Up For Grabs Now

So it seems like there are a few things that need to be set straight.

Firstly, the self-styled Militant Tendency amongst the moaners have got to sit down and be quiet. Now. If they need an outlet for their misguided fury, they should join UKIP, where they can fight it out with harmless others.

Put up, or shut up! … In fact, no, just shut up.

Terrifyingly, some of them even got to speak to Wenger directly this week, clearly an experience he did not enjoy. And why should he? He is the club’s greatest post-war manager, having brought untold success and stability to the club and maintained elite performance despite having bugger-all cash and rotten luck. He shouldn’t have to deal with this sort of shit. Of course he’s made a few mistakes, but that doesn’t give any gibbering idiot with a copy of SuperGoals and a reading age of seven the right to have a go.

Such people are not Arsenal’s affliction alone. You only need to look at the behaviour of the United fans who, on the day that they won the title against one of their bitterest enemies, chose to celebrate by whingeing incessantly about the future of one member of the club’s stellar strikeforce and throwing beer-cans at the front of the stadium. A protest about transfers. On the day they retained the world’s most prestigious championship. From which tree etc…

We need a massive show of support for Wenger this weekend to let him know that Arsenal are not a club supported entirely by psychotic Football Manager fantasists, and that some of us know a good thing when we see it.

Wenger leaving would be a catastrophe. If he were to do so as a result of the people who’re meant to be supporting Arsenal, it would be truly, truly shameful.

Secondly, Guillem Balague (the man vilified by many for this whole Arsene to Madrid thing) is not an idiot, nor is he a bad journalist. He’s a very good and very well-connected one – especially about anything involving Real Madrid or Spaniards in the Premiership. Back in December it was Balague who was first to report the full extent of Fabregas’ injury, when the rest of the press thought they were doom-mongering by putting him down as out for only 3 weeks. He has clearly got a very interesting phonebook.

However, he is Spanish and he is a Madridista. The Spanish style of football journalism, as anyone who read Marca during Henry and Vieira’s various on-off transfers can attest, makes no bones about launching into extensive, detailed speculative accounts of what could happen, given recent news-flow. Balague’s more imaginative claims at the end of his piece on Wenger, where you can pretty much hear 5 being made out of the addition of 2 and 2 between every sentence, is really more of a stylistic flourish than anything to get het up about. You’d be unlikely to find a British journo mapping out a possible course of events with such confidence and precision, but that’s just a cultural preference.

While suspicious of sure-footed prognostication, British hacks certainly do a fine line in bare-arsed, shame-faced fabrication. The Daily Heil, for example, has a proud history of racism, sexism, Nazi-sympathising… and talking complete and utter codshit about Arsenal FC (apologies, James from The Apprentice). This week they tossed in the figure of £13 million and announced that this was to be Arsene’s summer transfer pot. Not 2 days previously, Arsene had told the shareholders meeting (which was right after a board meeting):

We spoke about funds and yes there is money available.

There! Right there! He said there was only £13 million and so he’s going to leave! He said it in front of everyone! Now it’s true!

“Money available” = “£13 million”. Fact of the British Press. Baffled? You wouldn’t be the only one.

As I mentioned before, I’m done with the team’s performances this season, and I’m not going to talk too much about the nil-all United love-in at Old Trafford which just happened, except to grudgingly concede Alex Ferguson’s achievement. As we saw so painfully over the last few weeks, they’re a cracking team, with the mixture of grit and flair we’ve yet to find. Obviously they’re all still a pack of cunnies, but there you are.

But back to non-playing Arsenal news, and Adebayor’s here, giving an interview to Football Focus that does nothing to reassure anyone about his commitment to the club. Aside from nonsensically denying the AC Milan stories (“if Milan come for Adebayor, it’s not Adebayor’s fault”) that have enraged everyone, he then says that the fans have disappointed him with their booing and lack of singing his song.  I must say that Garth Crooks’ subtly antagonistic, patronising style of interviewing (“do you like it when they sing your song?”) is completely infantilising, and proof if any was needed that racism doesn’t have to be about skin colour.

Speaking about his season, Adebayor seems to suggest that it was the fans’ attitude, and not his lackadaisical idleness in front of goal and flirting with Milan, that caused them to turn on him. What crap. If the man wants a future at Arsenal he needs to grow up. Even without any signings next season with Bendtner a year older, Vela chomping at the bit, Walcott keen to move central, Arshavin looking dangerous wherever and Van Persie an automatic starter he’s going to have his work cut out for a place.

