My Arsenal Blog.

Estonia.

Mon, 15 Oct 2007 15:30:05 +0200

I suspected it would be a mistake to go shopping with Helen on Saturday. Her sense of timing is elastic on the best of occasions and with a 3pm kickoff, I knew it would be a tight squeeze.

I'm actually quite ambivalent about England matches except during the tournaments themselves. Along with most Arsenal fans I know, I love it when England do well, but give me the choice of a World Cup or the Champions League and it's the CL every time. So I'm not really as bothered about international qualifiers as I might be. It's probably also the reason why I'm supremely indifferent to all the xenophobic twaddle that's written in the media about the lack of Englishmen in the Arsenal first team. Who cares if we have eleven Martians in the side as long as they play the Wenger way?

But I was quite keen to watch the Estonia match because with England playing France in the rugby (more on that anon) I thought it would make a nice sporting Saturday to watch both games.

Of course, at five-to-three we're still in Debenhams (I'd warned Helen they had utter tat in that store but would she listen?) so I put my foot down and insist that we find a pub somewhere to watch the game. We found this dreary little place off Oxford Street and as we sat down to watch the match Helen proceeded to sigh loudly at increasingly frequent intervals. I wasn't quite sure whether this was in protest at being forced to watch the football or because all the men in the pub were as old as Steve McLaren and not as good looking.

You probably all saw the game, or the bits of it that were remotely interesting. I half expected Sven to appear weasel-like after the game, repeating ad-nauseam, "First half good, second half not-so-good." Here we had the best available players in England playing against a rubbish side and my overwhelming thought was that on current form our Arsenal side would rip them to shreds. England, I mean, not Estonia. Although one shudders to think what we'd do to them.

The England midfield was functional at best. When you're used to watching a side move the ball from back to front with speed and precision, every player comfortable receiving the ball in any position with at least a couple of options to lay it off first time or with one touch, the very laboured England midfield was a bit of a let-down.

They're all good players, and I think Barry is such an obvious choice to play in the middle (hindsight is a wonderful thing!) but it seemed to me that when England tried to play a quick midfield passing game, it didn't come naturally to any of them. This in contrast to the football we see week-in-week-out at the Emirates where the hallmark of our play is the constant and total control of the ball at speed - it comes naturally to our boys because they've all been playing this way since they were all in nappies. Which in some cases was a couple of years ago. England, on the other hand, were forcing everything a little bit too much which compounds each little mistake until possession is inevitably coughed up quite cheaply.

Having watched Cescalicious a lot this season, I'm starting to wonder slightly about Steven Gerrard. I recognise all his great qualities, of course. And I remember his performance in the amazing Champions League final, but I do worry slightly whether his passing skills are silky enough for McLaren to build the whole England midfield around him. I haven't really seen enough of Gerrard yet this season for the comparison to be a fair one, but watching someone with such a stellar international reputation (at least in this country) struggle to infuse any sense of rhythm or style into the midfield, it made me appreciate our little Spanish genius even more. Having said that though, it goes without saying that Gerrard is still miles better than the Chubby Chelsea One.

It was good to see a couple of Arsenal old boys on view at Wembley. Stepanovs was generally pretty rubbish when he played for us (although not as rubbish as his mullet-with-highlights haircut on Saturday. What was he thinking?) but I was pleased for him that he had a fairly decent world cup last time round.

Mart Poom, our erstwhile third-choice keeper had a bit of a mare for SWP's opening goal, being beaten embarrassingly at his near post. So it was a mixed afternoon for Arsenal goalkeepers with our current third-choice, Mad Jens, keeping a clean sheet at Croke Park to guarantee Germany's qualification.

At half time, I got a call from one of my spies. Apparently Big Ed (qv Thursday) was going to be at a friend's party that evening to watch the rugby semi-final and we're invited too. This is good news but puts me in a quandry. The rugby starts at 8pm, so that doesn't leave us much time after the game to get home, get ready and get to the party. Helen has no qualms and legs it straight away saying that she can't stand a minute more of this tedium. For someone who knows nothing about football, it was a very smart decision and I should have left with her.

Anyway, after a turgid second half, a mad scoot back home, the usual panic about what to wear (something that will suit both a slightly-hooray-rugby-houseparty in Fulham and then a much smarter nightclub)and for the second time in the day, I made it just in time for kick-off, this time against the French.

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Friday - International week.

Fri, 12 Oct 2007 15:05:24 +0200

I've been grafting away this afternoon reading all the latest feeds and strewing my red-and-white wisdom around the web (well, I have to do something to try to publicise my humble little blog.)

