Arsenal is now Arse

As always, David Hershy
sums it up best over at Deadspin.

At least Barca's going to be nigh unbeatable in Spain for the next couple of years.

I propose that Henry will now forever be known as a "nothing master."

A sorry end to 2006

'Twas the last game of the calender year for the Gunners. The field was shit and, funny enough, so was Arsenal. The announcer said he hadn't seen Arsenal play that bad in a long, long time. I have to agree.

Arsenal went down 1-0 to Sheffield United. Think back with me, if you will, to last summer ... PGE Park, Sheffield United tied the Portland Timbers. Same Sheffield United. Ouch.

Post-match

A quality result for the Gunners. Would have been nice to hang on to that lead and take a point. Given the fact that Chelsea struck woodwork 3 times, I think we'll take it.

John woke up and got to the match to watch the final 10 minutes, which included some of the most exciting stuff I've seen in sport. He emerged just after hearing my exhuberent yell for Flamini's goal. Any American who says football lacks the excitement of the NFL and NBA should ask John about the 15 minutes after he came out of his room on this Sunday. We're talking heart-attack good.

In the post-game debrief, the announcer described Essien's goal as a "thunderbomb." I like it. I think I'll add it to my day-to-day vocabulary.

"That's all the time we have for now. This has been the beautiful game ..."

94:00

- Lehmann misses a ball in another one of his gaffes. Lampard gets to it, puts a foot to it. The ball caroms off of the inside of the post and rolls 'cross the goal mouth. How that did not go in is absolutely beyond me.

- Final whistle. Breath.

92:00

- Lampard's corner goes down in the box. Essien put a foot to it and it hammered off of the woodwork. Essien looks dumbfounded as to how it didn't go in. He and I are in the same boat.

- Adebayor is reminding of Darius Miles. That's not a good thing.

85:00

- INCREDIBLE! Michael Essien just struck one of the most incredible balls I've ever seen. Probably 38 yards out. Just incredible. Beat Lehmann, kissed the post and went in then net.

- "An absolutely world class goal by Essien, would have beaten any keeper in the world."

79:00

- There's a reason they call soccer the beautiful game. My blood is boiling. Arsenal just put together one of the more impressive build-ups you're ever going to see. Which Arsenal does on a regular basis, but on this occasion they scored. Absolutely beautiful! Joga bonito.

- GOAL! Flamini. Arsenal have only scored first in 6 of their 15 Premiership matches this season. They won all 6.

70:00

- Senderos, as predicted, cost Arsenal dearly. A terrible ball intercepted by Robben. Luckily Lehmann was there to stop the ball. Gilberto's there to stop Drogba's rebound. It's Lehmann again on Lampard's rebound. And again on Lampard's rebound. Chelsea should have done better.

69:00

- Add Michael Essien to the list of people I wouldn't mess with. The stare down he just gave the linesman would make an average man wet himself.

66:00

- Mourinho just made two changes. Off are Gerami and Shevchenko. On are Wright-Phillips and Robben. The goal is obviously attack by way of the wing. It worked against ManU a couple weeks ago.

64:00 (OH MY!)

- Drogba takes a dive in the box. No call. He gets up, furious. Play moves on. Lehmann drills him. Drogba gets up and nails him back. The referees convene. Here come the cards ...

- Lehmann ... YELLOW!

- Drogba ... YELLOW!

- "On another day, with another referee, both men could have seen red."

59:00

- The announced just laughed out loud at Gerami's free kick attempt for Chelsea. It was quite pathetic. Funny too because the Blues took their sweet time with the set up. Loads of sound and fury signifying nothing.

- It was confirmed at half that Drogba was actually not cautioned in the first. I'm not quite sure how this works. Drogba seemed to have a yellow card held above his head after being quite a wanker to the official. It's called dissent and yes, you can card for it.

Half

- "Electrifying pace and atmosphere."

- "Chelsea's had the better chances, but Wenger will be the happier manager coming off at half."

- Half-time list of people I would not mess with (in this order): Jens Lehmann (seriously, dude's crazy). Jose Mourinho (got poison?). John Terry (scrapper). Frank Lampard (knasty streak in this bloke).

43:00

- Mourinho reminds me of Valdimir Putin. The Chelsea bosses look so sinister.

- Adebayor's had better hair days.

37:00

- Arsenal are winning the 50/50 balls. They're outhustling Chelsea and appear sharper. Despite that, Chelsea still manages chances; their skill level is unbelievable.

- Eboue left Cole's jock on the pitch a minute ago. Eboue lacks the composure to finish his runs but looks like complete class when he's dribbling in.

