rest of the summer is going to be very interesting indeed. Another move probably isnt expected in the immediate future because that isnt really Wenger’s style, but as shown with this and Arshavin’s transfers recently, he is willing to break out of his own style.

I’m looking forward to seeing the state of the squad on the first couple of days in September.

One interesting point that has come to my attention is that Vermaelen’s position is left of center in the defence, which is of course Gallas’s preferred position. Could it mean Gallas is on his way out? If that was the case I wouldn’t consider Arsene’s defensive work on the team as actually diminishing the quality we have, and we don’t have that much quality anyway. Wenger’s work is still far from done.

Yohan Cabaye, the Lille midfielder is linked – The chances of that happening are 1084586y3946532044365-9365-9345-1

Right, thats all today.

More tomorrow, might be later than usual again.

It was expected, but now it is confirmed. The usual new signing lines have been spoken:

‘Arsenal Football Club is delighted to announce that Belgian international defender Thomas Vermaelen has joined the Gunners from Dutch Eredivisie side Ajax on a long-term contract for an undisclosed fee.’

Arsene Wenger said:

“Thomas is a great signing for Arsenal Football Club, and we are all delighted that he is joining us. Thomas is a solid performer with good experience of Champions League and UEFA Cup football and is also a regular with the Belgium national team.

Thomas is primarily a left-footed centre back, but he’s multi-functional and can also play at left back. He is strong technically with a positive winner’s attitude and I have no doubt his arrival will strengthen our team. Thomas Vermaelen will be a huge asset to Arsenal.”

Thomas himself has said:

“Firstly, I have to say that I’m sad to be leaving Ajax and I would just like to thank everyone for their help and friendship towards me over the past eight years.

“I’m just so happy to be joining Arsenal. This is a great Club with a world class manager, high quality players and a fantastic stadium. Everything is set up for Arsenal to be very successful for years to come and I joined this Club because I know Arsenal will be challenging for trophies.

“I have had a good taste of the Champions League during my time with Ajax and this is something I am looking forward to experiencing again with Arsenal. I’m also looking forward to playing in the English Premier League, which for me, is the best league in the world. Also, I just want to assure the Arsenal fans that I will give everything for this Club and I hope we can enjoy winning some trophies together next season.”

Welcome to Arsenal, Thomas.

Oh, and for the record, he is 6ft.

More tomorrow, but later than usual.

I will try and bulk this post out with a bit of chat here and there but to be honest I have had it up to here *points to head*, with transfer speculation.

ARSENAL ARE SIGNING VERMAELEN!!!

ARSENAL ARE SIGNING MELO!!!!

ARSENAL ARE SIGNING CHAMAKH!!!!

ARSENAL ARE SIGNING BASSONG!!!

ARSENAL ARE SIGNING YAYA TOURE!!!

ARSENAL ARE SIGNING LESCOTT!!!

ARSENAL ARE SIGNING KING MOHAMMAD EL FADJ III!!!!

I. am. fucking. fed. up. of. it. all.

We get linked with so many players it does really beggar belief, is there another team that has to put up with the same amount of speculation us Gooners do? What really staggars me is how we are linked with players valued at 2-3 million and then the next day linked with a player like Yaya Toure or Melo, valued in the 15-20 million quid bracket.

I think we will probably be linked with about 100 players before the transfer window shuts at the start of September. It really wouldn’t suprise me at all.

The excitement of signing a new player has all but evaporated recently, the Arshavin transfer took over a month, Nasri’s deal likewise. Gone are the days where you wake up in the morning to see:

The Eduardo signing was the last time I was genuinely excited about a new arrival… Of course with the arrival of Arshavin in January I was delighted and couldnt wait to see him play, but the edge was taken off the occasion and a feeling of relief was more apparent. Just reading through the early articles about Eduardo brings that feeling of exitement back, next season he may just be like a new signing for us along with (hopefully), Thomas Rosicky.

That brings us to the seemingly imminent arrival of defender Thomas Vermaelen for a hefty 10-11 million pounds, a Wenger record for a defensive player. It seems that he is going to fly in, undergo a medical to check he is not made of glass and then the move will be announced on Arsenal.con

He seems enthusiastic, declaring the day the ‘best of my life’ and how he ‘will give everything my body has’, he seems to have his brain in order and is genuinely feeling privilaged to be signing for a club like Arsenal.