But seriously, what can you say about these incessantly dull "Cesc to Barcelona" stories? Take one international week, add the Spanish press and an agent trying to talk up the value of his client, stand back and you'll be lucky if you don't lose the will to live. Funny how none of these reports mention Cesc's new eight year deal, Wenger's new deal and the myriad number of Cesc interviews in which he says he'll be here as long as Wenger is here.

One other story did catch my eye, though. Apparently Red Ken had given Peter Hill-Wood a hundred grand of my money (and maybe yours if you live in London) to help Arsenal bid for the Uefa cup final in 2011.

Two questions leap immediately to mind like Nicklas Bendtner to a Fabregas corner. Why aren't they bidding for the Champions League final? (Will they bid for that in 2012, our Olympic year?)

And why is Red Ken spending our money on the bid? Personally, I'm quite delighted about it. I mean, I'd love Arsenal to get any sort of European final and consider it good value at twice the price. But if I was a Spurs fan I'd be absolutely livid and would probably vote for the other bloke with the hair and the bicycle. Chelsea fans too, maybe, but they're all too busy at the opera or foreign, so presumably don't get to vote.

The Emirates would be a fitting stage for a major final. I was lucky enough to go to Paris in 06 and I remember vividly that feeling of wonder and anticipation before the event, the total involvement and sheer sense of magic during the match; yes, even in the bitter taste of defeat. (I always wondered what crushing defeat would actually taste like and now I know. It tastes of Pernod.).

That sense of poetic adventure is one of the reasons why we fall in love with the beautiful game. Not all of us can experience it, but when we do, it is beyond the expression of this rather prosaic blog.

I have no doubts that The Emirates would provide a fitting stage to the lucky few and they'd be a lot better at organising the mundane important little things that contribute to the overall experience than the French or Italian police could ever be.

In other news, a search party was dispatched last night to Aura. But no reports of the enemy being spotted, so the operation continues this evening. Preliminary indications are that it will be in a Chelsea nightclub. I'll keep you posted.

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Thursday - International Week.

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 10:27:44 +0200

Was woken up by a phone call from my Dad this morning. Why does he always call first thing in the morning? He knows I'm not a morning person (walking home from a club in the summer when it's light doesn't count). It's always the same, "Oh, have I woken you?" in a tone halfway between surprised and delighted. It's my own fault for answering the phone in the first place I suppose, as it's only my parents or elderly relatives who call me on my landline anyway.

The upshot of it is that he's taking my Mum off for some winter sunshine next week, so he's going to miss the Bolton and Prague games. The hurricane season in the Caribbean usually runs from June to October, so my Dad is chancing it a little bit going this early, but he doesn't want to miss the Man Utd game on November 3rd. My Dad dances around the subject for a couple of minutes then suggests as casually as he can that that it's probably not worth mentioning this salient little fact to my Mum. Sorely tempted to reply that if he promises to stop calling me before lunch, I'll keep mum about telling Mum. But then I wondered what would happen if I did tell her and it then it pisses down with rain for two weeks. Doesn't bear thinking about. I don't think my Dad would cope well with being forced to eke out a living selling pineapples to ungrateful English tourists for the rest of his days.

So the big question is, who am I going to invite to the Emirates?

I have three choices at the moment.

Helen, my best mate, has been quietly badgering me for a while now to take her along to a game. Now, she's a great laugh, and she is my partner-in-crime of choice, but football definitely isn't one of our things. She knows nothing about the game, cares even less, and I suspect only wants to go because she thinks she'll be surrounded by loads of gorgeous blokes who'll spend the whole game trying to chat her up. Ha!

Charlie, on the other hand, is a long-time Arsenal fan. A few seasons ago he got so fed up of not being able to get tickets for Highbury (he's disorganised enough that he let his season ticket application lapse and he could never quite manage the whole ticket registration scheme thing). So he got himself a season ticket at Craven Cottage. He invites me every year to the Fulham away game, so I really do owe him a trip to Dubaibury. I should mention, by the way, that we're Just Good Friends.

And then there's this guy. I've met him a couple of times now through friends of friends when we're all out and about, yadda, yadda. He's a Forest fan (poor lad, but you can't help where you're born) so let's call him Big Ed. Anyway, he fits the bill nicely, what with him being extremely cute and a proper football fan and everything, but there are a couple of slight problems.

I don't have his contact details - and worse, when he called a friend of mine asking her for my msn, I misguidedly told her not to give it to him (well, he should have made more of an effort to ask me himself.) I regretted it instantly, of course. But still, one has standards.