- Lehmann should've cost Arsenal a goal with his latest gaffe. He missed a corner and was flailing around like a fish out of water (at the penalty spot, no less) while Essien hammered one on goal. Lucky for the Gunners, Hleb cleared the ball off the line.

25:00

- The game is getting heated! Tensions are high. Cole's been booked. Drogba's been booked. Drogba just took a world of a dive and the Chelsea players got hot when there wasn't a caution. Slow-motion replay makes the incident look laughable.

- The left side of the Arsenal lineup lacks any composure whatsoever. Senderos in defence is going to cost the Gunners a goal if he's not careful. He completely wiffed on a ball a bit ago that was almost pure trouble.

- Arsenal have put together a few threatening attacks recently, but the Blues have clearly had more and better chances.

- The Chelsea counterattack will make your heart race.

15:00

- Say what you want about Chelsea, when they're clicking they exhibit beautiful bits of skill.

- "No need to mention his name, the crowd will tell you when Ashley Cole has the ball." Every time Cole touches the ball, the Arsenal supporters boo feverishly. The Chelsea supporters respond, vigorously. The result is a deafening roar.

- Shevchenko and Ballack have both hit beautiful strikes from 30+ in the last two minutes. Ballack's beat Lehmann, but went wide.

- Lehmann looks shaky, as usual. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Lampard just rang the post.

Big day ...

This blog's been abandoned for a bit. Here's an attempt at a revival.

This morning is the big Arsenal-Chelsea game. They just said that the Blues haven't suffered defeat at home since February of 2004, when they were beaten by Arsenal.

The Gunners find themselves 10 points down to Chelsea in the standings and a seemingly insurmountable 19 points down to the class of the league, ManU. But ManU is an afterthought on this morning. It's red-blue, Gunners-Blues, Arsenal-Chelsea.

The game will no doubt be an uphill battle. I'd have said that no matter what the lineups. As it is, Arsenal's starting lineup is void of William Gallas, Kolo Toure, Tomas Rosicky, and the one and only Thierry Henry. Read that last sentence again. That's some real firepower sitting on the bench. I'm a bit surprised to see that Baptista and Walcott have both been left out of the lineup. I'm sure The Beast will make an appearance 'fore the end of the game though.

This marks Ashley Cole's first game against his old mates. He's touched the ball once and the already boisterous crowd swelled with excitement. Looking forward to hearing the increased rigor every time does something.

Off to watch the match. Go Gunners!

Tightening the Squeeze on ManU

Sunday's win over Liverpool brought Arsenal within eight points of Premiership leader Manchester United. The Gunners' 3-0 victory at Emirates Stadium crushed Liverpool's chances at title contention. Arsenal will look for their seventh Premiership win Saturday at home against Newcastle.

Contenders!

After a midweek loss to CSKA Moscow in the Champions League (1-0, more on that later), the Gunners came out and made an emphatic statement in the Premiership this morning. Our boy Henry netted two en route to a 4-0 drubbing of top-level newcomers Reading. Of note is how much Chelsea and ManU struggled in their trips to Reading earlier this season. Arsenal did not experience similar struggles as Henry's first tally came in the first minute of the match!

With the win, Arsenal is now in third place in the Premiership, two points off the pace (we've actually played one less game than most of the top teams and find ourselves 5 points down, so I'm extrapolating a bit). Things are looking good. The Gunners are peaking and the analysts are starting to speak of them as a legitimate trophy contender.

Now to the Champions League (Double anyone?). The Gunners lost the midweek matchup in Moscow after a late goal by Henry was called back for a handball. The problem with that is that there was, in fact, no handball at all. Henry was livid. Wenger was livid. Life goes on. The Gunners are still in decent shape to make the knockout phase of the tournament.

Things are looking bright. Now where's that little Frenchie Ribery?

Saturday!

Arsenal wins 3-0 at home against Watford. An unexciting match in all. An own goal to compliment tallies by Adebayor and Henry. Next up: Champions Leage on Wednesday.

In other news: Frank Ribery ... you know him, the quick little French midfielder with the mark on his face ... Frank has said he wants to join Arsenal. This cannot be a bad thing.

Morning musings

A look at the current table shows Arsenal in a good position. With one less game played than all of the other formidable teams in the league, we're basically in third place behind (surpirse!) Chelski and ManU. We've finally started playing more like Champions and less like, well, Liverpool. We've short break now for international fixtures and then we pick up the play with four games in ten days staring on the 14th.

So all is looking well. But the real reason for my posting is to share van Persie's second goal from Saturday's match; a truly beautiful strike:



Cheers!