Up For Grabs Now

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

You can’t help feeling that Arsenal’s summer is going to turn on the next few days.

The possible sale of Emmanuel Adebayor, approached by Manchester City and apparently on his way north, will very likely dictate the order of Mr Wenger’s business at least until pre-season kicks off. The figures quoted are likely to be unreliable, and I’d certainly like to see Ade pulling in a hefty fee, hopefully pushing £30million. £20million is Robbie Keane money, and though Ade certainly isn’t on anyone’s list of beloved Arsenal players right now, his European pedigree alone ought to guarantee a serious figure, especially if they’re going to be paying him anything like the numbers quoted.

People may also start to get a bit jittery about his sale. It’s easy to get carried away over how much you dislike a player when they end the season in poor form and give a series of foolish interviews. Some people have taken this too far, turning him into the solitary scapegoat for another frustrating climax to a season that stuttered, sparked, promised, then collapsed.

But with his exit now looking more and more likely, thoughts turn to what we’d be missing.

His crossbar-busting volley against Tottenham. His ridiculous overhead kick against Villarreal. The marvellous chest-and-smash finish at St James’ Park. These are not the goals of an ordinary footballer.

There’s also the sulking, the shrugging, the offsides and the non-commital strolling – of course. He has seemed to change visibly since Milan’s interest last summer. From the eager, enthusiastic big kid wowed by the Premiership playground, he has turned into a scowling, brooding presence, all heavy knees, trudging feet and hands on hips.

It happens to too many of the players who owe their stardom to Mr Wenger and Arsenal, far too many. Mr Wenger may have a wonderful eye for potential and an astute sense of how to turn it into top class footballers, but even he, it seems, can’t teach loyalty.

Still, he’s not gone yet, and an Ade-Rebirth may be round the corner, awkward as this would be.

And if he goes? We’d need a striker, and a serious goal-grabbing striker at that. The word is Chamakh, which feels for me like a sensible, like-for-like option. But it also feels like we’d probably be weakened overall by gaining the Moroccan at the Togolese’s expense. Less experience of top class football (though the same age at 25) and an inferior goals record. And still a hefty chunk of every second season away in Africa.

Chamakh has a famous work-rate and is a generous team-player. The goals he does score are very often with headers from crosses. Now, you might argue that that would add a much needed dimension to our team, but then is the midfield set up to provide the kind of service he’d need? I’m not so sure.

For me, the big question would have to be how much of a premium Mr Wenger sets on aerial ability. If this is what he’s after, he’ll need another Ade, and Chamakh would do. But then we already have a promising (that’s right), aerially imposing centre forward – Bendtner – who has a better goals ratio and is settled in the squad. Surely it wouldn’t be very Wengerish to bring in an older player of similar profile – or am I conflating the two players’ styles too simplistically?

Personally, I hope Mr Wenger thinks seriously about Klaas-Jan Huntelaar. Ludicrously sidelined by the marquee signing jamboree and seemingly available for around £18m, I can’t think of a more natural goalscorer in Europe, and as the teams with the big wallets seem to follow the headlines and the fashion it looks like he’s without a major suitor. He’s not big, but he’s brilliant in the air and his style of play would complement any of RVP, Eduardo or Bendtner. We couldn’t use him as a target man, but then you could argue that Ade isn’t great in that role either.

I think he’d score a tonne.

Well that was nice, wasn’t it? Two players back from injury, Cesc and Ade. Cesc gets two assists, Ade two goals, and suddenly we’re six points into the Champions League places, with Villa still to play United later today. Can’t ask for much more than that really can you?

Well, I suppose in theory you could ask for a golden bed that popped out the starlet of the day holding a Crunchie bar and a cold beer, but that would be rather beyond Arsene Wenger’s remit, so we’ll leave it and be happy with the game yesterday, in which we were comfortable, convincing and which boded very well for the crucial game against Villarreal on Tuesday.

So all in all a glorious Sunday morning to wake up to, thanks very much team. Now just as long as Villa can draw or lose to United – any thoughts on what you’d prefer? Then the whole thing will be capped off very nicely indeed.

After his stonker of a comeback Cesc moved to silence the transfer stories, and this blog, who yesterday wondered aloud about his fondness for Pep Guardiola. All I can say is Cesc Fabregas is a bigger man than I am, but you’d probably guessed that already.

The only other news is that the People thinks we’re in for a £12m 18 year old Everton defender Jack Rodwell. All I’ll say is to remind you of the first part of that statement, the one involving ‘the People thinks that’ bit, and suggest you rest easy. A young, good central defender would be no bad thing at some point, but that some point is not going to be the summer at the earliest.

Although it has grabbed my attention that they refer to him in the article as a ‘starlet’. would like to reassure readers that when I hypothesised the golden bed scenario my starlet was a woman largely in the mould of Jessica Alba, and that the crunchie was large.

Have a good Sunday, y’all. More to come about Villarreal later.

Man City this afternoon, in a game we ought to win, particularly with the absence of Stephen Ireland, who though clearly a wanker has nonetheless scored my fantasy team a lot of points this season. City have failed to deceive, or rather failed to built any further deception on the early promise of a season with Robinho et al. Robinho, despite bumping into Mark Hughes oversized forehead about his ‘star’ status, looks like he’ll just about be back, and he’s famously good at football, but fingers crossed the cack-handed ten around him will conspire not to give him any chances, as per usual.

In our news we have no RvP, Eduardo, Diaby or Sam Nasri. If you want a fun matchday game, play ‘spot the player from that list we’ll least miss’. I’d have thought the team will look something like this:

Almunia

Sagna Toure Gallas Clichy

Walcott Denilson Fabregas(yay) Arshavin

Adebayor Bendtner

Though I wouldn’t be surprised to see Theo start on the bench with Eboue on the right instead. And you never know when Alex Song is going to appear.

Particularly exciting, you’ll agree, is Arshavin and Cesc together for the first time. Funny, isn’t it, how the return of the injuries + Arshavin makes us look so much more like a good football team than we were before.

The Joan Laporta/Cesc Fabregas thing is not really worth commenting on, only to reiterate what I’ve said before about I think Cesc has a few things he wants to achieve at Arsenal before he heads to Barcelona, namely winning some stuff, and probably winning some stuff as captain. He’ll be here for at least another season or two, I’m sure. My only slight worry is that he probably would love to play under Pep Guardiola as manager (the guy was his idol as a player), and with Spanish managers in and out like a bishop in a brothel it’s difficult to say how long this dream combo for him will last. Anyway, just a bit of pessimism. It might be bollocks. The stuff we write usually is.

Three points today, please, and we’ve got six ahead of Villa before they capitulate to United tomorrow, and it’s a sunny, sunny weekend.

Don’t forget to enter the Herbert Chapman competition(still going), sign up for the free Betfair bet above and the mailing list below. 

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!

Man City 3. Arsenal 0. Sure, on the face of it this is a bad result, but this match was always going to be a huge struggle. Even before the Gallas furore, we were a massively weakened side with low morale. 

The defence were far too weak, but look at who we were starting: they’d probably never even played together and were then expected to hold out against a Man City side with arguably the most attacking flair outside the top four.

Wenger has played down the Gallas stuff, as well he might. I expect we’ll hear more about it in the near future.

For now thoughts turn to Kiev on Tuesday, and a chance to perform away from the glare of the Premiership and cement our place in the next round.

More later.