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Publicity in Football - Kanye West speaks out for Masturbation material on Youtube

2009-09-16T18:46:00.003+01:00

I applaud Kanye West.

Somebody needs to take the limelight at a significant point in an awards show and speak out for guys who need masturbation material. Beyonce's video called "single ladies" (appropriately, what would a serial masturbator search for on Youtube) is basically her and a couple of other girls, in leotards jumping around, jiggling their bits for 3.5 minutes. Which is enough time for somebody to release a load...

Kanye West, the unfortunate man, saw Taylor Swift's video which is all innocence and nice. Girl, get with the programme. Lose some clothes, dance around with some girls doing a formation dance and lick your lips looking suggestively into the camera. That is a winning video - aren't I right Kanye? Yeah I am.

Oddly, people are at odds why this video is great. Some, pretentiously, pompously say it's the lighting, no it's the dancing (is that dancing?), it's the editing, it's the er... special effects but it's 3 ladies, a couple of cameras and a quick digital black and white effect. That's about it. Not much thought went into it.

But this is how I think it works. Beyonce's recent videos have been her lacking any flesh. While her stage performances get loads of hits on youtube because she doesn't wear much clothing. So the clever people at Sony BMG said, Beyonce, lose the clothes - grab some high heels and shake your body so guys would boost your video on youtube while they release a load and that kind of publicity girlfriend - you can't buy it!

Kanye (I saw his girlfriend at the awards) poor chap, spoke out for all the guys looking for a single lady out there. They basically would search single ladies - looking for love, looking for a companion in life and Beyonce and Sony BMG have given the perfect temporary solution - 3 women in leotards and high heels shaking their booty frequently for 3 and a half minutes.

I guess it won because it is symbolic of how desperate kids are these days. Or it won because erm... I have no idea. It's such a pile of utter garbage.

This basically works both ways. I think if you have good looking footballers, they will practically bring in women to the game. We have had a fair share of good looking footballers according to women out there. They don't know Arsenal but they do know Freddie Ljungberg. He was probably mentioned in a magazine. Arsenal basically want to get the word out about them. And if girls like Arsenal players? Guys like Arsenal players.

Then Arsenal sells, because sex sells.

Kanye West did publicity a favour. Now everybody is out there saying "why the hell is this best video of all time? It's crap!"

Quite rightly so.

The same Arsenal should be saying "Why the hell are we the best football playing team in the world? We haven't won squat for a number of years now!".

Maybe we will win an MTV award instead.

We need more Eduardo and Arshavins and Fabregas should grow a beard and concentrate on football.

Finance, Money, Avalanche of Arsenal fans and Manchester Pressure

2009-09-14T00:08:00.002+01:00

Could the pressure created at the bottom of the Arsenal End at the City of Manchester Stadium highlight why we went ahead with a huge stadium?

No.

It does highlight the effect of a passive prudent approach. The effect of clinical almost sanitary football building that was so fearful of the clubs around them - spending money wasn't an issue.

I've seen a lot of balance sheets and financial reports regarding Arsenal over the past 8 years or so and a great deal of analysis too. Although, I have never seen it like this as I thought about it yesterday.

Say we bought one world class player every year and played in him regularly, since the year 2000. If those players remained at the club until the year 2010, we would almost have a whole team of world class players and pay them... about 110, maybe 120 million a year in waged (if we compare that to what we have).

Of course, this would go way beyond our budget, whatever our budget is and whatever it is made of, but I am sure we'd survive. We are worth close to a billion pounds and this partly down to clever loan and mortgage agreements with a Bank that almost went over. We could be owned by the government... but... anyway... We may as well be owned by the British Tax Payer - well, 70% of us.

I think this is possible. Of course, it doesn't guarantee a Champions League trophy or a few but if Wenger can get us to the brink of the trophy with the prudent approach we've had - would this have worked? Say we had offloaded players, sold some of our embryos to other clubs and created a faster, fluent transfer system from the club... I can't say we'd have been as rich now, unless we won more trophies and sold more shirts because we had more world class players... right? Glamour players means Fans, means shirt sales, means babies in Arsenal togs with say... Ronaldo, Messi or that player called Henry on the back of them.

The player we didn't want who left us was Adebayor.

I am sure there were managers like Hughes around the world saying, wow, we need him or we need Kolo... they weren't happy at Arsenal - one of the richest clubs in the world. It's so bizarre how we're afraid to take the leap, the plunge to go deeper and faster and stronger. That kind of fear, that kind of trepidation...

...is a disease and we've had that disease for a while.

We can't ignore the climate in football today. Clubs are in debt. Clubs are struggling. They need to survive - so we can't be all prudent and cautious either out of arrogance, egoism or otherwise. We're in such a lucrative position compared to clubs around the world and we're wasting that.

So what went through the minds of Arsenal fans as they pushed themselves forward to the edge of the pitch on Saturday? What went soaring through their subconcious like an avalanche as Adebayor came hurtling from 100 yards to slide in front of them, like a repressed memory of a demon you were told of hiding behind the curtains or under the bed.

I bet it was the fear.

Adebayor just decided to put a face to it. He was the wake up call...

but that doesn't work when you have faith in a club.

You have to wonder if the risk is greater than the security.

I think in our case it is. We've got infinite solutions with the money at our disposal. We're the lords of football at this point in time and we're struggling with our own foot steps. Our players say it, our ex-players say it. A lot of our fans say it but we're missing out.

I despair at the lack of vision we have. One day we hear from the extremists among us who think this is it. What a disturbing view these kind of fans have. What is their life like when they are redundantly in the grip of caution. Without some fear and anxiety to take steps life means nothing - no matter how high your possession percentage or the number of passes in a game are.

If Wenger is worth anything as a manager, I'd like to see risk, like every other manager in the leagues around the world take but that being said we're at a loss because behind the scenes we've got some strange men in our boardroom justifying to fans that we can't spend, we have no money - what are we? Giving away tickets and shirts for free?

I need a time machine. I could go forward 10 years and listen to what fans have to say as they compare what we have then and what we have now. How much we lost. How the new resources, the new global economy - the digital investment has brought new opportunities to the world of sport - and we wasted our time as kings.

Unfortunate.

Commercialism, Amazon, Arsenal, Manchester United, Shirts and the misplaced protest

2009-09-05T17:14:00.002+01:00

When United started to make money from far eastern markets, everybody cried out in horror at their attempts of commercialising football in order to get a foot into the elite levels of the game. It worked, as it did for Arsenal and Liverpool as well and later Chelsea but with the help of the new input of money from a billionaire.

Commercialism appears to be a huge area of football. Wear it loud, sing it proud - what kind of a fan you are? Say it with a bobble hat, Coat, baby clothes or his and her perfumes. It appears now that commercialism plays a bigger part in the game.

The huge row over the Wenger song made me feel uneasy. Not for the obvious reason. I don't think thousands of people calling somebody a paedophile is funny or even clever. Then again, will our fans stop singing about Yids and the misfortunes of Scousers? Or even "Dirty Northern B**tards"? I know some of these are not in the same league but we are attacking a whole group of people on completely baseless grounds aren't we - just as baseless as the Paedophile comment as well.

Then again - isn't this just engrained in football throughout time? The mockery of players and managers. Or are we saying that calling a football manager, a public figure a paedophile is far worse than a man who earns about 15k a year in some town in England, who because of some misplaced rumour, loses his job and his livelihood as was the case after the Daily Mail and papers like it ran headline after headline for scaremongering and nothing more.

The Daily Mail... papers like it rejoice in scaremongering the masses. Now is this the newspaper of choice for Arsenal fans and Manchester United fans? Are we saying that we follow this papers view on life and not the almost level headed views we could find in the broadsheets about such issues.

Yet the crux of the argument for me - is Amazon.

Reading around the forums and such I saw comments like hit them where it hurts. Order a massive TV and then cancel the order and say it's because of a CD with a chant about Arsene Wenger on it.

Funnily enough, I know a number of Arsenal fans who knew about this CD for a long time. We knew it existed. It was always around - it was as obvious as "Ashley Cole is a Chelsea batty boy" - when he isn't but we've actually gone into recording studios to spend a whole day recording a song (or more) and then sold it in and around Highbury, the ground and elsewhere on the internet. Now isn't this homophobic? Are we insulting the player that brought us arguably 5 years of Arsenal's greatest piece of history? By being homophobic?

So hypocrisy...

Anyway, back to Amazon and shirt sales.

You see I feel this is now coming full circle at how commercialised football is and how the TV, the DVD Recorder, the Computer bits and bobs that are symbient of this glamourous, fruity, almost effeminate form of modern day football support reaches Amazon and we show our true cause by protesting and getting upset against the country's biggest online goods provider in terms of Football commercialism. Amazon makes a lot of money from it by selling HD LCD TVs and such so we can see a blade of grass, and stuff and we want to show them...

after the weekend we lose against Manchester United 2-1 and all the drama that surrounded it - by taking our angst out on Amazon... not Manchester United.

Kudos to Manchester United for saying they will try to rid the stands of such chanting but lets face it, after angry football fans, who are depressed over a loss (we've lost a lot of times if I recall correctly...? Have we? I am sure we have...) take it out on the internet.

Will Amazon care?

