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Arsene - let it go
No wonder Arsenal develop such a bad and whinging name for themselves when we never seem to let go of events in matches.
The latest surrounds the obvious fall-out from the Carling Cup Final.
We lost it, and the players lost it, so can we stop the appeals and the lies and the backbiting and not just get on with what is a transitional but not altogether unsatisfying Premiership season?
Please Arsene!
Posted Feb 26th 2007, 5:59pm by Antony D'Angelo
Nothing To See Here
How utterly predictable was the collective knicker-twisting of the national press over the handbags towards the end of the Carling Cup Final.
A fantastic match which showcased so many things that are good about the game all forgotten for headlines about...well...what, exactly? Two players squared up and pushed each other a bit - shock! Two more grappled - horror! Lots of men ran around shouting - society is collapsing as fast as a WAG is spending!!!
Nothing really happened other than the typically daft Emmanuel Eboue giving Wayne Bridge the type of clip around the ear you used to get from your parents for being lippy. Bridge's subsequent histrionics could have been a late bid to steal Forest Whitaker's inevitable Oscar.
There was a lot to be proud of yesterday. The precocious talent of Arsenal's youngsters, Didier Drogba's finishing and Petr Cech's goalkeeping were all of the highest class. It's a shame that this was rather forgotten by the headline writers this morning.
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Posted Feb 26th 2007, 10:53am by Andy Swan
Carling Cup showdown
I think there's every chance the Carling Cup will be sponsored by Stella Artois next season the way that one went off.
Hardly the respectful end to what has been quite a successful and entertaining competition.
There's something ironic too in Arsenal blooding all this youth as good experience and a sound grounding to learn about the in's and out's of the game, only for two of the supposedly more senior (and smarter) players to be the ones trudging back to the changing rooms early.
A bit of a mess of a Final really, but a good day in Cardiff (minus the horrendous queues at Paddington) and a memorable if ultimately disappointing day.
I still can't help thinking that Chelsea cheated their way to the Final with that Drgoba free-kick at Newcastle, but there you go ...
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Posted Feb 22nd 2007, 1:08pm by Sol Andersson
Carling Cup Final
Seems that people get less excited about this year after year.
All good for the game when teams like Wycombe make it through to the latter stages, but I can't say I even knew the final was this weekend until I saw it advertised last night.
Wenger reckons he will keep faith with youth, but it's all very well experimenting in the earlier rounds, but in a Final?
As for Chelsea, they don't even have a weakended second team so we know what to expect from them.
I might flick over if I'm in and it's on, but apart from that, does anyone really care about it anymore?
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Posted Feb 21st 2007, 4:41pm by Antony D'Angelo
Should He Stay Or Should He Go?
Watching Arsenal lose 0-1 last night in the Champions League to PSV Eindhoven was like being transported to past European nights under Arsene Wenger (last season apart). The Gunners looking comfortable, making chances but not quite getting the breakthrough, only to then not turn up in the second half and end up losing the game.
To read some of the hysterical articles in the press and on websites this morning, you'd have thought Arsenal had lost 0-4. Whilst it won't be easy against PSV and their tactically astute manager Ronald Koeman, the Gunners can turn it around. In order for that to happen though, they will need big performances from their players, and in particular the skipper Thierry Henry. The only problem is that Henry is totally out of form.
I have loved watching Thierry Henry. In my opinion, he's the best player ever to have graced the Premiership. You don't think so? Then show me another player who has scored such a volume of goals AND provided so many assists. As for the quality of the goals - slide rule finishes, 30-yard thunderbolts, slaloming runs from his own half and back-heeled nutmegs have all been part of the Frenchman's repertoire whilst in N5. But at the moment he is not doing it.
There will be those who say he has had a disrupted season, what with his absence in December (for whatever reason you may believe) and the lack of a decent pre-season due to his World Cup commitments. However, that can not excuse his poor displays in the last three games against Wigan, Blackburn and PSV. In each of those games, his first touch has been poor, his passing awry, his movement non-existent. Gone are those thrilling runs when he would burst past defenders as though they weren't there.
Could it be he regrets not going to Barcelona? Did the supposed argument that he had with Wenger when told he wasn't playing against Spurs earlier in the season have a greater effect than at first thought? Or have we simply seen the best of a 30-year-old striker who's been playing football at the highest level since he was 17?
His summer suitors Barcelona are currently having problems with their star forward Samuel Eto'o. Eto'o, who has missed a large part of this season with a knee injury, is at loggerheads with manager Frank Rijkaard over his lack of playing time since he returned from injury and the fact that Ronaldinho appears to get preferential treatment. It may seem strange to say given his goalscoring record, but the Cameroon international is slightly under-rated, perhaps due to shadow cast by the Brazilian. Eto'o has been making noises recently about how he almost joined Arsenal a couple of seasons ago and how he would have loved to work under Wenger. Could we see an exchange with Eto'o coming to The Emirates and Henry going the other way?
Once upon a time the idea of Wenger letting Henry go was unthinkable. But people said that too about Patrick Vieira and once Wenger had deemed he was surplus to requirements, he was sold to Juventus. Another French icon could be on his way from Arsenal again.
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Posted Feb 13th 2007, 1:52pm by Andy Swan
Mandaric
So Leicester become the latest to sample foreign ownership.
True, Mandaric has been around for a while, but where will this trend end?
Is the English game so appealing that we will soon end up with foreign owners to all of our sides, and does this mean we are losing the aesthetic identity of who these clubs are and what they have been run for, for 100 years?
Or, on the other side, is ownership not the bad thing that we paint it out to be.
Does it matter the nationality, or does it matter more how the club is run and whether it will continue to exist.
Risdale was English wasn't he?
!!
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