It was the first time Le Boss was able to name the same back four for consecutive matches which meant the returning Verminator was left on the bench as an improving Koscielny played alongside the BFG with Johan Djourou and Andrew Saint in the full back positions. Well, on paper that was who were tasked with defending. As it transpired, the first half saw them doing very little of that as the lads spent much of the opening 45 running around in weird directions like they were

C-H-3-L-5-E-A

People get their buzz from different things. Some people like to drink, others do drugs. Some drive their cars at illegally high speeds on residential roads trying to mow down pedestrians, others like to choke themselves, smear their bodies in peanut butter and practice self-love while watching animal porn. There may be some of you reading that partake in this, I don’t know. It’s just not my place to judge, is it? However, all these things aside, I doubt there is an Arsenal fan on the planet who isn’t still as high as kite following last Saturday’s stupendous 5-3 victory over the bottom-feeding blue scum at Stamford Bridge. The game of this or any season and one that will live long, long in the memory of most Gooners even will we are old, senile and uncontrollably pissing ourselves in nursing homes the world over.

Yes, it was almost a week ago and everything that can be said probably has already but you know what? My two cents are just as valuable as anyone else’s regardless of poor grammar, questionable syntax and some God-awful spelling errors. As extraordinary as the game appeared to be on the surface, it was actually about as typical an Arsenal performance as we’ve come to expect in recent years. Great going forward, yet more open at the back than A fat person’s hospital gown. We’ve seen this time and time again but for once, it was immeasurably satisfying to come away from such a game with the three points rather than bemoaning a draw or defeat.

Back ache

It was the first time Le Boss was able to name the same back four for consecutive matches which meant the returning Verminator was left on the bench as an improving Koscielny played alongside the BFG with Johan Djourou and Andrew Saint in the full back positions. Well, on paper that was who were tasked with defending. As it transpired, the first half saw them doing very little of that as the lads spent much of the opening 45 running around in weird directions like they were still feeling the effects of a massive session in Fabric the night before. From the off, they never looked capable of keeping a clean sheet. I would have even backed myself up against our back line and, to be honest, I am shit. Proper shit. 

But a peculiar thing happened. Both teams must have been sharing towels or toothbrushes or maybe John Terry had been having his wicked way with some of our players’ girlfriends because ‘Arsenalitis’ seemed to have spread around Stamford Bridge like the plague. The fact that Andy Saint got on the scoresheet, a good thing obviously, just shows how little regard either team gave towards protecting their respective goals. The Brazilian ran… er, ambled forward from left back unchallenged to slot home from a delicious Alex Song pass.

Where there’s a will, there’s a Walcott

Chelsea actually looked MORE vulnerable at the back than Arsenal. They allowed Theo Walcott the entire freedom of West London to run Cashley ragged. After about a month of doing nothing, Theo had one of his better games in a red shirt. If you hadn’t seen the match and someone told you the inconsistent Walcott was putting in pinpoint crosses, beating his man, not losing ball at will and scoring a screamer to ice the cake, you’d punch them in the face. Hard! But as it turned out, our hit and miss winger continued something of a good run against the blues. He seems to always save his best performances for these derbies.

Vantastic

The last word of course goes to Robin van who else? Persie who silenced the scum with a stupendous hat trick. His first goal coming after good work by Gervinho and the awesome Aaron Ramsey who is on his way to becoming something of a monster and I don’t mean the scary Frankenstein’s monster or the Halloween kind. The second provided a moment of great joy that many an Arsenal will remember to cheer themselves up during tough times. Our flying Dutchman latched onto a loose pass by Malouda and as alleged racist John Terry desperately tried to salvage the situation, he fell flat on his face to prove that divine intervention does exist to punish those who happen to be absolute cunts. Praise be to Bergkamp! Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bloke, really. It would have been great had that turned out to be the winner but Robin had to go and spoil it all by doing his best Geoff Hurst impression; belting in a fifth and his third on the break at the death. Selfish.

Twit!