It all boils down to that famous U2 lyric, "will it make it easier on you now, you've got someone to blame" but if we were going to blame anybody for this, it would be Tottenham and some of their fans but United fans sing it more and why is that?

Let's not beat around the bush. Let's not delude ourselves. This is because we had a go at them in the media and they came back with this chant. As a club, Wenger loves his witty remarks, he rejoices in Press Conference gymnastics and it hits the papers.

Every manager has his achilles heel. If you want to aggravate those fans, they'll hit you where it hurts. It is wrong for there to be a chant about Wenger being a paedophile, it is but this is football and it is not pretty in every sphere. They may sell Baby goods in the Arsenal superstore but sooner or later your little baby will be screaming and shouting at opposing fans and damning them to hell while people are starving in Afghanistan because the Taliban are cloak and dagger about their massive Drugs agenda that makes them close to millionaires. They're loaded...

...but we have such a skewed perspective on football that it is the priority over everything. God what a world we live in today, a recession, a global crisis, Suicides rising hour by hour and a whole load of Arsenal fans prioritised one man who is mixed up in the obviousness of football culture and our chosen charities are those of ex-football players while collectively as a group, as a unit we could be doing so much more. Could we be so mad?

Now this is the bit I love. This is a blog from an Arsenal fan and people will disagree with something I say - now don't you love the irony there. Arsenal fans angry at each other because we all have such an obsessive grip on our own subjective view of the game? Isn't it utterly laughable; delicious in it's awfully mundane but delusional nightmare that is football support.

So we may delude ourselves that football is all wrapped up in cotton wool and that there is no commercial view but beneath our own cerebral cortex, the cognitive reality is - socially, collectively we are merged in this huge glamour industry of million pound advertising campaigns to make Theo Walcott the modern day messiah all the while the true problems in the world are laughably not an issue because the true evils are the billionaires - they cause problems to the world...

...how much are the tickets we buy again?

Big Brother fans remind me of Football fans

2009-09-01T19:08:00.002+01:00

I've been watching a lot of this programme for most of the summer and have also been reading some of the forums, especially the Digital Spy forum. I would advise anybody to read the posts on that forum if you want a really good laugh. If you want to see deluded people, this is where they are.

The funnier side of the forum is the fact the rules indicate you cannot be libellous or offensive to other posters, all the while every thread is libellous to somebody and offensive to posters - usually fans of housemates they aren't fans of.

This is why it reminds me of football fans. It is because just like Big Brother fans, a lot of football fans these days define themselves on the football clubs they hate.

There is a character (characters is a word I use loosely but also directly) in the house called Siavash. I have to post something somebody wrote about him today, which hits the spot. Called Vesna, he/she writes:

I've never warmed to him.

People keep bringing up what Lisa did the first month as if anyone could forget it but Siavash fans appear quite able and willing to forget what HE DID the first month and since so heres'a refresher, sorry no links I don't have endless time although I do have loads.

Spitting in the garden with Cairon. Wiping his bare ass on the kitchen counters with Cairon. Gossiping about Angel with some of the early walkers and evictees and Cairon... actually it wasn't gossip it was vicious lies.

Moving on....

Telling Lisa and Kris that he doesn't like Freddie he's only talking to him because he feels sorry for him. Basically pretending to be Freddies friend, which Freddie fell for.
Making out that he's mates with Marcus and then CUTTING MARCUS"S GRASS. Hiding from Marcus instead of talking to his "mate" either before , during or AFTER.

Moving on.....
Totally disrespecting his girlfriend. Noirin said to him over and over to stop, reminding him of his gf but didn't stop him. 5 minutes into the "relationship" he asks Noirin if he should move to Ireland and where did she see them in 5 years. ewwwww

Moving on....
Discovering the sympathy card. Well it worked for Freddie why not him. He used that woo is me card for weeks even though after the first kiss, first night Noirin told him she wasn't feeling it, nothing would come of it and if they continued it would just be a bit of fun.

Moving on... the scrunched eyes and prayers during evictions even when he's not up. That has really annoyed me LOL. HOW LAME!

Moving on... his DR attacks on Charlie for what he admits are also his motivations. As with most of them in there they think Charlie has always been the favourite and the favourite to win so that is Siavash's target. If he KNEW that Sophie was his competition I have no doubt that he would be trying to break her down in the eyes of the public.

Playing the game, No probs with it. Wanting the money, again no probs. Heck if I gave up a whole summer I'd want to win too!

Lastly, the shaving the eyebrow... hang on now THAT is funny. He looks so stupid with ONE eyebrow LOL. I don't care if he wins anyone in there deserves to win, they did the crime and the time. But I've never warmed to him and at this point never will. I'm not wearing Siavash coloured glasses!

.......................

Now as well as this, the funniest thing this person did was to lie about having a girlfriend on the outside. It's quite laughable because nobody knows whether he has a girlfriend or not. Neither does he. Depending on who he spoke to in the Big Brother house, he either fancies somebody, likes somebody, is dating somebody, has a girlfriend, loves somebody and if he has said he has a girlfriend, it's been from anything of 1 month to over a year, depending on which housemate he was speaking to.

Now his friend said it's been 7 months. His "girlfriend" appeared on the show and said she was his cousin. She then said she was his friend. She came on one of the shows recently and said that it was something they had pre-planned. Although this makes them both liars and betraying people in the house.

Yet, I say this because one of the reasons people say they like Siavash is because he is supposed to be genuine. This reminds me of Arsenal fans, or some of them I'm sorry to say and the horrendously pompous and camp "victory through harmony" we go on about. We're a club obsessed with making money. Ridiculously disgusting means of making money from stealing players, to stealing from the British Public to stealing from the banks when it benefited us.

We are hardly genuine and neither is this Siavash character. He has walked over everybody in that house and then plays people against each other. While other housemates have been loyal to each other this individual has been viciously nasty.

What is hilarious and utterly football related is how some people find him attractive. Let's face it though, the kind of people obsessed with Big Brother and vote on the show are the type who barely leave their house so this Siavash and his hairy body, hairy backside, bumpy nose, awful complexion and scruffy hair and beard that has never been shaved (he is only 23 but looks 50) is the kind of pin up a Big Brother fan in all their locked away from the outside world existence will pine over.

The threads on Digital Spy talking about his good looks are the funniest things I have ever seen. They talk about doing sexual things to him and in between all that, a number of sane and level headed individuals will speak the truth - he is ugly and they can't see anything attractive in him.

Yet even more like the premier league is how the forum are targeting people who speak against Siavash. Digital Spy have banned anybody who speaks against Siavash with warning letters stating their partners (probably the companies in charge of and related to Big Brother) are their priority. Considering the shows that have been pro-Siavash lately, indicate they want a scruffily scruffy 23 year old man who looks 50 to win. It's further strange how his Father is also working ferrying guests in and out of the Big Brother studios. Which links him with Siavash.

Coupled with the Premier League, it makes you realise all the favours they have with the big four. If the big four make money, then the Premier League make money and they must work with mutual and vested interest to promote and support these teams for the benefit of their survival and rising income.

So, the more fans the big four have, the more money the premier league. After all the connections the big four have and also the money from billionaires, highlights how much growth is available for these clubs and the premier league.

The same is true for Siavash and Big Brother, for anybody who has perspective enough to see this. The most extreme exhibitionist will bring the most money. Endemol (the company in charge of Big Brother) didn't hide the fact they were distraught when Mikey lost Big Brother last year and the laid back Rachel won it. Endemol spent weeks (as they are doing with Siavash and also Sophie) to boost the profile of an ugly exhibitionist hungry for money and fame as they did last year but failed. Spokespeople and producers spoke about how disappointed and angry they were that a sane and normal individual won Big Brother.

Yet this is how the media fool the fans. That's me and you but then again, the media knows that in such an alienating society, they will play to the lowest common denominator and their cash because they pay their bills and for the cars that Siavash's dad drives.

Of course without debate, where are we? Even debate, in this light, gets nasty, especially when somebody like Siavash or a big four club and the romanticised notions we attach to these individuals because of the force feeding the media (sky, the press etc) mould the lowest common denominator in society who will part with their cash for their hero.

And what a hero... moulded and made for the lowest common denominator. I think Endemol are desperate for a winner that can help them get a new contract but here's a clue for Endemol

Sack the fools that destroyed the show for you. If they want idiots like Siavash to win the show - that's your problem.

Thank God I didn't watch any Reality TV today - No Ferguson, No Wenger, No Simon Bloody Cowell

2009-08-29T23:56:00.003+01:00

Isn't Total Wipeout reality TV enough, or quiz shows for that matter? These are real people facing the metaphorical slings of padded powerful slaps in the face and elsewhere. Slithering through mud for that ultimate glory of winner and you know what I really love about the show. Nobody loses focus on the prize, on first place and that's what it's all about.

In football, you have to fill in the gaps for 9 months or so. How it happens, why it happens, oh dear grab your handbags the referee was a horror. Stuff like that.

Elsewhere on the X Factor, 50 more individuals who have heard singing for the past 5 years or so but with a different face and such pass through and Simon Cowell says in some form of active passive oratory - this person is the best singer he has ever heard and Louis Walsh agrees whilst smiling, Cheryl Cole (wife of Ashley Cole, ex-Arsenal left back) wipes a tear from her eyes or with all the knowledge, experience and wisdom of euro-pop songs written for them and sold with formation dancing - nods with a wry smile.