So I'm going to have to rely on that old standby, the casually arranged accidental-bumping-into-his-group-of-friends trick. Now, if your Thursday, Friday or Saturday nights out are anything like mine, I'd be surprised if you were able to get any of your friends to arrive in the same postcode of London within several hours (or days) of the appointed rendezvous. Never mind a specific place at a specific time, even assuming you knew when and where he's going to be. Still, feelers have been put out, and plans have been put in motion, so I'll keep you posted.

But the other thought that worries me is that even if I manage to get hold of him, would he think I was asking him out on a date (as in date) or a non-date date (what I call a jeremy date)? Some years ago, this guy called Jeremy, whom I initially quite fancied, asked me out to a philately exhibition, which was weird enough in itself, but he also pointed out rather too insistently for my liking, that we weren't actually on a romantic date. I think he was just going for low key, casual, no expectations kind of thing. But after inviting me to several more of these bizarre trysts (including a sci-fi movie, would you believe), by the time he'd plucked up the courage to ask me out to dinner (as in soft candlelight, French wine, Italian waiters) I'd completely lost interest in him.

So if Big Ed thinks I'm asking him out on a jeremy date, I'm worried he might reciprocate with one of his own and then we'll get stuck in a rut and the relationship might just fizzle out before it's begun.

But if he thinks it's a proper date, would he think I was being too forward? And anyway, I don't want to be the one to make the first move (sue me, modern women can have old-fashioned views on certain subjects if they like).

Decisions, decisions. Still, it's not as if we'll be staring longingly into each others' eyes for 90 minutes (unless the match is exceptionally turgid), so I think I'll chance it and hope to steer a middle course between the two.

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Wednesday - International week.

Wed, 10 Oct 2007 14:45:57 +0200

OK, I know I said I wouldn't be talking about all the latest transfer gossip, but it is International week and frankly, these enforced breaks are so irritating.

And anyway, this isn't the Sun variety of transfer gossip (i.e. totally made up and never likely to happen in a million years). It's two stories catching my eye at the same time: Nicklas Bendtner saying that he'll move if he doesn't get a game for the first team, and the story that Mathieu Flamini is our very own Genaro Gattuso.

Now, nobody wants another Winston Bogarde on their hands, and it's a good thing that Bendtner is chafing at the bit to get on and show us his stuff. But I do start to worry a bit, because I like Bendtner a lot and I'd hate to see an impatient or immature temperament get in the way of his development.

He only has to look at Flamini's situation to see the right way and the wrong way of going about it. He handed in a transfer request last season when his ultimatum to be played in his favoured midfield position was ignored. Thankfully good sense (and I assume a quiet word in the ear at the right time from Le Directeur) prevailed, and now look at the results.

At the moment, Ade and RVP are the league's leading goalscorers, so no matter how good he thinks he is, he must realise he won't just waltz into the first team.

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Tuesday - International Week.

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 16:58:29 +0200

I suspect I've just woken up to the cold realities of blogging. After the excitement of writing my first ever blog and the thrill of hitting the publish button, and then...and then... a grand total of zero comments. Oh well, keep your head down, keep ploughing away - James Purefoy didn't build Rome in a day, etc, etc.

Incidentally, a big thank you to Mr. Arseblogger for his encouragement and kind wishes for my site. His Arseblog is the one that inspired me to start my own, and it really is "fuckin excellent." He has hundreds of comments a day which must be very gratifying (even though a lot of them seem to be of the bored-at-work-getting-a-coffee variety). I really should investigate what all these rss trackback thingies do.

Apparently there aren't that many female Arsenal bloggers around so there's a chance to corner a niche market. But actually, I don't think I'm aiming for any kind of niche, never mind a female one. Don't expect tips on the right amount of makeup to wear to a Champions League match, or anything like that. For better or worse, this will be about me and the football.

Anyway, the fact that nobody seems to be reading these musings at all has alleviated another one of my sudden panics. It occurred to me after I posted yesterday that it might be a touch embarrassing if various unsuitable persons (aka my Dad) were to read some of the not-strictly-football-related stuff in yesterday's post. Now, my Dad has probably never read a blog in his life but it never does to underestimate your relations' web savvy - nor indeed their propensity to sniff out any potentially embarrassing information about you from anywhere at all. But it's a moot point if nobody is reading this anyway, so I can be as free and as unadulterated as I like.

