Up For Grabs Now

Very many apologies for the silence from our end this weekend.

Fictional excuses: Grabber was getting a few of his choicest bonsai trees ready for an agricultural show this week, and I was engaged in a gruelling shampoo testing programme.

After some humming and hah-ing and a chronically timid piece of defending from Gael, we finally managed to crush Hull City beneath our imperious Arsenal heel. A goal of happily Piresian economy from Nasri and then a box-busting one-two between Van Persie and Bendtner gave the scoreboard the warm and fuzzy glow of dominance, an aura which was probably merited over the piece, however tardily it might have been achieved.

At this point, I’d like to reiterate that Alan Shearer is an imbecile of Daniel-Levian proportions. He ‘talked’ last night on MOTD (where we were scandalously on after Man City) about the home fixture between Hull and Arsenal, and said that Hull had been “dominant” on that occasion. He can only be describing the sort of dominance where you park not so much a mere bus as a bona fide East Coast mainline express train (with a quiet coach and a serviceable cafeteria) in front of your goal and then score a wondergoal and a header from your only two tentative sniffs at goal. Idiot.

I hope Shearer finally plucks up the balls to finally take the Newcastle job just so we can watch him oversee a disastrous implosion which gets them relegated having been hailed by hysterical Geordies everywhere as the messiah. We’ll see how far his lazily-informed, smugly expressed, know-all hindsight gets him then, won’t we?

Though I must applaud Johan Djourou for his innovative, and potentially homicidal, last minute upwards-headering technique, yesterday really belonged to the man possessed of 3 assists, the goal of the month for December and the balance of Natalia Markarova Rudolf Nureyev (who, my researcher informs me, is a ballet dancer with ’sick’ balance).

Yes, the man on form right now is Robin Van Persie. When he isn’t injuring himself or butting the unfortunate goalkeepers of lesser teams firmly on the bonce in seemingly unprovoked attacks, then he’s crashing rasping free-kicks against the bar and ripping opposition defences firmly asunder. More crashing and ripping and less injuring and butting, thanks Robin. He’s an absolute joy to watch right now, and long may it continue.

Something else which will hopefully continue is our ability to score late goals. Arsene, never one with a head for figures, helpfully pointed out post-match that:

I think we have scored 16 goals in the last 15 minutes of the last 33 games, and we did that again today.

I’d be very interested to see a proper analysis of how many of those goals were in some way related to the substitution of Emmanuel Eboue in favour of a player with a working knowledge of the sport. I’d wager a fair few.

As ever, we love to hear your thoughts, shouts, groans, cheers, yelps, farts, screams and laughs. Stick ‘em in the comments section where the sun don’t shine and we’ll have a right old chinwag.

So a nice comfy 3-1 against Plymouth, a team known as ‘The Pilgrims’ and not, as one irate ‘Pilgrim’ pointed out to us yesterday, as ‘The Posh’. Peterborough United are ‘The Posh’. Barry Fry, trains to the North and that sort of thing. Not very ‘posh’ at all, so you can see why we were a bit confused. It’s sometimes difficult to keep on top of the nicknames of *so-called lesser* clubs especially when their names aren’t so good for rhyming headlines, so we’re deeply sorry for any difficulties which may have been caused.

Our performance was characterised by skipper for the day Van Persie trying his oranje balls off, scoring 2 and brilliantly making another. Gallas must have been overjoyed to see Van Persie wearing the armband. Wenger made a good point that when Van Persie arrived you wouldn’t have immediately guessed that he was a future captain. Scrawny arrogance with a brill-cream quiff and some unsavoury headlines – all in the past, eh?

We also saw Bendtner being crap, Eboue revelling in his free role and Nasri pulling some pretty slick strings as he cut inside in the second half. This has got the inevitable “Can he replace Cesc?” whispers going. Maybe, and yes he did play centrally for Marseille and France. The thing is we then have absolutely nobody to play on the wing which is what we lacked so much before Cesc got injured. So yes Nasri in CM is definitely an option, but it would need to be accompanied by one or two signings for the wings.

There was also our stubborn refusal to defend, fast becoming a jaw-droppingly painful aspect of the season. Plymouth launched a rare attack straight after our second goal. Our back-four had a brief meeting and took the extraordinarily bold decision not to bother defending the goal at all, preferring a revolutionary new conception of the role of a ‘defender’ as a man who stands in the space traditionally occupied by so-called ‘defenders’ and wears all of the kit necessary to carry out defensive work but in fact fails to do any of it.

I saw the minutes of the meeting. They said “we the undersigned declare that during this next bit of pressure, when Plymouth are likely to attack more forcefully than at any other stage in the game, we will neither tackle, nor mark, nor block, nor make any movement to impede opposition attempts to score which might reasonably be construed as constituting defending. Signed, Messrs Gibbs, Gallas, Djourou, Sagna.”

As a response to enemy aggression, it’s not even appeasement or diplomacy – it’s just sordid, inexplicable slothfulness. I’ve had enough of it and I suspect I’m not alone. Please defend.

While we’re on the defence, I notice that not a single Gooner has batted an eyelid at Silvestre’s 3-week lay-off. Well, I’d like to be the first. I’m not that upset, but it’s a bit annoying purely in terms of squad numbers. So Mickael, this bat is for you, son.

