Preview Week #2 - Stoke Rugby Vs Arsenal

Second week is about to commence and we have got another lot of targets to come and few others who will not come! I think you all know I am talking about Turkish Midfielder Nuri Sahin, the boy who most of the Gooners want to come to AFC. I don’t want a player to come to us without a buying clause at the end of loan term, because this would mean we are spending 7Mil on a player who would mostly be a fringe player and we don’t even have an option to keep him after loan deal expires! This doesn’t make sense, atleast not to me. We have a packed midfield; we have Arteta, Rosicky, Ox, Cazorla, Diaby, Wilshere, Ramsey, Coquelin, Frimpong and couple of players like Eistfeld etc. and to top that I am pretty sure we would be going for a DM before the window closes. I am not saying that all these players are world class, but we still have these players wages to pay, medical bill to pay and so we can’t afford to have a player for 7Mil and keep him for a year without the assurance that if we like him then we can keep him!

I am not going to talk about stupid transfer speculations now, because of all that I said in my last post and I still stand by it! All I would say is about the club. I think Walcott will sign a new deal if he is told that he would be playing as a striker! Everyone has learned a way to ransom us in past few years, but if song incident has taught us anything, then that is Boss is willing to play hardball. And we should be ready for his exit if he doesn’t sign a new deal by Monday. I don’t think we will sign another winger until we sell Arshavin! Otherwise there is a possibility we can recall Miyachi. As far as defender goes, we need to sell the French sensation Squillaci to buy. For strikers, I don’t think we can buy any until the best striker in the world, the Sheesha smoker and the marketing campaign for east find a new club!

So moving ahead, we would be playing ‘The Rugby Team’ for the first time this season. It has to be a wonderful game :P…. I think American football costumes should be made available for all the teams visiting Britannia Stadium by FA! This will help reduce injuries to other players and teams will be more competent! I hate this team “Stoke City “not only because there is a chance of a player to get injured, but because it defies everything I love about football! They don’t play football; they play a “type” which you can’t even call as football! So target in this game should be to win and not get injured! I am not sure if Ramsey will start or play a part in this game, as his form is haywire and those ugly memories won’t let him play freely. And Boss won’t want to hamper his confidence further!

From my point of view, the team starting should be same as last weekend and this time over the weeks preparation, we should be more clinical. Amen to that!

So until next time. UTA. Folllow me on Twitter for a discussion @OnTheGunPoint

Drama, rumours and what not!!!

If I believe each and every rumour going around the mills, then we will have more than 80 players in the squad! Transfer market has become such a nuisance for so called ‘journalists’ that they will sell their own mother just to create a sensation! The best part is that if one newspaper writes that Nuri Sahin deal is expected to be done in 48 hours then the other writes 24 hours and other becomes more obnoxious and writes the deal is called off! This is not only creating false rumours about players and clubs but also creates unrest amongst the supporters. This makes supporters to come onto social media sites and comment/abuse/enquire etc to the players/clubs/amongst themselves. I don’t know but I don’t believe these rumours at all. Even the Club’s websites have started promoting these rumours and people are lapping them up like kittens!

And then there are so called ITK people. ‘In The Know’ my foot! People who have no work, or who have some IQ can always add 2+2 and come with a plausible situation for everyone to agree upon. They see oh Frimpong is injured, Coquelin has been sparsely used at DM position, Denilson is on loan then we would require a backup. Now they start thinking from the manager’s perspective; where AW does his most of the shopping, France! Who in France can he think of bringing into Arsenal, M’Vila sounds good, hence next day headlines ‘Arsenal in advance talks with Rennes for M’Vila’. Nothing happens, and they get a news, he has misbehaved in France’s Euro tour, now they want to keep the interest going on, so next day’s headline ‘Talks stall between Arsenal and M’Vila on the report of misbehaviour on his part’. Nothing to report for a long time and then song leaves, so next day headlines are ‘As we have reported earlier M’Vila deal is still on’!!! I say what the F***, they think we are idiots! If the deal has to come through, it’ll. If Boss has someone on his mind, he’ll bring him, we don’t need this swing set of rumours to create a chaotic situation.