This is all that is missing from the world. From the higher heavens of LCD TV and HD; we have individuals sitting behind the desk (and all the metaphors it sends out in post-modern existence (usually of authority)) judging us and everybody at home screaming, acknowledge me, love me, attend to me.

How different is that to football?

You see, you have this cleverly edited footage where if somebody does something wrong, have a look at Fergie? Is he Angry? Cut to Fergie cam!!

But if Fergie was unwrapping a Wrigleys Spearmint gum, try cutting to Pat Rice, one of the subs or you can always count on Rooney to be rampaging around looking for an ASBO. Or that is what he would have been doing if he wasn't in football. I am sure he would have been in Media/TV land in some form or another had he not been in football and it may have been down to his time with old ladies.

So forgive me, please if I couldn't give a Wrigleys Spearmint Gum for all the hoo haas that occurred in the game today (yesterday). I've seen it all before. I can't seem to get excited about it anymore. As a team Arsenal have accomplished everything and here they are attempting to do it again. I really am beginning to think there is a gross futile essence to all of this bravado machismo nonsense we place in football.

Like Hooliganism/Thuggery for instance? Isn't the world interesting enough these days or not? This isn't some pomposity that I'm dictating at all. Hardly. There has to be something inately troublesome in somebody who has to resort to concocting drama and antagonism in their lives. Unfortunately we are fed it by the media, Sky Sports and yes, we tend to carry this into our lives and think it's part and parcel of life - so we may look for it.

This is why I can't care less. For me, we lost today and that's about it. I hope we win the next game :)

Reality, in the context of Reality TV, isn't as complex as the media world make out. It's about as simple as Total Wipeout for me. Basically, the world comes together, like the contestants on the show, they give it their best shot, they get knocked down and brush it off, feel sorry for themselves a little and get back to doing it again and hoping to do better and if they don't, it doesn't matter.

Of course people do try and make life harder for themselves in order to make it far more interesting, I could literally go on and on about that, from Religion to Politics etc but does anybody really care.

I do think Arshavin is absolutely brilliant though. Such a majestic player. We should buy another player like him, with experience.

Then again, if we don't - it doesn't matter. Somebody has to lose. It might as well be us.

Impossible Questions and Impossible logic of Transfers and Teams - My Manchester United Vs Arsenal

2009-07-27T14:15:00.002+01:00

Do you know when you're on a forum and you say the team's crap, the team's rubbish and somebody suddenly, well often but suddenly says, well who do you expect us to buy with the money we have? Then you could say something like, but we have money but the board are greedy and the person will retort, our board are not greedy - so says my never ending mental masturbation over this romanticised propoganda I wholeheartedly buy from Arsenal (or any other club for that matter) and then you'll say well look at these never ending accounts that shows we've got Gazillions of pounds.

I realised that this is illogical.

No matter how good a player is, they need a good outfit around them to perform well. A team that believes in that player and believes that player can change events. If this doesn't exist or if this doesn't transpire (which I feel is the problem at Arsenal, it never transpired for Fabregas or Sagna) then a team will continually stutter. It's that self doubt. This is where, lesser teams will beat Arsenal.

I haven't finished yet.

So, continually fishing through the media for tit bits of information and then glossing over numerous websites passionately could be deemed counter productive. I'm not denying that this is and can be a perfect passtime for the run of the mill arsenal fan over the Summer - but I do believe that this amounts to nothing. I know being a broken record in respect to changing the way the team plays doesn't help and I guess no team changes the way they play over night.

My clear example is Manchester United. Now, as much as I believe that they did not create this developing youth scenario - they bought it from other clubs, they're success in the 90s was not based upon developing youth. Logically, they would be able to get any kid and make a great player out of them. This did not happen. What United did was notice a money making scheme in kids. Which is something Arsenal are doing now. If you buy a kid, develop them and then sell them - the return is higher and if you have kids at the club for a longer period then the affiliation between player and supporter is also higher. Regardless of this - it was all about players who played together but played together well.

It was about creating a team.

Now that statement would mean all kinds of things to all kinds of different people. Of course, the other problem is, you need money in this light but for me, personally, creating a team is an unbelievably, in-explainable difficulty in football and for which you need a very good, but importantly flexible manager. For all our talk of bringing in new players and buying the best and paying for the best, what really is difficult is bringing a player in effectively into the squad.

Now the ugly part. Obviously, for me, the romanticism of football has died. It did die when Roman Abramovich entered the premier league and then buy outs occurred over and over again. It basically amounted to the price of assets and the unbelievably ease with which credit was available while millions of chinese create this illusion of money in the west. This has killed what we saw as football and in the meantime we have been sold fake plastic love from the clubs who try and gloss over the fact that the clubs have become money obsessed since Abramovich and all the other takeovers at club have occurred.

Now this isn't a gloating moment. As much as Kreonke and Usmanov have little effect at the club - they are still there. We are seriously not unaffected by this huge turnover that the masses of credit brought to football. After all, we did take advantage of all that massive credit by getting loads of money from RBS at a ridiculously silly interest rate. RBS. RBS.

So I must state where does team building occur here when you are fighting an obscure battle against the finances being pumped into football. I'd say the biggest effect on Football in the new season comes from the Setanta incident that has removed a big TV player in the whole scheme of things. The effects of Global recession is also at play as well - which opens the field for desperate board members to bring in money.

The creativity of football remains to be the case. A new player, or two, or three won't change matters - or will it? Well if we bring in 6 or 7 new first teamers it will.

Let's not faff about all this eh? It hasn't worked, or it hasn't worked as well as we could make it work. We had a plan but players are confused and bewildered. When such memories seep in, there is little you can return from. You have to try something new. For instance the, "Fabregas has been awful for..." doesn't remove the fact he isn't a great player. It is the same for others. There is something in our coaching and management that isn't working.

This isn't to say Wenger is a bad manager - but something isn't good around here and it's about time he had a good long look at what works (almost nothing) what worked and doesn't aid completely working system (i.e., it may work when things are bad, but it may not work, when all things are good), and what works and is a great key to a real push to success.

I mean, as fans, we may see something work on the field, but what if it's only working and only effective because things are so dire elsewhere? What if something that isn't working - once working could completely change everything, making what is good now - utterly redundant?

The focus on problems when so much is problematic, unconventional and counter productive in so many ways, doesn't aid us.

One of the great things that occurred at United, with Ronaldo was how this player came in as a player, a winger, a unit but was transformed into arguably the best player in the world today. Even I think Henry remains to be the best player in the world (but we sold him) but it's how numerous factors come into play to work for us.

What are our excuses? Money, anything?

For all the problems that a club faces in football, it's success is based upon how it tackles those problems and succeeds.

We have no success. We could look for silver linings but ultimately, we have failed to tackle our own achilles heels - ultimately, this is why we fail.

Of course, many would disagree, some would agree - but if I was the richest person on the planet and couldn't grasp or control the problems that had anchored me - what a futile existence it would be.

Phil Brown does Arsenal a favour: Could excitement turn to a big wet water balloon or a fireworks display

2009-03-09T00:31:00.004Z

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Zero
Charlie Ash - Come Back Lover
Little Boots - New In Town (Fred Falke remix)
Jong Pang - Small Cut Sensations
Katy Perry & Yelle - Hot 'N' Cold (Yelle Remix)
More Hot N Cold Mixes
Don Diablo vs The Ting TIngs - That’s not my rave
Mr. Oizo - Steroids (Mr. Oizo’s Remix) With Uffie I think...

So here we come - not long left now and so much to be decided upon with some big games coming up - players returning and a masterful plan needed to get things into motion.

It seems we've got all the ingredients to really quick start this situation. The players are high, the players need it but what more is needed? Our greatest problem has been consistency and continuity of goals? Things can go pear shaped at any point and overall, if that happens we'll be heading for another set of questions and fingers pointing.

But can it get bad?

Doesn't appear to be the case. At present the players are playing with a new fluidity and determination. I think what we have here is a blessing in disguise and that blessing came from Phil Brown.

Phil Brown's anger can only build up an impetus and a retaliation against everything. What he intended to do was wind us up but this kind of behaviour only brings a team together?

Did Phil know he was doing this? Did he do us a favour? I can't see how a manager can miss the element of siege mentality and the possibility of giving that siege mentality to a team when they need it must.

Somebody should light up the touch paper.

Premier League curse of Broken Long Term Strategies - Analysing Manchester United, Liverpool, Arsenal

2009-03-09T00:26:00.001Z

Royksopp - Remind Me (Ernest St Laurent Moonfish mix)
St. Vincent - The Strangers Mixed up epicness
Neko Case - This Tornado Loves You Cool - Morrisey meets YYYs
Little Boots - Day N' Nite (Kid Cudi Cover)
Kid Cudi - Dat New New (VIKING Remix)
Mylo - Drop the Pressure 2009 (Electro Bass Mix)
Alphabeat - Digital Love (Daft Punk Cover)
Mr Oizo - Positif (The Exo 'What The Fuuuck' Remix) JESUS This is GooD!!!

