Up For Grabs Now

The last two days have resembled less a serious attempt by the footballing world at a convincing series of events subject to such traditional vagaries as divine providence, chance, and Sod’s law, as a spectacular forty-eight hour long play staged across a series of venues and with a cast of hundreds of thousands, a play scripted and directed by an Arsenal fan as full of wit as he is empty of compassion.

First came the dismissal of Orange Brown. One of our most belligerent irritants has been banished from the Premiership into footballing oblivion. And all because of Nicklas Bendtner’s finishing ability.

‘Gardening leave’ is the most bizarre way I can think of of telling someone to bog off, but bog off Brown has.

And Brown’s afterlife? Not so much the little Match of the Day studio in the sky as a call centre somewhere nasty up north, I suspect.

The Lord Almighty? Former Arsenal goal-getter Henry

To their credit, Hull City will almost certainly now escape plunge deeper into the relegation mire after their cost-cutting appointment of Iain R. Dowie, a man whose middle initial stands for ‘Revival‘ ‘Relegation’.

Bye Hull! Brilliant.

And then, to cap it all, said Drogba gets sent off for almost no reason, the referee conned into punishing one disgusting Mourinho-schooled cheat by the shameless skullduggery of another, Thiago Motta.

Marvellous.

Where were your flip-flops tonight Didier?

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

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. 

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. 

Far too nervous to type properly, let alone attempt any cheeky gags.

No. Today is not the day for such tomfoolery. It is a day for soldiers, for stiffening the sinews and summoning up the blood. And hopefully ribald celebration come 7pm.

With our defence decimated (count them – no Almunia, no Gallas, no Sagna, no Clichy, no Djourou, possibly no Gibbs) we could very well end up with Alex Song at centre half and Silvestre at left-back. If anyone has any other suggestions, please can you let me (or preferably Arsene, actually) know asap. Word is that Gibbs is looking better than previously thought, though it’s a very big game for such a young fella to be coming into in doubtful shape. He will have to imitate the action of the tiger this afternoon, if he plays.

Song played in central defence at Old Trafford at the end of last season and did pretty well – Wenger always said this would be his long term position (though that has probably changed now). But he’s on form and high in confidence, so it may not be the worst thing, though it would leave our midfield shorn of its enforcer against Lampard, Essien and Ballack. <gulp>

It could be a very telling team selection today from Arsene, I think, especially (and for very different reasons) in the top half of the pitch. My guess is that he’ll sacrifice Nasri for Arshavin and play a kind of 4-4-1-1 as he did the other night, with Van Persie dropping pretty deep.

In their game at Anfield, Guus was intelligent enough to figure out that Liverpool minus Gerrard = Not That Great, and that Gerrard divided by Essien = An Easy Win for Chelsea. I really hope he won’t try and pull similar feats of central midfield algebra on Cesc today, but I rather worry that this is exactly the evil scheme up his sleeve. If Cesc’s playing with Essien on top of him all day, he will need to have an absolute blinder which, being famously good at football, is certainly not beyond him.

Is there an argument for playing the evanescent Eboue ahead of Theo? How much might Eboue’s knowledge of Arsene’s shady activities Last Summer win him favour for today’s team sheet? Interested to know what kind of front 6 you’d pick if you were everyone’s favourite alsatian Alsatian.

Chelsea’s Bruisers are in top cup form, and they showed on Tuesday that they’re not afraid to spoil a good story. Their main threats are: Hiddink (as RvP pointed out, the luckiest man in the world and apparently beloved of referees and linesmen all over the world), Essien, Lampard and Drogba.

The other night, Drogba was about as good as they get. Pretty unplayable. Let’s see some of that from Ade today, please, and none of that from Arsenal reject Didier. Wouldn’t it be great if Song totally outplayed him? That would really give the English press something to be confused about.

COME ON ARSENAL! Let’s give them a good Duffing! (We’ve been doing it since 1947 after all)

Have you ever tried to get to sleep while grinning so much that it hurts your cheeks? That’s what beating BloodMoney FC at their own stinking patch can do to a Gooner, and even this morning you’d think the corners of my mouth were on some mysterious mission to find out what would happen if they finally reached my ears.

As before the United game, I saw the line-ups and immediately compared the midfields. Arsenal’s: Nasri, Cesc, Song, Denilson. Chelsea’s: Mikel, Kalou, Ballack, Deco, Lampard. Like them or (much more probably) loathe them, those last three are right up there when you’re talking about the best midfielders in world football over the last 10 or 15 years – midfield generals for major European nations and superclubs who have won pretty much everything in club football. Song? Denilson? If the hideous pin-striped Chelsea prawn botherers hadn’t been so preoccupied wondering where the soul of their club has gone (it now works in a Russian aluminium factory, if they really want to know) then they might have been quite justified in chanting “Who are ya? Who are ya?” It would have been an unusually sincere enquiry.

One ill-judged (as always) blogger promised we’d lose if Song started and was this morning backtracking faster than he could say “Fair enough, then, Arsene probably does know”. Humiliating times for the haters, but they will never learn.

