Up For Grabs Now

Has anybody noticed how quickly the name ‘Emirates’ has become totally acceptable? I remember all those doubters demanding that Arsenal fans gang up and insist on the rather more awkward Ashburton Grove. It probably has something to do with ‘Emirates’ not being an very recognisable brand name – more the name of a country. It would be worse were it ‘The Durex Ultra Arena’ or the ‘Mothercare Bowl’, or ‘White Hart Lane’. Emirates is neutral, and not unpleasant to the tongue. Ho hum.

You can ponder that to your heart’s content. Rather more pressing is Bolton’s visit tomorrow night, which will give us the chance of going 2^nd again, one point behind Chelsea. Not many would have given us that when we were overwhelmed by the ghastliness of Didier Drogba last month, and it’s great that we’re so competitive. No chicken counting yet, mind. He’s off to the ACN to ply his brand of muscular offensiveness over there for a bit. It’s a massive blow for them: twattishness is to the operation of that team like petrol to a large, dreadful car, and Didier is like a big fat girlie-haired tank full of the stuff. I’d be extremely surprised if they got through without dropping some points – all that matters is that we capitalise.

We’re not without our own absences – notably Alex Song, who provided a timely reminder of his excellence with a granite performance against West Ham, which should certainly have earned him man of the match had it not been for Ramsay’s  He provokes such confusing sensations, does Song. I spent so long mocking him at every opportunity through the medium of sarcastic praise that now he’s become a Talismanic Cog™ I’ve become all conflicted. He’ll be missed, and with Cesc’s injury proving troublesome there will be high expectations of Diaby and Ramsay. Ramsay I’m hopeful for, Diaby fingers crossed.

If the predicted sub-zero temperatures materialise then the Bolton fans will suddenly feel at home, like the zombies from 28 Days Later in the dark, and the Emirates will be transformed from a hospitable place with a handful of moronic Northerners terrified and cowering from the level of civilisation into an inhospitable Artic place filled with semi-naked moronic Northerners imbued with the confidence of the frostbitten mind. The midfield, in particular, will have to have their angry faces on, particularly if Arshavin’s dodginess is as bad as some fear – he and Big Tom are the only ones really cut out for the cold.

On the plus side, Bolton are unsettled and leak goals like Tiger Woods leaks credibility, and are at present staring longingly at the non-relegation part of the league like Alex Ferguson watching a video of himself when he was younger, before he was transformed into a barmy time-denier who spends his Sunday evenings wandering around complaining that the hilariously benevolent five minutes of injury time was not enough for his team of crack idiotic millionaires to score an equaliser against the Most Unpleasant Side In History.

Sorry for being so intermittent of late. Both Grabs and myself have been indulging our other scribbly personae – mine to forge a living, his to – well I’ve no idea really. But something. We’re back in force for the new year – Gingers For Limpar and others can rest easy.

Come on you reds.

I wish I could say that Grabber and I have been unable to blog this week because we have both been so exceptionally busy and important.

But no, our silence has in fact been the sound of a deep slumber, into which we both fell while trying desperately to excite ourselves about Arsenal.com’s brand new Andrei Arshavin mobile phone cyborg man (which makes him look more like a member of Narnia than the solution to our creative woes).

Finally, FINALLY, after a week so boring you could have given it an unsightly paunch and a smattering of facile populist witticisms and comfortably passed it off as Jeremy Clarkson, finally Arsenal have a game. It’s against Cardiff, it’s the first step in our 3 game map to the FA Cup semi-finals (all home draws) and, most memorably, it could see the return to full competitive action of Eduardo da Silva.

In fact, you couldn’t really have asked for a better night for a comeback. At home, against lower league opposition and with the team in need of a lift. I really hope he starts, though I would urge a cautious level of expectation until he has had a proper run in the team again. Even the best players don’t get their mojo back just like that and Eduardo will be no different.

