Up For Grabs Now

A lot has been said and will be said about the result on Sunday, but now that some of the dust has settled I feel a bit more comfortable talking about it. On the walk (which feels longer every time you do it – weird) from Highbury and Islington to the Emirates I was saying, in a rather un-fanatical way, that I’d be happy with a point. Obviously we always want the Arsenal to urinate on United from a great height, but realistically it’s not always possible, and with the results as they’ve been this season the way we’ll win the league is by taking three points from all of the crap sides rather than duffing the big boys. Leagues are really won in this way – by consistently beating the mediocre sides – winning twice rather than drawing against crap teams is worth more than losing to one of the big sides, though the latter will invariably get the profile.

As it happened, we lost. In the event it looked comfortable for them, and we were certainly ragged at times – particularly when our heads dropped just before and after half time, but I don’t think the game was a foregone conclusion. We weren’t nearly as bad as some of the newspapers would have you believe. Arshavin had a couple of great chances at the start, and if those had crept just the other side of the post the game would have looked very different. It galls losing to a side with an entirely ginger backbone: Brown, Scholes, and Rooney, and particularly one which considers Jonny Evans to be a first-team centre back, but you must remember that this is Manchester United we’re talking about. Even the apparently rather successful advent of 3-D coverage doesn’t begin to approach the hideousness of seeing Wayne Rooney close-up. Marking him must be quite the most onerously disgusting task this side of mythology. It was also a bit unreasonable for Nani to suddenly decide that he can play football, having spent most of this season wandering around like a hapless extra in some disastrous Iberian soap opera.

Song, Fabregas, Arshavin, Vermaelen looked good. Que sorpresa. Others looked a bit off. Nasri and Clichy looked hopelessly weak – the former particularly is really not progressing as you’d have hoped from a man who arrived under the ‘New Zidane’ banner beloved of those whom the gods wish to destroy. He’s got a nice touch, but he neither imposes himself physically on games or mazily dribbles his way through them. One hopes that as our midfield makes its Singer Sargeant esque return from the Triage tent the competition for places will make him pull his socks up. I have fewer fears for Clichy – he just needs a run of games.

A note on John Terry: ha ha ha. I hate international football (particularly England) so I couldn’t really give a hoot either way, but I would say that the real question is surely whether the pleasure one derives from knowing that Wayne Bridge has been cuckolded is greater or less than the misery of John Terry sleeping with a lithe French underwear model(among others) It’s tough, but I think that the fact his liaisons varieux have come to such epic grief compromises them enough that we can celebrate. Well done John! Great cuckolding! Great morale! Great leadership! On which note, do we know yet whether he prefers to lead from the front or the back?

That’s your lot for now, and our hopes for a quick recovery against the Blue lot. It won’t be easy, but don’t despair. Remember last season how we pulled off all those great results when we were against it? Yes. There you go. Soothing. And if not, Liverpool are as self-doubting at the moment as Terry’s PR guy, so that’ll be fine.

What do you reckon?

Well, that was angry, breathless, and, purely as a football game, a bit bollocks wasn’t it?

You all saw the key incidents, I’m sure.

An explosive goal of rare grace and ingenuity from Van Persie. The sort of goal only he can score. The kind of footballing brilliance where you pretty much punch the ceiling as the net bulges, your mouth hangs open and your guts jump for joy, but part of you can’t help thinking “why can’t he do that all the time?” Probably because it’s really really hard to do – even for him.

Liverpool hit back with their first decent attack of the game - a high-bouncing hoof caught out Djourou as Keane snuck in front of him and finished magnificently. The guy’s a pillock, but what a well taken goal. I won’t blame Djourou or Almunia. Keane hit it so early that there was little they could do from their starting positions, where normally a touch or an extra bounce would have allowed them to recover.

Cesc hobbled off and will be a major concern. The TV cameras showed him holding his shirt to his face and the great man looked very frustrated. Let’s hope it was just a heavy knock and he hasn’t sustained a profound injury. His frustration could simply have been because he knew he wouldn’t be able to play the second half, not necessarily anything longer. Fingers crossed. We need him.