But enough existentialism for one day, time for some more random football thoughts. Oh, by the way, don't expect lots of links to the latest interviews/gossip/transfer rumours on non-match days. There are other sites for that. I'll just be concentrating on my own random witterings. Speaking of which...

Bacary Sagna's hair (yes, I know I said I wouldn't make girly comments, but bear with me).

I get more worried the more I think about it. It's been gnawing at me all day. Dreadlocks is a very difficult look to pull off for anyone, especially if you go for the multicoloured accessorised version. But when I first saw him I kind of thought he pulled it off and now that he's chopped it all off, I definitely think so. But the clincher is that now he actually looks like Justin Hoyte, he started playing like him as well. Which is definitely not an improvement.

Maybe it was just the hair equivalent of ManU's hilarious grey shirts a few seasons ago. But if he really has been Delilah'd, we're buggered for the whole season.

I've been wondering about Theoooo too.

I think the considered verdict from most Gooners I know is that they desperately want to encourage him but the two words always mentioned are "confidence" and "lightweight".

Looking carefully at both Cescalicious and Theoooo on Sunday, I didn't really think there was too much difference between them in terms of size. They're about the same height, and maybe Cescalicious is a couple of pounds heavier. But he seems to be much much stronger than Theoooo on the pitch, and I'm wondering if it's a mental thing. Cescalicious famously hates losing (ask Alex "quattro formaggi" Ferguson) and his competitiveness enables him to impose his physique on those around him.

This is a Good Thing and is maybe something that Theoooo can learn from. We've been privileged to witness some of the very greatest players ever to play for Arsenal in Bergkamp and Henry, but you couldn't say that either of them possesssed that burning desire, that absolute hatred of losing in proportion to their natural talent.

Cescalicious, on the other hand, has it all and I hope it's only a matter of time before he eclipses them both.

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Sunderland.

Mon, 01 Oct 2007 10:56:15 +0200

The trouble with Sunday kick-offs is that they do interfere with your Saturday nights.

For normal civilised kick-offs (increasingly rare these days) I usually meet my Dad for lunch before the game and then we go to the match together. But today he'd insisted that we meet for breakfast in a greasy spoon. Traditional, he called it. Unhygienic, I call it. But anyway, here I was, running for the bus somewhere in south London in a major panic that I wouldn't have time for a plate of bacon and e-coli. (You try running for a bus in a pair of Dancing Choo's).

By the way, I ought to mention that I'm neither a bus person nor a south London person. Saturday nights at Embargo always being a bit of a giggle - good cheesy music, copious quantities of vodka and on this occasion a particularly sweet Fitbloke - I wake up with aforementioned Fitbloke and a raging hangover somewhere closer to Brighton than Islington.

Now at this point, if this was a reverse fixture, I'd get very pissed off if Fitbloke just makes his excuses and legs it - but I'm a girl in a hurry. To my horror, he suddenly starts Making Plans for the day! There's a lovely little bistro round the corner, apparently, where we can have breakfast and read the papers. Thinking quickly, I tell him that I'm meeting my Dad for brunch (which I am) and that he's invited (which he is not) as it would be so lovely for the two of them to meet. This does the trick, obviously, as he suddenly remembers an important breakfast meeting (on a Sunday?) and chucks me out of his flat, so off I clatter to try chasing after long red bendy things.

Anyway, I get to the cafe so late I don't have time for anything more than a gulp of tea (probably no bad thing) and my dad is in a grumpy mood for keeping him waiting. Still, it's a niceish day quite warm for October, and as we march off down towards Dubaibury we start debating whether Sunderland will be a walkover a la Derby or more of a resilient, determined side. We both agreed probably the latter, knowing Roy Keane.

We got to our seats only a couple of minutes late, just in time to catch the opening flurry of goals. Now, I'm not going to give you a blow-by-blow account of what happened every game because 1. you lot will watch most of the games yourselves anyway on TV or a dodgy satellite weblink, 2. there are loads of match reports out there, and 3. I'm crap at remembering things.

It was a fantastic start by the boys, we scored four goals in the first 20 minutes. Unfortunately only two of them counted. Stiles clearly whistled for a foul before Diaby's great strike, but RVP's resultant free kick was even better, so no harm done. By the way, I thought Stiles had a decent game, no outstandingly bad decisions and he did well to give the straight red at the end. (memo to the bloke who sits behind me: please stop your constant 90 minute moans at the referee every week, it's very boring. He has this curious moral code that nobody should ever say a bad word about any Arsenal player, ever. Even mad German Goalkeepers. So instead he takes his frustrations out on the ref and yelps very loudly and very indignantly at every decision he does or doesn't make. I'm all for encouraging the boys instead of getting on their backs, and I would never, ever boo and Arsenal player, but this is ridiculous in the extreme.)