That said, Song has looked pretty crap in midfield so far this season and I didn’t much fancy his match-up with Ballack and Lampard. Yesterday his passing was crisp and his positioning tight and though he looks by no means a long term solution to the DM problem, he showed he can do a job providing he concentrates hard enough. UpForGrabsNow is clinging to the hope that Santa will execute some kind of complicated reindeer-based manoeuvre which transmogrifies him into a six-foot-four Senegalese called Patrick circa 2004.

Yesterday Van Persie finally looked like turning into the big-game forward you could really hang your title-challenging hat on – sharp, confident and lethal. For the first goal he did that thing where he strikes the ball so purely and so hard that his body can’t really deal with the force and spins right round and falls over as soon as he’s connected. His second was pure class. Good to see that Gallas was the first to congratulate him each time. What a willy.

It strikes me that an Ade-Rob division of labour might work quite well. Ade can muscle in the goals against the shit-kickers and Rob can score the difficult, elegant goals against the big boys. Fine, he can throw in a few ludicrously skilful volleys against smaller teams, but largely he should be allowed to chill out and hone his Boyzone-ish quiff while Ade bangs them in.

So get gloating, Gooners! I refer you to my carefully researched Gooner Gloating Guidebook for expert tips on how to best enjoy Triumphant Mondays such as this one. The names are pretty much interchangeable.

Of course, Monday’s like this would be even more triumphant if we were much tighter to the top of the league. As it is it’s seven points. Seven. Perhaps it would have been an idea to casually beat Villa and City rather than not try and lose pitifully to both of them. Just a thought.

Finally, spare a thought for Roy Keane. Lovely bloke. Humble, gentle, sensible. Bunch of expensively assembled Spurs knock-offs lost 4-1 at home to Bolton? How very sad.

Some areas of the media have spent the last fortnight suggesting that Arsenal are a a bunch of overrated, too-young flimsies with a tendency to self-destruct and massive issues with commitment, talent and self-belief band of maverick gypsy-footballing geniuses who only needed an occasion and a bit of luck to prove themselves potential world-beaters. Those areas have just been proved correct.

What a !

It wasn’t easy; it was never going to be, but our team delivered the goods this afternoon and we continue our 100% record against the big sides. 

Lots of people were sceptical about the optimism going into this match, but the team showed once again the talent they have, and offered a glimpse of the team they could be if they applied themselves like this all the time. 

Robin stepped up when he had to, and Cesc showed that he’s got the stones to be the captain in the games that really matter – Djourou was very unlucky with the own goal, I felt. It was a challenge he had to make, and the test of a player (and his teammates, more to the point) is how they respond when these things happen.

It wasn’t perfect – there are still lots of questions to be asked of the defence and midfield, but as against United we made the most of our luck. Better to be a lucky team than a good one, to paraphrase Napoleon.

More on the match tomorrow, and also more on those blogs who’ve seen fit to start criticising our greatest postwar manager for myopia after a few dodgy games…

But for now let’s enjoy the victory. Have between twenty five and a million beers.

So. After the furious chaos of the last week it almost feels like we’re into something of a fallow patch with all things Arsenal before the big game at Stanford Bridge tomorrow.

I say big game but I suppose in some ways it’s not really. It’s a big game in so far as if we win, we’ll be a few fewer points behind and there’ll be a raft more ‘Don’t write off Arsenal’ stories in the media but any other result and we’re in the same position as we are today. I guess a good performance might help, but the problem is consistency, not whether the can team can rouse themselves for Chelea.

Still, Nasri, Adebayor and Sagna are all back and it will be nice to see them, particularly with stories like this floating around to make all Gooners want to believe in Santa and the inferiorities of the Italian game.

I wonder what our formation will be. You’ve got to think with Chelsea’s midfield, and a fit Adebayor, the boss’ll be tempted to go with five across the middle, and hope that we can snuff them out and hit them on the break, perhaps with a characteristic Adebayor hanging header. That would be fine for me. You certainly wouldn’t think we’ll be aiming to dominate them man for man.

There’ll probably be a bit more as they get into the psychological warfare – I’m expecting some people to say some stuff about Gallas through the day, none of it very interesting. The barometer of opinion seems to be swinging back in his favour, though a lot will rest on how he can perform tomorrow.

There are also a lot of people saying they’d settle for a draw tomorrow. Psychologically perhaps, but mathematically no. A draw tomorrow does nothing for me, like Harriet Harman eating ryvita in clown shoes.

Laters, grabbees.

So it’s Chelsea at the Bridge on Sunday. Another crucial game. It really isn’t good to be having so many crucial games before December has even got going. Most Gooners seem to have a strange confidence about our chances going into what ought to be one of our most fiendishly difficult games all season.

