Cesc ‘Spitting’ Is Just A Smokescreen For Allardyce

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As Arseblog has already said, Phil Brown and Sam Allardyce are good friends. They worked together at Bolton Wanderers, they appeared on Goals on Sunday together and no doubt both bought their bluetooth handsets at the same time.

And since last night there’s been all kinds of stories flying around. The Times have been stirring with a video which they believe shows Fabregas spit in Ballack’s face when we played Bayern in the Champions League a few years ago. I remember watching the game and seeing replays at the time and it was clear back then Michael Ballack was trying to get Cesc booked by pretending he got spat in the face. Straight after he got up and didn’t wipe anything off his face – let’s not make any mistake here, if Ballack got spat in the face he’d be wiping it and showing the spit to the referee.

But there’s nothing like a grainy YouTube video to sway the idiots.

Cesc came out and said:

“I categorically deny that I spat at anybody after the match. I have never done this in my whole career on the pitch, so why would I do it when I am not even playing?

“I can understand the frustration of losing a game to a dubious goal, that has happened to me many times in my career as well. But this is not the fault of me or any of the Arsenal players.”

And to be fair, I don’t think I’ve ever seen Cesc spit while playing football. Ever. And I watch a lot of Arsenal games.

Riquelme on the other hand is a different story. When he was about to take that penalty against Lehmann in the Champions League I saw him spit 15 times. I actually counted.

But on the other side, Phil Brown has been made to look quite stupid. Many (if not all) of his accusations against Arsene Wenger and Arsenal have been found out to be completely false. He is quoted as saying that he wasn’t surprised that Arsene Wenger didn’t shake his hand since he didn’t when Arsene refused to when Hull beat Arsenal earlier in the season at the Emirates. Although this picture would suggest otherwise.

And on this post-match interview with the BBC, he says that he saw Cesc Fabregas spit Brian Horton and goes on to say ‘whether it’s at his feet, his face, his body, it doesn’t matter…’ What the hell does that mean? Apparently there’s also discrepancies with his stories – saying he saw the spitting incident just off the pitch, and then inside the tunnel. Cesc must have been busy!

But it’s funny how all the disgraceful antics of Blackburn Rovers have been forgotten.

Firstly the shocking and diving ‘tackle’ by El Hadji Diouf. That was so bad it’s untrue – and the worst thing about it all is that 4 days on it’s completely forgotten. How can the FA not look at that and issue any kind of punishment? The ball was nowhere near Almunia at that point and to be quiet honest we’ve seen less serious incidents punished retrospectively.

If anything it was worse than the Eduardo tackle, and it’s clear that Diouf flew in and intended to hurt the player. And if we’re on the subject of spitting…

Then there was the dive from Morten Gamst Pedersen. Now when I saw the reply I admitted I actually laughed – it was that ridiculous. And the fact he got up and put his hands in the air asking for a penalty made it a million times worse.

It should will be one of the ‘hilarious’ clips played around the world for years to come.

But obviously because of Phil Brown being a c*nt all these things are now just a distant memory. I’m just glad Almunia is still walking.

Is Anyone Bothered About Arsenal Anymore?

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I wrote how Arsenal were in free-fall back in August.

Funny how everyone thought it was a knee jerk reaction to the defeat away at Fulham, but I think most Arsenal fans saw it coming a mile away. And here we sit in March, hoping that Aston Villa lose games.

How pathetic is that?

Arsenal were always wasteful in front of goal but now this weakness really has reached new levels. It’s so hard to understand now lesser teams can play defensive and wait for their chances and take them. How many times have you seen teams defend in huge numbers at The Emirates and nick a goal on the break?

Why the hell are those teams so clinical and we’re not?

The ONLY saving grace over the last few weeks is Van Persie scored against Roma. But don’t let the 1-0 scoreline fool you – if we didn’t get a penalty we would have never scored from open play, and we’d be travelling to Rome in a couple of weeks with a 0-0 scoreline.

The bottom line we don’t have players who can shoot. Yes, Adebayor is out but he needs 6 chances to score anyway. The only players who I feel confident of taking a chance when it comes are Eduardo and Van Persie, and unfortunately Van Persie is feeling the pressure of being the only player who can score for us.

I will be utterly stunned if we’re not playing in the UEFA Cup next season.

And as bad as that would be, at least it would serve as a wake up call to our club who seem comfortable and almost happy to be a million miles away from Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool.

