Up For Grabs Now

Quite a change that weekend was, I think we’ll all agree. 3 points clear in 4th, goals from everywhere, and a great sense of momentum. I much prefer this sort of weekend.

Once again the optimism of this blog proved accurate, as we pushed the Geordie bastards aside with a skilful, satisfying flourish, deftly evading the temporary threat provided by Steven Taylor and his gigantic bag of cuntite thuggery. The BBC thought it was the best half of football this season, but then those live text guys always seem a bit annoying, like they’d be the slightly annoying friend of a friend in the pub who you’d tolerate but prefer was absent. The Guardian thought it was boring. I thought it was somewhere in between, which I’m feeling pretty post-revisionist about. Particularly good was Manuel the Spanish waiter goalkeeper’s saving of Martins’ penalty. Nothing better than your keeper saving a penalty, is there? Particularly from Martins, a player whose performance for Inter Milan four years ago lives long and hauntingly in the memory. The length and hauntingness of this memory are slightly lessened by the fact that Martins is now rather shit, except for in Pro Evo where he’s still quicker than God. But still.

Anyway, with Liverpool brushing aside Aston Villa, the bus of whose wheels are falling off at an alarming hilarious rate of knots. I think Martin O’Neill must have a recurring nightmare in which Nigel Reo-Coker is a very simple man with a very simple job who suddenly ends up in a position of great power and kills the world. It’s the Emmanuel Eboue dream (don’t tell me you haven’t had it) to the nth degree, and no wonder O’Neill looks stressed. I still like him though, I must confess, despite my greatly enjoying the flaccid end to Villa’s season, and see him as a potential Arsene replacement one day.

Not that I want Arsene to go anywhere. Just as our faith in him is rewarded, so his faith in his players continues to prove enlightened. Despite his ineptitude in front of goal last weekend, the Great Dane is becoming better by the game, and given he’s only 20 I think we can expect good things from him. Remember the other strikers, reputed to be exciting, he showed off – Stokes and Lupoli both spring to mind – and perhaps we’re beginning to see what Arsene’s known all along.

Arshavin was his usual dynamo self. I think the square-figured Russian is going to become a real favourite. He’s skilful but doesn’t mind getting knocked about a bit (Russia for you), and he runs to the end. Newcastle are in real trouble now, but we’re three points clear, and how nice does that feel, particularly with United in difficulties. This season is really playing havoc with one’s loyalties, isn’t it? First you want Spurs to beat Villa, and then you want Liverpool to beat Villa. I remember in the olden days when Villa were everyone’s second-favourite team…

Anyway, a good weekend for us. A shame about Theo’s injury, but he’ll be back, hopefully alongside a revitalised and refreshed Cesc Fabregas. What a nice thought that is…

A little while until the next game, but in the meantime why don’t you amuse yourselves by entering our new Philosophy Football competition? All you have to do is answer the following question: Which formation did Herbert Chapman pioneer at Arsenal? Send your answers with your name, t-shirt size and address to admin@philosophyfootball.com

I’m wearing mine now, and Grabina says I look very fetching…

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Grabs’ kamikaze optimism, as contrasting with my own brand of frustrated pessimism, last night had its first major victory as we put the sword 3-1 to West Brom. Extraordinary, frankly, that we’re celebrating a wing against a team as miraculously bad as West Brom are this season, but that’s the situation we’re in at the moment.

More than that, we’re celebrating scoring not only one goal but three, including two for the Much Maligned Bendtner. Arshavin also looked good and contributed an assist; my Dad reckons he looks like one of those players ‘who enjoys a fag at halftime’. It would explain his being constantly out of puff (aren’t football matches 90 minutes in Russia?), and to be honest if he can make the difference in sixty who cares? Presumably it’s for getting through the Russian winter. I should point out that this is nothing but the idlest variety of speculation and probably has no backing in it.

How nice might it have been if one of those goals could have been last weekend, in which instance we would be on level terms with Villa, who are off to the, er, fortress that is the City of Manchester stadium.