It seems increasingly unlikely he’ll be here. Would anyone really miss him?

Don’t forget about the Philosophy Football dinner listed below. Should be a great night, and a pleasant end to a season which has otherwise been a bit ugly…

We interrupt our usual waffle to bring you details of what sounds like a cracking party organised by our friends at Philosophy Football. Couldn’t be more fitting, really, an ‘Up For Grabs Now’ celebration for the UpForGrabsNow blog – we’ll both be doing our utmost to be there and not be completely smashed. Probably. Although I’m suspicious about what might go in a Michael Thomas beer. Yuk. But seriously it looks like it’ll be great fun, and both Grabs and myself urge you to head on down…

The self-styled ’sporting outfitters of intellectual distinction’ at www.philosophyfootball.com have not only produced a superbly unofficial Anfield ‘89 anniversary T-shirt, which you can see below, they’ve also booked the superb Offside Bar and Gallery in Islington, nearest tube The Angel, for Tuesday 26 May, for a smash-up party to celebrate the 20^th anniversary of Arsenal’s league victory and the commentary from which this blog gets its name.

There will be a specially brewed Michael Thomas beer at ‘89 prices with old- school pie and chips supper to start this evening of Gooner nostalgia off. A specially commissioned photo exhibition featuring many previously unseen photos of that glorious season will be launched on the night.

As kick-off approaches a brilliant panel will have an hour of chat on all things Arsenal. Jason Cowley is the author of the new book about that season The Last Game : Love, Death and Football. Jason will be joined by Amy Lawrence, football writer on The Observer who in ‘89 was an Arsenal fanzine writer. All-round Gooner personality and broadcaster Tom Watt will be sharing his memories while John Williams, author of The Liverpool Way will be reminding us of the awful shadow Hillsborough cast on the game too. In the chair will be Jon Spurling, Arsenal’s unofficial historian and author of Highbury : The Story of Arsenal in N5.

Then at 8.05 it will be like travelling back in time. On the big screen the match in its entirety shown in real time complete with half- time punditry from the panel. With a pub packed full of Gooners the Offside Bar will be transformed tardis-like back twenty years, complete with a 1989 soundtrack.

There’s a small charge plus a pub-price meal available with big discounts if you book a table of 4, 6 or 8 places and make it a night out for you and your family or mates. Best of all tho’ your ticket is £5 voucher on the night against any of Philosophy Football’s T-shirts bought meaning it really costs you next to nothing.

Philosophy Football events ALWAYS SELL OUT, and places are limited, So do book early, visit www.philosophyfootball.com and click on the ‘events’ button, alternatively call 020 8802 3499.

Levels of doomed oneupmanship reached new heights across North London today as Paul Barber, Executive Director of tottenham hotspur, (alleged “Football Club”,) very nearly bragged his own balls off about their planned new stadium.

“Fans want a better atmosphere than the Emirates,” Barber said.

“Our architects have drawn up plans to make the front row of seats at the new stadium 5 metres closer to the pitch than the Emirates.”

Fuck! They must have architects working with an exact scale replica of the Emirates and they just tinker around with it a bit to give them a piffling sense of superiority. Dye it white, for example. that’s a good start. We may have a crap team and be the worst run club in the world, but I am oh so much closer to Pascal Chimbonda than you’ll ever be. I can really smell the pungent stench of mercenary mediocrity. Wow. Now could you fill it with a really good team? Didn’t think so.

Chairman Daniel Levy added “Too often new stadiums are surrounded by empty, dead space and we did not want that in Tottenham.”

And if he was telling the whole truth he would have added “We keep our empty, dead space on the pitch, and in my thick bald head, and in our trophy cabinet. But by God, we won’t tolerate any around the pitch, that would be dreadful.”

In the words of Borat, that was fun. NAAAT. A 4-1 home defeat to the blue scum to put paid to our season’s purpose, and to ask some serious questions about the team over the summer break. I don’t want to talk too much about the match itself; it was frankly all pretty bleak. Though we started brightly, and made far more chances at least than against United, you always felt (as you tend to with this side), that the opposition could score. In this case the opposition did score.

I know we’ve got a couple of matches left, but to my mind the season is over, humorous as it would be to delay United at Old Trafford it’s hard to see it happening, and we can take a little stock.

People will argue that the season has been a total disaster, and others will argue that we came within touching distance of finals in the Champions League and the FA Cup, and that 4^th place in the league is not so shabby. The truth is probably somewhere in the middle. We haven’t won anything, ergo failure, and as an Arsenal fan I won’t dispute that. At times we’ve played some scintillating football, as good as it’s ever been, but you do feel we lack a certain something.