So on this dead boring Friday if you are looking to escape the boredom of yet another football free day, spend your time endlessly refreshing Newsnow and Arsenal.com in the vague, vague hope of an Arsenal signing.

Its not like it would be unexpected but at least it would give us something to write about and it really would signal the start of the Arsenal summer.

So thats it….really. Theo won again last night after being dropped to the bench. Quite why he was picked in the squad to be left on the bench for Frazer Campbell is only a question Stuart Pearce can answer but hey, ho. He had better return in one piece.

More tomorrow.

All in all a successful weekend for Arsenal, another win offset my another defensive injury but we do not yet know how severe it is.

Picking up the mere morsels around today captain Fabregas has called for the lads to go unbeaten for the rest of the season and clearly state our intentions to win something:

“We want to go all the way, We have said to ourselves we do not want to lose another game before the end of the season, and that’s exactly what we will try to do. It is a good 10 days we have coming up, now. That’s what a professional wants to do, come and play big games like these. We will play some very important games for the players and the club that will decide our season. We have been playing quite well throughout the whole season. For some reason some people decided to go a little bit against us and to have a go at us. Some people tried to create a little bit of a bad atmosphere. But we dealt well with it. It’s not been a problem for us. It is now 18 games we have gone without losing in the Premier League. We can answer the critics by winning things and that’s what we are aiming to do over the remainder of the season. That’s why these next few days are key for us. We have Villarreal in the Champions League, then Chelsea, an amazing team, in the FA Cup semi-final. We still have a big say in the season.”

No shit Sherlock. This next week is massive. It is probably the most important set of games since we reached the CL final in Paris, a win on Wednesday will put us into the semi’s of the CL and a win next Saturday will put us in the FA Cup final, this week is, in effect, our season all boiling down to 180 minutes. Good on Cesc though, he is leading by example on the pitch and is saying all the right things off it, he knows the enormity of this week and we need him to stand up and help guide this team to two wins in a week.

Yesterday I linked you to the Arsene Wenger interview in the NOTW. Sadly, I couldn’t find the original source but after a read through I came to the conclusion the message behind it was that he will not give up on his policy as long as he is at the club, he firmly believes in it and this season it could really come to fruition. The chances to sign Alonso and Barry were there but I concur when he says it would have ‘killed’ Song, Denilson or Diaby (providing an injury didn’t kill him first).

Looking back on it now maybe he did the right thing but most importantly Wenger has shown he is human and admitted it really did get tough.

Remember, Arsene Wenger is not just an Arsenal manager, he is a fan as well.

Hopefully later today we should have news of the squad for Villarreal and the extent of Djourou’s injury. More on that tomorrow, though.

’til then, enjoy the bank holiday.

We really didn’t deserve to win by a three goal margin yesterday and the defending was really worrying. Silvestre does not have a clue, he is rusty and has not strung two games together for about three years, Djourou may be out for a while with a knee injury and before that, he flattered to deceive as well.

Highlights | Wenger

This is all very negative but we could have been two goals down at half time, down to ten men and on our last legs in defence. Let me say this now, Gibbs should not have been on the field after the pull back on Valencia, he was the last man and even if Fabianski might have got close to Valencia when he was rushing out Gibbs stopped a goalscoring opportunity, he was also the last man. Wenger admitted at the final whistle that he should not have been on the pitch. We got very lucky. AfterwardsWigan hit the inside of the post from a free kick, on another day Fabianski would have been picking the ball out the net again. On the Fabianski’s performance, well, it left a lot to be desired. He is young, he pulls off spectacular saves but he flaps at crosses a hell of a lot, in certain respects he is mad and doesn’t demand confidence.

On the positive side we fought back from going behind again and when the system was changed to a 4-4-2 at half time the game changed in our favour, Theo Walcott leveled after the brilliant Arshavin managed to sneak a little ball through to him to finish with the outside of his right foot into the top corner. Classy finish.

Second up and who pops up with a poachers goal? Our fish faced Frenchman who was diabolical at the other end, Silvestre. It was a nice finish, i will grant him that. He has a chance to win affection from gooners in the next month or so, if he gets injured he could be on his way out of the Grove in the summer. He has a chance to produce, its got to be now or never for him.

After that Arshavin got the goal he really deserved, a counter attack started by Adebayor who had a big impact, finished off with a defensive mistake that fell to Arshavin on the edge of the box and he drilled it home first time. Before that we were starting to come under the cosh a bit and it really released the pressure. Arshavin almost won us this game on his own, I forgot to mention his fantastic pass through to Cesc that started the move for the second goal.