One man who will be puffing his pink cheeks and stamping his pink feet in frustration if Eduardo starts ahead of him is Nicklas Bendtner, whose PR campaign took another turn for the worst as he revealed he is entitled to play “every minute of every game, no matter what”. How Mr Bendtner has arrived at this conclusion is anyone’s guess, really. Feel free to post suggestions in the comments if you have any ideas. It’s especially confusing because even the most amateurish body language analysis of Bendtner during a game reveals that he is just as frustrated as the fans are with his current performances, particularly his apparent inability to contribute anything other than the loss of possession. At least the fact that he seems to realise that he isn’t playing well would suggest that there is a “well” to Bendtner, just that we aren’t seeing it right now.

I’d like to see run-outs for Young Jack and Carl tonight, though I’m finding it hard to get inside Wenger’s head on this one. He picked a very strong team for the game in Cardiff and its hard to know how big a factor home advantage will be in his rationale. Very interested to hear your thoughts as the game approaches.

A lot of fans are getting huffy and puffy about Red&White’s upping of their stake in the club to just over 25%, and in a sense I can understand why, particularly those with concerns about Usmanov’s character. Yet I’m disinclined to pass any judgement on them as I simply do not know enough about them, specifically what their intentions are with Arsenal. Everyone was initially highly suspicious of Kroenke, yet now he is firmly one of “us”. Let’s just hold fire and see what happens. You don’t want to end up like the Utd fans who screamed “Utd not for sale!” so loudly before crawling rather shamefacedly back to Old Trafford when they saw the Championship and European Cup on their way.

Far too much has already been written about the ridiculous way in which the transfer took place. But am I the only one who enjoyed the whole sordid saga? Even found it a little bit funny? Was tickled by the spectacle of the online community nursing their wrath and bursting into infantile hissy fits every time the deal looked under threat? 

I can’t seriously be the only Gooner who was mildly amused by the spectacle of Brian Swanson (SkySports top dog) hoarsely bleating completely invented horseshit about Arshavin’s every move on the hour every hour. Swanson woke at the crack of dawn, hauled himself down to Arshavin’s hotel, saw a car leave with a man in it, made the appropriate mental sums, and informed the world that Andrey had departed for Russia – the deal was dead. What reason had he for saying these things? None.

It was as if Swanson chose to rage against the sheer indignity of his journalistic assignment (which could and possibly should have earnt him a restraining order had he not been wearing such a sharp suit) by seeing just how much misinformation he could generate in a single day – answer: a hell of a lot. As SkySports doyen Andy Gray would say (if Swanson looked a bit more like Steven Gerrard): “Take a bow, son.” 

SkySports have a lot to answer for regarding the mental health of most Gooners in the past few days. They kept releasing stories about Andrey’s various boardings/non-boardings of a plane in Russia. Again, it now emerges that AA was holed up in Paris and that once again Murdoch’s men had simply made the whole plane story up.

As we all know, the most important thing is not who you sign, it’s all about how much we pay and how successful the shirt-holding-up ceremony is. Tottenham are the absolute past masters at this. They won the summer hands down and now they’ve won the January window, leaking the kind of cash which ought to make them title-challengers but is more likely to make them 16th at best. If there was a trophy for believing the hype they’d be undisputed world champions.

They won the Summer. They won the Window. Now watch them suffer.

I will never, ever tire of linking to this article by the fine Rob Smyth in the sunshine of August where he confidently tipped Tottenham as the dark horses for the title this season. Also very pleasing to see that much of that logic was based on his belief that their signing Arshavin was imminent.

At least the fine folk at Arsenal.com seem to have finally realised the crucial importance of shirt-holding-up photographs of grinning young men in abating the transferlust of the faithful. They delivered in some style with a photo gallery of Andrey holding the shirt which went on and on until I could bear no more.

I’m not going to lie, by the end I felt bloated, a little queasy and kind of violated by the excess of red-shirted Russian flesh which I had just gorged myself on. My only disappointment was that they didn’t shoot it in the stadium a la Eduardo: I remember wandering vaguely onto Arsenal.com, leaping out of my seat and screaming “Who is that man and what is he doing with the number 9 shirt?!?

The other alternative is to have them pose with Arsene. This works especially well if the signing is particularly cunning. For example, no-one gets tired of those pictures of Thierry with Arsene on the Highbury pitch and the look in Arsene’s eyes which says: “I just signed a good ‘un. A really really good ‘un”.

