Author Archives: Michael Roberts

Arsenal Lose Gamble, While Spurs Cash In…

Posted on by
14


[Enter Expletive Here…]

I’ve had a lot of time to think about what happened at the weekend – and most Arsenal fans will be disappointed how the last ever North London derby at Highbury panned out. Although Wenger rested key players you can see why he did, with a huge, huge game against Villarreal tomorrow night – but like we saw against Pompy making wholesale changes is a big risk.

Despite that, Arsenal were second best in the first half even though Spurs failed to take their chances so we were lucky to be in 0-0 at half-time. But how many times has that happened to use this season?

Then it all kicked off on 66 minutes.

You all know what happened.

Eboue and Gilberto collided into each other and the ball ran to Michael Carrick, who obviously hesitates while the Arsenal players seemingly stop – expecting the ball to be played out (after all, that’s in keeping with the spirit of the game right?). But after Carrick dwells on the ball, he clearly continues with play, after deciding to see what has happened.

Now at the time, I was incensed because of what just happened and it was clear that they took advantage of a situation while players were injured on the floor.

After all, Davids fed the cross to Keane from where Eboue would have been!

And Arsenal actually put the ball out for Spurs later on in the game when their player was injured.

People will say who are we to take the moral high ground, but the fact is we put the ball our several times against a diving Villarreal team, against the cheating Spurs at the weekend – and when we did score a dodgy goal against Sheffield United a few years ago we offered to replay the game!

The most annoying thing to come out of all this is the BBC’s coverage of the whole incident, and the blatant lying of Martin Jol and his ‘team’.

Sky Sports revealed yesterday that when Carrick recieves the ball, Martin Jol can be heard quite clearly shouting ‘Play!, Play!’ – so you didn’t see the incident you cheat?

You can download an actual clip of the incident on Arsebloggers site.

The BBC were taking the moral high ground again last night on MOTD2, with Gavin Peacock saying Wenger must apologise for the comments he has made.

Is he a total idiot? Surely being a pundit he would have heard about Martin Jol urging his players to cheat?

And anyone who would have read Goals on Sunday would see that Chris Kamara tells us all what really happened.

After the game I heard all the b*llsh*t about the Spurs players ‘not seeing the incident’ and ‘not knowing a player was injured’ – and I actually believed it! 

Carrick, Jol and the rest of the f*ckers just blatantly lied to everyone.

But the facts are that Spurs had to cheat to get a result against Arsenal, and even then they couldn’t beat our second team.

Arsenal Must Make Home Advantage Count!

Posted on by
2


The Magic That Is The Champions League..

Arsene Wenger prefers to play the first leg of European competitions away from home, as he feels that the decisive 2nd leg can be the different from progressing and leaving the tournament – but this years competition has shown that the 1st leg is the more important of the two.

Arsenal shocked most of Europe with their impressive win at the Bernabeu against Real, and when the Galacticos arrived for the return leg at Highbury they knew that Arsenal would continue to play their high tempo game, run them ragged and not give them a chance. Arsenal progressed with a draw, but should have scored a few goals through Reyes.

Then the mighty Juventus who are cruising Serie A couldn’t handly Arsenal’s ‘Premiership Pace’, and the second leg was another draw to the Gunners.

It shows that if you do well enough in the first leg then the second is much easier.

And that’s stating the obvious!

Arsenal can score big tomorrow night and have a big hand in the final, but Villareal will be a different test.

Juventus and Real Madrid are used to controlling games, scoring the first goal and dominating until the final whistle. Villareal would be happy to sit back, soak up the pressure and steal a couple of goals on the break.

The referee will have to be strong tomorrow night, and expect the Spaniards to win freekicks around the edge of the area and be dangerous from crosses. It wouldn’t surprise me if they tried to get a penalty for that vital away goal.

Arsenal cannot afford Villareal to score at Highbury. Juan Roman Riquelme is a great player and will expose more frailties than Nigel Quashie did at the weekend so Arsenal will have to be outstanding defensively.
Arsenal’s only major injury worry is that to Cesc Fabregas, who is nursing a bruised foot – several reports have said he’s out for a couple of weeks while others say he should be okay for tomorrow nights game.

Cesc has been awesome for us and although tomorrow nights game is massive I would rather him sit out and rest if needed than risk it against Villareal. The only concern is while Diaby has been good for us this year, he hasn’t really had many top-class games under his belt.

Villareal have their two main centre-backs – Gonzalo Rodríguez and Juan Manuel Peña– out of tomorrows game, and first choice keeper and previous Arsenal target Sebastian Viera is also out suspended.

Arsenal have had defensive injury nightmares of their own and come through it so I wouldn’t put too much on Villareal’s absentees. They are a dynamic team who are stuggling to qualify for the Champions League in their domestic league so expect a team that will fight for absolutely everything tomorrow night.

This is Villareal’s cup final.

So let’s make the final European night at Highbury the most special yet!

Bergkamp: The Man, The Myth, The Legend…

Posted on by
16


Arsenal & Footballing Legend…

After the poor results of the last week, normal service was resumed yesterday with a 3-1 win over Premiership strugglers West Brom. But it was anything less that straight-forward.

In the first half, Arsenal were going through the motions and Henry missed the best chance of the half. Only the vision of Hleb broke the deadlock just before half-time, smashing in a shot at the near post after playing a smart one-two with Henry.

