» The Gooner World

A bit of a rare thing,. But after the last 7 days this game cant come fast enough for The Arsenal.

Villa currently sitting nicely in 6th, joint on points with Liverpool, come to us with strong ambitions to land a Euro spot for next season, They must fancy their chance's after the last game with us. Ok we was without Cesc that day, first half we was all over them but we totally lost our shape after Carew played henchman and kicked Hleb out of the game and in the 2nd half they were all over us, we were brave to hold on to all 3 points.

I've never been a big fan of Martin O'Neil as a person or for the style of football he plays. When he was at Leicester they liked a good HOOF and the same at Celtic he's always liked a big bruising center forward to put himself about and in Carew he has that and expect to see them try and close up shop, hit a few long balls. They also have the added danger of the pacy Agbonlahor.

Villa fan's will at some point sing there "have you ever won the European cup" song which harps back to the days when they challenged for the top prizes and wasn't just another team with fickle fan's and a half empty ground when things are not gonig there way on the pitch. Be interesting to see if they start any IN-GER-LAND songs up, especially now dodgy Doug finally hung up his axe and sold them to a yank.

After last week's game at Birmingham there's been much debate over poor Ed's injury and lets hope this weeks ref has the bolloxs to go into both dressing rooms before the game and tell the players to settle into a game and not to "get the first tackle in hard", Taylor will never be forgiven for his act last week, some say he just got done by Ed's pace some say he's just slow and late, but if you look at his record, one sending off in 200 odd games before, He's never been that late or that high before. How he's not getting further punishment bemuses me and how Allidere has ended up with a harsher 4 game ban is a joke. One Boro fan said to me he deserved a 10 game ban for slapping like a girl, But yet again shows the FA do not have a fucking clue.

Gallas showed last week he cared more than anyone else had believed possible before, Lets hope he shows it in a positive light this week during the game and our defenders start talking to each other again.

Despite last weeks dropped points we are still top by 3 points, with DOUBLE the amount of points of the deluded lot up the road, expect cries of "next season" coming from that lot until the back wheels fall off for them (around next September) £100million spent on players in under 2years and yet he sp*rs 11th and closer in points to going down than they are 8th place. Yes they won the League cup, but in the scheme of things these days that's little better than winning a pre-season tournament.

We should have Diaby and Denilson back in the squad this week, Which will give us more options top change things up this week. The way i see it Wenger has 2 choices this week, 4-4-2 with either boy wonder or the lad Adebayor wont pass to upfront or go to a 4-5-1 with Hleb, Cesc and boy wonder all causing mayhem for Villa, Personally i hope he goes for the latter.


Injury news:

Ed; see you in about 9months time, good luck son.
Van Persie; might be back soon.
roSicky; might be back when it warms up.
Toure; maybe another game out for him
Song; few more weeks on his PS3
Djourou; still having groin problems


Non-story:

Well only one this week, Dein' sugar daddy has bought more shares and is now the biggest single share holder in the club, under the banner "Red and White Holdings". Wont be long before they will sadly try messing with things at the club. This story will run and run...

After Spurs' fantastic victory in the Carling Cup, I thought I would expose one of the greatest myths in the modern era. The Jaundae Ramos is a great manager.

Spurs fans would have you believe that he is the messiah, the man to take them to the next level. The man who will get them the elusive 4th place (wasn't that man Martin Jol 12 months ago?). However, when you break down his record, he is simply not that good.

A bit of background first off. At 53 (just 5 years younger then Wenger...). The great Ramos has had 11 jobs in 14 years. Not exactly what you would expect from a top class manager.

Since he took over Spurs, they have been a revaluation! His Premiership record currently reads:

P - 16
W - 7
D - 4
L - 5

Not exactly a great record for someone who has supposedly had a fantastic start to his managerial career.

And in Spain, a finishes of 5th and 3rd, then jumping ship when they were mid table is pretty decent. But in my honest opinion, Seville in the league was more to do with having a lot of good youngster's, who were already at the club, growing up and coming good, and not as much to do with Ramos being a superb manager. Out of interest, after Ramos left, Sevilla rose from 9th to 5th under the stewardship of Manuel Jimenez (WHO? I hear you all shout)

But one thing is not in doubt, he is a fantastic cup manager. 6 cups in 2 years surely shows how great he is.

But wait a minute, lets look at his 'fantastic' cup victories:

Copa del Rey - A competition taken so seriously in Spain that Barcelona have note won it since 1998 and Real Madrid have not won it since 1989. When you consider that the FA Cup, Arsenal or Man U have won 7 of the last 11, it shows how little respect the Copa del Rey gets in Spain! Well done Ramos, this is the first trophy you have won that no one gives a fuck about

Supercopa de España - AKA the Charity Shield.

His record is starting to sound like Houllier's of the early 00's, were he won shit loads but bar the FA Cup, it was shit loads of shit! But it must get better?

UEFA Cup - The competition that many teams that are in it dont care about. I remember Parma a few years back playing there youth team in every match and winning it! So he won it twice. Beating Middlesborough (out thinking that legendary England Manager Steve McClaren), and also beating Espanyol (the spurs of Barcelona!). The 3rd trophy won by Ramos that no one gives a fuck about

UEFA Super Cup - AKA the Charity Shield of Europe

Wow, his record is looking more and more like Houllier's fake '5 trophies in 6 months' record.