Everybody wants to be on the winning team. God knows why if I'm honest. Everybody wants to win. The whole "it's the taking part that counts", I get somewhat. It's like saying if you weren't there, they couldn't have won. Your representation counts towards somebody else achieving something but does anybody care? In this day and age most fans would love to curse other teams, other players, other managers and anything other than what they can justify with all kinds of strange reasonings than they are the best. Everybody wants to be top dog.

Maybe I could come up with same philosophical reasoning behind why - but maybe one reason why humans have continued to be greedy buggers for millenia is the fact we trample over the weak and make a big song and dance about it. For many many years.

We all want to be attached to that.

When United went on a never ending winning spree during the 90s, people called their fans glory hunters. I have to say right here, it's very easy to pull yourself off as a real fan these days. With an arsenal of internet forums, news sites, news channels etc etc, you can take sound bites and highlight how much you know about the club you are a fan of. You can talk strategy and highlight the games you have been to and if it wasn't for the inability to get tickets and/or the fact you live miles and miles away you'd go to more games to support the team, said with the ferocity of going to war. This supposed Glory hunting isn't some new design in the world today. Even the weakest team in the world has Glory hunters. Support your local team they say. I guess this is a badge of honour. An immense exhibition of one's defence of where they live. Just as stupid as supporting a team miles away (I say writing a blog on a football team) which is just as stupid as supporting a football team (I say writing a blog on a football team).

I guess, football clubs know this. They know we need to be winners. Whether you are a follower of a weaker, lower league team or a team known the world over by camera hogging football fans. Football Clubs know that, the more you expose yourself as winners or even in the weaker clubs case, you expose yourself as a strong club fighting against the world and the might of the world (so as long as you remain in ownership and make profit or whatever - you survive). So as it comes to pass, this is what United did and other clubs followed suit.

What exactly is the G14 but a group of clubs interested in a common interest to use their might to stay at the top of the game. This is done via the new Champions League. A money hogging Bionic Marketing scheme. And that's what it is. Marketing strategies.

If you can do something spectacular. If you can present yourselves as unique in some way or other then you can grip the public and therefore you can make money. Let's not beat around the bush about this. That's what this is about. For all the failures the world has - there is something we can grab to be a success and it costs money - or maybe the price of a football shirt.

The Arsenal problem arrived after the Invincible season. We had player after player demanding the club live up to their expectations to win things. Nothing special - but to win things. That's it. It's not difficult when you are a club like Arsenal who makes the money it does - unless you make it hard for yourself. After winning two doubles and then the Invincible season - Arsenal had to up the game to bring in more supporters. This was in my view, the winning with kids strategy.

This was such a brilliant strategy that, it had money written all over it. With all kinds of changes in the game, on contracts and fees and rights to players you have developed, Arsenal would make a killing.

Basically, Arsenal became too greedy and unfortunately, it was not in a footballing sense.

United had done the Treble years before. This was a huge achievement. A mammoth achievement. Absolutely huge. Yet, if you like at United and also Liverpool, they are clubs that have had a history that brings in the fans and if you give fans history then they will continue to come back for more. Liverpool winning the UEFA Cup, FA Cup and League Cup was one thing that gave them the impetus to hold onto fans. The fact that they had a future and were building towards something. All the board needed to do was show that - and this is what United did too. They just showed the fans and the players that they had ambition.

Arsenal didn't. Arsenal went for the kids strategy and the playing beautiful strategy. As I said before, there is no price for lost years. You lose years out of Stupidity or Greed or Both in Arsenal's case, then there is no turning back. You can only go forward. It's like, you can lie and once you've lied, you can never go back. The truth on the other hand is quite flexible because, it's real.

It did work to get fans. Arsenal continued the playing beautiful rhetoric and the talk about kids. It's all about saying a lie long enough and loud enough that everybody believes it and the fact that the papers and the fans and everybody on the internet was saying it - we all bought it. Because we're all a bunch of glory hunters running around believing all we hear because we want to be brilliant football fans who know our football. Just sound bites and rhetoric can do that.

So what is the new strategy? God knows. It all went weird when we stopped holding on to players. How mental can you get!? For the sake of looking good and being brilliant we went and sold real resources, substantial resources so the club can go for the new grab a fan strategy.

Personally, it has opened the new world of football (maybe the old world of football) for what it is. Broken and corrupted.

If it was all about winning. We'd see it on the pitch. But we don't see that do we.

There is no price for the years we have lost.... Arsenal aren't really a football club are they - we're lost our ability to be that good.

2009-02-18T02:12:00.005Z

Emiliana Torrini - Heartstopper ('stop Hearting' Mix By Mm)
Tiga vs. Jack Frost - Mind Shout (Tronik Youth Mix
Ladyhawke - Paris Is Burning (Alex Metric Remix) Some other good tunes here too
Jay-Z, M.I.A., T.I., Lil' Wayne and Ka… - Swagger Like Us (Grammy Awards 02-08-2009)
music go music - warm in the shadows Blondie type electronica
N.A.S.A. - Gifted Feat. Kanye West, Santogold, Lykke Li
Yeti Lane - This Day - Lonesome George Beck meets Cocteau Twins

Because if Arsenal we're a football club then, I guess we'd buy players or we'd make an effort to get back up there at the top.

I think we're just not as good as we once were. Ultimately we have lost our ability to be that good. We just have. We are a lesser team than before. It's quite an unfortunate outcome to be (after a year where we were dominating) languishing outside the top four and maybe looking at finishing sixth as well.

How can this be acceptable? We were idiots to be running behind Usmanov taking over the club. Now that was hardly a problem was it. We were talking about our legacy and we're better than others and here we are behind teams getting charities as sponsorship and being considerate and compassionate enough to lower ticket prices. Who are we? Quite pathetic to be accurate.

Now we've got supporters groups who are quite frankly more interested in generating atmosphere from a small corner of a 60k stadium (???????) and another group that thinks 1 share makes a big difference (????) and another that appears to be more interested in name rather than nature. We're hardly the club and fans we once were and our pandering to Wenger as supporters like some leader of a cult instead of being openly and objectively critical of him cost us deeply.

There is no price for the years we have lost.

We've lost it through greed of our board members. The arrogance of our manager. The arrogance of our fans. The rose tinted glasses of power hungry football fans.

The real football fans, the real Arsenal fans can stand up and be proud now. They stood up to the club and the board and questioned the arrogant xenophobia against Usmanov and Kroenke. The questioned Wenger when needed and used his words against the critics. It's laughable that we used the cheap credit that has caused a national and global catastrophe to build a stadium and fall down the premiership. What a complete and utter joke.

Yet we class ourselves as a football club. We think we're better than other clubs. We're not. I say this because I want to be great and I want to be the best and I want the greatest team in football to actually mean something because - where as clubs would bend over backwards and be beaten black and blue to have our money, we've merely glorified in accounts and finance and looked stupid as we disappeared into obscurity with only our vanity and arrogance to hold as trophies.

The good thing about having a good solid self sustained income (Thanks Danny Fiszman) at a Football club is you can take risks. You can be bold and aggressive and go out there and fight and this is intention. Intention to achieve and win. This is what we lack. How stupid. We can't even be a football club. We're blinded by business and suits.

We fail one year - (as we have done) then we spend again next year and make something of the money we have and you know what? We'll make money, we'll have left over as we sell players. It's so simple but our number crunching is nauseatingly sickening. I feel like I'm a fan of some Blue Chip company - not a football club.

Fat load of good our income is doing is. Sad and Pathetic.

There is no price for the years we have lost.

Three Months and Counting - This could get dirty

2009-02-18T02:08:00.000Z

Milosh - Awful Game (Troublemaker Remix) Very Neo-Radiohead like
Marina & The Diamonds - Obsessions
MSTRKRFT - Easy Love Giorgio Morodor Disco type
Newton Faulkner - Dream Catch Me (Don Diablo Remix) Pet Shop Boys meet Faulkner - awesome
Camera Obscura - My Maudlin Career Scottish band like Stone Roses meet Cranberries
My Little Pony - Do You Really Love Me, Or Am I Just In Your Network?

After a complete turnaround of events and the acquisition of one Andrei Arshavin we have found what could be the team that will sail us straight into the Champions League finals. We could consider from this point our only obstacles.

At present we have

Van Persie, Eduardo, Arshavin, Vera, Adebayor for Striker duties and then the usual possibilities for midfield and what we could fashion from that. A strong set up but obviously it remains another season that has yet to find some glory but with this team we can get something. This looks very pretty.

I am sure other teams are looking on and realising while they weaken we're brimming with confidence and have a strong unit at our disposal. A very clear cut and laid back Champions League and FA Cup before the balanced chilled out end to the season.

For once we can be realistic in the fact - we're strong again.

At Arsenal is everything an International Incident!

2009-02-16T12:20:00.000Z

Matt & Kim - Daylight
LCD Soundsystem - Someone Great
Kid Cudi - Can I Be
Justin Timberlake - My Love (Diplo Remix) Using the same track to mix others.
Tiga - You Gonna Want Me Sounds Re-engineered
MarissaNadler - River of Dirt Not another girl with a guitar
The Notwist - Boneless
Metric - Help I'm Alive

Yes, we know, he has been out for almost a year and he had to have surgery and required rehabilitation etc etc and maybe this that and the other and you saw monkeys in a tree outside Highbury which means that Peter Hill Wood to all our benefit may explode with Piles - FOR GOD'S SAKE FOUR EYES PLAY EDUARDO!!!

