That was until Tomas Rosicky decided he wanted to
give up football and become the field goal kicker for the Denver Broncos. Seriously,
I’d have even let Denilson take that spot kick ahead of him

Lot’s of rambling this week. From being so frustrated and angry I would have
been prepared to kick a World War 2 veteran in balls before pushing him down a flight of stairs to being so happy and excitable as a young child stuffing his face with Pick’n’Mix unaware of the onset of diabetes that will cripple him later in life, it’s safe to say that this week has provided a variable contrast of emotions.

Blunderland

Right. We’ll start with last weekend’s trip ‘oop Norf’ to face the team from the North East that isn’t Newcastle. Anyone who watched the game would know that the performance wasn’t exactly vintage Arsenal. The first half in particular had all the urgency of a paraplegic tortoise and all the excitement of an EU Summit on fisheries. Powerpoint presentations and everything! We took the lead through one of the most fortunate goals an Arsenal player is likely to score for a long time. Catalan Captain Marvel Cesc Fabregas discovered the benefits of not turning your back on a clearance
as his attempted block on Anton ‘the other’ Ferdinand’s hoof ricocheted back into the air looping over the gormless Simon Mignolet in the Sunderland goal. Of course, a sending off, a missed penalty and a last minute equaliser later I was so infuriated I genuinely think I managed to come up with some brand new expletives – none of which can be repeated here as your eyes might actually bleed acid-filled poison upon
reading them and I’m sorry, but I refuse to have that on my conscience, so there.

Anyway, the result and the manner in which it came definitely means that it was certainly a case of two points dropped. Two stupid points dropped that one would hope do not prove crucial come May. The way this game panned out wasn’t dissimilar to the game at Upton Park last Autumn when we contrived to spunk away two points from a commanding and comfortable position having led for so long.

Ministry of Defence

On a plus side performance wise, Kozza and Squelch looked solid and generally dealt with everything the home side threw at them. It’s been a very long time – I believe bell-bottoms and the jheri-curl were the fashion at the time – since we’ve able to talk bout an Arsenal defence being able to cope so well with an aerial bombardment. hey didn’t deserve to concede the goal at the end.

Song? just Wrong

Negatives you say? Well, the sending off certainly didn’t help. 10 against 11 for so long was always going to handicap Arsenal. Gone are the days when we lambast our crazy-haired midfield enforcer for lack of ability which ironically makes his sending off all the more ulcer-inducingly frustrating. Alex Song wasn’t reckless, just stupid. Plain and simple. When you are on a booking, deserved or not, you have to apply something resembling footballing intelligence and not put yourself in a position where the ref has no choice but to give you your marching orders. It was so elementary I was literally tearing chunks of my scalp out in anger the very second he committed the foul on Malbranque. Thanks Alex. My hair transplant bill is coming your way. Maybe I can have some of yours…

Tom-ASS!

The team still managed to rally and when Nasri won a penalty, it should have meant the three points were in the bag. That was until Tomas Rosicky decided he wanted to give up football and become the field goal kicker for the Denver Broncos. Seriously, I’d have even let Denilson take that spot kick ahead of him.

Crouching Wenger, Hidden Arsene

As I pointed out in last week’s observations, Le Boss became public enemy number one after he dared to suggest that footballers actually try and play football rather thann maim one another. The bastard. How dare he! As a result, Fat Sam, Owen Coyle and the entire population of Stoke were doing a merry jig when Darren Bent netted the Black Cats’ winner in the 1,907th minute of stoppage time. Personally, I don’t think we were hard done by with the added time but Wenger clearly saw differently and decided to pile-drive Martin Atkinson and spit on the fourth official’s limp corpse
afterwards. At least that’s what the tabs would have you believe the way the headlines screamed about the incident the next day.

Personally, I’m a little disappointed with Wenger. If you are going to get charged, at least draw some blood! Hit refs more often is what I say. That’ll learn ’em and also give more credence to Fat Sam’s accusations about the Arsenal manager and his supposed ‘influence’ on officials.

This charge led to Le Boss donating 8 grand to the FA to NOT build this country’s noticeably absent Centre of Footballing Excellence and serving a one match domestic ban in Arsenal’s next game. Speaking of which…

All 4-1…

Ok, it is ‘only’ Lager Cup but beating Spurs ALWAYS matters at any level in any competition and IF we win are to win it, the road to Wembley would have begun with this memorable win at Shite Hart Lane. It will be just like 1987 again… except I won’t be 3 years old.

Whine Hart Lane

Listening to Spurs fans (and believe me, I have to listen to many!), they a) didn’t really care about losing 4-1 at home to their bigger (and better) arch rivals. I’m guessing that’s because they want to concentrate on throwing away more 2-0 leads in the Champions League. b) Apparently, depending on what day of the week it is, ‘arry felded either their C, D or H team and c) an Arsenal team shorn of Almunia, Sagna, erm, Song, Cesc and RVP to name but a few, somehow amounted to being our first team. It’s a real shame this downtrodden, inexperienced team of eight internationals costing a total of approximately £80 million had to face big, bad Arsenal. But alas, they don’t really care, do they?