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Andrey has arrived. Landed. Signed. Sealed. And given his first interview in broken English. “I like some of your players”. Good one! Not Eboue then. Russian diplomacy at its best.

The historical parallel to be drawn is obvious: Robert Pires.  The man we’ve missed so much. A dashing, goalscoring attacking midfielder brought in aged 27 as his career was clearly in the ascendancy. We got 6 great years and 2 Premierships out of Pires. Big shoes for Andrey to fill then, but he has the style and pedigree to do it.

From watching him last season when our interest was first mooted, the comparison does not seem outlandish, and if Arshavin can establish himself as Pires did (who, let’s not forget, had something of an uneasy beginning at the club) then we will soon have one of the finest wingers in the world. He’s fiendishly quick, has a good eye for the through ball and, most importantly, a knack of following up on loose balls, making defence-splitting runs and generally banging the ball into the net with the minimum of fuss.

That’s the history, though. In the short term, he’ll be filling Eboue’s boots on the right wing. Make of that whatever footwear metaphor you will, but please keep it clean.

A word of warning. I can’t help thinking that calling Arshavin “The Messiah” before he’s kicked a ball, saying he’s going to put the “S” in “Silverware” (which rather alarmingly suggests that before his arrival we were bound for something called “Ilverware”) and that he’s effectively going to allow Arsenal fans to time travel to circa May 2004 smacks of Geordie-ism (that most undignified fanatic affliction) and can do no good. Incidentally, yes, I’m talking about Le Grumble, which is today full of the joys of the world. Much happier, I notice, than when we beat Man Utd for example. It seems they really do just mindlessly regurgitate tabloid hype, positive or negative and you’ve got to wonder whether they wouldn’t all be happier supporting a team which is much more active in the transfer market, say Tottenham? 

Hopefully most fans have enough between their ears to keep expectations at a realistic level to avoid crippling disappointment.

I’ve also read quite a few Gooners fretting about what’s going to happen when we get Theo, Cesc and Rosicky back? Answer: we’re going to have a really good midfield again, at long last. The competition for places isn’t a worry at the moment, especially as Rosicky is still miles away, and in any case the lack of competition and thinness of the squad is a problem which Arshavin’s arrival goes some way to addressing, at least in the creative department.

Much will depend on how soon Arshavin is struck down with Arsenalitis, and forsakes the speeding-arrow-through-the-beating-defensive-heart-of-the-opposition philosophy which has led him this far in favour of our beloved Islington Shuffle. Looking at this compilation , (with thanks to Skatman for the link) our new boy really doesn’t look like a natural-born shuffler in the mould of a Hleb or a Diaby. Doubtless his first few days in training will be spent blunting his razor keen attacking instincts, practising misplaced square balls with the goal at his mercy and learning the rare beauty which comes from the concession of a goal-kick after 24 one-twos with Sagna.

Nah, I reckon Arsene will pretty much just unleash him when he’s fit and tell him to do what he does best. Don’t think we’ll see him against Tiny Totts though (and their new captain Robbie “Loyalty Bonus” Keane!) as he hasn’t played since November and sulking for months on end must have taken its toll.

The other half of this blog, a shifty character known to his friends as “Grabber”, has made a few enemies in recent weeks by repeatedly protesting that he did not want us to sign Andrey Arshavin. He had his reasons, and he stood by them.

I have shamelessly exploited this position at every opportunity to try and curry favour with the readership by backing our pursuit of him all the way and taking snide pot-shots at our Number 27 along the way. I now feel like I’ve curried enough favour to open my own tandoori on the Holloway Road and call it “The Arse Haven“, the idea being that the restaurant would offer clients both an innovative gastronomic pun and a soothing period of relaxation and cathartic release for the lower intestine some few hours after customers have enjoyed the favourable cuisine.

Don’t forget our fantastic Philosophy Football giveaway: you can win a fantastic and strictly unofficial Arsénal t-shirt. Grabs and I both have them and they’re brill – to enter simply answer the question:

Who was Arsene Wenger managing when he joined Arsenal?

