The season has ended in a rather spectacular fashion. We bombed out of the Champion’s League in a nightmare match against a team we know really well, and we are barely scraping by with yet another fourth place league finish. I am really frustrated with this. We are an amazing team and have some good players, but I shouldn’t be that upset… back at the start of the season I had a feeling we were in for this again.

We really didn’t make any significant signings last summer, and we have no real veterans on our team that are well established. I have been, and will continue to be, on the same page with Mr. Wenger when it comes to the notion of breeding young talent into exactly what you want. However, that’s not going to work if you don’t have any all-stars on your team. The closest players we have to that are all players that have gotten their start at Arsenal. I don’t have any faith in a squad that has finished fourth for this many seasons AND has a manager that continually says the team is strong, and he doesn’t need to buy players.

That’s right… Arsene just proclaimed, again, that he won’t be buying any players and that his squad is strong enough. I know of no better example of a broken record. In other shocking news, Dick Cheney disagrees with Obama’s policies and Andy Samberg makes funny music videos that people feel the need to share with each other, over and over again. Now I’m really worried, because he can’t keep saying this every season and expect the board to be happy with it. Maybe if he finally said that 4th place is pretty good, and that finishing there is higher than 16 other teams is also pretty good, it’d be easier to swallow the same medicine. Otherwise, the board simply can’t tolerate this forever.

Anyways, I’m beating a dead horse. I would like to see Arsenal spend a boatload of cash this summer on a boatload of really good players. I think that sums it up.

So, why was Djourou in NYC? Maybe the MLS is courting him to sign for the Red Bull New York? But that’s just as likely as Fabregas playing for Real Salt Lake. But more importantly… why was he wearing ridiculously tight jeans with glittery rhinestones outlining the back pockets? We’ll never know.

The season is over and we managed to take 3rd place. I think this is a pretty respectable finish. We were looking primed for 1st through the end of February or so, but everything started to fall apart after the Eduardo injury.

Low points of the season:

1. Van Persie was another disappointment after being injury ridden for a majority of the season. Couple that with Eduardo and we were in a world of hurt.
2. Flamini is leaving us… how dare he! He was really an integral part of the team and we are definitely going to be hurting without him.
3. Eduardo’s injury… it was the beginning of the end for the season.
4. Wenger??…. I’ll go ahead and say it… There were some pretty interesting squad selection decisions made towards the latter 1/4 of the season. Also, continually relying on Eboue is clearly not going to win us any medals. How much blame do we put on Wenger for not winning the title?
5. United taking the double. Cunts.

Regardless of the problems through the season, I’m pretty satisfied with the results. I think it’s a bit ridiculous to expect to win the league every year. Out of 20 teams, only one can take it, yet everyone is rather harsh on their club when they don’t. It was definitely upsetting to have Chelsea surpass us, but the gap narrowed on the last day. Thank God they didn’t win the Champion’s League.

I’m looking forward to Euro ‘08 this summer, but it’s really just a filler until the next season starts. Come on Arsenal!

The Reading striker Dave Kitson has offered an intriguing insight into the nightmarish reality of confronting Arsenal at present, labelling the swashbuckling style which has hoisted the Gunners to the top of the Premier League both “magical” and “unbelievable”, if hellish to counter.

I think we should have more players calling Arsenal magical, unbelievable, and hellish to counter. Reading played United early on during their slump to a 0-0 draw. Reading have also played Chelsea to a loss right after that. I’m guessing Kitson could have come out and said anything after those games, but instead he chose to talk about how magnificent the Arsenal are.

The thing that amazes you most is they are not just passing to each other. They are passing so that the next person can run on to the ball and, by then, his mind is already made up with what he is going to do next. It is unbelievable.

I like this previous quote because he isn’t just complementing the players, but the brand of football that they play. I’d imagine that after Wenger saw this article he’d have quite the grin on his face.

We beat Reading convincingly. It took us the first half to really settle, but we were dominant the whole way through. Chances were aplenty in the second. The only bad part of the game was the fact that Reading pulled one back. Also, the goal Adebayor had recalled was a complete farce. He was completely onside. That linesman had no business calling him offsides. It’s a shame too because if that goal had counted, Adebayor would be tied for most goals in the league.

Come on Arsenal!