Is he fit? Yes. Is he available? Yes.

Then play him.

Why in the hell is everything at Arsenal like a panic attack for? At other clubs, at every other club in the world it's a case of - wahey, play him, he plays for us. No messing around no pathetic drama - just play the player. We lose, we draw, we win - it's like it's the end of the world and if we don't give a one thousand man press conference everything will fall apart. It's like Arsenal as a club needs these couch sessions with reporters and PR men to keep breathing. It's our own personal tragedy over and over. We really need the attention.

I really do believe there is this need for Wenger to stand in a press conference and really feed these reporters with numerous little sound bites so that later he can say, "oh look, I saved the day - Eduardo didn't have a dangerous itching attack on the field. You know why -? It's because I'm fab and do a funky dance at the dug out."

And we lap it up. It's like Football really is an Arsenal fans personal Kumbay Yah - a gross need for all the Churchy songs we had in Primary School Assemblies to come true. First it was Adams and before that O'leary and before that Brady and before that any old sod and before that Charlie George - ignoring every other super player we had at the club at the time but right now every Arsenal fans Mini-Me, locked away in their sub-concious is singing "I was cold I was hungry in the North Bank, were you there? Were you there? I was cold I was hungry were you there? And some silly corner of Arsenal fans obsessed with Atmosphere wouldn't help me - were you there?" so we have to replace that "Kumbay-Yah Wenger, Kumbay-Yah" with little quotes and sound bites in our own little collection of the Bible called the RED TOPS!

Just deal with it. People are losing jobs - the country isn't growing, everything is slowing down. Our Greed - our selfishness - which is what Religion today is all about - Feeding the self and feeding it with rubbish and not reality, which has led this country to a downfall, doesn't matter right now.

Just show us football, Entertain Us and please play this player because God knows we've got rid of every other decent player who was worth a damn (with the most stupidest superficial Pseudo-Religious Nonsense excuses) but shush shush, we're not supposed to talk about... because he was right. He has the foresight. He is the master. NO! He is just a manager who likes to have a chin wag to the press about nonsensical nothingness and should be out there focussing on real football matters - getting players to shoot, to be this CREATIVE thing we're supposed to be!

Now we're still behaving like these guys have never seen a football before and Wenger has created an android who needs to observe, analyse, store the data then later process it for like 24 hours in some highly complicated Mathematical sub-routine before he can play football - and even then it would be a case of in true Wenger style passing the ball around just to get a feel of things. Oh Yes, we've seen it all before. Every new bloody player at Arsenal comes on the field to do one-two effing passes!!

JUST SHUT UP AND PLAY HIM!!!

Crunching at Credit and the gap between Rich and Poor

2009-02-11T23:56:00.006Z

Royksopp - What Else Is There? ft. Karin Dreijer (Thin White Duke Remix) Dancey
Andrew Bird - Oh No Simon and Garfunkely
Little Boots (MGMT Cover) - Time To Pretend Cute
WZRDZ - Smells Like Teen Spirit (WZRDZ remix) Dance mix for Smells like Teen Spirit
Gang Gang Dance - House Jam (Hot Chip Remix) Very interesting mix
Gui Boratto - Haute Couture Chilled out Trance

I'm watching and reading like everybody else and seeing all this talk about hard times and difficulties. I remember the last recession you see and it wasn't because of hard times - it was because it was defined as a recession and people talked about it and people blamed the Tories and I just carried on as I was and just doing my thing. I didn't feel it. I know a lot of people did, they lost jobs and things died down but not everybody felt it.

A lot of things go through my mind during this recession. It's I guess a matter of essentials and having the essentials in life and nothing more but then if you are still working and you're taking home lets say about 2 to 4k (plus) a month in wage then maybe (depending on circumstance) you won't feel it as much. Then other things come into play.

I think we create our distractions in life and for some of us it could be spending and being busy while for others you could be distracted by absolutely nothing - and everything else is an annoyance. Doing nothing is a welcome distraction while everything else is an annoyance. You see I met someone this week - the school bike that he was, now married and two kids but busy it seemed and for me it was a case of stepping into a role of getting busy and getting on with things.

This is on a par with somebody else I met, an ex-teacher who told, you get busy so quickly and then you realise you're almost dead.

Your life is supposed to flash by before you pass away and it made me wonder what really matters and when you have all that money what would you really miss? Have you heard stories of people who lose everything during down times and then re-build it during up times? It's this that makes me see that eventually it's very difficult to see what really matters around us and how subjective our notions of achievement are in the greater scheme of things.

For instance I have to renew my membership for a charity and I for the life in me couldn't find the membership renewal on their website so I clicked on "Vacancies" (at a Charity) for a laugh, and they were giving like 40k, 50k salaries and giving maternity leave vacancies at 40 to 50k as well - along with being according to some "quality" newspaper one of the best work places in the country. It had won awards.

The best? A charity paying so much and lacking volunteers? It was bizarre for me in this climate but I guess this charity gets a lot of money - well a lot of it goes on admin it seems.

Eventually, we all live to that ripe old, well the majority of us do, by hook or by crook we get there whether we are rich, poor or whatever, we all get there and we all have our sense of achievement but for me it's about what somebody does with their money. I realised that as we're all surviving during this period what would somebody do with money during this period. Like me, you could think and think a lot and wonder where your money is going even when Gordon is saying spend spend spend I'm wondering how bizarre that is.

I cut down because I thought it seems to be a bad time and so I do but I don't know many people who have lost their job... - well hardly anyone to be honest but I hear about it and it seems some businesses are there surviving making their way through in tough times and I guess it's all businesses changing what they do to accommodate survival and respect of wealth. You have to get by how you can...

So why is it with all our wealth at Arsenal we can't do this? The fear is very strange but if it's that bad - get in good quality staff and resources to almost guarantee success. Respect the wealth you have because many people don't have that and what would somebody without money do with that wealth. Would you squander it or do something amazing because those are the things that matter? Money must be respected rather than saved but what can any of us do with money?

I had the most strangest question given to me once - like, "do you ever go to restaurants?" It was said as though, "I know I do but I bet you don't". And it showed how ugly and dirty ambition is and greed and arrogance is but this is what some people do with money.

They go to restaurants.

And that's all some people can do, unfortunately.

O leary's impossible possible. Eduardo returns, Arshavin is new - Sell Adebayor - buy a DM

2009-02-07T06:36:00.005Z

The Bird and the Bee - Love Letter to Japan Some plinky plonky coolness
Futurecop! - Class of 1984 (Anoraak Remix) Sasha meets Underworld
Lykke Li - Breaking It Up (Pocketknife Loosefoot Remix - Extended Version)
Junior Boys - Dull To Pause Tales of the Unexpected electronica like
Snow in Mexico - You and my Winter Pet Shop Boys meet Suzanne Vega
FooFighters - Everlong (DiscoTech Remix)
Radiohead - There There (The Twelves Remix)

We've got problems at Arsenal and I bet we'll get top dollar for Adebayor. It's about time we just let him go on his way and played the lifestyle of superfly Pimp extraordinaire and let us get on with playing football. Eventually, for some reason the Arsenal fans will get on the back of one player and see him and only him as Arsenal and this is our problem.

We don't tend to see the massive efforts of the less notable players. We just let them fly by. Very few people admired Eduardo until he had to disappear from the game for a year - it was huge detrimental but it was also hugely detrimental because we made errors elsewhere. We sold huge important players - more important than Adebayor and we were left with a less able team struggling away for efforts that were unquestionable right merely months ago. That is funny isn't it.

That in itself tells you why it's a problem. Who would have thought Villa would be ahead of us with a Charity sponsorship, American owners and a in the large part, English team? Who?

SO funny. All the things a lot of our fans think are impossible, Villa have proved are possible and we say Wenger says it is impossible. O'leary and Villa have proved the impossible is Possible!

We can't do that. We have more money, we have more income and we can't do that. We make excuses - it's laughable. Slowly we are being found out for the fakes we are and it's a crying shame.

Time to re-engineer our team and stop lying.

Not playing Arshavin is like throwing away the skin at KFC

2009-02-07T01:23:00.006Z

Don Diablo - Black Heat (Whitenoise Remix) Electro Trash
Beirut - Transatlantique Morrissey meets Simon and Garfunkel
Beirut - My Wife, Lost in the Wild More from Beirut, but electronicky
Little Boots - Meddle (AC Slater & DJ Skeet Skeet Remix featuring Goldielocks) Little Boots meets Quality Grime
Dear Reader - Never Goes Fiona Apple/Regina Spektor but haunting
Bloc Party - One Month Off (Filthy Dukes Remix - Vocal) Nice mix
Enorma Sass - Japan
The Ting Tings - That's Not My Name (LA Riots Remix) Tings Tings Meet The Eurythmics

So we bought this player, we need wins and we need some change and then we go a player down and how do we respond - oooh, I know, we'll defend. Now somebody will come up with this logic that this is what you do.