Carling Cup - A cup that, like the previous 4 that Ramos has won, no one gives a fuck about and, will always be the bottom of every fans wish list. Well done, 5 trophies

So whilst he has won a lot of trophies, if everyone is honest, he has won a lot of shit.

So Spurs, enjoy your messiah, you have a manager who has never won anything of note, has a very average record, and, quite frankly, is a fraud surrounded by a great media machine. but then again, he suits spurs, an average team surrounded b a great media machine which makes them seem bigger then they are.

Arsenal striker Eduardo broke his leg in the opening minutes of the game at Birmingham on Saturday.

He has since had surgery and, thankfully, is on the road to recovery. However it may be a long journey.

If you would like send a message of support to Eduardo please e-mail here.

Please keep your messages down to just a couple of sentences. Also include your full name, age and where you come from.

Arsenal.com will collate them, put them into a book and give them to Eduardo.

A gift for Eduardo

Get well soon Eduardo.




Our thoughts are with you and we wish you a speedy recovery.


For the extent of injury there's a guy Rohit Saha who sums it up in the arsenal community.

"Actual Extent And Effects Of The Injury

By H H F


It appears that the Auld rivalry has once again appeared between Man Utd and us after a brief respite over the last couple of trophyless years. We currently stand top of the table, 5 points clear of United and Old Red Nose has now decided it is time for the mind games to begin.

Already he has tried to add insult to injury in the aftermath of Saturday’s humiliation by trying to convince the FA that William Gallas should be punished further for his kick at Nani, even after they have said that there will be no further action.

This is where the rant takes a step back in time and covers things said before, but bare with me…

What gets to me the most about the man is just how hypocritical he is. After we drew 2-2 against United back in November, it was reported in the press that Ferguson had been subject to ‘verbal abuse’ from sections of the crowd behind the away bench. Not content to leave it at that, the F***wits at Old Trafford deemed it necessary to take things further. “Our security people are compiling a report on it”, said Ferguson.

Now, I don’t know exactly what was shouted at Ferguson, but I do have an inkling of what was likely to be shouted. But could Ferguson really admit that he was that shocked by it all. After all, he is one of the biggest C***s in football management, even if he is one of the most successful. Even so, the press jumped onto the bandwagon and lapped up everything the crazy Scotsman said on the issue.

So, what made Saturday’s game, and every other game we have played over the last few years at Old Trafford all the more infuriating is the total lack of coverage in the press of tens of thousands of United fans chanting defamatory remarks accusing Wenger of being a kiddie fiddler.

So, what is worse? A dozen or so fans calling Fergie a F***ing thick C***, or thousands of fans accusing Wenger of sickening acts? We all know the answer to that.

The trouble is, however, the hypocrisy of the club and the manager seems to be rubbing off on the fans too. I have been unfortunate in my life to have grown up surrounded by JCL United fans, unfortunately I consider some of them to be friends, so I have seen at first hand just how contradictory they can be. I have seen them take the piss out of Liverpool fans for Hillsborough and Leeds United fans for the incident where two of their fans were stabbed and killed in Istanbul with such vitriol it is untrue. But as soon as Liverpool or Leeds fans mention a thing about Munich, it is seen as being out of order and unnecessary.

Even worse is how the United fans hate anything scouse yet praise the fat scouser Rooney and hail him as the best thing since sliced bread. What is it to be? The only explanation I have heard for this glaring contradiction is; “Oh, he must have seen the light by signing for us”. Numpty.

It is nice to see that our club conduct themselves with a bit of decorum. It would be easy for Wenger to turn round and demand a security dossier and CCTV footage of the Old Trafford crowd chanting things at him, but he quite simply lets it go over his head. The man has more class in his little finger than Fergie does in his entire, alcohol soaked body. Without wanting to jinx us, to use a quote: “I would love it if we beat them”. The best thing that our players can do is laugh at Ferguson for the clown he is, don’t get involved in the slating, and keep their minds focused on bringing the Premier League trophy back to where it belongs.

I really don’t know what to think about the result. I’m as excited about our excelent perfomance as I’m frustrated by the chances we missed.

The truth why Adebayor went down. From the capture its pretty clear the defender went for his feet and didn't get the ball. Maybe not malicious but cynical, yes.

Penalties have been awarded for crimes lot lesser!

Now we tried speaking with Ferie but:

Sir Alex Ferguson does not speak to us for legal reasons, however his assistant Carlos Queiroz said this morning,

“O Nani é louco. Ele cheira de mackeral e sua prostitua por o sexo com alsatian”.

Again we have to apologise that we don't have access to a Portugese translator. However with more law suits against us than Private Eye, we believe this might be a blessing in disguise.

Ok, so we are out the FA Cup, but there has been one MASSIVE advantage thrown Arsenal's way.

Our next 3 league games are Birmingham, Villa and Wigan, As discussed already, we should win all 3.

Due to the FA Cup QF, Man U no longer play a game when we play v Wigan, thus meaning, we could justfiably be 8 points clear of them with 9 points to go. That will put the pressure straight on them!

"We'll be back to win the league" says it all I feel

--

yup. true.
we will be back, and we win the league. but i hope we do that after we geet our pride back at the theater of wet dreams.

