Up For Grabs Now

So we won last night against West Brom thanks to a goal from Sanchez Watt, I said a goal from Sanchez Watt, what? A goal from Sanchez what what. Sanchez – what, has the man no surname, what? No, he’s Sanchez Watt. Ah, Sanchez Watt. Yes. What.

That’s quite enough of that, you might think. And you would be right. Carl Vela popped up for the second one, and that was game over. We were helped by the fact that Jerome Thomas got sent off. This is a nice, circular and almost poetic conclusion to a saga that has been ongoing.

Dedicated and keen-eyed supporters will remember Jerome Thomas as a striker at Arsenal way back in the day who after some early promise fell victim to Arsene’s policy of only having one striker with two first names. In one of our typically made-up exclusives, I can give you the full transcript of their final, fateful exchange:

AW: Ah, hello Jerome.

            JT: Sorry to bother, boss, just I’ve been hearing some rumours.

            AW: Ah yes?

            JT: Well it’s just some of the boys been saying you’re hiring a new striker with two first names.

            AW: Ah, oui. I was meaning to speak with you about this.

            JT: So it’s true?

            AW: A oui. Ah am afraid so.

            JT: But boss!

            AW: Eet is not your fault. Eet is just both of his first names are so very fine.

            JT: What are they?

            AW: Well one of his first names is Henry. And the first first name is Thierry. It is French for Thierry. You must agree it is a fine first name no?

            JT:  What’s wrong with Jerome? Jerome’s a nice first name.

            AW: A oui. But it eez not so French as Thierry.

            JT: Yes its. Jerome. It’s French.

            AW: A oui, but it does not sound so French like Thierry. Thierry is a lovely French first name. Henry is a lovely English first name. It is not your fault that Jerome and Thomas are not such nice first names. I am sorry. I really wanted you to be the striker with two first names, but Thierry and Henry are just much nicer first names. He sounds like an artiste, you sound like a, how you say, peinteir et decorateur…

            JT: mumbling bitterly, crying slightly – I’ll never forget this, boss. You’ve done me over here. I’ll get my revenge one day. Just you wait. In a future Carling Cup match I will slightly push a rising starlet of yours. Then you’ll be sorry!

            AW: Ah ha ha. Oh no, Jerome Thomas. I will not. For after this leetle push a revenge goal will be scored by your nemesis, a young striker with not two, not one, but zheroh first names! EE will be called Sanchez Watt, and of eem up and down the country will be said – Sanchez Watt? And ah will reply, a oui. Sanchez Watt – the bandit with no first names. You may interrogate a Mexican with him. The Mexican Inquistion…non. Actually non.

Nobody expects the Sanchez inquisition. 

Don’t forget you can still win one of five ‘Gaffer’ mugs from our friends down at Philosophy Football. Simply answer the following question – How many doubles have Arsenal won under Arsene Wenger? Answers with your personal details (specifically address/email) to admin@philosophyfootball.com by the end of September. 

Oh, what to make of it all? There was a time when I looked out for the Man Utd and Tottenham results and wanted them both to lose. It didn’t really matter who they were playing, except when they played each other when I generally hoped for a draw, injuries to key players and some long-term suspensions.

Yesterday Ashley Cole scored against Spurs. What was I meant to do?

It was the most emotionally confusing moment since a couple of hours earlier I found myself cheering Michael Owen’s winner for Man Utd. Then I saw the United fans celebrating and I stopped. Then I saw Mark Hughes’ face and I started all over again.

And what’s a Gooner to do when confronted with the spectacle of Craig Bellamy punching a United fan in the face? Whose side are we meant to be on?

Truly, Arsenal are a club surrounded by a wilderness of cunts.

Spurs and United are clubs with a long and despicable tradition of being cunts, whereas Ashley Cole may be the worst bloke alive, but he is only one bloke, not an entirely evil institution with a proven history of cuntishness – and City have only recently become complete cunts, though that doesn’t look like changing soon.

So yesterday was confusing. And there’ll be more like this to come with so many hateful clubs and individuals now in the mix, and that’s not even counting former footballer David Bentley.