In the first half Arsenal had a surprising amount of joy playing high, direct balls for Adebayor whose knock-downs into the midfield gave us several decent attacking platforms in an advanced area of the pitch. This seemed to dry up in the second half as the reshaped midfield struggled a bit without their injured General.

Adebayor had been looking pretty pissed off all game and put in a really stupid challenge considering he was on a yellow. Of course the Liverpool prat made a meal out of it so big you could have added a few sprouts and called it a Christmas Dinner, and our fans were rightly outraged (as was Arsene). Still, a silly thing for Adebayor to do when he’s on a yellow card. Very silly in such a big game which looked there for the taking with 11 men. The boy needs a rocket up him if you ask me, and fast.

From then on the game got even scrappier, the moronic Howard Webb booking our players at every possible opportunity and Liverpool showing the kind of lack of ambition which could well deny them the title. Pretty much 35 minutes against 10 men missing their captain and heartbeat. A chance, you’d think, to kill off a rival’s fading title hopes and compound their Christmas lead. No attacking substitutions until Babel on 70 minutes and still no real thrust to their attack. !Rafa, no me jodas! Donde esta los cojones?

Finally, a word on the performances of Song and Denilson, two players much maligned who will doubtless have to face all kinds of misguided criticism after this result. Rarely has there been such a gap between Arsene’s belief in a player and the fans’ suspicion of them as there currently is with these two.

Well, I’ve got news for their haters. I’m not saying that they have both been consistently outstanding this season or anything like that, nor am I saying I’d want them in a first-choice midfield every week. But today they played superbly against a vastly more experienced Liverpool midfield and both of them out of their natural position. Where was Stevie G? Song had him. 

For once, let’s just stand up and give them a bit of credit, shall we. Two battling performances (not perfect, by any means) but certainly well worthy of the shirt in my opinion.

What did you think of the match then? Post your views underneath and we’ll have a right old chinwag.

Would do very nicely today. Apart from the death bit. I don’t wish that on anyone.

The biggest match of the season, apart from the matches we’ve already had including Manchester United and Chelsea, and the matches we’ve yet to come, including Manchester  United and Chelsea again.

But seriously (although it feels as if we have to say this all the time) this is a make or break moment for the side: win and we’ll close the gap on Liverpool to five points – a lead which everybody knows is completely conquerable, particularly given the shiny new squad members which are undoubtedly going to arrive in January.  Lose and we’re sunk, and the rats will start leaving in January.

Nasri’s back, which might make a fair bit of difference: he gives us the Piresian width we lacked so badly against Boro. Whilst he’s looked promising so far his injuries habit is becoming very irritating. I hope he grows out of it, and doesn’t end up dead like Tom Rosicky. It’s also high time Cesc had a big game, if you’re asking me. Which you’re probably not. But then again, you’re reading this, so you can at least pretend to for a bit. Cesc ought to be doing that thing he did at the start of last season where he scores lots and lots of goals.

There isn’t much to report on the Bracers shares debacle, although with time from the event everything is predictably calming down quite a lot. I’m hopefully meeting my top-secret inside source tomorrow, from which point I’ll no doubt be able to give you Grabbers a unique inside-track on what’s going on.
Until then, come on you reds. I’ll take a couple of goals like this, thanks very much…

In other news, yesterday I felt like my life was becoming too purposeful so I reinstalled Championship Manager 2000-2001, and I must say they did get quite a lot of things wrong. I mean quite a lot right, too, but quite a lot wrong. For instance, the game doesn’t feature, on any level, Cesc, Ronaldo, Drogba, Messi or lots of other great players. Given the amount everyone talks about how comprehensive their databases are, those are four pretty big omissions for players who looked good from a very early age…

This is, you’re right, slightly sad of me. But if anyone can remember any really good players from 2000-2001 I’d be delighted to hear them…

So just one day until our almost-table-topping clash with Liverpool. It’s a big game – big for this season and this team, big as it’s 20 years on from  Anfield ‘89 (”it’s up for grabs now!” and all that), and big as I think most Gooners dislike Liverpool even more than usual right now because of the Champions’ League defeat last season.