I’ve finally gotten off my lazy ass and produced another wallpaper… the first one in a long while. Go check it out in the wallpaper section, as well as all the other ones that are still hanging around. I’ve gotten all sorts of requests to make new wallpapers, but I don’t think there is any way I can do them all. As I get going again I’ll definitely take them into consideration, but I make no promises.

Something interesting I noticed about my wallpapers… when you do a Google Image search for Van Persie, Arsenal, The Gunners, or Thierry Henry, my wallpapers show up. Granted for Henry you have to go to like page 8, but still, pretty cool.

A little while ago I wrote this post about how I disliked the way Hleb played. I still stand by my arguments (and laugh at the comments) that I made in that post. However, Hleb has certainly done his best to prove me wrong and make me want to like the way he plays.

In the most recent games, Hleb has shown that he is a masterful player on numerous occasions. His passing is precision, his tackling exact, and his running on the ball is quick. He has started to look much more comfortable this season. I would imagine a lot of it comes down to experience and feeling more comfortable on the pitch. His game is much more fluid and consistent and he could surely be called a staple of our squad now.

Let’s talk about Hleb’s hair for a little bit. It’s weird. Right? I can’t be the only thinking that he has a pretty weird look going on. It’s like soft blond feathers draping down from his scalp. I wonder if there are any Hleb look-a-likes out there that have the same thing going on with their hair. I digress.

We’re up against Reading on the Monday match at the Madejski. As of today there isn’t any significant team news. I suspect that we will see the return of Fabregas and Hleb in the midfield. Kolo and Rosicky are supposed to be fit in time for the match as well, so I’d imagine they’ll be called up. Reading are 12th in the league but have let in a massive 26 goals thus far. However, they’ve won 4 of their 6 games at home. Despite that, you’d have to go into this match expecting an Arsenal win. Reading have looked really flat and haven’t had a good start to the season. Here’s hoping we walk all over them.

Arseblog uncovered an interesting article about some Arsenal fans suing the club for ‘racist’ chants. I don’t really know what to make of that but it seems a little ridiculous. Wikipedia has some history on the word ‘yid’ which is pretty interesting. I am not going to off much commentary on this other than the fact if things keep going as is, every single word representing any group of people will at some point be called into question.

Come on Arsenal!

First, lets look at the quantity of games. So far, we have played 11 games. Of those 11 games, we have won 8 and drawn 3. The interesting thing about these games is that a massive 7 of them have been at home. So, for you math whizzes out there, we’ve only played 4 away games, or roughly 36% of our games away. We’ve played the least amount of away games than anyone else. For the away games that we played away, two of them were in London (West Ham and Tottenham). Of course, we battled against an away crowd, but we didn’t have to travel far for those games. It would be within reason to say that we’ve only traveled then for two games this season.

Now, let’s look at who we have played against. Below is the list of teams we have played, and their current position in the league.

• 2 – Manchester United
• 3 – Manchester City
• 5 – Portsmouth
• 6 – Blackburn
• 7 – Liverpool
• 11 – West Ham
• 13 – Fulham
• 15 – Sunderland
• 17 – Tottenham (hahahaahahahaha)
• 19 – Bolton
• 20 – Derby

If you sample out the positions of these teams and divide by the number of games, it should equal about 10 (the middle of the table). This would represent a fair opposition in games played so far. If the average were less than 10 , the opposition would have been tougher than the average, and the same could be said for the opposite. Our average points of teams that we have played against is 10.72. So, we have had a slightly easier schedule.So, thus far we have had a *slightly* easier schedule than would be expected, and we have played 64% of our games at home. For a team of our caliber (and lets be honest we’re damn good) you’d expect that we should be at the top of the league. If you run these numbers for other teams, it’s not nearly as advantageous.

Now let’s move on to our games ahead. Specifically the next 9 games, which will take us through to the new year. Of those 9 games, 3 of them are at home. That’s right, just 2 of them. And, if you perform the same analysis on the opposition, you get the following.

• 12 – Reading
• 18 – Wigan
• 9 – Aston Villa
• 10 – Newcastle
• 16 – Middlesbrough
• 4 – Chelsea
• 17 – Tottenham (hahahhaahhaaha)
• 5 – Portsmouth
• 8 – Everton

The average position of these teams is 11, which is again a slightly easier position average. However, more of these games are away from home. So, does games away or position in the table matter more? An interesting note here is that Manchester United have 4 of their next 8 games at home, and it’s against considerably easier opposition.