--

lets remember that after we lost to Boro, people said we were finished

After we were raped by spurs, people said we were finished

i expect to wake upo in 12 hours time and read how our season is over.

in my eyes, our season begins today.
--

Firstly, it is not slander to call someone a c***, so f*** you all. Secondly, I would like to know why Setanta continue to employ someone who is clearly clueless about football, is clearly biased, and is clearly jealous of the success of Arsenal.

Back on December 1st, he wrote in his blog, published by Setanta, that Arsenal’s 'bubbles would burst'. Next, he claimed that we didn’t deserve to beat Villa – a match which we had 14 shots to 10 – and that the crude challenge which took Hleb out of the game was justifiable. Now if this was not bad enough, a couple of weeks later, we lost to Boro. This bought the old Sherwood back: ‘I hate being right,’ he said. Yes, if you predict something enough, it will eventually come true.

According to this 'football expert', we lost to Boro because we lacked an English spine. Chelsea had Lampard and Terry, Man U had Hargreaves (£17million), Ferdinand (£30million) and Rooney (£30million) and Liverpool had Carragher and Gerrard. "They are the ones you build your teams around and the ones who will win you the titles, where’s Arsenal’s spine?" He argued. Yet I thought that Chelsea built their team around Cech, Carvhallo and Drogba, and United were held together by Vidic and Ronaldo? But don’t tell the expert that.

What I loved about the blog on December 14th was the comment, "Sunday against an in-form Chelsea side will be interesting". Yes Timothy, it was. Arsenal won. Comfortably. He did not write another blog ‘til January 11th.

Bit embarrassed sir?

And now, the man who has been proved wrong (Arsenal: top, bubble hasn’t burst, no Englishman; Liverpool and Chelsea: way behind, bubbles has burst, loads of Englishman) has come out and claimed “Almunia will cost Arsenal title”.

Yet despite the title of his blog, the first line sums him up: “The most successful time Arsene Wenger had at Arsenal was when he had the old English back four.” You mean to tell me the double team of ’98 can be considered more successful then a team who WENT UNBEATEN? This guy is clearly clueless. I do not understand why Setanta give him the platform to write his crap views.

Despite his great title about Almunia, he does not actually explain why Almunia will cost us the title; he merely argues that our back four were better in ’98 than now. You are an idiot Tim, learn how to create an argument and justify it. Do not write a title then talk about something completely different. Not only that, his newest blog is an entire 4 paragraphs long. Great writing sir!

Tim, we are top the league. Our bubble has burst, your predicted it, and we don’t have and Englishman. Your constant bashing of us having no Englishman does come across as slightly xenophobic. Make of that what you will.

Spurs fans must be embarrassed. He has shown himself up in the past as being a clueless ***. It is time Setanta realised he knows fuck all about football and got rid.

Finally, I would like to point out that Setanta claim that he is an ‘intelligent and honest pundit’ – maybe they should think of removing that from his profile?


PS To make up your own mind on Tim Sherwood, I thought I would link his blogs to the board:

http://sports.setanta.com/en/Blogs/A-to-Z-of-Bloggers/Tim-Sherwood/?facets/blog-space/great-britain-locale/tim-sherwood/

Make your own decision.

By Felipe Hassin

Five points clear and now everything is much more settled than it was yesterday night. Alex Ferguson believes the four big teams will drop lots of points from now on (link here: http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11095_3135510,00.html), and I have to agree with him as Arsenal is about to play Chelsea and Man United away, and Liverpool at the Emirates. I think if we can make five or even six points over them it would be fantastic and enough to win the Premier League.

About Arsenal, however, Senderos was happy to win ugly (link here: http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,11661_3137287,00.html). And, honestly, that's the point. I know our players were pressured by the other results and the fact that they would look really pathetic if they had dropped points after having such a chance to be five points clear, but I'm proud they defeated Blackburn and didn't care too much about the pressure over their shoulders. It makes me really happy to see that our kids are getting even more experienced as they're handling the pressure very well.

Wenger talked about our perfomance to BBC and I do think you should listen to him as he affirms he's proud of his players as well and reveals some nice stuff about our match against Man United next Saturday. He says he's probably going to rest two or three players (Cesc included) due to the fact that the FA Cup is not our priority (link here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/check/player/sol/newsid_7240000/newsid_7240900?redirect=7240943.stm&news=1&nbram=1&bbwm=1&nbwm=1&bbram=1)

Adebayor claims Henry is like a big brother for him (link here: http://www.arsenal.com/article.asp?thisNav=News&article=487482&lid=NewsHeadline&Title=Adebayor+-+Henry+keeps+me+focused+on+title). It's nice to see the Frenchman is still conected with Arsenal and I think it's very kind of him "teaching" and giving Adebayor some advices. It looks as if Henry still has his mind at Arsenal. Don't know if he's keen on returning now that we're topping the Premier League, but the truth is that we're doing very well without him.

That's it. See you all tomorrow!

By Felipe Hassin

Finally we all can say that this round was perfect. On Sunday Man United dropped three points at Old Trafford as they were beaten by Eriksson's boys in the Manchester derby whereas Chelsea dropped two, as they were held by Benitez's Liverpool.