Wenger and van Persie didn’t shy away from talking about that defeat, with Wenger re-opening the Babel-penalty debate, insisting it was “a dive” (with apologies for the spoony music on that link). I agree that it was a dive, and that Liverpool always, always get exceptionally lucky with refereeing decisions at critical moments when they’re at home (and often away too), but I also think if Toure hadn’t flailed around quite so much then it would have looked even less like a penalty. It’s much easier for the referee to award a penalty when the accused defender appears to be doing some form of hippopotamus-inspired ballet derivative around the attacker.

Still, no point crying over spilt hopes and dreams, is there? Tomorrow’s game could have a big impact on the league season and Arsene is pulling his best Raging Bull impression. The caption on that photo is incorrect. It should read “Big Bad Wenger-Bull butts that bastard Benitez’s bony Iberian bum bloody hard”. Here’s what he had to say:

I am confident that we can beat anybody. If we played Barcelona tomorrow I’m confident we can beat them. I believe that we were vulnerable at some stage to a different kind of game and we have rectified that. In the time coming up we can show that we can deal with that.

It is firstly a concentration problem and secondly because we face a different style of play; much longer and much more direct. It looks to me the main reasons. I believe we are more vulnerable to that type of play.”

I like the sound of the past-tense in reference to our abysmal showings against the lesser teams (you’re meant to put “so-called lesser teams” there, but come on, this is Arsenal we’re talking about so let’s not beat around the bush of SkySports cliches). “WE HAVE RECTIFIED THAT“. About time too. If he really has then there’s every chance this season could yet come up smelling of roses. And big-eared or golden-crowned trophies too. What do they smell like? Success, probably. What does success smell like? Blood, sweat and cheers? Ribbons?

More worrying was that Arsene said that beating the big teams (like Liverpool) was “compulsory” for our season. It’s one of his favourite media-words and it is almost always a harbinger of doom. “It’s compulsory that we don’t draw loads of games against crap teams 1-1 all the way through February and March… oops.” “It’s compulsory that when we play brilliantly and get ourselves a goal ahead we don’t brain-freeze and end up losing the game… oops.” “It’s compulsory that we keep Flamini.” You get my drift.

Team selection: Assuming Nassers is back, I’d like to see Almunia, Clichy, Djourou, Gallas (who tends to swap sulking for scoring in games like this), Sagna, Nasri, Cesc, Song, Denilson, Ade, RvP.

Yes I did just put Song in midfield and Denilson on the right. Got a problem with that? No it didn’t make me feel good about myself, and yes I’m aware that this isn’t one of our more distinguished midfields but what else was I meant to do? It worked against Chelsea didn’t it?

I suppose other options would include Vela on the left, Nasri on the right and then you’d presumably want Denilson in the middle – call it the Anti-Song selection. It would also have the advantage of pitting Nasri against Dossena who, as discussed on Arseblogger’s superb Arsecast yesterday, is absolutely terrible. I guess you could play around with Eboue, Ramsey, perhaps even young Wilshere, but would you really want to against Liverpool? Really?

Would be great to hear your opinion on tomorrow’s team.

Arsene also said he wants to give Arsenal the “gift” of the Champions’ League. Thanks Arsene, that would be really lovely. How did he know that’s what we always wanted? Has he intercepted our Christmas letters to Santa? Is he Santa? It would certainly account for our poor run of form, and for the fact that so far he hasn’t found any “special” players for us to buy in January. Too busy with his little elves?

What else might we find on the Wenger-sleigh? The quote I am clinging to about January is: “the Board let me do what I want to do. I know how much money I can spend and I will try to do it in a wise way.”

It sounds cool and clinical and calculating, like he’s going to bust open his incredible £400 million chequebook, sign the entire Man Utd team then the Chelsea team, sling them all in the reserves apart from Vidic and Essien, who will be allowed to play having been put through a rigourous anti-bastardising programme involving Bob Wilson and the movie “Fever Pitch”. Sounds like a good solution to me.

In the unlikely event that this doesn’t actually happen, I will of course stand corrected.