Coming onto other news, I think like American ‘Yo Mamma’ jokes, we should have a nice banner on “The Little Boy’ joke when Robin Van Purstrings come and visit us. I personally would wait to see his form and situation and then will come up with a suitable one liner. Currently I like couple of them, let’s see which makes the cut!

Give me a follow at @OnTheGunPoint

Till next time Gooners. Up The Arse!

Vintage Henry - A fairytale which should never end!!!

And he is back… Back with a bang… Bang, which will explode your ears… And he is back!!! I have not been blogging for quite sometime now, but this is something which I couldn’t resist. The reason I was off blogging were my day job pressure and Arsenal’s a bit indifferent form. And now when King has returned, I was forced to come out of my self imposed semi retirement…

So the match was going in the same way as Arsenal has been in playing in last couple of weeks. Lots of possession in and around Midfield, no creativity in the final third and no end product either. Ramsey was shooting left, right, top of the goal. I am just wondering, if there was space below the goal he would have drilled a kick there too, but never goal bound!!! I am fed up by players like Ramsey, Walcott, and Gervinho who have good skills, but lack the composure to score or atleast have few on target shots. Ox needs a lot of improvement in his crossing, otherwise he played well. Unlikely live wire was Arshavin, he moved, dribbled beautifully, also had few very good through balls. Miquel played his part and did fine against Leeds, he was like a silent assassin who went about doing his work with publicising it. Szcz made good saves in dying stages of the match to help us win the game. Kos and Squillaci were not tested much. Yennaris came on for Coquelin (who got injured increasing our defensives woes) and he played well without any major mistakes. Song has a very quite game until he provided assist for our goal. He is slowly getting into the habit of providing killer through passes when team is in need of (Ref: game against Aston). Arteta was fouled too many times without getting favours from referee and this rattled his game and was not looking his usual self. Now coming to awful duo of Chamakh and Ramsey; they would have helped the team by not playing at all. They have the brilliance which we see in bits and pieces, but with no zeal to excel upon it!!! Chamakh clearly lacks confidence and Ramsey was trying to be the hero in absence of RVP.

Now onto ‘The King’. The moment he stepped on his home turf, he received an ovation which no other superstar in any sports will get. He started running the channels and was maneuvering his position quite nicely. He was the live wire and intimidating presence which we were missing from a long long time. He came and within 10 Minutes he conquered. (Note to Paul Scholes: This is how you make a comeback!!! ) His position, first touch and finishing were just top notch. I don’t think so anybody would have been able to finish this ball as calmly as Henry did it, not even RVP. The curve on the ball was just amazing. I was just spell bound when the ball entered the goal. And to top it all was the celebration from TH14 (He will always be TH14 for me and I want Walcott to give away the number to someone else and not make a mockery out of it). He was joined by all the team members in that celebration on the team bench, even Szcz ran from his goal to celebrate. He was not buoyed by the occasion and delivered the goods required. He was not over shadowing the team, but helping them achieve like he did in his hay days. I am not expecting anything like this from again, I am not expecting goals from him too. I just want to see him play, to help non performing players like Ramsey, Walcott, Gervinho (if he gets a chance to play with him or have a long chat with him), and Chamakh etc. I also want him to stay here forever. After all this is his home and this is where he belongs, nowhere else. Here are the highlights of the game for you. Also here are bonus video links for you.

Arsene Wenger's Post Match Comments

Henry's Post Match Comments

Arsene Wenger's Post Match Press Conference

On this note I am signing off, hopefully would be writing soon. Pray for me that I am not over burdened by work and I can carry on blogging. By the way you can also follow me on Twitter for updates.

Till next time. Hail Henry….. A fairytale which should never end.

Pre Match Review - Arsenal Vs Everton - Manchester Sloppy, London Happy!!!