About Man City win over United I have to say we are all a bit impressed by Dunne and Richards. The boys were really solid and very mature, they were playing away and against their biggest rival after being defeated by three-nil by Arsenal last round and they didn't give a damn about the pressure over their shoulders. Capello should've been in Manchester instead of London as he would be impressed by Richard's improvement.

About our win over Blackburn Rovers, I must admit that our perfomance was not as good as it should have been - but, ok, we're with no players. Despite of the fact that Lehmann didn't have much to do during the match he wasn't safe, definitely. Gilberto was really, really poor and it makes me really sad as I have to admit his times at Arsenal are coming to an end. Highlighting some good perfomances, I'd say Senderos was crowned today by the early goal he scored after such a sequence of good perfomances. I'm sure his confidence is now higher, despite of the fact that he's not going to play regularly from now on as Toure is back. Sagna was brilliant, and what a player he is, really talented. He's completely settled in Premier League style during his first season, quite impressive. Hleb was fast and furious today whereas Fabregas looked a bit tired despite of his effort to score twice in the second-half. Anyway he did a good job especially because he wasn't feeling well this week and played at the wing. Wenger on Cesc appearing on the right:

"I had no real choice, Fabregas was three days in bed and credit to him, you know, not only did he play but we took him out of bed to play tonight and we played him in a different position. That shows you as well how much these players are up for it."

So fingers crossed Fabregas will be back on business from now on. And it's needless to comment about Adebayor. He's just keen on scoring. It's fantastic to see how disappointed he gets every single time he misses a goal. He's improving his skills day by day and he's becoming an important player for the team as he's becoming a leader.

Anyway, it was good to see that even when we don't play well we win - though I really hope we play better against Birmingham City next round (I still replay our last match against them at the Emirates when they hold us every single time we face a solid defense).

Talking about rumours, The Sun claims Gilberto affirmed that Wenger made he feels useless this season.

"I thought I had a good season last year and I saw no reason for what has happened. If I continue not to play, then leaving Arsenal is inevitable.

I could not cope with another season like this one when Wenger has made me feel totally useless."

As I've already said above that I feel sorry about Gilberto (once I like him), all I can do is to back him if he really wants to leave, especially because Flamini is being superb and Song is improving fast.

That's enough for today. See you all tomorrow.

As sports journalists throughout Britain tried to make sense of the amazing scoreline at Old Trafford today, United captain Ryan Giggs has given his honest opinion as to why a team, who hadn’t lost at home this season, capitulated so easily to their long term rivals Manchester City.

” We were just not used to playing in shirt’s without sponsorship. Ever since I started playing in 1991 we have always had a logo on our kit, be it ‘Sharp’ ‘Vodafone’ or nowadays ‘AIG’. It didn’t feel right just playing for Manchester United, my heart wasn’t in it. The players are commodities now. We know we are walking billboards and we feel comfortable with that. I have talked to the other lads and to be honest they all said the same thing. We felt naked out there today. You can’t throw yourself into tackles if you think your souls are hanging out of your shorts.”

We think that recent signing, Brazilian wonderkid, Anderson supported Giggs. Talking to our reporter he said,

” O meu amigo é correto. Eu quis os meus testicals estiveram na demonstração hoje. Os bastardos, o fundo, os arsehole ”

Unfortunately our paper does not have access to a Portugese translator. However one can only assume Anderson was not happy about the situation.

On similiar lines, 29 year old, mixed race defender Rio Ferdinand, said,

” I agree with Giggsy. We didn’t stand a chance out there today. The boss allowed us to change our underpants at half time. I wore a pair with ‘Barclaycard’ written down the side, whilst Scholesy had a pair sponsored by ‘Toys ‘R’ Us’. It felt slightly better and I think that reflected in our second half performance but it was too little too late. Do you know that not wearing the ‘AIG’ logo cost us all £30,000 each today. I worked that out at £333 per minute or £5.50 per second. It’s difficult to concentrate on a cross with those kind of figures racing around in your head. I only hope for the clubs sake that they don’t do the same thing in another 50 years time “.

Mr Ferdinand thanked our Sports correspondent and told us that he would expect the bill for the 2 minute interview to be settled by early next week. Further he said that he would like it to be known that his, ‘whiter than white smile’ was thanks to ‘Aquafresh Extreme clean toothpaste’, and that his close shave was due to, ‘Gillette,.. the best a Man can get’.

Simple... play Arsenal and ex-Arsenal players. Problem solved

For a formation this would do



--------------------------Wright------------------------------------

I don't it'll be the next world cup (even though it's in Africa), but the one after that (or at least the semi-finals). Their are more African stars in the major European leagues than ever before and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

--

I am totally pissed off with our club, alongside RedAction, for trying to manufacture an atmosphere: whether it is the ‘shout the names back to me’, the fake anthem, the scarf waving or the crap songs, it should not be found at The Arsenal.

Firstly, shouting the names back, it happens all the time in Germany, and it works, but after 2 and a half seasons, surely the club have realised that it’s not working at all? Most people are still trying to find their seats, the rest just mumble the names, and who the hell is ‘GILL’…‘BERTO’? It’s just retarded….Stop it now! Thanks.