But you don't do you. When you need points, you aim for points. Why buy a player and not player. What's all this crazy cautious player? Let's treat it like a business and say - a broken player is a leech on the club's finances so we're afraid a player will be injured and out. This is the accountant screaming down your throat.

So we're cautious - our possession. The accountants drive to get more goals in a cautious manner is to hold possession and hold it for a long time. The propoganda of beautiful football is in fact a finance office saying, look after the players - they are the club's bread and butter because if they're injured we will lose money.

The real reason behind penny pinching at a club. Not football - God who wins from all this? It's the Directors. My previous post highlights clearly that we've been fishing for free money in a credit crunch that would bleed dry the nation. Our board of Directors have let us down - make no mistake of it. There will always be people saying that Arsenal are the pinnacle and we know how to make money - like that is so important.

But until we give our sponsorship away to a Charity and lower our Ticket prices (like Aston Villa and Sunderland respectively) we will be behind the pack. Somebody pays for the low interest rate we got in a credit crunch. I am sure the accountant/business speech in getting that low interest rate was more jobs and boosting the economy in North London. Where as we will get somebody else in the country to pay the interest rate we SHOULD be paying by losing jobs and so forth.

Welcome to Arsenal's position, moral and ethical as it is, in the credit crunch.

We're nasty.

Everything is coming full circle and as much as I hate to admit it, all our critics regarding our finances and poaching young players were absolutely right but our rose coloured - or was it raspberry the colour of those shirts? Well rose coloured spectacles are just as close to blind.

One day we will return to being a football club. One day... No idea when but I am guessing with the way the economy is moving - 2010/2011 season. Or then again people may grab and run with their money.

Anyway, if we want to win we have to play our players but that depends on what those up in the crazy office will say and whether it's "cost effective".

Ashburton Grove's place in destroying the economy - EEK

2009-02-07T01:15:00.008Z

Pet Shop Boys - Love Etc Goldfrapp meets Vangelis
Figure – Steaks & Vodka (Jesse Jamz Remix) Like something Eddie Halliwell would play
Couer de pirate - commes des enfants (and remix by andy carmichael) Nice
Royksopp - Happy Up Here
Foals - Electric Bloom (The 9000 remix) The Clash meet Little Boots
DJ Shadow feat. Mos Def - Six Days (Remix) Brilliant (Hip Hop/Breakbeat)
Lil Wayne - Lollipop (Verdis Remix) Lil Wayne Electro Trash (ish) mix
Architecture in Helsinki - That Beep Another Great Australian Electro outfit
Mo Do - Ein, Zwei, Polizei (Mustard Pimp Remix) Excellent Electro Hard house

Just watching the Bankers who lent us money "apologising" on TV.

It just came to me that if we hadn't had this credit crisis and idiotic bankers throwing money around then we wouldn't have had the stadium at such a stupid interest rate. Let's face facts, some poor family around this country - some poor family? A lot of poor families around this country are suffering because of the low interest rate we paid on the 100s of millions of pounds we used to make a stadium that the board and the investors will make money from.

Hey, you know what is even more funnier? It's like Kreonke and Usmanov were thinking this all along. Forget about taking out a loan - why not leech and sponge off a Football Club that has taken advantage of a crazy economy instead - what a laugh.

And we thought we were a club led on moral and ethical grounds. The benchmark of the beauty of football. I'd give that accolade to Aston Villa and Sunderland at this present point in time. The Winds of Change and all that and what a kop out - it's all too good to be true.

Here we are - this is hilarious, in fact it's quite sickening. Here we are saying, wow Wenger, he's so shrewd, he's an ECONOMIST - :D, he is an ECONOMIST. He has given us this STADIUM. Oh God that is so funny - when in fact we took advantage of an exploding economy to build a stadium that not, that will not be favourable not to the supporters who wait in vain like Religious people wait for their respective salvation/promised land but the board of directors and you know what? This is why Peter Hill Wood always talks down about our players because he is there for the money and the investment and the ripping off of the little man with strangeness of strangeness that bleeds the populace via The City - that is where he and his counterparts were schooled.

It's all very ugly and nothing to be proud of, in fact it's disgusting. We look at Chelsea and laugh at the fact they have one owner or Manchester United and their debt and Liverpool's squabbles but they're not like us using somewhat immoral means. OK they were available and we took advantage but somebody loses out and at present it has been the fans and it has been the public who will pay for this with a crunch, losing jobs, falling house prices, rises in taxes and an uncertain future for their family.

OK, some people could say some football clubs did the same but not as bled and destroyed as we had done. Our advantage would be in the biggest and the best and spending tonnes of money in a time where everybody was spending money - especially the construction firms and other businesses we employed to make this happen. Everything was bleeding the economy of money that wasn't there - for our favour.

This is how you destroy. :oD

Arshavin, Tottenham and 20 years return of the North London Rivalry

2009-02-04T01:00:00.006Z

Metric - Help I'm Alive Kate Nash meets someone posh
Wavves - So Bored The Strokes Meet The Pumpkins
Sugarcoin - Acidly Royksopp meets Johnny Cash
Feist and Ben Gibbard - Train Song Simon and Garfunkel meet Kate Bush
Barzin - Let's Go Driving Slow acousticy song
Nil - Ma Disconica Justice meets Jarre
Beni - My Love Sees You (Classixx Remix)Kraftwerk meets Tori Amos

I don't think Tottenham have been our rivals since the late 80s or early 90s but now with more investment and a greater drive to turn things around, Tottenham have finally reached that phase. I know the table can be deceiving in this light but Tottenham are playing a thoughtful approach to a quick return to being contenders - well not at the top but important players in the premiership who can break a teams run.

On the other end, while Tottenham are able to make these quick changes with the aid of a huge support - we take things slower and buy one player. He's a great player, brilliant in fact but I think this is a player that will keep us at 5th place not move us forward.

Arshavin, I don't believe is a player who changes a teams fortunes but is an insurance player who can guarantee you retain your position. We should face facts that he is not a big league player but a Russian league players - a big difference. Apparently we have him as a playmaker and one has to wonder how he will grasp the teams he will be up against as well as the players. Some of these he has seen before, others never but he hasn't played against some of the brute reality of the game.

That's for the current top four though. Against Tottenham, I think they will be destroyed fairly easily as long as Arshavin and the players around him can find some balance and stability - at any point in the game. This doesn't have to be a 90 minute game. We just don't want to walk into this game and never gain even a glimmer of confidence.

Arshavin surplus to requirements or the new Jesus Christ?

2009-02-01T02:04:00.005Z

CLICK

Close Enough - Pain and Pleasure Coldplay meets Jay Z
Passafire - Ghost Man Some Nu-Reggae
Some 808 State
Heloise & The Savior Faire - Illusions (Modus Vivendi Golden Remix) Blondie meets Goldfrapp
Kings Of Leon Vs. Lykke Li - Knocked Up (Rodeo Mash Up) Kings of Leon meets Lykke Li
Coeur de Pirate - Comme des Enfants (Le Matos remix) Awesome - Cute French Girl meets Jarre meets Paul Van Dyk
Metric - Help I'm Alive (Acoustic) Lykke Li meets Duffy
Faded Paper Figures - Metropolis Crystal Castles meets Suzanne Vega
Depth Effect - One day or so feat. Cyne Lightning Seeds meet Def Jam
Mightyfools - Addict (Original Mix) Tony De Vit meets Fedde Le Grand
Technotronic Vs MSTRKRFT - Pump up the Jam
Technotronic meets Kraftwerk
Simian Mobile Disco - Upside Down Jamiroquai meets Mylo
Lil' Wayne - Ay Man feat. Pharrell (Neptunes) Action Movie music meets Hip Hop
Justin Timberlake - Better not Together Portishead meets Michael Jackson

I once bought a DVD Recorder and it was well ahead of the time it was first released. I thought it was the best thing ever considering the technology involved but then like 6 months later I realised it was pretty defunct and done for.

Arshavin is coming closer and closer to 30 years old and you have to wonder is this going to worth it? Forgive me for being confused, maybe being 27 isn't such a bad deal and it's the double speak from the club that makes me feel this way.

I do agree that we have to get em young (24/25 seems logical from learnings of Arsenal's calamities) and then get them into the squad to be blood for the future. We were either getting them too young (cause they're cheap) or too old (cause they're cheap) but now we get someone who is, let's say 28 by the time we can see his best.

It would be nice to see this guy to be the best ever and a turning point but there are so many issues to deal with, all the responsibilities on one pair of shoulders just makes me continue to wonder. It's a big ask. All kinds of things could go wrong from injury to no position, to adapting to Arsene's carefully constructed Heston Blumenthal footballing world (which isn't to everyone's tastes anymore).

I think it is kind of the step in the right direction. It is a risk, it is a bit dodgy, he is a very good player, we could take a different direction and hopefully build from this. We've got rid of like 4 or 5 kids to pay his wages so at least we're trying to do all things at once still...?

My view is defending is the new Counter Attack.