My advice is to focus on the player/team that comes off worst, and to revel in their misery.

So don’t think about Cashley, think about Daniel Levy. Don’t think about United winning the Champs League, just remember John Terry making a tit of himself with the most important kick of his career.

In other news, Thomas Vermaelen’s goalscoring, fist-pumping, brave headering start in an Arsenal shirt has forced us to revise our previous comparisons – we now insist that Nemanja Vidic be referred to as ‘A Poor Man’s Thomas Vermaelen’ .

It has also strengthened the impression that new signings are always better than what we already have, not just because they’re new and shiny, but also because they’re better.

This impression only adds to the clamour for more spending, but we’d do well to remember that some signings are absolutely pants, and that Wenger’s recent purchasing of two players (for whom Man City would now almost certainly be prepared to pay £60-70m) for just £25m combined makes him a complete genius.

Signing players this good isn’t at all easy. And seeing as we’ve got very little cash, it’s just a good thing we’ve got the right man spending it.

Talking of Le Gaffer not being a mug, here’s a Gaffer mug. It is, as you might say, up for grabs now  (ahem) as part of our glamorous tryst with our friends at Philosophy Football.

To get your mits on Arsene’s mug simply answer the following question: how many domestic doubles have Arsenal won with Arsene in charge? Please email your answer with name and address to admin@philosophyfootball.com with ‘UpForGrabsNow Competition’ in the subject title. Entries close on the 30^th September.

Let's hope this isn't the only cup with Arsene written all over it this season

Two and a half minutes of my life that might as well never have happened were those I just spent watching our squad for tonight gently jogging about, to a climactic electric guitar backing soundtrack, as if the vision of our whipper-snappers ambling around London Colney in distinctly pedestrian fashion wasn’t blood-curdling enough for Arsenal TV Online’s free video.

No, there’s an advert for a Bruce Willis movie before it, so if we just show Eboue scratching his balls and the sound of passing traffic everyone will (completely unjustifiably) think our video’s crap.

Or maybe this is one of Arsene’s special training methods. Do we always train to electric guitar, I wonder?

Maybe that’s why Ade’s so angry with everyone at the club – he used to put on hardcore Togonian rap about shopping, but then Denilson said it gave him a mild headache. Van Persie put on some bland electric guitar music instead, and eight weeks later, Ade got his revenge by stamping on his face.

Just as plausible as the other explanations I’ve heard for Ade’s thuggery if you ask me, including his own garbled mutterings about the various people who do or don’t love him.

Tonight we face a Standard Liege side shorn of their highly rated skipper Steve “Definitely” Defour, but we may well have to face the Belgian Butcher Axel Witsel, who will be well rested as he’s in the middle of an eight match ban for chopping another player’s leg in half. Highly rated player, Witsel, and it’ll be interesting to see how he fares against us.

In turn, we will, predictably, be without most of our players, but look certain to see Vito Mannone start in goal. Fabianski must be kicking himself. Except if he did he might injure himself some more and squander still further this rare opportunity to stake his claim ahead of our marvellously hirsute Spanish English Neutral (Swiss?) Waiter Goalkeeper.

There are those who have already written off Mannone on the strength of very little, really. They’d rather see Wojciech Szczesny have a go, if only in the vain hope that David Pleat may have to attempt to pronounce his name in a live broadcast.

Personally, I’m more concerned with letting SuperJack have a run-out. It’d also be lovely to see Sanchez Watt make his bow at Europe’s top table. Blessed with the finest name to emerge from Arsenal’s academy since Quincy Owusu-Abeye (his full name is actually Herschel Sanchez Watt), Sanchez has long been a firm favourite here on UpForGrabsNow. He’s got pace, skill and a rare hairstyle/great name combination that promises much.

That said, we’ll probably go with Mannone, The Back Four, Song, Fabregas, Diaby, Rosicky, Bendtner and Eduardo.I’d be tempted to put Rosicky in central midfield instead of Diaby and put Wilshere on the left, but I’d say it’s more likely that Diaby will start on the wing with Eboue roving around the midfield like a maniac.

Always interested to hear your thoughts.