Secondly the fake anthem…why? What is the point of ‘a wonder of you’ (or whatever the hell it’s called)? Firstly, it’s a shit song; secondly, it doesn’t get the crowd going; thirdly, it encourages fans to put their scarves above their heads as if they were on the Kop signing YNWA. We are not Liverpool, so why do our fans pretend we are? Someone said to me the other day that they should bring back ‘Right here, Right now’; I agree, that got people buzzing. Let’s stop this hunt for an anthem, the fans signing ‘and its Arsenal…’ as the players come out is more then enough.

And now the scarf waving: I hate it. This brings up two issues to me: 1) Fans holding their scarves above their heads straight like they were at Kop: it’s gay, stop doing it; 2) Swinging your scarf above your head: it makes you look like a kid on crack. What is the point of doing it? Someone has yet to give me an explanation of why it’s good….All I know is whoever sells the scarves has made a mint out of gullible JCLs.

Finally, the shit songs: ‘Sing up for The Arsenal’ is one of my most hated. It’s just retarded. Why not just come up with a decent song to sing instead? The second is this new Adebayor song: it is depressing, it is slow, and it is shit. I was waiting for the funeral to start when people started singing it. It’s crap.

Now people will say ‘Well RedAction do so much for the atmosphere and at least try’. I’ll tell you what, if they allowed another certain group to stand up for the whole match and not be bothered by the stewards, the atmosphere would be even better, as would the songs. But it seems the club would rather embrace RedAction, a bunch of do-gooder JCLs who are as plastic as the club is turning into, than real fans who have been through the good and bad and will forever remain loyal. One rule for 1; one for another I feel.

I always ask the steward when asked to sit down, ‘but why can they stand up over there’; they always reply, ‘they are allowed’. Everyone around me wants to stand, everyone is happy standing and signing, but it seems the Arsenal officials are trying to kill the atmosphere in certain areas to ensure that other areas seem like they are better than what they are.

The stadium is no longer filled with real fans who bleed Arsenal. It is now filled with JCLs and Johnny Foreigners who don’t know anything about the club and just jump on the next trend. If the club really wanted a good atmosphere, they would drop the ticket prices, allow fans to stand and get rid of the Hitler stewards who want to chuck you out for swearing. But we all know the fans who would then come in won’t be buying a scarf…

Our home support is no worse then any other clubs in the premiership. Anyone who travels away will agree with me. Other than when teams sing a couple of songs (YNWA, bubbles) home fans are quiet. West Ham, bar bubbles, was awful; Boro, despite beating us, were awful. We are no worse then others, so why force a change?

Stop trying to manufacture an atmosphere.

Stop trying to mimic other clubs.

The solution is simple.

By Felipe Hassin

Most of us are aware about FA. brand new idea of adding one more game to Barclays Premier League's calendar, what would make us have 39 games instead of 38. It would be tremendously meaningless, being honest.

First of all because there's no point in playing a respective team for three times during one only season, what would be really boring. Another point is that the Premier League, for example, is an english competition. And where on earth would it suit better than in England?

The season is already long and exhausting. For example, our current situation is not so good. We have players in the Africa Cup of Nations, some that are injured and the available players (that are less than seventeen) are just too tired to play three/four competitions at the same time, and that's why the Carling and the FA Cup are quite boring, because they're not priorities. So, I do think the foreign games would be just like the ones for Carling or FA Cup: games that look more like a play than a real and coveted competition.

If people want to make more money by using Premier League's teams, so I think they should hold some event like The Emirates Cup or something like that, so they could have four or more top teams playing wherever they want, and, most importantly, during the summer without disturbing our already busy calendar.

Anyway, Arsene Wenger himself has backed (or not) the project saying it would be nice to promote the League, English football and, of course, giving the chance to foreign fans to watch some matches. But he also dismissed it if the main reason of it would be only to raise more money. He said:

"If it's just to make £5m or £6m more then it's not worth doing. We have to check that it is really to give something competitive to the rest of the world, not just a chance to make a few more millions because that will go into the wages straight away and it will all be equal again. It's not worth doing it only for money.

"What you can say at the moment is that 10 per cent of our fans have access to our competitive games, and 90 per cent have no access at all to competitive games. Do you want to give them something? I can agree with that idea. But is this the best way to do it? That has to be checked because I am not completely sure."

As brilliant as always. Hats off, once again, to him. Nice to see that we share the same opinion. If they want foreign fans to watch some matches there're other ways to do that without disturbing our calendar.

And, by the way, do the Barclays Premier League really needs more advertising, sponsors and spots over itself? It's already the biggest club league in the world and it's full of rich clubs. All we don't need is more money! I mean, Arsenal has become one of the richests after being sponsored by Emirates and we simply don't spend lots of money buying players so playing for raising money would be meaningless, especially when the league is sponsored by a bank like Barclays!

So, please, don't mess the Premier League up.

Anyway, let's keep with the current season. After such an exhausting sequence of tough matches our players finally got nine days for resting. And as the next match is coming lots of speculations and breaking news are being reported by the british press. And as Ivory Coast was beaten by Egypt a couple of days ago, Wenger is tempted to call Kolo Toure back so he can play against Blackburn Roverns on Monday. The Boss said:

"Ivory Coast play on Saturday afternoon. I have not called him yet but I will try to see if he can take a flight from Accra to London. Otherwise it will be Gilberto, who is back, or Justin Hoyte at centre half."