Suddenly we don't know what to do at Arsenal - Arrogance

2009-01-26T01:40:00.003Z

Dead Prez - Hip Hop (Diplo Remix) Tribe Called Quest meets Underworld

Yelle - Je Veux Te Voir (George Lenton Remix) Republica meets Carl Cox
Justice - Valentine (Plastic Fang Remix) Justice meets a Train Ride
Coconut Records - Microphone Old Travis meets Scissor Sisters
The Story Of - The Flock The Stone Roses meet The Smiths
Decimals - Retreat Big in Japan meets Yazoo
Nightmare of You - You're Very Dear To Me Strokes meet Stones
Hostage - Bring The Music Italo House meets Synthy BreakBeat (GOOD!)
Lily Allen - Everyone’s At It
Shinichi Osawa - Dreamhunt (Shinichi Osawa Remix) - Supporting Fat Boy Slim
In Step - Girl Talk American Mash Up artist - Quality!
Music For Animals - Rice Fields Sonic Youth meets Human League
Lykke Li - Tonight She should be big everywhere soon

Watching the game today I realised that we are just stalled. Teams had us sussed out years ago and we're still playing that game - arrogance, and we don't want to change.

You've heard it. We're saying we want to develop youth, we don't want to spend, we don't want to take risks, we respect caution, we think this is the way, we think this is the future, we think everybody else is wrong, we're fiscally oriented but not sports oriented. It's basically a big headed idiots game.

A whole transfer window highlights where we are. We spent all of it, chasing after a player at the end of his game soon, who hasn't proved himself on a major stage and this was supposed to deal with our major growing problem.

No other players bought, no caution, no risky or even clever buys to fill in when we're doing bad. Just somebody to bring on to defend leads or something.

Anything?

The age of investing in defence in now. If you look at teams, they've all got players with good strong defensive investment or defensive players, world beaters while we're chasing after a middle of the road attacking player and desperate to get him?

I can't see Villa giving up that 4th place without a fight and this isn't no rubbish team. I for one would be very surprised if a team of their calibre drops a 5 point lead. Have you seen their remaining games? They've played most of the big tough games and they've invested well and have a good quality squad.

We're doing the opposite. I seriously think we should be really wondering what we want because all we're doing as a club is making money and making no real effort to do well. Even all the clubs below us are making an effort but we're kind of happy with where we are. I've never known Arsenal to be like this Business where we haven't really got much to look forward and we stumble so easily and are caught unawares so easily.

It's nice to see we're coping ok without Fabregas though but if anything we're doing very little to cope in these times of falling short in terms of our ability.

Believing in Winning or believing in losing?

2009-01-26T00:49:00.005Z

Fausto Papetti - La Playa Ennio Morricone meets Beer
The Breeders - “Iris” Courtney Love meets Nirvana
Geographer - Can't You Wait A bit like Embrace meets the Verve
Little Boots - Meddle (Designer Drugs 80's Coke Jame Remix) Blondie meets early Depeche Mode
Matthew Ryan – American Dirt.mp3 Kings of Leon meets Damien Rice
White Lies - Farewell To The Fairground (Yuksek Remix) Armand Van Helden meets Daft Punk
Oh Shit! - Disgusting (Fat and Ugly Fuck That Remix) Metallica meets The Chemical Brothers
Mylo - I'm Back Sounds like Mylo but funkier
Anto - Fantasy Sounds like Jean Michel Jarre meets Eddie Halliwell and some distortion
Sufjan Stevens - You Are The Blood Sounds like Jeff Buckley meets Radiohead
Santogold (Prod. by Diplo) - Unstoppable (Drake ft. Lil Wayne Remix) Q Tip meets Kelis
Britney Spears - Womanizer (Benny Benassi Club Mix) Typical Benny Benassi but faster. Good.
Moulinex & Xinobi - discotexas theme (esto! rmx) Sounds like Justice meets Kylie
Kyle Andrews - Naked In New York Sounds like Muse meets The Like - Brilliant
Sneaky Sound System - I Love It (Fred Falke Remix) - Earth Wind and Fire meets Erasure

With so many people making music I could put up loads of great music here but I think thats enough for now.

So we drew against Cardiff and what is there to say other than what we have already said before but to put things into one sentence:

A team like ours should beat these guys 10 nil if we didn't have the problems in the background while we sell our best people and can't even tie up a contract if our bladder peeing calmly depended on it.

A lot of the news coming our way is the usual transfer stuff, getting pretty bored now but we do have Roma coming up which will be a nice trip over into Italy for us. Burn some fossil fuels and all that and maybe taste the life of those crazy Italian fans - maybe warmer there too - escape the cold and maybe that's something nice to look at while we ponder it would be better if we could win something, just something. After all that is what we all want isn't it or maybe a player we can believe in and a team full of players that makes us want to believe.

I think underpinning all this is a need to find someone to believe in. In this climate with a harsh economy where if it's not you it's your fellow man suffering and it makes you hope for utopia and if someone is winning, then it's good that someone is winning. Better than contemplating what the doom mongers contemplate and that is everyone is losing. How do they sleep at night? Maybe after the food they buy from the stories they write to make a living - the very living people are losing. How ironic...

I have to wonder what part football plays in this global hard time. I've always pondered what man wants to do with all the money one can harness in a capitalist world. What could happen? What could you do - there are all these glimmers of selling your soul in order to survive. Capitalism is a strange beast full of dreams walking into doors to nightmares and nightmares opening doors to dreams as the door to nightmare stays fully open - and the window to redemption seems a struggle to master.

One has to wonder what is worth living for in this age. I would think... maybe it's having something to believe in. I've met my fair share of cult religious types wanting us to follow them and everyone who has something to believe in wanting us to follow them instead and then there are others who just have nothing to believe in at all but are quite happy in that, because that way, you can change what you believe in every day.

Just like United fans want to believe in United, Chelsea fans in Chelsea and us in Arsenal and it's such a battle when we've got different things to believe in but in the end we all want the same thing. There's a bitter loss when only a few can harness the prize. That's capitalism.

So what I'm saying is - it would be nice to believe in somebody who believed in winning and not just being a football club making money. We've got far too much losing in the world today.

Has anybody noticed? Keep it quiet but we compare our selves to Chelsea, United and Liverpool

2009-01-22T01:17:00.004Z

Blonde Redhead - 23
diamond cut - teardrops (treasure fingers filter disco edit) 320
A Split Second - Flesh
Lykke Li - Little Bit (Death to the Throne Remix)
U2 - Get On Your Boots
Lily Allen - The Fear (Death Metal Disco Scene Remix)
Justin Timberlake - Bigger Than The World
Spoon, Harris & Obernik - Batitude (ft. Sam Obernik)
Lady GaGa - Just Dance (Make u Deff Remix)
The National - So Far Around The Bend

It's starting to be far less funny and pretty much pitiful now.

Being 5th in the league isn't good enough for Arsenal but it is a decent spot if you just see us as any random team - but we're not any old random team are we. Come on, you could say this is good enough but that's just sheer bollocks isn't it because with the team and resources at our disposal - top 2 should be where we are at every year, without question.

Year after year we keep saying we are working towards something new, we will change but it's embarrassing for not only as as fans, or the club but the footballing world that we can't encompass anything more and it doesn't take all that much in terms of intelligence to use money to gain success. Money which we have but we don't use.

We don't even have a decent management set up or a good organisational setup. Everything appears to have gone to the dogs because quite simply - we sold our best men. It's about as simple as that. We keep saying Arsenal are bigger than a player or a person but for fuck's sake - you don't just release people who keep the clocks ticking at the club and really make something happen. That's stupidity and idiocy all in one barrel mixed up with insanity.

No other club does that. I am sure at other clubs when they were going to lose Ferguson, Benitez or Rick Parry they completely crapped themselves and somebody problem blew their top and said "are you taking the piss or something?" it's the kind of power ego tripping that Roman did when he got rid of Jose :oD.

You just don't do that but it's obvious we have people at the club whose head is way up their backside that they can't see the wood for the trees.

And you know what's funny? Finding a good setup, just like the good setup that we had - may not be coming any time soon.

Wasting time on obscure Yeti Men from Russia - Can't Scout to save our lives.

2009-01-17T19:12:00.003Z

A selection of dance and indie tracks.
Wixel - outside your locked heart
Enzo Ponzio - Italian Boy
Burning Hearts - I Lost My Colour Vision
Does It Offend You Yeah - We Are Rockstars (Bloc Party Remix)
Sexy Kids - Sisters Are Forever
The Third Wave - Down On Me
Ladytron - Playgirl (Felix Da Housecat Glitz Clubhead Mix)
DeVotchKa - How It Ends
Lykke Li - Breaking It Up (Pocketknife's Loosefoot Remix)
This Mortal Coil - Another Day
Mightyfools ft Guerila Speakers - Amsterdam (Boemklatsch remix)
Max Justus - Love Lockdown

Well it looks like the deals off and who really gives a ****, now honestly what was the point in that. It would be useful if we bought somebody that we could use rather than hoping, praying, pleading that one of Arsene Wenger's dodgy blokes from backwaters may come good - and no I don't give two hoots that he won an award in Russia or he was part of the team of Competition in Euro 2008 (PMSL). Who really cares.

Now sorry to talk cliches but is it really too hard to just go out there and get some monster who will scare the crap out of players. Let's all accept that the board are afraid to spend money on players and their contract negotiations are a bit like a Geek playing Multi User Dimension gaming on the internet - in other words tedious, time consuming and life threatening - but just buy somebody who really has the balls to play.

