I’m not going to say you’re not a ‘real fan’ if you did partake in the booing. If you pay your money, you should be allowed to express your feelings in any way you see fit (within reason of course)

The Emirates.

What a difference an early goal and bit of sunshine makes. The atmos was superb throughout yesterday. Hats off to the PA with the Eboue banter and Curtis Mayfield at the final whistle. First time in a long while I’ve come away from a game in such a good mood. Much Guiness flowed in The Metro afterwards.

On Bendtner.

All that said, it’s not nice to hear some of the abuse Big Nik received. By the time he was withdrawn his confidence was shot to shit. Calling for Van Persie (as much of the South End were doing) and the small amount of ironic cheering when his number was up cant have helped. It was a nice touch by the Red Action lot to try and counter this with ‘Super Nik’ chants and it must be pointed out that the player acknowledged this despite what people may say about his perceived arrogance. About 98% of the crowd (myself included) did sympathetically applaud the lumbering Dane as he sauntered off, cancelling out the booing minority.

However, while I may not agree, I’m not going to say you’re not a ‘real fan’ if you did partake in the booing. If you pay your money, you should be allowed to express your feelings in any way you see fit (within reason of course). With the continued rise in prices and the general way AFC treat fans like ‘customers’, it’s inevitable there will be some kind of revolt if they are not satisfied with ‘the product’. People vent in different ways. Some express themselves at the game, some wait to jam the lines on phone-ins, while some write blogs *ahem*. I personally choose not to boo at games because I don’t see how it’s in any way constructive.

…Although it seems to have worked on Emmanuel ‘Goal-machine’ Eboue. Hmmm.

As for Bendtner himself, I had a rant at half time with a mate about how unbelievably shocking he was in the first half. I’ve read elsewhere that his link up play was good. Horse shit! He touch is poor and I’m not prepared to congratulate him for ‘finding space’. As a striker, that’s part of his job. He didn’t even do that right. There were a couple of American girls sat behind (yes, very hot before you ask) who remarked after one failed attack that Bendtner should have been attacking the ball in the box rather than standing on the edge of the area. Now, we all know that girls no nothing about football and we all know that Americans don’t either so when even they are noticing what ‘Soopa Nik’ is doing wrong then you know the boy has problems. In the second half, he just got worse. The misses were quite frankly unacceptable. Not befitting of any professional footballer let alone an Arsenal striker. I’ve also read that the ONLY thing he did wrong was not find the target. Well, to me, scoring goals is his primary objective as a centre forward. If he can’t do that, he shouldn’t be on the pitch.

We really need to ask ourselves if he is indeed good enough. This performance was far from a one off.

Blackburn

I was once reminded why I dislike Blackburn Rovers and Fat Sam Allerdyce so much. It must have taken about 5 minutes before they realised that they had nothing on the Arsenal so just decided to kick lumps out of our players (Arshavin needed 6 stitches in his ankle at half time I’m told). Aaron Mokenwa – a player of no visible footballing ability – was a prime culprit leaving his foot in constantly and always attempting the sly trip after being frequently humiliated by far superior footballers. The worst naturally was El-Hadji Diouf who was lucky to stay on the pitch after his late, cynical lunge on Manuel Almunia. He added diving and general all round cuntishness as the game went on and was certainly the player most deserving of being booed. Morton Gamst Pedersen’s dive was despicable. I really hope it gets the coverage it deserves. Had that been one of our lot, we wouldn’t hear the end of it. The man is an embarrassment to his profession. I’m so glad they got the battering they deserved.

Theo

Whatever you may think about Walcott there’s no doubting that his pace is a valuable asset. He has potential to give defenders a torrid time and he added something that has been lacking from a lot of Arsenal attacks in recent times: speed. Rather than pass, pass, pass, pass, nothing happens. Theo added urgency and directness which as we can clearly see, led to more opportunities and inevitably, goals!

Paul Robinson

Is there another keeper in the world Arsenal love playing against more? Eboue’s penalty was about the 14000th goal he’s conceded against us.