Either way, it is clear to me that the next 8 games are crucial to Arsenal if we are to win the league. We need to take as many points as we can from these games. I wouldn’t be surprised if Manchester United overtakes us for a bit given the schedule, but that won’t worry me. We just need to keep scoring and winning! Come on Arsenal!!!!

Update: Thanks to AC in the comments for mentioning the Chelsea match.. It wasn’t listed on Soccernet.

Lately we have been very poor offensively. I know, I know, we are scoring fine and winning or drawing all of our games. That aside, we haven’t looked very dangerous up front. Everyone has been saying how great we look with Henry, and that we don’t miss him. Well, we certainly could use a dangerous striker. In my mind, Van Persie is our best striker, and while he has been injured the side has suffered. I can’t wait for him to get back, just in time for our difficult schedule up ahead.

Let’s take a look at some schmuck’s opinion of Van Persie’s top 13 goals. Why is he a schmuck? Well he stole my wallpapers and used it for his goddamned video. At least he did mention me in the credits. Sweet.

We’re through to the next round though, so Come on Arsenal!

There wasn’t anything particularly attractive tonight but we cant hope for it every match. Surprisingly enough, Alex Song wasn’t all that bad. Typically when he steps on the pitch I get a case of the pee shivers out of concern alone. He managed to be all over the place, just like his hair.

Clichy looked formidable as usual, clamping down his side and providing plenty of offensive gusto. The more I see Clichy play, the more I like him. Almunia bailed us out as well, which was quite nice of him. More and more reasons to let Lehmann go…

Barcelona beat Rangers as expected, further hurting their chances of breaking through. I hope the Rangers can pull it off. I like that Beasley fella’. Henry scored a goal but I don’t necessarily want to see the highlight… he’s dead to me! United won, again, and are guaranteed a spot in the knock-out round. Booooo.

Jamie Carragher somehow managed to escape any more foul trouble despite his penchant for violence and flailing body parts. Perhaps he didn’t deserve any discipline today but he has certainly warranted it in the last 5 or so games leading up to today. At what point will the FA review his previous infractions and choose to discpline him? Never, cause the FA are idiots.

Anyways, on to the Arsenal. Sweet, sweet, Arsenal. Our match against United was well played and we managed to escape with a point. However, I don’t think that we looked particularly strong at any point in the match. Would it be fair to say at this point that united are looking like a more sturdy and resilient game-winning team, despite the fact that we are tied with a game in hand? You tell me. I’m just posing the question.

Tomorrow we are Prague to play against… Slavia Prague. I’d expect a standard match where we secure a couple of goals and then hold them to it. I’ll maintain this perspective even though Wenger has omitted four of our core players out of the team. Hopefully it will give the others a chance to get in a groove together. Let’s just thank God this is the first time we’ve seen a major rotation of the squad in a match that is crucial… how could someone really support this week in and week out? Supporting Liverpool must require a level of impatience not even worth having.

Come on Arsenal!

There were a fair amount of mistaken chances on both sides of the pitch. The goalies came up strong with several good saves but got off lucky just as much. Arsenal maintained possession in the midfield with a bit of brute force and a touch of class. Fabregas was dominant and scored a scorcher for our second goal.

Adebayor’s closing goal was a truly stunning strike. He flicked the ball up with his back to the goal, wheeled around, and drove the ball into the net. Robinson, god bless him, had little to no chance.

Robin Van Persie is currently my favorite striker on the side, but he was virtually nonexistent in this match. I hope to see him prevail more in upcoming fixtures. He usually runs rampant on the defense but something just wasn’t going his way. A more abysmal performance was seen from Gilberto though. I remember back when Wenger loaned Djourou and I thought to myself, “Great, Gilberto slipping and giving up balls in center back again…” And boy was I right. I have never liked Gilberto in the center back and he continued to reinforce that opinion. We need Senderos or Gallas back sooner than they will be!

We are now at the top of the league. We are also one game in hand. I’ll say nothing else in the hopes of avoiding any sort of a jinx. Come on Arsenal!