So after a wonderful Champions League Week, we are gunning for a win against Everton. CL week was wonderful because of many reasons:

Firstly, Arsenal lost and our second fringe players now know why they are not getting first team starts regularly. Likes of Frimpong, Coquelin, Manone, and Fabianski were crying foul on less number of chances given to them this season. Amongst the group, Frimpong was the only one who was positive in his statements where as Fabianski and Coquelin have already shared that they want to leave in January if they don’t get enough starts. I guess with a dismal performance like that of Wednesday would make them realize that they will never play in a big club if they don’t improve. And if they only want to play football, then they can be sold off to lower league clubs, where they might turn out to be very very talented!!! I still have a soft corner for Manone, and I feel that if given opportunities, then he will show that he is better than Szczesny. I feel he is better and his howler can be excused for the fact that this was the first time since 2009 he was playing in first team and that too in Champions League, which can make anyone nervous!!! I would also like to add here that the way Fabianski faked his injury to get out of onslaught was quite dramatic!!! He just needed an excuse and he got it!!! He now should definitely keep mum and try to work on his goalkeeping skills, if he wants to play regularly for either Arsenal or Poland!!! On the senior player front Arshavin was awful again, so were Squillaci and Djourou and to an extent Benayoun and Vermaelen were found at fault too. Only saving grace was the performance of Oxlade-Chamberlain. He is a live wire and because of him we can now see that Walcott has also started working harder on the pitch to make sure his by default starting position doesn’t come under threat!!!

The only worrying thing which came out of that insignificant game was that my favorite player Santos was injured. I still feel that Santos and Vermaelen should have been given a rest too.

Secondly I loved to see Manchester United out of Champions league. Men Vs Boys, Grand daddies Vs Baby sitters or whatever shit they say, I just loved the way how they crumbled!!! Oppositions to ManU now have to learn how to cross ball in ManU box and make sure the cross falls behind David de Gea. This will give opposition an easy opportunity for a tap in, because their goalkeeper is shit!!! He is good as a shot stopper, but not in other aspect of goal keeping and crosses are his weaknesses.

Thirdly and most importantly, Manchester City is out!!! I didn’t know that Nasri joined ManC to get laurels in Europa League. And I would like to add that “Nasri!!! You are a Cunt!!!” Enough said I guess!!!

Now coming on to the game against Everton. It’s going to be an emotional ride for Arteta, as this would be the first time he would be playing his old club which he love. Also this would be a good test of our bench!!! Now we’ll show the world that we can play and win without a full back (Tongue in cheek remark, ofcourse!!!).

The biggest news is this that Alumina is back in reckoning and would be on bench against Everton!!! This will definitely instill confidence in the team!!! :D… Now coming to some serious stuff; Team from my side would be somewhat like this Szczesny, Vermaelen, Squillaci, Koscielny, Djourou, Song, Ramsey, Arteta, Walcott, Gervinho and RVP. Subs would be Almunia, Miquel, Frimpong, Coquelin, Benayoun, Diaby and Chamakh.

As far as score line goes, seeing Squillaci in our back four, I would go with 3-1 wherein RVP and Arteta will score the goals for arsenal and Cahill will be on score sheet for Everton. I think his goal drought will come to  end against Arsenal and anyways we always are very generous to out of form teams and out of form players!!!

Boss' pre match conference is here for all to see!!!

Follow me on twitter for regular updates on Arsenal.

Till next time. Hail Gunners. #COYG.

Pre Match Review: Wigan Vs Arsenal – Lets go and get a win!!!

So after the midweek carling cup, proper cup and proper football is back with Arsenal travelling to ‘DW Stadium’. Wigan is the same team who put a nail in the coffin as far as Steve Bruce is concerned. Going to ‘Stadium of Light’ and winning when they were down and out is not a mean feat (8 games without a win, out of which 7 were defeats)!!!

