Arsenal’s youth team managed to squirm their way through to the Groupie Stage of the Euro Cup last night on the “Most Goals Scored” rule.
“It really is ludicrous,” said Letmedrivethe Koach talking on ITV, “no other competition in the world uses this method of deciding the winner. What has the issue of who scored the most goals got to do with anything?
“In the ten minutes before Elvis left the building we clearly outshouted the home supporters, and in most civilised countries that would be enough to give us the tie.
“As for playing with just ten players, that is so despicable that words can’t describe how I feel. But what I will say is….”
Arsenal meandered deeper and deeper into the reserves, and we played without Nasri, Rosicky, Van Persie, Arshavin, Fabregas, Walcott, and Vela. Take all those out of the team, and what have you got?
Well, some amazing football actually. It is not just that we have played four, won four, and scored just under 4 goals a game, often without many of our top players. It is also that style and speed of passing and movement. It is, dare I say, as if someone has finally got round to showing this group of players the DVD of the Unbeaten Season and they have thought, “oh, right, ok, that’s what you do.”
I have no idea how it looked on TV, but being there and looking down on the whole panorama (I now sit behind the goal we attack in the second half, in the upper tier) you just see this extraordinary off the ball movement, which means there are more intercepts than ever, followed by the quick lay off, and then another.
It is truly as if there are endless triangles of players, and as one player passes the ball he moves on to set up another triangle which receives the ball, and which then…
West Iceland have of course issued a statement thanking Celtic for taking pressure off them, by focusing on a supposed diving incident, and the media lapped it up like the little lap-puppies that they are. After five years of “Pires the diver” – a myth created from the “evidence” of one event, itself debatable, they are now off again, and this will run for years and years.
During the Pires era I emailed journalists time and time again saying, “here’s an idea, do a compilation of all the Piresian dives – there are so many, it will be easy,” and of course no one ever presented any evidence because there wasn’t any. Pires fell over more than some players when challenged by keepers and hulking central defenders because although he had the twinkling feet he didn’t have Henry’s speed to get out of the way. But there was no more diving evidence with Pires than there was with anyone else.
Same here. Eduardo will now Ed The Diver – another way of filling up a journalistic line without any thought.
Anyway, in other news, the majority of the press seem to want to ignore the Sunderland incident, which I described yesterday, and which is in many ways much more worrying than the West Iceland event, because it looks as if there might (and I stress, I only say “might”) have been a cover-up of extraordinary proportions.
I have written to the FA to suggest that West Iceland should now play their home games in, well, West Iceland. No reply as yet.
Back to the Euro thing. In the Top Pot (as they like to call it) there’s, and three other EPL teams that I can’t remember, plus BarBarBarcaSheep, WC Milan, Seville, and Bayern Munchen.
We can’t play any of them, but we could play (from Pot the Second) Real Mad, Inter, Lyon, CSKA Moscow, Juve or Rangers.
Potty the Thrid (home of the typing error), has Marseilles, Stuttgart, and Atletico Mad while the last pot contains Rubin Kazan from Russia and several teams you’ll never have heard of. (Well you probably will have, but I haven’t and I only accuse you of not having heard of them, so I don’t stand out in the crowd. Nothing personal).
So, Arsenal, Real Mad, Marseilles, APOEL FC, is a real possibility. Won’t that be fun?
Or Arsenal, Inter, Stuttgart, AFC Unirea Urziceni – almost as jolly.
Final thing – and this is to do with internet stuff, rather than Arsenal stuff, last night this site came under attack.
According to those in the know there has been a 508% increase in the number of new malicious web links in the first half of 2009 and the problem is worsened by the arrival of the links on search engines, blogs, bulletin boards, personal websites, online magazines and mainstream news sites.
The attack was dealt with, and steps have been taken to stop this particular attack from happening again – but as a result of this, it is possible that if you had a comment in moderation yesterday evening / night (UK time) it might not have appeared. This too was nothing personal – I just needed to secure the site and so deleted most of the pending comments. This note from me does not mean that there is a problem on this blog – quite the reverse in fact. The sites to worry about are those that claim they haven’t come under attack! And I would add, we are not being singled out. Every site that has a large audience is getting this.