One man full of thoughts today was Arsene Wenger, who has had his say on everything from Eduardo to player quotas to Vermaelen and Adebawhore.

Most impressive was his quip about Mark Hughes, which I enjoyed mainly because Hughes is exactly the kind of guy the English media love to paint as an honest, straight-talking, decent-family-values guy, when in fact he’s a nonsensical git whose teams have always been a bunch of thugs - until he could afford to buy players of Adebawhore’s calibre. And as soon as he did that he started stamping on the limbs and faces of former team-mates.

But Hughes won’t last long at City. And let’s hope the mental Togonian doesn’t either.

FREE AT LAST: With his caging quashed, the 'Boruc One' is set to be unleashed on Europe's penalty boxes once again

Since there is literally nothing going on of any relevance to the Arsenal this day feels a bit like doing a jig in treacle. Except for the internationals, which are relevant to us only in the way that it’s relevant that your female friends go on a sex tourism holiday somewhere – ie, you hope they don’t get raped by a local or trip on a rusty chlamydia-nail, but other than that you’d rather they came back quickly and didn’t talk too much about it.

Or alternatively, if they insist on talking about it, that it involves a hideous drug dealer they met called Ashley Cole whom they brutally maimed with a cheese fork before stealing his wallet, only to give him back a whole load of money to confuse him and then orchestrate a massive economic crisis and hyperinflation in the country of the currency you gave him so that during his recuperation his money becomes worth less and less whilst he is unable to move due to his mangling, then just as he regains the ability to walk his money becomes valuable again, so he skips triumphantly into the road where he is hit by a van carrying horse sperm, the impact of which shatters his already fragile legs before he drowns in the sperm.

So there’s not much going on basically.

However, for the blog we have several large pieces of news. Firstly we have, after almost a year of operation, been added by the mighty arseblog to his blogroll. Now to those of you in the outside world this might seem rather a sad thing to celebrate, but for us young blogs, rolling around in the pigsty of the internet hoping some of the poo will stick to us, it is excellent news. Anyone who finds us from there, welcome, and many thanks to arseblog. We feel like we’ve arrived.

We have also been added to newsnow, meaning that we have been accepted as a respectable and serious source of Arsenal news, and not a collection of underqualified morons specialising in baiting other, more angrily earnest blogs (see the past). We welcome further anyone who has joined us from here, and apologise in advance for offending you with tales of Islington Shuffle and other tittle-tattle.

Ho hum. Goodness it’s slow. Anyone been anywhere nice on holiday? Don’t forget you can guarantee you always receive our high-quality posts by signing up below to the mailing list.

So the news this evening is that Chelsea have been hit with an almost incredibly funny ban on transfers until 2011, for tapping up Gael Kakuta. The parallels with the Eduardo diving story are interesting. In both cases, the guilty party has been handed an unprecedented and apparently disproportionate punishment for an offence widespread throughout the game. Eduardo was banned for 2 European matches for taking a dive against Celtic a couple of weeks ago. Many fans objected to this, as proven by the lively discussion on Grabs’ blog, on the grounds that he was being made an example of.

The sting of this for Gooners, fairly mild at the worst of times (most agreed it looked like a dive, and few would complain that we’ll really miss him that much in a Champions League group that makes the Blue Square Premier look like La Liga), has now been almost totally eased by the decision passed on Chelsea, who as it stands may not sign anyone for two transfer windows, being the new year slot this season and next summer. For a club of their player turnover and incompetence with raising theier own young talent this is seriously disruptive, and more to the point hits them nowhere near their wallet. Abramovich could happily chin almost any fine thrown at him, but this punishment affects (as it ought, perhaps) their ability to function as a club.

Chelsea fans will think the ban outrageously harsh. They will say the same things we did a few days ago – that everyone taps up players, and if they’re going to be punished why not all the others. They will say they have been made an example of. They have been, and quite right too. These rules exist to prevent lecherous wealthy clubs from luring promising youngsters to break their contracts. Much as I’m on the side of Arsenal, a rich club, I also mostly like to think of myself as not being a total dickhead, and so in principle I totally support the little clubs. Football is biased enough towards the wealthy without this sort of thing too. Given that it tends to concern the livelihoods of young, vulnerable players, not to mention often the financial security of the smaller clubs, tapping up should be fought if at all possible.