Much as I approve of the pleasing image  of Robinho ‘rogering’ Aston Villa, the cheeky little money-grabbing chappy is injured, along with the renowned thug Craig Bellamy, and so will not feature. Nonetheless City have some firepower, and will be dangerous if they can temporarily forget to let in goals. Let’s hope Villa are massively demoralised by their ignominious draw with Stoke, and realise they never wanted to be in the CL anyway, and then we’re right back in there.

Ten games is suddenly a long time – if we’ve found some form from last night it couldn’t have happened at a better time.

So much more positive than last time I posted. Funny old game, isn’t it…come on Citeh!

In a spirit of blind, rampant optimism which has just this minute consumed me, I’d like to explain how in a little over 10 days time Arsenal FC will be back in fourth position and gunning for a unique FA Cup and Champions League Double, pissing all over the hideous Manc’s pre-planned quintuple celebrations. If there was a prize for the speedy counting of feathered farm animals prior to their birth, then United would be on for six.

In that vein of idiotic confidence, I can say that our season of glory will start tonight by jolly well stuffing West Brom. If Arsene has been guilty of complaining too much about teams who fail to deploy a 2-3-5 formation at the Emirates and in so doing avoid succumbing to our blistering counter-attacking artillery, then tonight ought to be his night. West Brom have the virtue of playing football in exactly the right spirit. They play to win and they attack from the off. I genuinely believe that’s the way the game should be played, however I also know that you can’t really argue with a position four points adrift at the foot of the table.

I’m also convinced that fixtures against mid-table teams at home are the last thing we need right now. It’s got to be either someone very good or very bad, away from home in order for our players to actually try.

Villa meanwhile face a tricky trip to Man City, where I am certain they will receive a cruel rogering from Robinho.

Then next week we’ll have Blackburn at home. Our delicious goal-fest will have whetted our appetite for more, and the malaise of the Islington Shuffle will dissolve in a flurry of over-head kicks, swashbuckling dribbles and diving headers. 3 more points.

Villa, meanwhile, will host Sp*rs, a club who as we all know, will do absolutely anything to ensure Arsenal FC’s qualification for Champions’ League football, even if it means poisoning their own playing staff with some hideous poo-dynamite and making a monumental tit out of themselves. This time they’ll swop nasty squits for rasping shots and will sneak a thrilling win over a spluttering O’Neill and his side.

In between, we’ll ease past Roma and dispose superciliously with Burnley.

Convinced? Let me know what you think.

Very frustrating, that, wasn’t it? I’d just come back from the annual family Boxing Day football match, in which I’d seen children of 5 valiantly holding off attackers four times their weight, only to watch Arsenal succumb pitifully, yet again, when it would have been much easier to hold on for a draw or a win.

What’s a bit consoling (yet also makes the draw even more frustrating) is that it could all have been so different. After they hit the bar three times in the first half, and then induced a spectacular clearance from Sagna (more on him later), I’d have taken the draw in a heartbeat. I might even have taken it at the start of the game.

But after Denilson slipped in and punished Reo-Coker for trying a bit of Pro Evo defending you got the feeling this might just be one of our days. Rare as they are, I was overcome by the sensation that this game might be the little bit of luck we needed, a turning point in the season. I felt this even more strongly after we got the second – two chances, two on target, two goals. Hilarious, like one of those CM games where you know the computer’s decided you’re not allowed to win.

I had real faith. After the goals we looked like a completely different side, with Denilson and Diaby looking not only sound defensively but fluid on the attack as well. What a difference a bit of confidence makes. There’s talent there, no doubt about it. They’re just not used to winning. They haven’t got that drive which says ‘right, we’re two goals up, we’re not losing from here’.

You couldn’t say the same about Ramsay, however, who I must say looked completely out of his depth up against Barry et al. I’ve seen a lot of chat online about how he and Wilshere should be given a chance in the first team, but I thought Song and Denilson both looked much better than they young Welshman yesterday. As grabs wrote so effectively the other day; just imagine if we’d just bought Song and Denilson for £9m and £6m, and think how much more patience you’d be giving them then…

Anyway, after the penalty (which was as obvious as they come and woefully incompetent from Gallas, who otherwise had a couple of good moments) went in you just felt like we could conceded again, and we dutifully did after we decided, presumably chasing the logical conclusion of attack being the best form of defence, to all hang around in Villa’s half during injury time when we didn’t have the ball. Zat Knight duly obliged when he found himself in acres of space, and a million boxing day sofas went ‘urrrgggghhhhhhh’ together.

I promised more on Sagna – what a champ he was yesterday. You don’t often notice him, but matches like yesterday make you realise that it’s basically because he never does anything wrong. Rarely injured, rarely booked, constantly running and throwing himself at the ball – how many others on the team would have got to that bicycle kick clearance? Not many, for my money. You’ve got to think that basically any club in the world would take him at right back at the moment. I hope he knows how important he is. We should think of a song for him, pronto.

As January approaches Wenger has one of the toughest months during his time as coach to look forward to. Who to buy? To sell anyone? How to convince the back four they are, indeed, a back four? He expressed this through the medium of getting cross about Villa’s assistant manager talking to the ref at half time. Honestly. What a lot of rubbish. Put it down to stress, I suspect.

Enjoy the dregs of Christmas, grabbos. And here’s to a better show tomorrow.

What with the last 19 hours of frantic face stuffing with chocolate coins, chocolate oranges, ham, turkey, bacon, eggs, sausages, parsnips and, well, stuffing, you’d be forgiven for feeling far too fat to make the effort to even turn on the telly for today’s top-5 tussle  at Villa Park. Never mind actually managing to open your eyes for long enough to take in any of the action. Let alone travelling all the way to bloody Birmingham to witness our Cesc-shorn midfield in action.

Word up to the travelling Gooners today – you should be proud of yourselves. Let’s hope it’s well worth the trip.

A word of warning: a source close to Alex Song (he didn’t stay very close for very long) reports that Alex Song ate between 12 and 17 brussel sprouts all by himself at the London Colney Christmas Dinner, which means he’s likely to spend at least the first half attempting to conceal the inevitable blasts of nauseating flatulence from his team-mates (apparently Denilson HATES other people’s farts) and Sky’s microphones.

Let’s hope he can lay some potent, lingering efforts in the space in behind Sagna and Clichy. Lord knows if we play our defensive line as far up the park as we did against Liverpool, we’ll need something to keep Young and Agbonlahor away from the channels. Alex, you’re our man! Get busy.

The best news this week was that Villa’s defensive cornerstone Martin Laursen is likely to miss today’s game through injury. He’s a crucial player for Villa – an excellent defender in his own right who expertly marshals the rest of his back-line, and a real threat at set-pieces too, which we really seem to enjoy conceding goals from.

His obvious replacement, the excellent Carlos Cuellar, is also struggling, so they may be forced to start with the promising but erratic Curtis Davies and the unpromising and erratic Zat Knight. Both are very tall, but neither are especially adept on the ground, so it’s a combination which would have Van Persie (no Ade today remember) licking his slick-shaven chops.

I suspect O’Neill will realise this and risk one of his main men at the back, preferably Cuellar.

Our team: Almunia, Sagna, Clichy, Djourou, Galoises, Denilson, Diaby, Nasri, Song, Van Persie, Bendtner

No guarantees from this end, however, that we won’t see a 4-5-1 against such a strong Villa midfield. The problem with that is you’d either have to play Van Persie in a withdrawn role (which would mean there would be little defensive point in having the extra man in midfield as he’d be Rob and would also mean relying on Bendtner having a blinder) or else play him up top by himself (which he’s normally pretty bad at) or else drop him (which would be madness).

Very interested to hear your thoughts on who should start today. It’s a big game – who would you pick?

Whoever’s wearing the golden cannon on their shirt today is going to have to play out of their skin. A few of them have to start playing like Top 4 players, and today would be a great day to start.

Lose, and Villa will have 6 points on us. Not insurmountable by any means (and stand fast against the Sky-eyed gloom-mongers who would doubtless prey on any such result) but certainly it would be another big blow in a week of big blows for our season. Win and we’d sneak ahead of them on goal difference. So we’ll probably draw instead.