The News of the World is a silly organisation, isn’t it? If you didn’t know anything about it you might see the title and think “Wow, that’s good! News! From the World! I must purchase this informative gazette and peruse it at my leisure!”

If you did that today you’d be in for rather a nasty shock. Far from reporting world events by, say, detailing Israeli military aggression towards the civilian population of Gaza, this so-called “newspaper” is instead concerned with peddling heinous untruths about Arsenal Football Club and apparently celebrating the very existence of the human mammary gland.

They claim we’re signing Steven Ireland! I wouldn’t mind, but you just know it’s cock-rot don’t you? They then claim that Theo is desperately unhappy with not having a new contract. Pish. They quote “a source close to Walcott”. Here’s a World Exclusive: “a source close to [insert professional footballer's name here]” is nearly always actually “a man sitting next to the hopeless tabloid hack in his crumby office”. Don’t believe a word.

Similarly, don’t believe a word of the Daily Heil, who carry the bizarre claim that Arsene is in a massive tizzy with the board because they won’t put up the cash for Arshavin and that he’s off to Real Madrid. Arsene denied all this roughly one day ago. Maybe they got a bit confused?

UPDATE: 4th ROUND DRAW: We’ve got Cardiff away. Which is fine to be honest. Certainly preferable to Tiny Totts, who are going to Old Trafford. Point and laugh. No end in sight for their major trophy drought.

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…

Thank you Arsenal. Thank you Arsene. It’s games like yesterday that remind me why I love this club so much, and why I will defend our boss through thick and thin (and occasionally something viscous).

On paper it was always going to be tricky – only the very brave would have put serious money on our essentially striker-less Arsenal against arguably the strongest club-side defence in the world, but the boys proved that they’ve got whatever that thing it is you need to challenge the best.

On the evidence of yesterday, that thing is a combination of other, smaller things. Of course, a big part of it is attacking flair, as Theo and Sammy, and a bit of Diaby demonstrated. But the notable addition yesterday was that this was mixed with a midfield that started running and kept running until the 96th minute, harassing, tackling and generally making a nuisance of themselves against players who themselves love nothing better than making a nuisance of themselves. Finally, a backline prepared to fling themselves around all day to stop the opposition’s ball going in our net.

Arsene’s vision of football, and what he has been correctly appraised as a visionary for, is that it is, finally and crucially, entertainment. This entertainment takes many forms, and includes the tough away draws as well as the Champions League finals, but what originally draws people to the game is that it’s a way to get away from it all on an afternoon, to gather together with family and friends and become involved in a different world with heroes, villains, excitement, victory and defeat. This is why we have the Emirates, this is why we play young players and this, when the dust has settled, is why we spend so much time, money and emotion following this team. Yesterday he was vindicated.

It was end-to-end stuff – it could have been four all by halftime, but from the start it looked, it felt, like Arsenal wanted it and deserved it more. We fought, we moved, we passed beautifully; the second goal summed it up really, as Nasri looked up and smacked it crisply past Van der Sar. having been given the opportunity by a beautifully slipped little ball from Cesc. To be fair they had a few good chances: Ronaldo could easily have snuck one at the far post (quick poll – if the best player in the world is coming into your penalty area do you a) mark him or b) not?), but Wayne Rooney had evidently left his shooting boots in a granny brothel, rather a sad state of affairs for him which culminated in a shot going for a throw in. I haven’t seen anyone do that since Martin Keown, and Keown was under far more pressure. Their goal, though a good strike from Rafael (who incidentally looks like he’s going to be a complete chief for a good white), didn’t surprise many. It was United, they always score. But though the last ten minutes were deafening.

Sammy was the pick of the bunch, but special mentions to Clichy, Diaby, Silvestre and Gallas, the latter two of which who looked (thank the Lord) like a central defence. A small quibble with Gallas though, and this is going to sound ridiculous, but at the very end, whilst the TV cameras were swaying around Ronaldo’s lithely disappointed torso, Gallas went to the Redaction end of the Emirates and beat his chest to the crowd’s adulation, as if he had won the whole match on his own. Clearly it’s ridiculous to complain about a celebration, particularly after such an important win, but you couldn’t help but feel that whilst he revels in the attention, it was exemplary of the fair-weather captaincy which has disappointed so many fans this season. We need him to feel that imperious all the time, not just when he’s won.

It’s worth mentioning that the crowd, who were as good as I’ve seen them at the Emirates and who really got behind the boys, perhaps responding to the ridiculous coverage in the build-up to the game about Wenger quitting (honestly what horseybollocks), and more generally to criticism of the team. The last six minutes were amazing to witness, as 55,000 people willed Howard Webb to end the game.

It’s also worth mentioning, whilst we’re at the mentioning stand, that Michael Carrick is a twat. Perhaps not literally, but after he kicked Almunia clean in the face, his response was to gesture to the ref that because he hadn’t meant to do it, it somehow hadn’t happened and he was therefore exempt from any retribution. The twat. I hope Manu’s alright – he looked pretty groggy before he was subbed, and had been playing well.

Talking points, then, and the real test is whether we can keep it up against the smaller sides each week. Hopefully yesterday will have reminded the team just who they are, and who they’re playing for. We’re the Arsenal; of course we’re title contenders, but it doesn’t come without a fight. Please could the players remember this.