By Billy the dog McGraw
As per my normal I met Dennis Bergkamp this morning at the Enfield Allotment on which we both have potato patches to chew the fat on the crisis club.
“I won’t ask you to describe Aston Villa,” says I when we took a breather in the potting shed. “You’ll only tell me its a diminutive principality in the Midlands in which some streets have now been almost totally cleared of terrorists.”
“Well it is,” says he, and with that out of the way, we settled down to the news.
“Adebayor?” says I, trying to crack a joke.
“His crime was to take three months to return from the Africa Cup of Cups, and the gentlemen along the Seven Sisters were somewhat edgy about that,” Dennis counters.
“When he was with Arsenal we were glad when he took three months off,” says I and we both nodded noddingly taking a swift sip of the brandy I always carry on occasions such as this to ward off the cold.
Szczesny
Jenkinson, Mertesacker, Vermaelen, Monreal
Ramsey, Arteta, Wilshere,
Walcott, Giroud, Cazorla
“And the subs?”
“Mannone, Martínez, Yennaris, Koscielny, Miquel, Diaby, Ramsey, Coquelin, Rosicky, Gervinho, Ox-Chamberlain”
“That’s too many,” says I and he shrugs, and you don’t argue with Dennis when he does that.
We run through the injuries which for once takes no time at all. “Gibbs and Sagna” says Dennis and you can’t say more than that. “Fabianksi is still going through rehab.
And now for the stats.
It is said that 60% of our goals come in the second half but I think it is more than that.
Aston Villa collect yellow cards like they are going out of fashion (54 this season). We have 26.
Lukas Podolski is still top in the assists league.
The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.
“That’s not a statistic,” says Dennis catching my last comment. “It is a line from William Blake.”
“But clever though,” says I, and we both go on our way with the happiness that two old friends have having met, chewed the fat, and moved on.
Footnote: Neil Warnock says in the Independent today, “Who would want to follow Wenger at Arsenal?” and he has a point.
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The books…
- Woolwich Arsenal: The club that changed football – Arsenal’s early years
- Making the Arsenal – how the modern Arsenal was born in 1910
- The Crowd at Woolwich Arsenal FC: crowd behaviour at the early matches
The sites from the same team…
- Referee Decisions – just what are the refs up to this season?
- Parent News – what is going on in schools these days?
- The weight loss programme: The only guaranteed way to stay fit
- The Arsenal History Blog from the AISA Arsenal History Society
- The Bob Dylan Reviews – the music, the lyrics, the meaning
Brilliant.
Put a smile on my face so job done. 🙂
Me too Billy lad, always look forward to Sat. morning and the report from the allotment.
Glad you spotted the Nasri situation, as I trawled through the comments of a report on him, more often than not it was agreed by non Arsenal fans how great Wenger was at transfer deals. Which seems pure Glenda Slagg to me.
I also saw that Pliers Morgan-Rum wants to buy into Arsenal, we all know his twittering’s well, what will become of dear old Arsenal if he does? Britain’s Arsenals got talent? Phone up and vote for your player this week!
Either that or Arsenal will just start to win everything forever and ever.Amen.
This put a smile on my face as well. We may not think we have a lot to smile about as Gunners just now but when I look at the squad, the finances, all the young talented brit internationals and the defiance of Wenger it also makes me smile. Smiles all round. The future looks rosy!
Good one. How are the potatoes doing?
?The Pod can’t even make the subs bench? Hope Dennis is as wrong as having Rambo playing and benched?
…I just cant stop loving Untold. Best of all the arsenal blogs. Cheers. So funny. Nashit n Adebawhore. Next is Mr Song.
The Pod will be our secret weapon today GF60. But as it is widely known by some Untold gets paid a lot of money to write articles that support players, manager and the club in general.
So the other teams know this also and the first thing they do on a match day is look at Untold to find out what and who we will play. So now they think that Podolski will not play at all. But then Wenger will play him and Podolski will score half a dozen goals and provide 3 assists. And the Aston Villans will not know what will have struck them.
hhaha…Billy,
Why dont you ask Dennis if he is coming to ARSENAL as a replacement for Brady. Then you wont have to travel up there to have a word with him.
I dont think Mr Wenger would regret any of his decisions regarding player sales (Cesc excluded ie). As for Song…..Well his top flight career looks dead to me.
@Walter. Good thinking then. :o) Time someone went close to Ted Drake’s record!
WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH SZCZESNY ,ITS HIGH TIME WE GIVE MANONE A CHANCE,ARSENE PLEASE DONT DO AN ALMUNIA.
The analysts are eating their puke,i pity them.
Great win tonight! I thought Jenkinson was brilliant in the first half and Ramsey was OK when coming on. But watching the fanzone on Premier League TV it sounds like we have lost ? We are 1 point behind spurs and 2 points behind a Chelsea that have spent billions, how is that bad ?
Funny, some of the blogs out there are calling our performance ‘jittery’. The thing is, I have played a lot of football and my teams have shipped goals on occasion and been a mess defensively. But I have never felt jittery. The people watching might have felt jittery but not me. I suspect that is the same for our club. The players are still learning where they must be and where there teammates will be. As a club that likes to keep possession, you are taught to not just hoof it up to the midfield stripe but instead to make an intelligent pass. This is not as easy as it looks as it requires patience, communication and skill.
That’s the “totally unbiased” media continuing their anti-arsenal agenda regardless of facts. Chill we got the three points nothing else matters for tonight, have a drink and to use the Latin NIL ILLIGITIMUS CARBORUNDUM – don’t let the bastards grind you down.
Saw most of the game, but missed the last 5 mins. We played very well but there is stop a lot of space between the midfield & the defence. Villas goal is a classic eg. Both the CB’s tend to be in our half due to Mert’s lack of pace. This needs looking at asap. As I was driving back, the commentator said that Villa deserved something. Bloody idiots.
There is picture of Carl celebrating the 2nd goal (arsenal fan) but ox, gervinho Koscielny sitting there grumpy.
Good win and a valuable three points, well done the Arsenal especially after a difficult week.
I thought we might have had a penalty in the 2nd half when Giroud was wrestled by two defenders, not seen by Atkinson.
COYG!
Billy & Dennis, you shouldn’t leave your spuds in the ground over winter they go manky, riddled with holes, it doesn’t do your potatoes any good either. However if you already have your potatoes in the ground thats fairly impressive and would like to know the early variety.
Matchday 27 relegation summary.
Wigan earns themselves a win, a pull out of the relegation zone based on goal difference with Aston Villa. The highest any of Newcastle, Wigan or Aston Villa can place is second. The highest Reading can finish is third.
With its loss (and Tottenham’s win), the highest QPR can finish is fourth.
Just as an exercise in avoiding working on something else, I tried to look at the rest of the season as listed at the BBC. Somehow, an entire matchday seems to be missing, and I think a Wigan game is missing in addition to that. Assuming those missing games are wins for the relegation crew, I see QPR finishing with 25, Aston Villa with 28 and Reading with 30. There is no magic used in divining win, loss or tie in the games, just personal prejudices. I’m horrible at predicting the outcome of a single game, no reason to think predicting this many shouldn’t also be horrible.