Boss as always was very respectful towards opposition and I think we should not be complacent and get the job done. They don’t posses huge names of highly gifted players, but they do have some good performers. Al Habsi is hell of a keeper. He has pretty good reflexes and has good decision making skills in the box too. If he brings his A game on, we might be seeing another Fulham kind of match, where we were shooting and shooting on the goal, but there was someone to block our chances. Ben Watson, Di Santo, Diame etc are good players, and on their day can trouble us. Indecently we have never beaten WIgan under Roberto Martinez at DW!!! Hence this game becomes that much more important, as currently we need a win, and win big!!!  We do have tendency to make these smaller teams feel good by letting them come from behind more often than not. We make a meal of the game and try to have it too!!! No hiccups are welcomes this time around though.

On the team news, we have Mr. Diaby aka boon to medical science, back to where he belongs, medical centre!!! Which I think was made to order by him. Anyways, good news is there is no other casualty. Playing a completely changed team against Manchester City most certainly did help our cause. So we have RVP who has scored one more goal than whole of Wigan Team. We have Verminator, who wants to give an empathetic performance after Fulham game. We have Djourou and Koscielny, who wants to stake a claim on first team spot (and their recent performances are saying nothing less). We also have the giant, Per, who wants to prove he is not as bad at forwards are making him look!!! We have Theo, who would like to prove that comparisons with Ox are meaningless and he is still the man. We have Gervinho, who would definitely like to add goals and finishing touches to his play, and make sure he doesn’t become next Chamakh!!! We also have ever so reliable Song and Arteta pairing in middle of the park (Not the player :D). What we don’t have is Jack in place of Ramsey!!!

I have stopped writing anything about RVP, as whatever I write would diminish in comparison to his enormous form and talent.

So as far as team for the match goes: Szcz, Santos, Mert, Verm, Kos, Song, Ramsey, Arteta, Gervinho, Theo and RVP. Bench: Fabianski, DJourou, Frimpong, Arshavin, Rosicky, Benayoun and Chamakh. Prediction from my side is Wigan 0 and Arsenal 4 with RVP and Gervinho with a brace, as I want Gerv to score and get a confidence boost!!! This would definitely help us in long term!!!

Nothing has worked to get you guys on twitter as yet; hence I have devised a new strategy….. PLEASE JOIN ME, CLICK HERE!!! :D:D:D…. Hope this helps.

Till next time. COYG!!!!

Pre Match Review: Arsenal Vs Manchester City - Rich boys are in town!!!

So today we have Carling cup match with the world's richest club. There is lot of speculation about the teams for both the clubs, and it would be interesting to see who plays. I think Man City can play 4 different teams for all four competitions they are in!!! Still Mancini (aka Richie Rich) is cribbing for 2 games in 3 days!!! He still has player like Kolo Toure, Dzeko, Johnson, Zabaleta, Savic, and Hargreaves etc who didn’t start in their draw against Liverpool!!! Hence I don’t think he has any reason to crib. One player I would definitely miss is Balotelli. I would have liked him to play and pull some of his world famous antics and get booed by our fans!!!

Boss has said that he too would be giving rest to some key players. And we all know who he meant!!! So RVP would be missing the match for sure. Players who will get a chance either in starting lineup or on bench are Chamakh, Park, Benayoun, Rosicky, Yennaris, Arshavin, Miquel, Squillaci, Frimpong, Coquelin, Diaby, Alex, Fabianski. I would say that this is not a bad playing lineup by any means!!! It has experience and youth and desperate players to prove their point and mettle to Boss and club and fans. 

Boss was vocal about how a class player like Benayoun has not got enough opportunities to play, so he would definitely be playing and adding experience and creativity to our midfield. And vocal was 'The Russian' about how not playing for so long affected his game against Fulham!!! Now I understand there is match practice which is required, but didn’t he play against Greece for Russia two weeks back? Wasn’t he coming on as sub for quite some time? So I would ask him to stop making excuses and give his all in today's game!!! I think Park would start from the bench and we would be playing 4-5-1, as Boss usually doesn’t change his system of play to accommodate a player!!! Park has to get accustomed to English style of play, but having not played a single minute in EPL till now is a bit disappointing. Same is the case with Chamakh, who has to prove that he still got it!!! Coquelin will get a chance to prove that he is better than Frimpong and Frimpong will get a chance to be #Dench!!!