The big clubs will always find ways to exert their extra strength. This does not mean FIFA ought not try as hard as it can to regulate against it. Similarly, players will always find ways to deceive the referee – this too does not mean the authorities ought not do whatever they can to fight it. I for one have long advocated using a fourth official, as in rugby, for contentious decisions. It rarely takes more than thirty seconds or a minute. Similarly, no player bar the captain should be allowed to address the referee, be it applauding a decision or contesting a penalty. If a few players got booked for this sort of behaviour its incidence would plummet. Players, like clubs, do whatever they can get away with. On the whole Gooners I know are on the side of fair play and non-twattishness, leaving that to the likes of United and Bolton.  We cannot wish it with one hand and wish it away with the other. We cannot bemoan UEFA’s inaction and then bemoan its actions too, however much of a knobber Platini might be.

After Eduardo, harsh as it seemed at the time, players will think twice about taking a tumble. After Chelsea, clubs will think twice about tapping a player up. No fan can disagree with these. It’s unfortunate that the first one happened to an Arsenal player, but in the context of Chelsea’s punishment it seems that, if it is the season of example-making, we have escaped rather lightly.

Now, all together now – let’s all laugh at Chelsea. 

So UEFA have thrown the book at Eduardo. To be precise, they have thrown Article 10, section 1, point c of the UEFA Disciplinary Guide at him. He has been given:

“suspension for two competition matches or for a specified period for acting with the obvious intent to cause any match official to make an incorrect decision or supporting his error of judgement and thereby causing him to make an incorrect decision.”

Introduced in 2006 the rule has only ever used in incidents involving the Scottish FA (twice – this is the second time). One is put strongly in mind of the ancient Scottish folksong, still sung throughout the land today: “SFA: Wank wank wank, SFA: Wank wank wank!” 

There are several wonderful things about this most vague of rules.

As Arsene has pointed out it relies on the well-established principle of mens rea, something it is exceptionally tricky to establish simply by scrutinising the facial expression of the accused as they tumble floorwards, though you can certainly have a great argument in a pub about it. Did the culprit writhe or simply collapse, for example?

The other great thing about it is that there isn’t any kind of time-based cut-off. The law came into force in 2006, so every time a player has attempted to deceive the referee and has gone unpunished since 2006 could now be met with a two match ban. These punishments are retrospective, and anything since the law was passed is fair game.

Needless to say, this could pose quite a problem to serial cheats.

Take Ronaldo. Since 2006, Cristiano Ronaldo has appeared in 37 Champions League matches, 14 Euro 2008 qualifiers and 4 Euro 2008 games. That’s 55 appearances under Uefa jurisdiction, without even including friendlies. And it’s all on tape for Uefa’s disciplinary panel to have a good look at just as soon as they’ve finished harassing Eduardo.

Being (very) charitable I would say that having watched Ronaldo regularly he probably successfully deceives the referee – mostly through diving – at least once every two games he plays. I’m not joking – the regularity of his diving may well be unprecedented in world football. They’re not all high-profile incidents – he has won countless long-forgotten free-kicks in midfield by intentionally tripping himself up and hitting the deck. Mostly, he goes unpunished, though his collection of dive-earned yellow cards wouldn’t play in his favour. And it doesn’t matter if these dives won penalties or not.

As for establishing mens rea, the prosecution should be able to mount a pretty serviceable character assassination based on footage of the young man winking at his bench after cunningly getting his club-mate sent off in 2004.

At that rate, Uefa would have at least 27 incidents involving Ronaldo to look into, with the possibility of 2 game bans for each of them.

Hello 54 match ban! Goodbye mountains of TV dollars!

It can’t be one rule for Eduardo and another for everyone else. If Uefa are serious, then they’d better get busy with the video archive of Drogba, Gerrard, Rooney and Torres over the last 3 years.

They say they are on a mission to stamp diving out of the game altogether. Go on then.