It would be fantastic to see King Kolo back. We are short as Emmanuel Eboue, Alex Song (both international duty), Johan Djourou (groin), Philippe Senderos (knee) Robin van Persie (thigh), Abou Diaby (calf), Mathieu Flamini (hamstring), Manuel Almunia (sick), Denilson (hamstring) and Tomas Rosicky (hamstring) are all out.

However, Goal.com claims that Almunia, Senderos and Flamini are ok and will play. Let us hope they all feel better until Monday morning so we can keep the pace against Blackburn.

That's enough for today. See you all tomorrow.

- by Abdulrehman Nazar

The King of Highbury has departed and has left Arsenal in the middle of a crisis. No superstar, just some bright prospects…. as always. This was the general feeling when Thierry Henry left Arsenal to join Spanish giants Barcelona. There was even uncertainty over the future of Wenger. David Dein had left, and many (the London newspapers) really thought Wenger was going after the end of the season. There was debate about what Arsenal would do without Henry, after all rivals regarded us as a one man team. And now that ‘one man’ had left. There was no man left, literally. What remained were a bunch of talented kids only. There was no doubt about their talent, but could they possibly fill in the void left by Henry? Some even went to the extent of counting Arsenal out of silverware contenders even before the season started. This was to be the beginning of a new era in north London. Not for Arsenal, but for their rivals Tottenham Hotspurs. A mouth watering contest for the 4th place between Arsenal and Tottenham was expected. According to many, this was the season that finally Tottenham would finish 4th and Arsenal would not qualify for the Champions League.

I wouldn’t go into the details of how we shut the mouths of all rival fans and indeed experts who thought Arsenal would be down and out of the premier league title as early as December. I would just say 'take a look back at 15th September 2007'. Tottenham 1 Arsenal 0. We are in the second half, Dimitar Berbatov gets away from Alumina, open goal, only Kolo Toure to beat, and the Ivorian comes up with a thunderous tackle. Arsenal goes on and scores 3 of the best goals in the premier league this season. “Dynamite, absolute dynamite”. Really sums up our season so far.

Even now people are betting on Manchester united to win the premier league title. Apart from Arsenal fans, no one really gives Arsenal a realistic chance. 25 games played, 13 left. Arsenal on top of the table after defeating Manchester city 1-3. United drop points at White Hart Lane. Eduardo’s finish today at the city of Manchester stadium showed everyone why Wenger went out and bought him after Henry had left. I am one of those who think even after 25 games that it is too early to predict a winner. But I am just irritated at the fact that we aren’t considered as a serious title threat. Arsenal, to be really honest, have now got only 2 daunting away trips, Old Trafford and Stamford Bridge. The rest of the away games are to bottom half teams. And like Wenger said, Van Persie would be like a new signing when he returns. He is back in training and would most probably return for the game against Blackburn. With Adebayor scoring goals for fun (yeah you heard it ...Adebayor scoring goals!) and the team winning games when it matters most, I see us pushing United all the way. I am not going to predict a winner. It’s too early as I said before. But if I was to bet, I’d bet on Arsenal. Not just because I am a gooner, but because I think we have more than a decent chance of bringing the trophy to Ashburton Grove for the first time.

The F.A Cup is in the 5th round and we face Manchester United at Old Trafford. Once again, Arsenal are the underdogs. Arsenal are supposed to bow out of the F.A cup in the 5th round. But how often are we ‘supposed’ to lose a match and we end up winning it? Hasn’t that been our story this season?

There has also been much talk of Arsenal’s match up against AC Milan. Out of the possible options that we had, AC Milan may well be the worst we could have got. I don’t care how pathetic they have been in the Italian league or whether they have been knocked out of the Coppa Italia. It is their ability to rise for a UCL game that scares me the most. No team keeps a bunch of oldies. This might be a little far fetched but yeah they do play only for the Champions League. Gattuso has picked up an injury, good for us? Not at all. Not a single player would want to be injured. It’s a footballer’s worst nightmare. Being kept on the sidelines hurts, and those who play football will agree with me. Also I would prefer Arsenal facing a full strength Milan squad so that our team is really tested! A mouth watering encounter indeed. But there is no way one can say that Milan will humiliate us. No underdogs in this game I think. Arsenal has as much a chance of winning it as Milan does. I can’t see why we would not put up a fight.

Carling cup is over. The defeat in the semis doesn’t hurt at all. It is the fact that we lost to Spurs that hurts the most. Having said that, let’s not forget the performance of our CC team at Ewood Park and at Bramall lane. I am sure they make us all proud to be a gooner. There are still some 3-4 months left in the season, but to count Arsenal out of any competition would be foolish. It can go all wrong for us in a matter of a few days. We may be knocked out of the F.A cup on the 16th and Milan may add insult to injury. At the same time, it could go all right for us. We may win against United and keep a clean sheet at Ashburton against Milan! I haven’t been more excited than this in years. Certainly the coming few months would tell us a lot about this Arsenal side. It’s a three horse race for the title. And as Richard Clarke writes on arsenal.com “Many expect Wenger’s side to falter when the teams turn for home but Wenger would argue, while the horse is young, the rider has been there before”

IN ARSENE WE TRUST!

John Terry & Drogba: Arsenal have no chance

Red Nose: Premiership is ours, arsenal will drop points.