Now coming to controversies, we all know Nasri might get a chance to play in today's match and Boss has requested the fans to control their emotions. Boss has always been respectful towards former players and has asked fans to do the same. But as we know Clichy, Toure left without much ado, we saw the antics of Adebayor and we read the comments from Nasri about the fans and club!!! I can understand him leaving for double the money (As I would also leave my job if somebody is ready to double my pay!!! :D), but what I don’t understand is that why you have to bad mouth the club and its fans!!! You were an unknown quantity, this club and fans made you what you are today, some respect is always warranted. If you don’t have respect for the people who made you what you are today, then you are not a man in my eyes!!! And hence I despise him!!! So I would request everyone to boo him as loud as possible!!!

Hopefully we will come out on tops. Players have to show that they should get more chances in first team with a good performance. And if they do that against City, then nothing like it!!! Amen to that.

Follow me on twitter (click here) for updates on out club and what other fans and bloggers are saying.

Till next time. COYG!!!

Post Match Blog: Arsenal Vs Fulham – A tale of two goals!!!

Well I am disappointed. No doubt about it! Still many things to take away from this game, but on that later. First I would like to dissect the game! Fulham came with a game plan and succeeded in that. They tried to slow the tempo of the game from start, so that Arsenal doesn’t set into a rhythm of passing the ball. Most of the teams come to Emirates with a mind set of catching us on break and playing long balls, but Fulham did just opposite, they tried to beat us at our game. They packed the midfield and closed down the ball very efficiently.

Arteta gave his all and I have no complaints from him. Ramsey has to improve his game! I know that English commentators praise him a lot (Actually they do it for every player from UK!!!), but if you keep on skying the ball, make awful runs then however good others say you are, you won’t impress me! Why Arshavin was not taken off at half time or at 60 minute mark is a question mark! He is not the player we can now afford to play in first team! He is low on confidence and doesn’t make any damn effort to improve his game! Robin tried his best, but it was just not his day! Theo (aka Usain Bolt junior) had a good game, still I expect better out of him! Song was ok in his duties. Verminotor was at fault when he tried to clear the ball with his left foot, because from the angle he was trying, it would always take the ball towards the goal and any miscue would get in! And voila, it happened. I didn’t expect him to make such a trivial error! He redeemed himself though with the goal, but still after the match there was clear disappointment written on his face. And I am sure, he would rectify his mistake and come out on tops in our next games!(I thought of uploading the goals video, but I love Verm too much and can’t see him scoring an own goal again and again!!!) Santos played well for his style, and you already know I like him lot. Had couple of good shorts on the goal, which were blocked and his positioning was good. Gervinho still looks unfinished product, because his finishing needs a lot of work. He comes into such fantastic positions, he dribbles past players like anything, but finishing is not there. Chamakh came in late and didn't have much time to have a telling impact on the game. I think he should get more games!

Coming to positives from the game, best was to see Djourou play out of his skin at RB and he did it with ease! If he continues to show such display, then we won’t be missing Sagna till he returns. He was one player who did his duties to the fullest be it defending or attacking, he was there! Another positive was to see Diaby back and adding a new dimension to our game. But the best part was the character shown by the team as a whole. We tried, tried and tried and in the end got one point out of the game. Previous years Arsenal didn’t show that kind of attitude and I am happy to see that!!! I think playing three matches in 8 days took toll on our players as they looked a little off beat from start. People might say that RVP didn’t score and hence Arsenal didn’t win, but in my next Blog you would read why Arsenal is not a one man team!!! Follow me on twitter to be updated on that!!!

Now the first team players will get a rest against Manchester City in Carling Cup quarterfinal. As we don’t want to burden them with too many matches in short span of time!!! Hopefully our second fringe team will win against Manchester City. Amen to that! I’ll close on that lovely thought!!!

Till next time. Hail gunners.