Arsene’s been banging on all year about the ‘spirit’ this group of players has, but to be honest I think that ‘spirit’ is exactly what they’re lacking. Undoubtedly the current lot are talented and young, but what was so obviously missing against Chelsea and Utd was the toughness that says ‘Fuck you, we’re going to win this match’, and then goes about achieving it. Some players gain this by experience, some innately have it, but at the moment I don’t feel that anyone at Arsenal really has it. Someone who will grab the rest of them by the balls and not let go till we’ve won some stuff. That would be great. 

I’m baffled. Let me explain:

Sunday May 10, 2009: Carlos Tevez explains his summer intentions to the News of the World – “I want to play in England because it is the best league in the world and it suits my style. Any club I join, whether it be Arsenal, Chelsea, Manchester City, Liverpool or Everton, will be a rival of Manchester United.”

Monday May 11, 2009: SPURS JOIN TEVEZ RACE.

Hmmm.

“We live in a world where everyone can have opinions, but it’s people who have responsibilities who make decisions”.

Wise words from Wenger this afternoon as he faced the ravenous press-pack ahead of the Chelsea game on Sunday. Words which will certainly be ignored by the Arsenal blogosphere as the demand for big-money headline-grabbing signings prepares to reach unprecedented levels of shrillness and urgency.

But words which are well worth keeping in mind as Gooners everywhere prepare to while away the summer scribbling speculative shopping lists  everywhere from the backs of menus and old bank statements to the communal scribble-zones that are Arsenal blogs. It’s fun, and it’s something to think about when no-one’s actually playing, but it would be nice if people remembered that no-one with the remotest connection to the decision-making process at the Emirates is reading them

The problem, you see, is that people forget. They form uncompromising cabals, reach a consensus and demand immediate action according to their recommendations. We the readers of Blog X have decided that we must punish most of the squad by selling them off to Portsmouth and that we should buy Villa, Gokhan Inler, Brede Hangeland… etc

That’s fine. Everyone’s entitled to have an opinion and express it, especially if it has some basis – eg having seen the player actually play. Just please don’t expect anything to be done about it once you’ve formed your opinion.

Personally, I think Wenger’s hitherto unwavering confidence in his players took a bit of a battering this month. You could see it in his post-match, thoroughly pissed off TV interview. Not that I expect wholesale changes, I just think he knows we need to get quite a bit stronger if we’re not to see the same old story next season. United have set the bar very high indeed – there aren’t many Arsenal teams I would have backed to beat them over 2 legs – and we’ve got to find a way to compete.

Andrey Arshavin is Sick. Not merely sick in a “bare sick, bruv” kind of way either, but actually ill, fluey, off-colour, peaky, diseased. Which means we probably won’t beat Chelsea on Sunday. Sad but true.

Speaking of Chelsea, am I literally the only Arsenal fan who felt a teensy bit *gasp* sorry for them on Wednesday night. Now I hate the lot of them with a vigour bordering on the violent, and when I saw Ashley Cole in a state of emotional collapse after Iniesta’s incredible strike, I leapt to my feet and performed the international gesture for “suck my balls”. But somehow it all looked very unfair.

Not just a bit unfair, but actually so unfair that you start to feel guilty about enjoying it, and you also worry that Barca won’t be good enough to trouble United in the final. Forget slagging off Drogba, I say. If I’d been in his position I’d have done the same thing, or worse. Most Arsenal fans are proud of Keown for his big gloat at Van Nistelrooy and of Parlour and Lauren for backing him up. I just don’t buy this moralising swill that the journalists seem to think is somehow original. Drogba was right. It was a disgrace deserving of all manner of obscenities.

It’s very difficult to put the size of this evening into words. You all know what it feels like right now. A few hours to kick-off. Dreams and nightmares all morning, then all afternoon. For some reason I decided to wear my yellow away socks all day under my jeans. Pulled right up to the knees. It’s itchy under there, and it’s tense.

People play football all over the world, every single week. Arsenal play most of those weeks. But sometimes football gives certain players, certain teams, certain fans, the chance to achieve something which will never be forgotten.

Much of the British press was this morning presenting the game as essential if Arsenal are to keep their bigger names at the club. Even with a game as big as this, all they’re interested in is transfer gossip. Pathetic. If all they’re interested in is the transfer market, on this of all days, then they need to find themselves a new interest, and get someone who knows and cares about football to write about it.

