flux.
i think i've figured out arsenals plan this summer: fabregas is leaving. now some may say duh but they usually then try to find outside replacements for him under 35mil. the problem is you can't.
all of the rumors so far regarding arsenals transfer activity so far deal with wingers, not attacking midfielders. we're looking at 2-3 wingers. really? assuming fabregas leaves what does our current lineup look like? walcott can play rw/rs and even lw in a pinch. vela appears to be given another chance up front and at lw. arshavin can play either wing plus am and in the whole, same with nasri. nasri has plainly said he prefers, and excels, when in the center am role.
let's assume nasri is cescs replacement.
we know we can't count on walcott to be healthy year round, neither rvp. that leaves as thin up top and at wings. gervinho is a rw/rs. alvarez is a *w/am who can play anywhere in an attacking formation. add in the likes of chamakh and we suddenly seem to have quality depth in every forward position. song still needs backup/competition but i think wilshire, ramsey and diaby fill up the rest of holes plus the likes of landsbury, frimpong, etc and there is your carling cup squad.
that just leaves defense and i ain't touching that one with a 50' pole...
loss
such an ugly word, loss. i can't think of many words ending in 'oss' that are good: gloss, moss (the kate variety) and that's about it. yesterday was the first real test of the campaign, manchester united at old trafford. it's big. it can be intimidating. for some reason many of its attendees like to sing a song that makes them look/sound like assholes regarding wenger. for some reason we were considered the favourites, even though we were without fabregas of all people...madness was around the bend.
the first half saw little of any worth from either team. the only thing we saw a lot of was yellow cards. the refereeing was so poor that i refuse to learn the referees name. steven fletcher deserved at least 2 in the first half alone, to go along with his 2 controversial penalty worth actions: tackling arshavin in the box and handball in the process. quite the player, arshavin didn't bother hounding the ref for the no calls and 24 seconds later sent a cannon of a beauty into the upper corner to give arsenal a 1-0 lead. did manu even get a shot on target that half?
the second half started with a bit more liveliness. 15 minutes in and wayne rooney 1-upped eduardo in the dive for a penalty claim. yes, almunia did touch rooney...after rooney had already left his feat and started his flailing diving motion. rooney didn't even have possession of the ball as he had previously kicked the ball out of bounds.
of course, rooney makes his penalty and the score is 1-1. we almost took the lead on a van persie free kick but it clanged off the cross bar to safety. a minute later a easy foul was called and manu had a close free kick near the corner. giggs sent in a cross to the wrong team and diaby headed it right into his own net. damn....i've yet to read anybody elses words that can begin to describe the look of horror on his face or what was going through the collective gooner mind. manu up 2-1 with 25 minutes to go.
diaby almost got it back a minute later but sent the shot just wide after some nice dribbling/moving through the united defense. eboues dive for a yellow didnt help so wenger subbed him off for bendtner and arshavin was tired/out-of-shape so in came ramsey and eduardo came in for denilson as we needed attackers at this point.
5 minutes of stoppage time. that is a fair bit. ferguson and the old trafford peoples did nit like that number. with about 90 seconds left we had a goal called back, correctly, due to offsides on gallas. wenger kicked as a water bottle in the arsenal technical area in frustration and was summarily sent off the pitch for this infraction, with considerably less than 1 minute left.
the following minute will go down in infamy due to the iconic image of wenger standing in the stands above the tenchnical area with his arms widespread being abused by the fans immediately behind him and their incessant offensive song. is this enough?
who were the better team that day?
Labels: arsenal
today is the beginning of the end.
actually, that should read last saturday...i'm in the future baby! last weekend the english premier league started back up and dc united finally stopped their free-fall out of the playoff places.
did i mention that phish played what many of us feel is their worst show ever?
arsenal has raced into the season obliterating everton away 6-1, 2-0 @ celtic in the 1st leg of champions league qualifying and 4-1 to portsmouth. 12 goals in 3 games while allowing 2. i'll take these stats. normally i would wait to wax poetically on how arsenal will win it all this year until they have at least played one of the top teams and that will happen next weekend! i'm assuming we will beat celtic in leg 2 this week. the following 2 games will be at the manchester clubs. i'm hoping for at least 4 points.
over the last 6-8 weeks dc united has fallen down and skidded its knee. we have slipped from 1st in the division to 4th and barely clinging on to a playoff place. there are, what, 6-7 games left? we can't be playing with our points now... up tonight is la galaxy with a certain mister david beckham in tow. oh joy.
there are many ways to ruin a phish show. the two easiest ways are, in order, bad playing and bad song choices. i witnessed the most egregious offender of the latter last weekend at merriweather post pavillion. i can deal with a first full of new songs even if it includes what has to be one of their all time worst songs, time turns elastic. first sets are meant for the band to finish loosening up to unleash the nasty in set 2 and it appeared as if that is exactly what was going to happen when set 2 started off with tweezer. at around the 10th minute the jam started to turn the corner into what i can only hope most/all true phishheads are really there for. ten seconds later trey decided instead to stop and play taste. now, i am not a hater of taste and i find it perfectly acceptable in a set2 scenario if it is say between the biggies...kind of a breather. to purposefully kill a tweezer to start taste is just criminal. ok, trey must be saving energy for something else. next song = alaska. ok, this song is just pathetically boring. let me lie...now they are just being cruel and seriously starting to piss people off! 46 days was a rather uninspiring choice but at least it has potential for the jam and this one did. the jam out of 46 days was my one lone non-low point. i can't even call it a highpoint everything else was so low. going through the motion versions of oh sweet nothin and harry hood killed off the last remnants of a horrible set. the obligatory tweeprise didnt even have mike bombs...yeah, we're still laughing.