For the fourth Alex ‘Messi’ Billong Song finished after a fantastic run, he rounded two defenders and finish nicely into the bottom corner in the dying moments. Its was so unlike him it was surreal and capped off a fine performance from the dancing Cameroonian.

At half time Wenger introduced van Persie into the mix, this was to add attacking impetus I am sure, but I also feel that Denilson has looked very tired during his last two performances. He will be needed to mark Senna on Wednesday night providing he is fit and I think Wenger may just have had that in mind.

You can see what Wenger said after the game in the link at the top of the page hand after admitting we were lethargic at times today he also revealed that Djourou’s injury may keep him out on Wednesday:

“Johan Djourou has a knee problem and that’s the bad news of the day. It looks as though he’ll be out for Wednesday. We lost two central defenders in two games, we have a few more games to go and we haven’t got enough of them to lose one every game.”

If we lose another centre back we are screwed, Gallas and Djourou are now out, that leaves the injury ravaged and frankly crap Silvestre, Toure and Song who does not convince in that position. After that the only other alternate is Sagna who can play there with Eboue filling in at right back. After that we have Ayling and Bartley from the youth/reserves.

Coming up next we have Villarreal, then Chelsea in the FA Cup semi at Wembley followed up with a midweek trip to Liverpool. At this point it looks like our attack will have to be on song for all three games, we have to really outscore the opposition because personally, I think we will concede in every game. A defence of Fabianski in goal Sagna at RB, Toure and Silvestre at CB and Gibbs at LB just does not convince, other teams will look at that defence and feel confident about scoring, the likes of Torres and Drogba, two of the worlds best strikers will think: ‘oo i fancy a goal or two here’. Both sides can be weak defensively at times, especially Chelsea after the Bolton near comeback yesterday so there is hope there for our strikers.

There has been an interesting interview with Arsene Wenger in the NOTW, I’m not sure where it originally came from but I’ll try and track it down and give it a good read through, there will be more on that tomorrow along with a Djourou injury update hopefully.

I have been negative today but we have to be realistic, we have been poor in the first half of the past two games, we have conceded goals and looked generally unstable with the majority of our defence missing.

On the plus side the team are scoring well and generally looking dangerous. We are an underdog in the FA Cup and the CL, that works in our favour and if we keep plugging away and grinding out results I’m confident we will be victorious in one of those competitions. Lets just keep looking at the next game though. There’s many a mile left to be walked.

Right, I’m in desperate need of some catching up sleep.

’til tomorrow.

Happy bank holiday, but this won’t make for happy reading.

As we already guessed, William Gallas will be out for the season after that accident against Villarreal. It has been confirmed that it is indeed medial knee ligament damage and that is not a few weeks on the sidelines, its months. As it turns out we have also lost Almunia for what looks like three weeks with an ankle injury that was originally sustained from that despicable excuse for a human being…El Hadji Diouf.

Gael Clichy is also going to be on the sidelines for a couple of weeks with a back injury sustained in Tuesday’s game as well…  At this rate Bakary Sagna’s head is going to fall off after the Wigan game whilst Kolo Toure suffers an influx of Gout after next weeks return leg in the Champions League.

Wenger said this at his press conference yesterday:

“Gallas is a quick recoverer but we think he will be short to come back before the end of the season, It’s a big, big blow but that’s where the squad come in. I believe as well we have lost Manuel Almunia for three weeks and we lost Gael Clichy for two weeks with a back problem. We lost three players on Tuesday night so we have to once again rely on the depth in the squad – that is quite strong. As well we have to rely on our mental strength because until now we have dealt well with all our injury problems. Robin van Persie and Eduardo will have tests tomorrow morning. They might be available. And of course we have Andrey Arshavin available for Saturday.”

This could not come at a worse time. We could face Man United potentially FOUR more times this season, add that to two clashes against Chelsea (exc. CL) and a game against Liverpool (exc. CL), it means we need our strongest defence out there. With all due respect to Kolo, Sagna et.al. Gallas is our best defender, he is better than Kolo, better than Bakary, better than Gael, Djourou and Silvestre. Its a massive loss. In my view no player has redeemed himself more this season than Willy Gallas.

Take a look at the oncoming fixtures: