Up For Grabs Now

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.

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.