Until later,
(c) Tony Attwood 2009. (And if the last few days are anything to go by, this commentary will soon appear under the name Kameron on Team Talk, and will then be followed by comments from “others” (probably Kameron in disguise) saying, “really interesting piece, thanks”).
Tony, I dont think Dudu dived. When I saw the replay for the first time, it did feel like He dived but when I saw it couple of times more(thanks to the Channel trying to prove Dudu dived) I was sure he didnt dive. If you see clearly, Boruc was sliding towards dudu and Dudu’s reflexes made him to take evasive action. The action which proved this to me was that Dudu didnt ask for a penalty after he went down to the ground. Players when they dive normally claim for a penalty, Dudu didnt..
Even though the dive was wrong, I Agree with you Tony that the journo’s will keep going on and on about it as if he does it all the time like the Winka and drogba.
On another note, When Arshavin and Wilshere came on we went up another gear and the football was awesome. Good link up play by AA, JW and Ramsey.
Of course he didn’t dive. Right, now we can forget that I’ve put it to bed. Let’s move on to more important issues. Really expected more preening from Tony about getting the 5 – 1 right last night. Come on, you’ll never be a proper journalist if you don’t write about yourself a little more often.
Yes, i do think he dived,or took evasive action.However, why do all the media keep going on about it.All ITV kept going on about lastnight was this incident.The sad thing is we will have to put up with this channel for the Champions League.
If it had been a English Player diving(Gerrard Champions League last yr)hardly anything would have been said.
Not surprisingly,the usual suspects have come out chucking vitriol at Arsenal.firstly,Eduardo did dive and Boruc didn’t help himself with his positioning.Wenger was quoted after the game as saying” , : “I do not go as far to say Eduardo dived. “He went down, for what reason I do not know. Having seen it again on television, it doesn’t look a penalty.”Is that clear enough.The fact is penalty or not,Celtic still required three goals to win the game,at that time.We have comprehensively beaten them over the two legs,yet not for the first the media put the emphasis on Celtic not playing well over the two legs,rather than giving Arsenal credit showing particularly the difference in class between the two teams.yes the goals at Parkhead were fortuitous,but with several first team players missing last night we did all that was required.With reference to the french team yet again,may I point out again that Wenger is payed to manage Arsenal on a fairly restricted budget,and is not responsible for providing players for the English National team.On a really positive note,Vermaelen appears to be another comparatively unknown player in England,who has been mightily impressive so far this season.There is a new bonding in the team,since the disruptive influence of Adebayor left,which is very clear to see,and we may just surprise those willing for us to fail this season.
Gerrard’s defence in court when he was had up for GBH or whatever it was in the nightclub, was that he dived. Or didn’t dive. Whichever got him off the charge quickest.
Are we surprised that the press are trying to bash Arsenal down again? Wasn’t the score 5-1. Even the most fervant Celtic fan must admit they were well beaten, and dive or no dive it made little difference.
I recall Ryan Babel’s dive a few seasons back which knocked us out of the Champions League. I remember the press treated that very differently, making out it was a part of the modern game. In particular one Phil Thompson.
Why is he not known as Stevie G.B.H? Yeah, I dont really care if eduardo dived or not. The amount of times the likes of Van nistelrooy and ronaldo diving for united, if anything, Eduardo deserved his penalty for his performance last night. Once again we dominated the game, its scary to think how well this team is adapting to the formation, i cant even imagine who will be starting once walcott, nasri and rosicky are all back, we must have the strongest midfield in the prem, this is certainly where all our goals are coming from!
Theres no way the media can accuse us of being over reliant on two players this season! Its starting to look like the “team of captains” which wenger was trying to acheive last season! Saturday will be very interesting!
The media is alwys against Arsenal. 2 yrs ago when Hleb was denied a penalty&Babel dived 2 get a penalty nobody complained.
After last night,nobody is writing about the incidents over 90mins bt just 1 dive? Shame on u…Pseudo-journalists.