wtf?
pre-season in bunches.
over the next 7 days we will play 4 games: mon 27 szombathelyi, wed 29 hannover 96, sat 1 atletico madrid and sun 2 rangers. this should give us a good look at the full squad, checking for fitness, forging partnerships and playing with formations. atvo will see lots of use this week...
since pre-season sits in the middle of "transfer window" there are rumors and rumors of rumors. we are "monitoring" huntelaar/martins/chamakh/hangeland, fiorentina wants eboue, ac milan wants bendtner, man city wants toure and random french club may want sylvestre. anyone else?
personally, sell/give away sylvestre. hold off on the rest...for now.
ok, now that that's out of the way we will need to figure out the defense and it should be sooner rather than latter. we currently have (cb) toure, gallas, senderos, djourou, vermaelen, sometimes song, sylvestre (lb) clichy, gibbs, traore (rb) sagna, eboue. rb and lb positions pretty much sort themselves out. will traore go out on loan again? we need to keep eboue as cover for sagna, duh. cb...here are the facts: gallas is now on his last year in contract; he's pushing 32. toure and gallas pairing just doesn't work. senderos wants out. we want sylvestre out. (puts on obvious glasses) hmmm...we either extend gallas' contract or we move him out while we can still get something for him.
crap. we can't reduce the cb core to just toure, djourou, vermaelen, sometimes song? can we? no. remember that toure, eboue and sometimes song will be gone in jan and feb for the african nations cup (anc).
(weird sensation coming from over my shoulder) there he is...just staring at me; sylvestre. it's like the geico commercials of the money stack/eyes with the techno music. (shudders)
we could strip down to the core above and get another cb, like hangeland. but that still leaves us very thin back there during anc. do we promote from reserves?
Labels: arsenal, sometimes song
((stretches out arms and cracks knuckles))
transfer window opened on june 1. flamini left a gaping hole in our midfield a year ago. we are now in our 3rd transfer window since flamini's departure and we still haven't replaced him. we like to "monitor" players. we send out scouts to watch and study players so when the transfer window opens and such a player might become available we have all the facts to consider before we spend our horded precious gold.
we were "monitoring" the situation with xabi alonso last summer. granted, it wasn't all on us... we started "monitoring" felipe melo even before the confederations cup started this summer; instead we decided to finally make an approach only after his club increased his price and played us like a fiddle to get an even higher price from juventus. we started "monitoring" lorik cana last summer. cana just signed for 5m to sunderland. fucking sunderland.
we're too busy fucking "monitoring" these players, who fill a obvious need we have, to actually put in a bid to try to sign them! now now, i know you're saying that there are still 36 days left in the window and anything can happen: arshavin jan 2008, diarra aug 2007, etc, and i agree. wenger could pull out a rabbit from his hat and bring in toulalan or m. diarra and we would all applaud him for his astute purchasing...
it's the principal of the thing man. we get left strung out there watching all these guys go flying around and it's like we're having an out of body experience where we see ourselves on the periphery staring off into the sunset with our clipboard of facts and we are unable to do anything about it.
monitoring, it's whats for dinner.
Labels: arsenal, spies like us
an arsenal injury? no, you're kidding...
it wouldn't be a season of the english premier league (screw you barclays) without a injured arsenal player. oh, that's right, it's still fuckin' pre-season. d'oh. supposedly diaby is responsible for nasri's fractured right fibula. that it happened during the first day of the austrian pre-season camp is not a good sign. of course, wenger is optimistic that nasri could be back in only 6 weeks or so. i'm not holding my breath.
do we purchase cover?
Labels: arsenal
roundup from yesterday.
arsenals pre-season match against barnet ended in a 2-2 draw. arshavin and barazite scored for the gunners while rosicky captained the squad in the first half. it was great to see rosicky out on the pitch for the first time in over 18 months following his knee injury and i hope to see him many more times!
adebayor finally completed his move to manchester city. personally, i dont think we need to buy a replacement striker...yet. with van persie, bendtner, eduardo, vela, and even arshavin and walcott i feel like we have enough. of course, you can never predict when the injury bug will hit, and it will - especially at arsenal! i hope we use the money to finally cement down a hard-nosed central midfielder. we were linked with felipe melo a few weeks ago before he sealed his move to juventus. available options: mamadou diarra, jeremy toulalan, lorik cana and miguel veloso.
dcunited won last night in a rather emphatic fashion after putting in a rather pedestrian effort in the first half and despite quite possibly one of the most outwardly appearing biased and unfair refereeing performances i have had the horror to see. i honestly believe that the only reason the ref gave us that penalty was that he thought that when his performance was reviewed later by mls they would have fired him for not giving the penalty - it was that blatant. the 3 goals we scored in quick succession in the first 15 minutes of the second half really knocked the wind out of colorados sails and they never recovered.
the players seemed especially grateful to the fans, more so than normal, and applauded us after the game.
arsenals first pre-season match is of course against barnet today. there are many anxious/eager eyes on rosicky and the new boy, vermaelen.
Labels: arsenal