Press: Arsenal are doomed, Scums will overtake Arsenal

Our season started well and we were supposed to go down once we played the other members of big 4. our season was supposed to collapse after we lost to boro. when pompeii draw happened it was doom doom and more doom. manyoo were supposed to drill their way up up and chel$ki were supposed to come back strong. manyoo press slated us for an 'undeserving draw'

now with 13 games to go what's the sound? arsenal are top. what makes this a terrific achievement is we manage without a BIG name in our squad. (there are decent players but no one who is hailed by the press as next maradona or pele). the costliest player in the XI is hleb who cost us 10m, a complete third of a few manyoo players and a third of a shit ukrainian striker. our x'fer balance was positive and compare it with the obscene $ spent by the american and russian teams.

we now have seen manyoo struggle when ronaldo does not play. on the other hand though adebayor and cesc were out we somehow manage a win. we reached the league cup sf and are in fa and cl.

AND we achieve all this with the free scoring rvp out!

Irrespective of what happens this has been a fantastic season and a memorable one.


--

Its been an amazing run so far. No Arsenal fan would have dared to dream of such a season last July.

It has been a great journey , proving everyone wrong -one by one. It took determination , guts and plenty of hard work.

Irrespective of the end results , I am sure every gooner out there will be proud of their team this season.

--

Well, i would have LOVED to hear what Mourinho would have said, had he been related to Arsenal in any ways ./....
He's a master of spoken football

--

We can add MANY MILLION OF PEOPLE in that Muppet list - those who said that without Henry, Arsenal would fight against relegation.

I feel so sad to say that there were many Arsenal fans in that list too!


Personally, in my school-life, me and my friend's brother were the ONLY Arsenal fans in the school after Henry left!

--

yeah i would be disspointed if we end up 2nd or 3rd after this amazing run...it's that we are so close and can win this.......but as said earlier.....no matter what the end result is,arsenal have made us proud. they have proved everyone wrong but most importantly have shut the mouths all those losers who thought spurs would take the 4th place away from us!

--

St. Totteringham's day will come much early this season around.

--

and even Henry,
after being rejected by Juve.....

Arsenal nursed him to be THE BEST!
and he's STILL THE BEST, even bigger a person than the likes of Eto'o, Adebayor and other strikers

--

Exactly what I was thinking about yesterday. The kind of so called tests that we have had to go through this year

At the start of the season, it was No Henry, only kids left.
After a good start that changed to we will fakter soon(no real reason).
Then it changed to, we cant cope with injured players(We had a fair share of injuries throught out the season).
NExt was the matches against Liverpool and MU. We came out of that still on top.
Then we were supposed to fail when we had played an equal number of away matches, that got corrected in early December still on top.

Ofcourse the busy season was always going to be a mountain too big for Arsenal. Add to that some people believed that one loss and it would be all over. we lost the lead for a game in between but guess what , we were top after the holiday season too.

And after the first weekend in Feb we have regained the lead again. I am sure the next thing people are saying is wait till the UCL games restart. Well bring it on! and we need to shut some people up!

--

I feel the most important moment of the season so far was the Hleb goal against Fulham that made it 2-1 to us late on. It clearly sent out a message that no more stupid 1-1 draws that cost us big time last season. The way players celebrated especially Fab and Flam showed that they wanted to prove the critics wrong and boy have they done that so far!

--

Muppet talk

1: Arsenal are doomed

Arsenal have a great start to the season.

2: Arsenal have had a easy run of games in the beginning

We go to WHU, Liverpool, Reading etc and come off with good results

3: Arsenal cannot win without Fabregas

Arsenal play without Fabregas for close to three weeks. Apart from one loss at Boro , we come off well.

4: December will be Arsenal's downfall

Excellent december!!!

5: Arsenal will fall during ACN

Some one forgot Phil!!!

--

Now the new talk is about how good Milan are in UCL and how Ka-Pa-Ro is the best attacking combination to have ever graced the planet earth. I hope we beat AC Milan convincingly and shut these whining Mancs up.

Anyways, the good news is that Gattuso is injured and will surely miss the first Arsenal games (maybe second one too-lets keep our fingers crossed.) With him gone who is going to stop the Arsenal Middies- Ambrosini? Emerson? I don't think so?

And regarding Ka-Pa-Ro, Kaka is a class act,but, Pato is too young and Ronaldo too fat to trouble us when Toure gets back in.

And coming back to BPL, Arsenal will get strengthened when RVP and Toure return. The season is still wide open and it is foolish to make tall claims now. But, looks like we are just destined to win BPL this year. Here is to Arsenal.

--
Discuss more here

http://www.orkut.com/CommMsgs.aspx?cmm=4553&tid=2581168879120707833&na=3&nst=11&nid=4553-2581168879120707833-2581171563487692539

This comes as a sensational revelation. The British press are going to love this. This is quoted from the club's official site:

"I knew about him yes," said Wenger at Friday's pre-match press conference. "We were very close. Manchester United had a partnership with Sporting Lisbon when Carlos Queiroz came in - that made the difference.

"One day I will tell you more about that story and you will be surprised. But you will have to ask him how close it was."

I am speechless at the moment.

--

Ok. It is very easy to hate Ronaldo for everything he's influenced on the pitch - but even Rooney has put that behind him! And in truth, it's been easier to like Ronaldo this year because he has stowed a lot of the diving kicking and screaming routine. Whether or not it stays that way, we'll see. But I for one am always happy when a player puts away the petulance and gets to football.