More complaints from up the Seven Sisters Road (despite not caring) suggested that Arsenal’s first penalty was in fact a dive by Samir Nasri. At the time I said it was soft. The award was extremely generous but it was one of those ‘fouls’ that had it taken place in midfield, nobody would have bat an eyelid. If we’re going to talk about bad officiating I could mention the two dubious offside calls which, if given correctly, would have meant extra time wouldn’t have even been necessary. But there’s no need as they have been done to death elsewhere. Turning point, my arse!

Keeping Up Appearances

More humiliating for Spurs was the fact that they played against an Arsenal team that decided not to field a goalkeeper. At this point I should qualify the previous statement with the obligatory “in all seriousness…” and make some witty quip but my keyboard won’t actually let me type the words because the situation is just not funny anymore. How Fabianski failed to deal with Robbie Keane’s shot is actually physically impossible. If you employ a scientist to try and explain how the ball slipped through the young pole’s hands, his head would explode and cover your walls in all that lovely
sciency brain goo.

Scezney has apparently been making noises this week about leaving and who could blame him? Highly rated but even if he doesn’t turn out to be the next Lev Yashin, he can’t be any worse than his fellow countryman, surely not. Seeing Flappy playing ahead of him is like seeing that your girlfriend has chosen to have sex with the rotting carcass of a South London sewer rat instead of you.

Same old Arsenal, Always English

Before the game, ‘arry was quoted as saying ‘Arsenal dun’t bring frew many English lads’. He must have had huge ostrich sized egg on his face when his side went a goal down as a result of English Kieran Gibbs bombing forward, English
Jack Wilshire putting in a cross and English Henri Lansbury applying the finish.

On a similar note, congratulations to David Bentley who had his best ever game for Arsenal on Tuesday evening. Mug!

Car-lost Vela

So after singing his praises last week and suggesting that Carlos Vela would do great things, he reverts to type against Spurs and contributes the sum total of fuck all. Well done Carlos. Back to the bench with ye and don’t let me see you again until we are at least 3 goals to the good. If he hadn’t started and we’d brought him on in the second period of extra time, we’d have won 7-1.

Gaels and boys

I think it’s fair to say that if anyone was to blame for the Sunderland equaliser last weekend then Gael Clichy has to carry the can for what can only be described as a feeble attempt to clear the ball. Rather than kick it stright into Kozzer, he should have just hammered it into the stands and given away the corner. Again, it’s so elementary; when in doubt, kick the fucker out! This is not the first massive error Clichy has made and time has surely come to give Gibbs more games. Although….

Injuries

Yes, towards the end of a brilliant performance against Spurs which probably would have been capped with a goal if it were not for the flag-happy twunt who wrongly called him offside when clean through, Kieran Gibbs limped straight from Shite Hart Lane to the Arsenal Royal Infirmary. Such is the frequency of young Kieran’s foot injuries, he actually has a better relationship with the resident chiropodist than he does with his own family. True story. Initial fears of break have been quelled and diagnosis is that Gibbsy will be out ‘short term’ which sounds positive but what
does that mean? Five years is ‘short term’ in the context of an entire century, isn’t it?

Also, checking in is CCM Cesc Fabregas who injured his hamstring somehow while scoring his abovementioned Goal of the Season contender. He expects to be back by the Chelsea game. I presume he means the match at the Emirates on Boxing Day.

Looking ahead

Like a bunch of fox-hunting, quail-quaffing poshos, I know a lot of you look down on the Carling Cup with the kind of sneer that you only usually reserve for people who shop at Iceland or, er, drink Carling! However, given the fact that so many ‘big’ teams have fallen at this stage, Arsenal have been presented with a fantastic chance to collect some kind of shiny trophy shaped trinket and do some silly post-cup-win dancing at Wembley come February. I know what you will say: “Prioritise other competitions”, “Losing in the knockouts of the Champion’s League is more important”, “I’d rather get hammered at home by Chelsea and Man Utd than win a trophy” etc. but as I always say, winning a trophy, any trophy, could provide the
catalyst and be a springboard to bigger and better things. If Arsenal don’t win the League/Champion’s League it certainly won’t be because they tried to win the Carling Cup as well. The fourth round draw is tomorrow. I bet it’s Stoke away…

Tomorrow is a home game against West Brom before a trip to Serbia to face Partizan Belgrade on Tuesday. The league game ought to be a home banker but we’d be wise not to underestimate the Baggies who are on something of a run having beaten Birmingham and Man City this week. They’re managed by Roberto Di Matteo who – if people remember – cost us the domestic treble in 1998 after scoring a screamer at Stamford Bridge in the League Cup semi-final second leg. So yeah, we owe him one. The handsome, charismatic Italian bastard! West Brom are unlikely to ‘Park the Bus’ so it should be an open game so there should be chances aplenty and hopefully goals. As for Tuesday, I can’t say I know much about Serbian football but according to the Arsenal website, our opponents have won all their opening five league games this season…. what that tells us is anyone’s guess… except that they seem to be quite good in their league… I don’t know… erm… tough away game and all that… Bollocks to this,
I’m struggling.

Til next week.

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