Email your answer to admin@philosophyfootball.com with the heading Up For Grabs Now Competition – deadline for entries is 28 February. In the meantime feel free to visit their website: lots of good stuff on it… http://www.philosophyfootball.com/new_win.html

Zenit St. Petersburg have confirmed that Andrei Arshavin has completed his switch to Arsenal. 

Now let’s get on with the season, and hope he can bring something to the table…

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At last, the final day of the transfer window has arrived! The online community had been champing at the bit all season for the transfer window to re-open. After lengthy and ill-informed debates, an online consensus was reached that our team is guff and requires at least a defensive midfielder, a winger and a warrior centre-half. The radical wing of the online community also demanded the punitive sales of players like Bendtner, Eboue, Song and in some cases even Denilson, but by and large sense prevailed and the extremists grudgingly allowed them to stay in the post-January Arsenal team, “as long as they never have to play”.

Arsene duly delivered… a series of grumpy press conference performances, and no signings. This has got Le Grumblers jumping up and down, gnashing their teeth, and swearing grim oaths against Arsene.

Yawn.

But that’s all going to come to an end today because …[wait for it]… SkySports reports that Andrei Arshavin has boarded a plane for London! The saga will end! Andrei’s on his way! Hurray!

But what’s this? The Daily Heil reports that Arshavin’s plane is bound for Honduras where he will snub Arsenal in favour of a “dream job” as a taxi driver in a sleepy coastal town!

The Daily Mirror reports that Andrei actually missed his plane and so will have to make a swashbuckling motorcycle dash across the European continent if he’s to make it to Blighty by the tea-time deadline!

Goal.com has an exclusive report which says that Andrei sent a body double onto the plane in order to fool the dull-witted English tabloid hacks clustered around the gangway, and that he intends to “live the free life of a rover” rather than involve himself in the hurly burly of Arsenal’s fight for the fourth Champions’ League spot.

PremiershipLatest.com reports that it’s one of the  worst websites of all time!

Whatevs. I’ll get excited if we suddenly sign ‘Lil Lionel Messi at 16.45. Other than that, don’t even bother to wake me up.

Update: we’ve been contacted by Tottenham Hotspur FC about some missing persons. If you know of anybody currently playing in the Premiership area who used to play for Tottenham Hotspur please give Daniel Levy a ring. They’ve managed to find most of the players they’ve sold in recent years but are hoping for a few more before the deadline. If anyone knows where Younes Kaboul is, do let them know as apparently they want to sign him for a mega £24 million.

Updated Update: Brian Swanson, he of SkySportsNews fame, is telling anyone who’ll listen (which on a day like today happens to be roughly 347 live bloggers) that Andrei is off to Russia, having spent just hours at his hotel in London. Swanson says that Arsenal and Zenit still haven’t agreed a fee and so Andrei is hot-tailing it back to Russia, Swanson apparently having seen him leave the hotel bound for a mysterious London airport. Which seems like a bit of a rash move in such an on-off saga doesn’t it? It also seems like quite a lot of detailed information to be coming from some wally with a brolly freezing his bollies off outside a nice hotel. It also seems like exactly the kind of shit SkySportsNews need to come up with to justify having a rolling news station dedicated to a sport which only really happens on mid-week evenings and weekends.

If you ask me, it’s more likely that Andrei’s going to London Colney and that Brian Swanson is gibbering out of his ass.

Don’t forget our fantastic Philosophy Football giveaway: you can win a fantastic and strictly unofficial Arsénal t-shirt. Grabs and I both have them and they’re brill – to enter simply answer the question:

Who was Arsene Wenger managing when he joined Arsenal?

Email your answer to admin@philosophyfootball.com with the heading Up For Grabs Now Competition – deadline for entries is 28 February. In the meantime feel free to visit their website: lots of good stuff on it… http://www.philosophyfootball.com/new_win.html

The Daily Heil newspaper has launched a stinging attack on UK immigration authorities after they agreed to grant strigiformic winger Andrei Arshavin a work permit for his job on Arsenal’s right wing. An official statement by Immigration UK said they had licensed Mr Arshavin’s arrival on the basis of “owlish good looks and a rare eye for goal”.