Of course, things might have panned out very different after Szczesny committed what can be only called a mental ‘tackle’ on Cashley which should have resulted in a red card. Thankfully the ref only produced a yellow. We all laughed heartily. I’m not sure what was more satisfying. The fact it was Cole he took out or the fact he wasn’t correctly punished. Stupidly, our Pole in goal then decided to tweet that he couldn’t believe he was lucky enough to stay on the pitch which basically guarantees him a red as soon as he does so much as fart in the referee’s general direction. Bad move.

Criiiiiiisssssssiis!!!!

After the torrid start, it feels good to have these rare days where we can bask in the glory of massive win away to top side. Things had been improving on the pitch before last weekend but most people wouldn’t have given us a prayer at 12.44 that day. If the trip to the Bridge was the first ‘true test’ of any supposed revival, then the team passed with flying colours. It’s not quite time to proclaim the second coming of the Invincibles but everyone might think twice before running about hysterically with their arms flailing in the air screaming ‘crisis’ in a high pitched voice.

Marseilles-ing nothing

After the high, Tuesday then proved to be something of a comedown. 0-0 at home to Marseille seemed to signify that we’d used up our goal allowance for the week. A typically cagey European encounter that left very little in the way of talking points. Van Persie was left out for Park who failed to replicate his performance against Bolton a week prior and there was a general worrying sense of timidness (timidity?) in our attacking play. For all van Persie’s quality, the rest really need to start stepping up in his absence. The major positive to take from the game was the return of Tommy V and subsequent clean sheet. I imagine he looked around the changing room post match and boomed “You see?! Not so difficult is it?”.

The draw meant qualification is still not certain. Three points against Dortmund will mean progression and top spot. I don’t think I need to go into why that is so important.

Taking a Stan-d

Off the pitch, Silent Stan piped up saying some stuff. It was one of those weird interviews where he said a lot but nothing at all. Some people tried to spin it to suggest he would go down the Manchester United route to put the club in debt for the sake of big spending and… wait, it says ‘trophies’ here? Surely not? The truth isn’t even remotely exciting. He made it clear that he would retain the ‘self-sustaining’ modezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz…. His endorsement of ‘developing’ players against ‘[throwing] money against the wall’ seems to suggest that we kiss goodbye the idea of significant investment to compete in the transfer market. ‘Transition’ ahoy! In a nutshell, his ownership w
ill change diddly-squat about the current set-up and philosophy. It makes you wonder why he’s even there. Ah yes, to line his own pockets. Fantastic!

Looking ahead – Bagging up!

It’s West Brom this weekend and while people might look at this as three points in the bag, they’d be very wrong to underestimate Roy Hodgson’s team. They’ve been hit and miss this season and were particularly poor last week against Liverpool but have put in brilliant performances against both Manchester United and Chelsea where they were unfortunate to come away with nothing.

I don’t think any of us will forget the shambles at the Emirates last season where were all convinced that we were victims of some elaborate game show where a member of the public had managed to blag his way into the Arsenal team and play in goal. Actually, had that been the case, I’m sure they would have performed better than Manuel Almunia in that astonishing 3-2 defeat. Having suffered an ‘injury’ in the match, it looked as though it would be the last time gooners would have to suffer the hapless Spaniard between the sticks. But like some awful horror sequel, The ghost of Manny came back for the return game at the Hawthorns where he conspired to gift the Baggies yet another goal in a disappointing 2-2 draw. As (bad) luck would have it, the out of favour Almunia this week returned from his loan spell at West Ham. Pray to any religious deity you care to mention that Szczesny and Fabianski aren’t struck down with lupus pre-match or else we could find history repeating itself in the worst way…

We are also entering our fabled ‘November of dread’. I can’t be bothered to drag up the stats but I’m pretty sure things aren’t as bad as have been portrayed in the past. Hopefully we can put all that jive talk to one side with a good win to continue the recent good run. Goals last weekend and the clean sheet in midweek should provide a decent enough platform for us to go into this game confident of taking the three points. ML we probably do team news at some point so go to him if you want it. This isn’t the place for it….

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