The team may be a gaggle of lithe young whipper-snappers but Arsenal’s fans are fast turning into Dad’s Army. Every weekend there’s a small explosion of some kind (even if that explosion is “only” beating Wigan 1-0). You then have your Corporal Joneses who look a bit jittery and shout “Don’t panic! Don’t panic!” to anyone who’ll listen. They’re reacting to the Private Frazers who shake their wizened heads at the first hint of frailty in the team and rasp in strangely Scottish accents “We’re doomed! We’re all doomed!”

I’ll try and sum up the arguments being made and made again as best I can:

Private Frazer: Wenger’s stubborn adherence to this inexpensive youth malarkey has led us into trophyless oblivion. These kids will never be good enough. He must buy lots and lots of expensive players as soon as he can (preferably in central defence and defensive midfield) but he won’t because he’s so stubborn. If he doesn’t we’re going to have a terrible season and he should go in May.

Corporal Jones: Please don’t worry about a thing, cos every little thing is gonna be alright. We’re fifth after a pretty smelly start to the season but we’re still only 8 points off the top (5 if we can beat Liverpool on Sunday) and our record against the big teams shows that we’ve got quality, if not consistency. We’re still in the Champions’ League and Eduardo’s back soon. And stop being so silly about Arsene, would you?

So are you a Jones or a Frazer? I’m a Jones, though quite an anxious one.

I think it’s worth noting that Corporal Jones was also responsible for another phrase often applied to Arsenal: “They don’t like it up ‘em!” Often used in the past to explain the apparently inexplicable defeat of truly great Arsenal sides playing some of the most lavish football ever seen to teams like Bolton, Corporal Jones was originally referring to “the fuzzy-wuzzies” with whom he fought in Sudan. In a confusing twist to my Dad’s Army division of Gooners, I suspect that a fair few Frazers out there secretly (or not so secretly) wish that this team had a few less “fuzzy-wuzzies” and a few more English redcoats in the mould of Parlour or Keown.

Enough of that. If anyone thinks of any further analogies between us Gooners and Dad’s Army do let me know.

It’s going to be a long wait for the Liverpool match on Sunday so expect to see the Frazer-Jones debate going round and round again and again until then. Yawn. It’s a match which I already feel way more confident about than I did for the Boro game on Saturday, simply because I think all the players will be working their balls off for the cause.

Since one of Private Frazer’s favourite things is relentless rumour-mongering and since that’s what always gets online Gooners licking their chops, here are a few doing the rounds at the moment:

Brazilian wunderkind Alexandre Pato has apparently caught the eye of Arsene Wenger who could make a move in January. This is pretty left field firstly as the boy’s a striker which is probably our strongest area right now and secondly because he’s clearly the dog’s danglies and Milan have been bragging about him ever since he arrived so selling him would be very strange indeed. The shred of hope here is that they’re meant to be signing Thiago Silva and so will need to offload one of their non-EU players if they want Thiago to play.

Even then, I reckon there’ll be other, richer, brasher teams who would want him more than we do. The only reason I can see for Arsene really wanting him is so that he can unleash a tongue-twisting extravaganza by signing Alex Pato, then signing Alex from Chelsea and finally entrenching Alex Song’s spot in central midfield. We will then have the world’s first Alex-Axis. Or, if you prefer, our grinding wheels of dominance will turn upon our well-oiled Alex-Axle. This is obviously tempting to a man like Arsene.

But how, you cry, will newly crowned X-Factor Champion Alexandra Burke fit into all this? I’m not sure yet, but she could surely provide useful cover at right-back. Signing her might also cement our place in next season’s Champions’ League, as UEFA president Michel Pratini is keen to give the competition back its edge and is reportedly considering inviting Champions from other walks of life to compete in 2009/10.

More likely would be Juve’s 24-year-old centre back Giorgio Chiellini,who could be involved in swapsies with our scowling number 10, William Gallas. The downside being that by all accounts we’d have to give them about £10million of our lunch money on top of sulky Billy and the upside being that we’d have a big, strong, good centre back in return for an actually not very big and constantly frowning jessie.

Have a Goonerific Monday.