Eduardo Would Have Killed Off Roma Last Night

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Arsenal (1) – (0) AS Roma
Van Persie (37′)
The Emirates Stadium, London

Most people didn’t know what to expect before watching the game last night, but I knew Arsenal would be up for this one. The performances in the league haven’t been terrible, it’s just that we can’t put the ball in the net – like against Sunderland for instance.

We wasted chance after chance.

Eboue and Bendtner were guilty of the worst misses, and throughout the game I wondered if Arsene actually practised shooting in training, because the finishing really was shocking.

No-one watching the game would have argued if we won the game 4-0. The chances were that clear cut.

And if Eduardo was available last night Roma would have been dead and buried. Apart from Van Persie, Eduardo is the only player I would be confident in scoring if presented with a half-decent chance. Everyone else just can’t shoot.

And that might really come back to haunt us if Roma nick an early goal in the second leg.

Football is a funny game, and despite our dominance you wouldn’t be surprised if they still managed to get through. And quite frankly that’s criminal considering how sh*te they defended last night. Roma must have celebrated well into the night after last night’s game – for them to still be well in the tie beggars belief.

At least we kept another clean sheet.

Transfer Deadline Day: All Eyes On Arse Shavings

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Well still no news on Andrei Arshavin.

At least today ends all the tedious speculation on the Russian. No-one knows if he’ll end up at Arsenal and according to the BBC officials are saying that they might extend the transfer window because of the snowy conditions.

That’s all we need!

I’d rather just know if he was coming or not.

Do I think he’ll come to Arsenal? God knows. I’ve tried not to read too much about the whole saga but I’ve read (as I’m sure you have) that there seems to be disputes among Arshavin’s agent and Zenit over money. It wouldn’t surprise me if Wenger and Arsenal left it last minute to force their hand and seal the deal at the 11th hour.

But we’ll have to wait and see.

In my last post I wrote that I hope we don’t see any signings in the transfer window, but now I hope I’m wrong. Over the last couple of months it’s obvious this group of players need a boost to kick start their season.

Because 4th spot is in serious doubt.

Anyway, I’ll update with news here if I hear anything from the various news channels, but don’t expect too much.

Am I The Only One Who Doesn’t Want To See New Players In January?

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We all know what Arsenal’s priorities are this season.

The FA Cup is the best chance of silverware, although with all the big boys still in it’s going to be difficult to win. If Arsenal managed to lift the FA Cup and grab fourth spot come May I don’t think many Arsenal fans would be disappointed. In fact, I hazard to guess that most fans would be pleasantly surprised. I would be anyway.

The league is a pipe dream, and the Champions League is a lottery – although we’ve got a ticket so you never know.

That being said, everyone is hoping Arsene Wenger adds to the young squad in January.

But I don’t.

Last January was the time to spend the money.

We struggled in the last 10 games of the season in both the Champions League and Premiership and those extra couple of players were the difference in winning and losing the league. Don’t forget in the end we were only 4 points from lifting the title.

A couple of decent additions would have been enough to get us over the line, and more importantly it would have given Arsenal something to build on in the seasons ahead. We would have been Champions and players would have loved to join us – but as it stands we actually got weaker in the summer and lost some of our most experienced players.

It’s just amazing to think where Arsenal were only 12 months ago.

The big question is do Arsenal have money?

It depends on who you believe. The Arsenal board always come out and say Wenger has money to spend whenever the summer and January transfer windows come around. But is that actually true?

There have been theories floating around that Arsene Wenger actually knows there’s no money to spend and that he’s the fall guy to protect the board. I’m not sure if that’s true, but I know that Wenger is one of the most intelligent men in football so I wouldn’t put it passed him. And are the additions of Silvestre (750k), Bischoff (Free) and Ramsey (£5 million) signings of a manager who has money to spend? Yes, we brought in Samir Nasri too but we let go of Hleb, Flamini, Lehmann, Gilberto, Senderos and Diarra. And some of those players have gone on to play for massive clubs such as AC Milan, Barcelona and Real Madrid.

So all things considered, it’s pointless to buy in January.

Why make more long-term problems for the club? If Arsenal actually do have money to spend on new signings (and if we do have funds then we know they’re limited at best) then I would much rather Arsene Wenger use the money in the summer when he can carefully assess the current squad and see what we need, rather than panic buy in January.