Are we really supposed to believe that there isn't such a player out there? Hold on, we have Wenger don't we and he really finds players. My arse he finds players. What in the blue blazes do you think he does? He gets in some kind of teleportation device and watches games non-stop? Of course not.

In the background our scouting set up is probably crap and we play fat blokes to run around and sleep in posh hotels, eat in Michelin star restaurants only to come back and tell us he can kick a ball very hard, but sometimes very very hard. Wenger will put this in his computer and after 50 years of calculations (which we are told us growth, hunger, spirit, Gallas is alright) he tells us, we have nobody on the horizon.

Well that just means we're crap.

Oneof the richest clubs in the world and we can't find a decent player. This has to be a joke.

We, oh fellow supporters, have been waiting for this day of dominance all our lives and we can't find a decent player. How funny. You have to laugh for the sake of not hitting somebody. Usually that fan who says he is such a big fan that he is always positive - I'd like to hit that fan about 50 times.

Of course I have to leave some left over for somebody else.

Arshavin - that's a bit odd isn't it? Arsenal are scared. Prisoners to Transfer negotiations.

2009-01-14T01:46:00.008Z

Rolling Stones Remixes - Brill
Lil Wayne and Pharrell - Yes (and others)
Glass Candy - Stars & Houses
Kelly Clarkson - My Life Would Suck Without You
modern skirts - soft pedals
Hayley Daviss - Sex On Fire (Kings of Leon Cover)
Treasure Fingers - Cross The Dancefloor (Designer Drugs Remix)
the Prodigy - Omen
White Lies - To Lose My Life (Filthy Dukes remix)
Biggie (Big E) vs. Dr. Dre - Juicy vs G Thang
Royksopp - New Single and What Else is there
Obi Best - Nothing Can Come Between Us
Gorillaz - Broken
Surkin - Chrome Knight feat. Chromeo

Is this guy really any good? Or I mean worth it?

Couldn't we go for somebody else?

Here we are, locked in the harsh winters of the Arsenal contract negotiations. This is a bit like a long winded computer programme or an utterly obscurely written macro in an Excel Spreadsheet, that if Arshavin plays and scores a goal we will give the Russians, two bottles of vodka and a packet of Cheese and Onion crisps - but if he doesn't they will get nothing.

It's this things that are the niggles but overall - is there any point in this, will he make a difference, is there a return from Arshavin that we can get back?

Ultimately we're a scared. We've frightened ourselves with so many stories (that haven't happened, besides Leeds United) that we think terrible things will happen to the club. That's if the wrong people turn up but isn't that just once in a blue moon that something as horrendous as Leeds happens? It's bonkers to expect like for like when Leeds took unthinkable risks in football. Something nobody has ever happened.

If you're so afraid of the cold, you'll never step out of the house.

There is so much fear. We've become prisoners to transfer negotiations. We're in a jail where we're so cautious that we can't focus on the real things.

Here's a clue. If we changed the set up in the backroom, brought in new people and changed policies and training regimes and changed our attitude - maybe we wouldn't have to pay stupid wages to inconsistent players.

We pay more to our inconsistent players than we do to our consistent players. All our consistent players are on less than 50k a week (besides Nasri and Fab but they have other problems).

Our problems and our focus is in the wrong place. So silly.

This is what happens when you are afraid. When you're not in control and we've only got ourselves to blame. We became so obsessed (usually around the time Nina Bracewell Smith came in) with money and finances that we lost sight of the football. Strange set of events.

Unless Arshavin is a player who will change the dressing room (I doubt it very much) and is some positive role model who can change personalities, I can't really see him making much of a difference. The obvious fact is, we have problems in the dressing room, not arguments just lack of communication and camaraderie. We've got problems in the background (how much is this costing us financially) and we've got problems at board level.

No player and No Transfer negotiation will solve that.

Still no idea of signings as yet but the same old problems

2009-01-12T23:32:00.003Z

Look Book Believe the Hype
The Disco Villains - Jalisco Intro No.3
LCD Soundsystem
From Slumdog Millionaire - Jai Ho
Dave Halverson: The Agonist
Kylie Minogue Mixes
Squarepusher - Illegal Dustbin
Little Boots - Stuck on Repeat remix (GOOD!)

We could never survive if Bendtner was our only striker while our better strikers are off target. It makes me think of one thing and one thing alone - the way we play makes our best players/strikers work harder to get goals. If we came forward faster and we had a less lackadaisical approach to scoring goals we'd be killing teams with 5 goals like we used to do.

It's a shame that we are in a position where we assume that we need new players to fix things. Unfortunately our training system and our mentality is down in the dumps. We need to go back to basics and get these players working hard again but realise that although the way we play is effective to a point, it's not that effective in that it utilises our best to the best.

I remember some stats from last season that showed Flamini and Fabregas covered more of the field during the game then the whole of our team put together. The opposition (Liverpool in this case) covered more space than every one of our other players. How crazy is that? This was after we went crap by the way, after February.

I'll say it over and over again - if we don't change the way we play, we will remain stuck in repeating the same mistakes.

Then again, we could get a whole new team.

Ballet for the Working Class no more: Being and Behaving - Wrong side of a Big Club.

2009-01-08T01:15:00.005Z

Very Good Dance track produced by Justice
Ambient Track
M.I.A and Diplo - WOW
More Jaydiohead (Radiohead and Jay-Z)
Hot Lips - Pacific

I think we're just like any other club now. No turning back to the heights of brilliance until we behave like a big club rather than just be like a big club. There is no denying there is potential and resources at the club but unless we use those resources we are still on the edge of brilliance now.

It's all mathematics for me. Now if the club stay in cautious zone (question: is there a cautious zone?) then we can insure... not taking risks to the detriment of finance and the team but in my view, if there is detriment we can sell players and utilise finance to our benefit.

In order to successful one needs to creative in their risks - in that there is always a buffer to fall back on. I think the temptation of bigger and bigger profits just removes the possibility or the temptation to be business minded and take risks. I just can't ignore the fact that real brilliance comes not from opportunity (where even the rich lose their money) but from being creative. Give me 50 Richard Bransons for every Bill Gates.

Bill Gates took his opportunity of an emerging Computer industry and basically took ideas of the time and made them his zone. Basically a 70s version of Simon Cowell/Fuller. Richard Branson was more of an investor who built from the bottom up in the more riskier areas of multiple industries and pushed boundaries and fought competition rather than stole the competition.

We are more of a Bill Gates and it's boring. Reminds me of that scene in Mary Poppins where the kids go to the banks and are told their pound will be one pound 1 pence in a year or something.

One of the most insightful things, therefore, I have heard regarding our position is to invest in the team from all ends - youth, experienced and maturity. I think we have the basis for this as a team. There appears to be zero faith and belief in players and that is the frustration we see as they blame each other when they have no control or even any autonomy on the pitch when all aspects of the game are controlled to a clinical boredom.

This is more of a city boys sad playground - no money but lots of money to watch grow.

So we're not making any money. We're just accumulating it. No fun in that.

Back to Back League Cup titles for Tottenham? And us...

2009-01-07T01:19:00.004Z

Jay Z mixed with Radiohead - JaydioHead

I love this song. I am sure the God Squad will be up in arms about this contemporary logic Campy Affair

Eminem's probable new one Eminem Probable New

Kid Cranberry stuff Kid Cranberry Stuff

and for anybody who likes more earthy stuff - Marina and the Diamonds Marina

MIA Discotech Boyz Remix - MIA Remix

finally A Trak (Kanye's Scratch DJ) A - Trak

===================

You have to wonder how much we'd have celebrated if we had got back to back league cup titles after years of a lack of a trophy? Would you have rejoiced or maybe, would you have said, the league cup is unimportant, it carries no glory, it's a nothing mickey mouse trophy and we don't need it.

Kind of silly I would say.

Here we are still looking for players and we're still wondering, can Wenger make up the brilliance that the club made many years ago now. About 4 plus and we're still pondering if this club can muster up something that we know of Arsenal otherwise we're backwards - the Newcastle United of the South or coming that way. Big Stadium - no Football - all sorts of money and bravado.

I think the club could lie over and over again about finances and how other clubs have got it all wrong (let's wait for something wrong and then we'll say other clubs have messed up) and we're the ones running short of our potential while other clubs are living up to their capabilities or pushing further as further could be.

With all the money and resources we have, we're still stuck.

At the end of the day, you have to run the course of every race. We all do but there is only usually one winner at the end of these and we're becoming also rans with all our noise and nothing more without a key player in our midst we're losing ground so when will the change take place if even our manager or players aren't up to it - or our fans who accept everything under this big drug of positivity.

We have to accept very quickly and realise very quickly, we could masturbate over our finances for years on end but if we don't even attempt to try to win something because we think our way is the best way, we're nothing more than a cult of some sort, a strange sectarian drugged bunch of losers who don't realise that you have to make more than an effort to do something.

In most Businesses and successful as they are, huge risks were taken. An example of us is buying Bergkamp, Vieira, Anelka - what if that had failed and fallen over?

Now let's say, buying Flamini, Fabregas, Gallas, Toure - and what if we sell players, buy the wrong ones or that falls over?

Quite a straight forward comparison about our situation right now and how not taking risks leads to an implosition.

Congratulations to Tottenham - Bugger all to us.