As usual at home, Arsenal had most of the possession and Henry came off with half an hour to go for Adebayor, and then Pires and Bergkamp replaced Hleb and Van Persie in quick succession. Then seconds later Nigel Quashie easy-dispossessed Eboue on the edge of the area to smash in a left-footed shot past Lehmann.

Henry seemed off form, but maybe he had his mind on Wednesday’s game against Villareal.

But minutes later Adebayor fed Pires who shot from the edge of the area only for Kuszczak to parry. The Iceman cooley took the loose ball and fed Pires again, who improvised well to put Arsenal 2-1 ahead.

But then at 2-1, Arsenal-linked Curtis Davies had a decent shout for a penalty and was clearly livid at not getting a spot kick. When I first saw it he did look to have gone down easily, but replays later that night on TV showed that Eboue lashed out a lazy kick and seemed to catch the West Brom captain. You win some you lose some!

Then with a minute remaining, Bergkamp showed his true class and picked the ball up just on the edge of the D, and everyone knew what Dennis was going to do.

He killed the ball with his first touch, moved the ball into space with his second and beautifully curled the ball into the top corner with his third.

A classic Bergkamp goal.

The Bergkamp goal really did send tingles down my spine – what a player he has been for us over the last 10 years he’s been with us!

What he has done for the game is truly awesome and for me has has been certainly been one of the Premierships greatest players of recent times.

Dennis Bergkamp, we salute you!

Arsenal Team News: Robin Van Persie In For Thierry Henry

Posted on by
10

As I thought this morning, Wenger has opted to start Robin Van Persie alongside Adebayor, and rest Henry by putting him on the bench. It makes a lot of sense, and I’m glad I stuck my neck out and predicted he’d start with RvP!

Henry can always come on from the bench anyway if we need him.

It also looks like Arsene has opted for 4-4-2 and not gone with the 4-5-1 that has seen us do so well in Europe. With 4-4-2, expect Arsenal to create a lot of chances and go out for the 3 points we need in the fight for fourth spot.

Here is the team in full:

Starting Eleven:
Jens Lehmann, Emmanuel Eboue, Kolo Toure, Philippe Senderos, Mathieu Flamini, Alexander Hleb, Cesc Fabregas, Gilberto Silva, Robert Pires, Robin van Persie & Emmanuel Adebayor.

Substitutes:
Mart Poom, Johan Djourou, Abou Diaby, Freddie Ljungberg & Thierry Henry.

It will be interesting to see who the captain will be, but I’d guess that Jens would fill the role.

The Biggest 2 Weeks Of The Season Start At Old Trafford…

Posted on by
25


The Start Of A Killer 2 Weeks…

Arsenal have a huge 2 weeks ahead of them, with vital games against Manchester United, Portsmouth, West Brom, Villareal and Spurs. Then 3 days after that is the 2nd leg of the Champions League Semi-Final.

With so many games in such a short amount of time, you would expect Wenger to rotate the squad around – so you’ll probably see Sol making a few starts, and see Henry being rested a few times.

But let’s start with Manchester United this afternoon. Wenger will start with Adebayor, but will he rest Henry? Van Persie is waiting in the wings so it’s possible. Adebayor should prove to be interesting for Arsenal, since he brings that something different to the team – United might not be able to cope with him. I remember when Kanu came to Arsenal and no-one gave him a chance against the formidable Jaap Stam. Then he sold him with a beautiful feint and opened up the defence for Anelka to score. Brilliant skill…

The other players apart from the captain who have played a lot of games recently are Fabregas, Toure, Senderos, Flamini, Gilberto and Eboue. Toure and Eboue will start because they have energy to burn, and Gilberto is now a calming influence on the young kids. I wouldn’t be surprised if Diaby came in for Fabregas though, especially after his impressive display against Aston Villa last week.

On the wings, Wenger has a few options including Freddie, Hleb, Reyes or Pires – and even Theo could make an appearence today. He’s been on the bench for almost every first team game since he joined so Arsene must think he is ready to give something to seniors. Don’t be surprised if he contributes something to the United or Pompy game.

United themselves are on a great run in the Premiership, since being knocked out of the Champions League by Benfica and they have won their last 9 league games, are only 7 points behind Chelski and visit Stamford Bridge for a 6-pointer at the end of the month.

They are going to give absolutely everything (as if they needed any more reason to beat us), and if Arsenal are to win they will have to give 110% and stand up to United’s physical approach. United are dangerous from most areas of the pitch, especially with Rooney in great form, but they also know how to mix it up and put the boot in when necessary.

So if Arsenal let United intimidate them it’ll be difficult to get 3 points.

A team with Diaby, Gilberto, Freddie & Hleb would make more sense, as Pires and Reyes aren’t really suited to physical games. Adebayor knows how to look after himself and if Henry doesn’t start then Van Persie is ready to prove what he can do.

I have a sneaky feeling that Henry might be on the bench today, and that would really mess with United mentally – don’t Arsenal think enough of us to start Henry?

From recently memory, we’ve actually done better at Old Trafford without Titi, with the 1-0 winner from Wiltord to clinch the league in 2002, and the 2-0 win over United in the FA Cup the season after, with goals from Edu and Wiltord again.

There probably won’t be too many goals in it but Arsenal always make chances and I can see Arsenal winning by the odd goal. I predict Arsenal will win 2-1, with goals from Adebayor and Toure.