I reckon this feeling comes primarily from the fact that Arsenal under Wenger always seem to overperform in games where nobody gives them a chance. We lose to a string of diddy teams and appear to have entirely lost the plot. We then play gorgeous football and beat Man U, before reverting to former plot-losing. Go figure. I think much of this is down to the mental dynamics of the current dressing room, with players visibly raising their commitment levels for so-called “big” games and tending to see games against lesser opposition as somehow less worthy of their effort.

This always seems most obvious to me in midfield. Against Stoke Denilson went through the game at a jog, lightly pressing the opposition but never getting stuck in. The attitude seems to be – “we’re better than you and so we’ll just wait for you to give us the ball then we’ll score” which of course, isn’t really how football works, especially where quite a lot of that “being better” comes from aggression and ball-winning. Switch to the United game where he’s up against Carrick and Anderson and Denilson thinks “these guys are worth playing against” and is transformed into a snarling terrier, the kind that, were he to turn up week on week, might win you a league.

Chelsea’s midfield is ludicrously good, so we expect a similarly alarming improvement from our boys on Sunday. Perhaps this is one reason why optimists still feel we have a chance in the Champions League. One such is Peter Hill-Wood, who has promised Arsene cash to burn and also said:

I certainly want to finish in the top four in the league, and perhaps (win) the Champions League. We’ve played pretty well in Europe on the whole so far, and that would be very nice.

Yes it would, wouldn’t it Pete. Except you make it sound “very nice” in the way that jammy dodgers and walks on crisp autumn mornings are very nice, whereas I would see it as “very nice” in a rather more running around Seven Sisters inexplicably stark bollock naked howling “YEEEEAAH! GET IT UP YOU! WE’RE BY FAR THE GREATEST TEAM THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN!” kind of way. But I’m sure we mean the same thing, really.

The thing about having a team of raw kids is that it makes you the underdog in Europe. Admittedly this can sometimes lead to being pulverised by a team who is not an underdog, but often the 2-legged format sees the weaker side come out on top. Liverpool always do this, and you just feel that Arsenal might do something similar with their underdoggery. Let’s hope so.

Watching Portsmouth vs AC Milan, you couldn’t help noticing the vast number of Gooners or former Gooners on show: Traore, Campbell, Kanu, Flamini, Senderos and, of course, Tony Adams himself for whom I think we all felt gutted at the end. If we could have all of these former players back for Sunday that would really help, especially Kanu (I still love him) who might fancy doing this again. Barry Davies: THAT IS AMAZING! Quite.

Transfer goss has kicked off in the last few days. Names in the tabloid hat range from Podolski to Xavi to Giovinco to Huntelaar, all pretty predictable and unlikely in my view. It’s strange isn’t it that Arsenal’s main failings seem so obviously defensive and yet no tabloid journalist has the originality to identify genuine options in defence or defensive midfield. Perhaps this is because, as always, they actually know nothing whatsoever about who we might sign and can’t really be arsed to find out and so just trot out the same old names over and over again.

That said, I cannot really begin to describe how fantastic a signing Clarence Seedorf would be. He is almost exactly what we need.

Thoughts?

We hired a new CEO yesterday, Ivan Gazidis, whose experience of football is mostly from America. This suggests two things to me: firstly he’s probably good with cash, and secondly that he probably knows nothing whatsoever about football. Both of these are helpful traits; I was very alarmed at some of the names being touted previously, who were men with serious experience working in football in serious footballing places, places that aren’t America, for instance. That’s the last thing you want.

What you want is somebody very good at not giving agents any money, and not giving in to people like Emmanuel Adebayor when they tell you that they’re the most valuable men in the world, even more valuable than the entire defence, say. Anyway it’s not a decision they came to slowly. You imagine the Arsenal boardroom at times to be a bit like a convergence of the ents in Lord of the Rings. They never discuss anything quickly, and they never speak about anything unless it is worth taking a long time to say.

Anyway. It’s another bit of stability in what has been a good stabilising week so far for the club. Hopefully the nous and the extra revenue he can drive will act as a barrier against evil Boss Nass look-alikes who want to use our football club as a place to rape and intimidate people.

Gael Clichy has slightly come out of my good books for his attack on Gallas. I thought he’d done so well the other day, and then he goes and is mean to poor William just when the chips are down.

Clichy out! Gallas in!

Etc.

Seriously it does seem a bit silly to suggest that Gallas ‘shattered’ moral with his comments. I imagine that losing to Fulham, Hull, Stoke, Villa and Manchester City, and drawing with Tottenham, is what damaged morale. But perhaps I’m old fashioned. To my mind the bigger issue was Gallas’ impropriety in the role of captain. Maybe that’s what Clichy means.

From now till Sunday it’s going to be build up to Chelsea. Anybody got any good ideas? I have to say, just as against Utd, I feel quite optimistic – Chelsea didn’t look convincing last night, and our lot have little to lose at the moment. I daresay we’ll start to get injury news quite soon.

I’d like to start Vela, please. And I’d like Wilshere on the bench, please, and for him to come on for at least fifteen minutes. And for Song either not to play at all or to transform into a six foot four Senegalese called Patrick in 2001.That can be a very small part of my early Christmas present. How about you?