It wasn't Stiles who ruled out our fourth goal, it was the linesman. I haven't seen the replays, but I'm told it was a perfectly good goal - as I thought so at the time. I didn't spot the assistant's flag at first, and both my dad and I thought it has been disallowed for a push by Flamini. (By the by, why does everyone in the crowd insist on giving the players Anglicised nicknames? I seriously doubt any of his team mates call him Matty Flamini. And I don't recall Thierry ever shouting to Pires, "on me 'ead, Bobby.")

Anyway, that would have been 3-0 and the game done and dusted. Our pre-match prediction of Sunderland resilience was looking a little thin at this point, but you probably all know what happened next. We take our foot off the pedal, play very sloppily and let them right back into it. When Kolo did a Cruyff turn right in front of us deep in the Sunderland half, I was purring with delight. But in retrospect, it should have been a warning.

Credit to Roy Keane. All the best managers are able to craft their sides as a reflection of their own personality. On this evidence, Keane will be one to watch. Sure, he might be a nasty piece of work (ask Haarland) and he's certainly not short of an ego or three (ask McCarthy) but you can't help but admire the way he played football. Even for a biased Goonergirl like myself.

Random thoughts on our defence:

Clichy has been one of our best players over the last year (Ashley who?). Sagna looks weird now and should regrow his hair. I really want to see our new Polish goalkeeper. Gallas is a better player than Senderos, but Kolo/Senderos is a better partnership than Kolo/Gallas. Kolo looks much happier playing with Big Phil for some reason. Because he looks ungainly and because he hasn't yet cut out the mistakes from his game, Philippe is often thought of as a bit of a donkey. But people forget he was at the heart of our defensive record in the CL on our way to Paris (ahh Paree!).

However, having said all that, our defence had a bit of a 'mare for the first time this season. Clichy got caught on the long diagonal ball for the first time in a long time. He used to be very vulnerable to that and I remember Pat Rice having to coach him very loudly from the touchline all the way through his first few games. Let's hope this relapse was just a one-time lapse in concentration, but he's been so brilliant for us for a while now so we'll say no more about it for the moment.

Random thoughts on our midfield:

Diaby is a goodish player (though not as good as Denilson in my inexpert opinion) but looks unhappy on the left. Flamini fully deserves to be keeping even Gilberto out of the side. (If Ray Parlour was our Pele from Romford, Flamini is our Maradonna from Marseilles.) Hleb finally looks like a player, so I've stopped calling him Pleb. Cescalicious looks a tad tired, poor lad. Maybe Le Directeur should give him some time off to recharge his batteries. I noticed that he didn't boss the game at Upton Park in the same way that he has been doing all season. I put it down to the fact that it was a difficult away game against one of our bogey teams, but once Sunderland came back at us he faded a little bit again. We can't expect miracles from him every game (though we can hope) but he's such an important player for us, the question is how best to keep him on the boil for as long as possible.

Random thoughts on Theoooo Walcott:

He's clearly got something. Not quite sure what yet, or how much of it. He plays better as a substitute than as a starter. His final ball is improving. It needed to. Lovely balance. His pace is vital to the team. After we scored our disallowed goal, Sunderland's back line pushed up a long way to compress the play which made life much more difficult for us. We didn't have the pace to get behind them until Theoooo came on.

RVP's second goal, when it came, was worth waiting for. Good goal from a class striker after great work from Theoooo. In a reverse of the Cescaliscious situation, RVP seems to be coming into some form after a good pre-season, but a quiet start to the premiership (he didn't turn up at Shite Hart Lane at all.) We have so many match winners in the squad now, it's good that they're sharing the responsibility around a bit - when Ade is quiet, RVP is banging them in and vice versa.

Pardoxically, I think our second half struggle will stand us in better stead for the rest of the season than if we'd simply steamrollered Sunderland. They know now that when things get a bit sticky and the free flowing beautiful game starts misfiring (as it inevitably will at some stage) they have the resources to come through. I'm still worried how we'll react to our first defeat of the season and it will be vital that we cope with it better than our 49ers did to their eventual demise at Cold Trafford.

Still, mustn't be too pessimistic, eh? Two points clear with a game in hand and only Mad Jens throwing one in at Blackburn to mar an otherwise perfect start to the season.

And, even better, the next match is a 3pm Saturday kick off.

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