Come on you Reds!

Bollocks.

Let’s imagine you’re a professional footballer. A professional footballer from, say, France, or Spain, or England. Or Denmark. You’re paid to try and win matches. One weekend you pack your bags, drive to the stadium in your expensive car, put on your shirt and play very well, play the sort of football you are capable of playing when you put your mind to it, and beat a famously strong opposition.

The next weekend, again you are called upon to play football. You drive to the stadium in your expensive car and put on your shirt. Now here’s the tricky part. What do you do next? Do you:

a) Play very well, the sort of football you are capable of when you put your mind to it and for which you are afforded adulation, cash and a lifestyle beyond the wildest dreams of most of us?

or b) Do you sit down and let a pack of semi-northern assholes run by a haggard besteroided leprechaun run all over you, concede an unfortunate own goal and then roll over and die on your feeble, good for nothing arses?

You tell me. Honestly, you put so much faith in a team and then…

Moment of (very slight) clarity: amongst teams that aren’t in the big four, Villa are very strong. They are considerably better organised than, say, Hull City, to whom we also lost. Had we not lost to the likes of Stoke, Hull City and Fulham, you would say that it’s almost reasonable that we lose to Villa, if we’re going to have a game that we lose to a team outside the top four. However, we did lose to Stoke, Hull City and Fulham, and so losing to Villa feels not only acceptable but worringly deserved.

More tomorrow, no doubt.

For now beers and no MOTD.

Mmm. Saturday. In the olden days this used to mean ‘football day’, but no longer: my small brother (he’s young, not a dwarf), called upstairs to my father -

“When’s the game?”

“Usual time”

“What’s that?”

Honestly. Young people today, eh?

Anyway, at the usual time today we have Aston Villa, a team everyone expected great things of this season but who’ve not lookd so hot in the last few (Agbonlahor’s lack of goals precipitating a precipitous slide down the fantasy league table for myself. The bastard). Still they’re fifth in the league which doesn’t happen completely by accident, so we should expect them to make some chances, though if we’re up for it like we were against United I expect us to win – perhaps by a couple.

One player with fond memories of Arsenal is Steve Sidwell, who’s interviewed in the Times. The piece is pretty boring, so I won’t link it, but he does say he feels a bit frustrated that he didn’t get more first team chances – surely a rebuke to those who’ve been accusing Arsene of devaluing the Carling Cup. Under the current set-up Sidwell would no doubt have been blooded in Carling Cup matches, and had his chance to show what he could do under pressure and expectation. In the end he had to go round the houses a bit via Reading, but it’s good to see him back at or at least near the top. I’ve always liked Sidwell, and again here he seems to have a more sensible take on things than others, specifically Giant Mousey Pikey Knobbutlers.

Despite what I wrote the other day, it seems likely that Nik Bendtner will play again today, in lieu of Carl. This is unequivocally a pity, and much as I’d love to I’m not even sure we can fairly say it’s ‘make or break’ time for the Big Dane, even with RvP back after today and Eduardo on the horizon, because Arsene seems sold on his Big Danish physical qualities. A bit like Lego, i suppose.

It’s as if Arsene had decided at the start of the evening he wanted to do a snog on a tall blonde girl (say from Denmark), and despite the nightspot being brimful of exotic, (say Mexican?) tanned, beauties, all of whom are mustard keen for him, he persists in buying Smirnoff Ices for the one tall blonde bird even though she’s not interested at all, and couldn’t head the ball if it was strapped to the wall at head height.  Very frustrating.

That said, come on the Arsenal . More later, as part of our new ‘rapid response’ blog campaign, by which time hopefully we’ll have three shiny new points to admire. Come here for all your post-match debate needs…

Update: The Gunnerlings have been drawn away to Burnley in the Carling Cup. Quite honestly (and with al due respect and all that sort of guff) I think Carlos and Co. will be licking their pubescent chops about this. Shame it’s not a home draw, but YUM nonetheless.