» The Gooner World

- 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.


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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.

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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

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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!

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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!

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

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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

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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!

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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!

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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!!!

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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.

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