Deputy Editor Adolf Powell, who took time out from savaging the Human Rights Act 1998 to join the protest, told UpForGrabsNow he was “appalled” at the decision, and that he felt sure it had been motivated by “political correctness gone mad, yet again”.

He added that he believed Arsenal’s midfield was being overrun by migrant workers, and offered the example of Emmanuel Eboue, a 25 year-old man from Abidjan, Ivory Coast, who Powell claims has been spotted acting suspiciously in and around Arsenal’s midfield for some months. Powell described Eboue as “a hopeless layabout“.

He suggested that at a time of rising unemployment Arsenal would have been better to sign a home-grown talent such as Pascal Chimbonda instead.

When he was informed that Arshavin, like Powell, intends to work on the right wing, Powell replied: “I’m not sure about that to be honest. Us right-wingers don’t usually involve ourselves with his sort.”

Asked whether he was a supporter of Tottenham Hotspur, alleged ”FC”, Powell declined to comment.

A disappointing performance at Everton. We failed to sustain any meaningful threat on the Everton goal (or penalty area) as the Islington Shuffle just sort of fell apart. Directionless in recent games, this goal-shy rambling around approach to the game would at least have been better than what we saw last night.

Everton are a good side, strikerless or otherwise, and their midfield made it tough right from the start. We defended fairly reasonably, but we’re lucky they didn’t have Yakubu or Saha to call upon.

That said, there’s something about this Arsenal team, isn’t there? They’ve got something. Admittedly they don’t have Thierry Henry, a ridiculously long unbeaten run, a love of going 3 goals up in the first 9 minutes of home games, or any chance of the title, but they’ve got something else which some much grander Arsenal teams in recent years haven’t really had. The ability to score at the death in crunch situations. Could come in handy in the Cups.

The draw wasn’t what we wanted, but a defeat would have been disastrous. Step up Robin Van Persie with yet another quality goal for the compilation-makers. If Robin had been doing this for the Invincibles, you’d be hearing a lot more about it in the press. I think it’s important to appreciate the top class players we do have regardless of press coverage (though you can see how far that can get you in public esteem - witness Ronaldo’s gong show) rather than simply bemoan the team’s performance and conclude that none of the players are as good as they were ‘back in the day’. Which day? Circa February 2004, probably.

On UpForGrabsNow, we don’t mention Arshavin unless Arsene mentions him first, which he did last night, saying the deal is “90%” done, but sounding a note of caution, essentially that Arshavin might change his owlish mind and have his head turned (geddit?) in other directions and bigger pots of cash. I’m not sure whether to believe the media on this one. They’ve lied so many times on this story that for once it really is a case of waiting for the official website to start giving away complementary Arshavin desktop backgrounds showing the owlish one grinning coldly at London Colney.

I rather suspect that, while wages may be a minor issue, it is rather Arsenal’s insistence on naming rights that’s holding up that extra 10% of the deal. That is, the right to rename Arshavin as ‘Arse’vin’ in accordance with our policy on staff whose names are considered to be (and I quote club statute here) “phonetically related to the name of the football club sufficiently that their existing name could be altered to include the word “Arse” without causing undue confusion.”

Incidentally, I’d like to register what may prove to be a historic disagreement with Grabber on Arse’vin.

I think he’s going to sign, and I think he will prove to be a class signing for the club. I’ve had enough of Eboue on the wing and am pining for a winger who’ll get us 10-15 goals a season. Arse’vin looks like a good solution to me. Not the only one. Perhaps not the best one out there. Perhaps quite an expensive one in the end. But his signing will be very good news for Arsenal.

Don’t forget our fantastic Philosophy Football giveaway: you can win a fantastic and strictly unofficial Arsénal t-shirt. Grabs and I both have them and they’re brill – to enter simply answer the question:

Who was Arsene Wenger managing when he joined Arsenal?

Email your answer to admin@philosophyfootball.com with the heading Up For Grabs Now Competition – deadline for entries is 28 February. In the meantime feel free to visit their website: lots of good stuff on it… http://www.philosophyfootball.com/new_win.html

And finally do please remember you can now sign up for Up For Grabs Now emails, delivering you the most eloquent and intelligent Arsenal waffle straight to your inbox, so you no longer have to worry about checking to see how lazy we’ve been: sign up using the box below.