Tonight isn’t about who stays and who goes, who might be here next season and who might not. Who cares? That stuff will sort itself out, frankly. It’s about Arsenal playing Man Utd for a place in the European Champions’ League Final. And it’s about making sure we win.

Sammy Nasri says that tonight has got to be “like a volcano” and I’d say that’s about right. There aren’t many sides against which I wouldn’t back us hands down to overhaul a slim, single-goal deficit in a home second-leg. But United are a little different, and last week they seemed to have what very, very few teams ever achieve against Arsenal – control.

Bits of tonight will be tense, testy, and all about control. Getting the ball down, keeping it, crafting out decent chances. Playing it patient, tight and waiting for good openings. But knowing Arsenal – and unless things go horribly wrong – we’re likely to see at least a bit of volcano before the night is through. A bit of Champions’ League Night madness where everything goes absolutely crazy.

Let’s hope our boys can stand the heat, and that we come out of that volcano staring at May 27th in Rome.

With RvP back and ready to score the big goals to fire us to the Final, the team will almost certainly by a 4-4-2: Almunia, Sagna, Gibbs, Toure, Silvestre, Nasri, Walcott, Fabregas, Song, Van Persie, Adebayor.

It might be tempting to switch Sagna to left back (where he can easily adapt) and bring in Eboue at right-back for his experience. Others have suggested starting Djourou ahead of Silvestre, which is similarly tempting but would have the opposite effect in terms of experience. An unpopular variation would see some kind of 4-5-1 involving Abou Diaby, perennially chosen for the big games, it seems.

As always, delighted to have your thoughts on who you want to see in, and who you’d rather sit out.

Twenty years ago this month, on May 26th, 1989, Arsenal went to the reigning champions of England needing to win by 2 clear goals to win the League. Our victory that night couldn’t have come any later, and couldn’t have felt any better. It has inspired generations of Gooners since, and always will.

Tonight, of all the nights between that one and this, for Arsenal, it really is Up For Grabs Now.

What a frustrating evening that was. With a bit of hindsight it’s a little less sore, but Wednesday night was difficult viewing for all Arsenal fans. From the kick-off we were dominated in basically every position by a United side who frankly looked like a team that had won the European Cup, the Premiership and the World Club Cup in the last year.  Which they have. Which isn’t, in hindsight, that perceptive of an observation. A bit like pointing out that Cristiano Ronaldo is a leg-trailing, knee-sliding, shiny-faced, rat-toothed cuntbutler who was named after Ronald Reagan.

But seriously. Were it not for Manuel the Spanish English? Spanish waiter goalkeeper making a series of unprecedented saves, we could easily have been three-nil down by halftime. Diaby was cacking around with his stupid moustache, Adebayor was uselessly muscling against Vidic and Ferdinand, and Cesc was marked out of the game. At every turn there was a United player who looked leaner (Rooney aside, obviously) and hungrier for the ball than our guy. Sad to watch. Kieran Gibbs and Alex Song struggled manfully to contain Ronaldo, but the two of them were never going to have an easy time of it.

I don’t think anyone was surprised when they scored, although I personally was surprised that a team earning, collectively, half a million pounds a week for the playing of football appeared never to have defended a corner before. And after that we never really looked like getting back into it, although towards the end of the second half United seemed to stop bothering so much. But if you think of the chances they had, to escape 1-0 seems like a minor miracle. Are there any positives? Almunia delivered a big game when it mattered. Good on him. And Alex Song can keep pace with the best of them. Other than that it was pretty frustrating.

All to play for at the Emirates, and it’s going to be very hard, but I think we can do it. Who knows: a burst from Theo in the first five minutes and its even again. You never can tell.

Anyway before then we’ve got Portsmouth in the league, a game which exists purely to injure and tire our players before Tuesday. Arshavin will probably score fifteen goals on his own again just to irritate. Yuk. Hopefully we’ll play our reserve side. 

The most unfortunate thing of all was that Silvestre proved what I suspected all along -that just before he got good again, Eboue told Silvestre What Arsene Did Last Summer, just in case Eboue found some form and forgot what Arsene Did Last Summer. I can’t believe this has happened. I also believe Diaby may have been eavesdropping on that conversation, so Arsene thinks Diaby might know What Arsene Did Last Summer, but can’t quite be sure. Not a good state of affairs, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Come on the Arsenal. Eat spinach all weekend, or whatever it is you have to do to beat the hideous Manc bastards on Tuesday.