Pre Match Blog: Arsenal Vs Fulham

After a satisfying win in CL, where we qualified for knockout stages 12^th Successive time, we are back to EPL. Now lets get back to business!!!

In his press conference boss said:

“Having secured qualification in the Champions League we can focus more. That's what we want to demonstrate now. We need to show that we can go from one competition to the other and keep the same focus.”

This indeed would be the focused game, as top four finish is a priority. We can’t afford to lose our concentration or momentum. Our home form has been good this season and we have to build upon that and icing on the cake is that Fulham has never won at Arsenal!!! But on the hind side, they are the only side to take points away from ManC this season. They have players like Zamora, Dempsey, Johnson who can cause problems to our back four. Fulham didn’t have a mid week Europa clash, hence would be a fresher unit! We on the other hand can’t look tired and take things easily.

Now we all know that RVP is an important part of this campaign and has scored 38 of Arsenal’s goals in all competitions. So he would be playing. Song has been impeccable for some time now, hence he is important and should play. On rest of the teams, I think we would be going with the same team that played Norwich over weekend and Dortmund in mid week. One or two changes might be in wings and central defense.

From my point of view team would be Szcz, SANTOS, Verm, Mert, Djourou, Ramsey, Arteta, Arshavin, Gervinho and RVP with substitutes as Fabianski, Kos, Frimpong, Diaby, Theo, Chamakh and Benayoun.

Score line? I would take anything except 2-1, which has been our favorite for some time now!!! I think score would be 3-1, with two goals from RVP and one from Gerv, for Fulham I think Zamora will be the man!

Todays game with Fulham is dedicated to ‘Save the Children’ organization, our global charity partner. A noble step to help the future of the world, Children!

On this wonderful thought I would sign off, do follow me on twitter for regular updates on my blogs and Arsenal.

Till next time. COYG!!!

Post Match Blog – Arsenal Vs Dortmund

And so we won. The team was not what I had predicted, nor was the score line and scorers. But who cares, we won!!!

On the onset it was clear that Jurgen Klopp had a plan for stopping RVP. As he had told in his press conference, he really stopped any delivery to RVP. Dortmund was pressing hard and not allowing our midfield to pass the ball fluently. For first 30 minutes or so, Dortmund was on top and looked like threatening our Goal more than once. Somehow we managed to keep them on bay. And then came song's challenge on Gotze to our relief! If that was not enough then Vermaelen's trailing leg did damage to Bender and he was stretchered off! This was i think beginning of the end for Dortmund, as their two most influential players were off the field.

Don't know what boss said to the players during break, but it did the trick! RVP scored from Walcott's cross! Looked like Arteta rubbed off on Song, as he started playing really well. He was a bit sloppy in first half, but redeemed himself superbly in second half! The dribble past three players was stupendous and RVP scored again!!! Players knew that RVP would be covered and service would be denied to him by Dortmund defense, hence he started interchanging positions with Walcott, Gervinho and even Ramsey. This strategy worked well, as RVP was left nearly unmarked for both the goals!!!

As far as player performance goes, I think Gervinho still needs to improve upon his first touch and finishing! Santos was exciting as ever, Kos did the job well, Mert was okay, and Verm was outstanding in mitigating few errors from Santos (but he was exciting anyhow!). Arteta played really well. I think playing in Champions League brings out the best in him!! We would have kept a clean sheet, but for Djourou, who was trying to be too clever near the final third in dying stages!!!

All in all, a satisfying victory. A victory which will instill even more belief in our squad. A victory which has taken us to qualification. A victory which will give RVP a much needed rest in next round. A victory which made haters cry out loud that Arsenal is one man army (Seriously, I don't give a damn!!!) A victory where three players involved in scoring have few months left on their contract (To this I do give a Damn!!!)!!!

Victory was even sweeter because Chelsea lost to Leverkusen. It made Mata think 'Did I join the right club?'. And because after Tuesday there is a ripe possibility that we'll see a Manchester Derby in Europa League Final!!! Amen to that!!!

Till next time. Hail Gunners!!!