Evening all, after another little hiatus in the Up For Grabs Now train of glory… 

A positively splendiferous evening in store tonight, with a full gamut of Premiership games to look forward too. With United seeming to have discovered their typically scary New Year form last night it’s absolutely crucial that we get something out of tonight. Everton are not to be sniffed at at home, even without any strikers, and it’s going to be tough.

Personally I’m just pleased that we appear not to be signing Arshavin, which I never wanted, and that we’ve got the chance to put some points on the board and show a bit of intent. Actual football is always better than all of this transfer malark anyway. I’ll be online throughout, so if you want to hurl abuse, share your thoughts etc (our American friends particularly welcome) then do feel free…

My team -what do you reckon?

Almunia


Sagna – Djourou – Gallas – Clichy


Diaby – Denilson – Song – Nasri


Adebayor – van Persie

Come on the, er, boys…

Also, don’t forget to enter our Philosophy Football competition – see blogs below for details, and also that you can sign up to our email list below to guarantee you never miss a single gobbet of brilliance from our keys…

Morning all.

I meant to write an instant response blog yesterday, but I couldn’t because I was too depressed. Firstly I was depressed because the lasagne I had in the Maypole (£8.50 it cost, the chuckling profiteers that they are) was disappointing, and secondly because my beloved Arsenal put in one of the limpest displays of the season against Cardiff. Thank god it was the FA Cup, is all I can say, and our limp display did not cost us points but only enforced a replay – frankly no bad thing, since on the back of that our lot are going to need all the help they can get.

The experience itself, however, was not without merit. Grabs and I watched it together with some other people, and during the long pauses between moments of any action at all, whilst Arsenal played round after round of flaccid Islington Shuffle, some interesting points came up, points such as whether or not Lukas Fabianski looks anything like Enrique Iglesias (‘July Churches’ – you’ve gotta love those Spaniards), and then whether or not Enrique Iglesias had ever actually advertised a range of small condoms (I checked – he has), and then whether Fabianski’s mole is as big as Flamini’s mole was.

So not much about the football then, but then again there wasn’t much football to be, er, much about. Cardiff began brightly, but then again so did James Dean, and he’s dead now, whilst Cardiff are very much not. The midfield looked weak: Ramsey looked out of his depth in particular, but the team as a whole just didn’t click. The extra gear these guys find for big games just wasn’t there and it’s incredibly frustrating to watch. I mean Islington Shuffle isn’t great at the best of times but sometimes at least it’s elegant. Yesterday we just looked a bit clumsy. 

Incidentally if anyone’s interested the finest piece of commentary on Islington Shuffle comes in Pro Evolution soccer 6, with the line ‘they’re stroking it around outside the box, looking for an opening’. If anyone can come up with a better football commentary innuendo my name’s not Grabber.

There were some positives.Van Persie looked good, and Nasri once again was effective in proportion to how central he found himself. In the absence of anyone else I really don’t see why he doesn’t start in the middle. And once they got going the defence looked ok for the most part, but they ought not to struggle much against the might of Jay Bothroyd.

So aside from these small graces it was an afternoon to forget, which is a bit of a shame since it was the only football for ages, and now we’re going to have to return to talking about Arshavin until the cows come home. There’s talk in the papers today about a deal finally being reached, but I can’t say I care either way anymore, especially not if it means the other midfielders are all going to start demanding more money. The grubbuckets.

Don’t forget our fantastic Philosophy Football giveaway: you can win a fantastic and strictly unofficial Arsénal t-shirt. Grabs and I both have them and they’re brill – to enter simply answer the question:

Who was Arsene Wenger managing when he joined Arsenal?

Email your answer to admin@philosophyfootball.com with the heading Up For Grabs Now Competition – deadline for entries is 28 February. In the meantime feel free to visit their website: lots of good stuff on it… http://www.philosophyfootball.com/new_win.html

And finally do please remember you can now sign up for Up For Grabs Now emails, delivering you the most eloquent and intelligent Arsenal waffle straight to your inbox, so you no longer have to worry about checking to see how lazy we’ve been: sign up using the box below.