All his personality aside, he's the genuine article - he's a game breaker. This is a player who can be anonymous for 89 minutes and then win a game for you. Or he can be on the pitch for 90 minutes all over and destroy the opposition when the rest of the team went to sleep. That is a remarkable talent. It's all I can say. He'll be footballer of the year in England and perhaps Europe if he A) takes Manchester United deep in Europe and B) has a great Euro. No question.

I respect his skill and watch him because he's that good, and as long as he keeps up the good sportsmanship, the only thing I'll have against him is that he plays for Manchester United. Which, if we win, doesn't matter either. :-)

Honestly, I'm not sure I really ever hated him. Dislike. Hate is a word I use for guys like Robbie Savage and the other thugs.

A tough match, City had caught few eyes by their performances but their form of late had been poor, they won just once in their last four games.

No time better to boost their confidence before playing Manyoo next week by getting something out of Arsenal's game. They will be playing for a point surely, up to Arsenal or Adebayor to break them down . We're relying on him for goals lately, aren't we?

Dunne and Richards on their day can piss off any team but the form Ade is in, i'm sure he will make them sweat. Petrov can cause trouble and anyone else thinks he acts like Ade when someone fails to provide him with a pass when he wants? I remember few matches before he was so annoyed he didn't make the run just because someone didn't give him the ball earlier.

Scums will play Manyoo, they screwed it up in the Fa Cup, should make Manyoo drop two points on the least.


---

A nice point about this round is that we're facing Man United's rivals, and they, ours. I'm sure Tottenham wouldn't be happy to help us to be back on top as well as Man City wouldn't like to see Man United comfortably leading the Premier League. Anyway, I'm sure Tottenham and Man City are keen on winning as they need points. Eriksson needs his team to be back on business as they dropped lots of important points and Ramos does need to win as his team is keen on beating Man United after being eliminated by them from the FA Cup.

Tough match, no doubt. I don't think we are going to see lots of goals, specially because we're playing away with a team that plays very well at home. Anyway I've to admit that Man City were impressing me by the beggining of the season, but now it looks as if they lost their pace. They drawn twice playing West Ham and now did it again with Derby County last Premier League round. So I do think we're going to beat them once again this season.

Latest news from City of Manchester Stadium is that Bianchi was sent on loan to Lazio (that's really good as the italian was scoring nice goals) and Johnson is injured and is expected to be back in the middle of February. Elano is ok and might play.

Now I hope our players are resting after beating Keegan twice in four days so we can beat Eriksson and hope to see Man United droping points here in London, and Chelsea in Portsmouth as well.

---

They have a tremendous home record this season. United lost there, the Fools came out with a single point. But we are back in form. Though Rosicky, Persie and Djourou are still out in addition to the Africans, Senderos, Dudu and Diaby have risen to the occasion well. We cannot afford to lose points in this stage of the season, especially because the season will get a bit busier when the FA cup and UCL are back.

--

SPuds have added some impressive players in thier Back four...Hope they play and stop Ronaldo and Tevez from scoring !! Woodgate , Hutton and Gilberto all have been signed...Nice signings at least on paper Man City started the season on a high but now all their confidence , they once had is lost some where in between...Kasper Schmaichel conceded his first goal against us and where is he now ?? Bianchi never found his feet here at BPL... anything less then 3 points would be un-bearable !!!
--

Hehehe... I won't shoot you. So long as you didn't mind me wearing a Spud's jersey on Friday to try and align the fates. The good ol' '98 Gunner's shirt did it today! Woohoo! First loss for Man City at home. The team keeps rolling.

--

City started the game trying to stay back and hit us on the counter and after the first 5 mins it looked like it was going to be another slow game unless we scored early. Luckily Ade's is still in great form and got us off to a quick start after a brilliant run and cut back by Sagna. Sagna had another solid game as usual. Amazingly even after that City were still holding back and didnt seem to be going for the equalizer. The second goal was another case of good finishing by Eduardo. Eduardo had a good game, made decent runs even when he was playing on the left. The encouraging thing for me is that his linkup play with the first team has improved and he fits in well now. RVP will have a tough time breaking into the first 11. The second goal brought City out of their shell and I think they actually surprised us with the change in tempo. Clichy made a few mistakes in this game and his was the crucial mistake which prevented the clean sheet.

City was more adventurous after that and it was a better game. We still created openings but failed to make the most of them. Diaby was poor again on the left. He just dosent know when to pass the ball and gave the ball away too many times. He seemed to get into less trouble after he was moved into the centre. Flamini and Fab has decent games and Fab played for sometime in the hole. Fab is always more effective when central and I wonder who among Fab and Hleb would be first choice to play in the hole if we need to play a 4-5-1 against Milan. Gallas had a decent game and Senderos has really picked up his form in the last few matches. Reminds me of his form duriing the CL match where he used to stick his leg in with confidence and make the challenges count.

Three points to us, GD reduced for now and Ade closing in on Ronaldo's goal tally. Now we have to wait and hope things go in our favour this weekend.

--

Points dropped by both our rivals. But only 2. Being 2 points up is kinda worrisome... but as long as they keep winning, doesn't matter.