I think it’s going to be difficult for the world to continue to shut their eyes to the sort of amazing performance that our young guns have been producing. Hence, while they would no doubt continue to harp on Eduardo going down, they are also forced to acknowledge the beauty and supremacy of Arsenal’s brand of football. Below is an excerpt from a story in the Times by Matt Hughes.
“Arguably the most impressive aspect of Arsenal’s unbeaten start to the season has been the ability of many of their midfield and attacking players to operate in a number of positions and seemingly switch at will, a pattern that was also in evidence last night. Bendtner began on the left but was soon displaced by the roaming Abou Diaby; Bacary Sagna and Emmanuel Eboué constantly changed positions on the right and Eduardo floated around with menace.
“Faced with such a kaleidoscope of movement, Celtic found themselves chasing shadows, which, as any child could tell you, is an impossible task, and they were unable to cope. In the space of 15 first-half minutes, Eduardo shot wide at the near post, Denilson hit the side netting and Eboué went close with a powerful volley, before the Croatia striker gave his side the lead in a dubious manner.”
Tong, Something about your statetemt there. “It is not just that we have played four, won four, and scored just under 4 goals a game, OFTEN WITHOUT MANY OF OUR TOP PLAYERS.” Given the amazing quality of our players, young and not so young, it seems to me that it is becoming increasingly difficult to single out any group of players as top players. The players that you mentioned are no doubt top players, but so are the players who have taken their place in their absence. I think it’s going to be more and more difficult for us to differentiate the players by quality and going forward, the differentiation is is probably going to be in terms of age and experience. So instead of us playing without the top players, it would be us playing without the more senior players or more experienced players.
Sorry, Tony, it’s a typo. I of course meant to call you Tong, not Tong.
Sorry, Tony, I’m going to give up typing anything on the keyboard completely going forward.
Well why dont we change it in say we won 4-1 in agregate ?
I think that in the first half Almunia didn’t had one shot on target so what are some people moaning about.
Celtic did score on a moment when our 10 players had left the field already in their mind and had a nice warm bath in mind. But I think that was about the only shot on target from Celtic in the whole game.
I think they managed about 4 shots in 2 games on target.
Am I the only one to notice that every time we win this season, the pundits tell us it is because the opposition had a bad day ? They would rather bite of the tongue instead of saying that The Arsenal are playing high quality football.
But then again who need those pundits to make up his mind ? I will make up my own mind.
If you have had the misfortune of suffering a broken leg, you will not tarry to be touched before you take “Evasive Action”; which is what Eduardo did.
As for whatever the press write, I dont give a toss. Their Xenophobia has reached the greatest proportions. You must either be English or British or at least be with one of the Clubs considered to be British to get any favourable write up. The most interesting thing that they forget is that, Arsenal is still the most British of all the Top 4. Why do I say that? Simple! There are More British Shareholders at Arsenal than at any other Top 4 Club; all the others are foreign owned. So why the hell do the press still consider Arsenal as largely French? They are simply jealous. Move on, the Arsenal!
Spot on LRV… Eduardo took an evasive action because He didnt wanted another injury.. Moreover, He DIDNOT ask for a penalty. He didnt raise his arms asking for a penalty like many others do.. Did anyone notice that??
I dont care what the press say. They can say anything they want. I just want Arsenal do play well and win..
Walter, If you are going to write an article on referees, can you please write the different scenarios or conditions on which a referee can award a penalty. This is just to know whether an intent to foul an attacking player in the box is enough to award a penalty?
waltergooner: If you want to do any deductions, you can only call it 4 – 0. You see, our 10 boys tactically gave Celtic a sniff of that one goal as compensation for their apparent sadness over the penalty incident. So you see no more grief there.
Sven did say last night that Arsenal were breathtaking and thats why Celtic was not able to cope.
One thing that’s changed this season along with our style of play is the way the pundits try to knock us. Now it isn’t that the Arsenal players are too soft and so you need to knock them about. Especially when playing at the Emirates, it’s, try and prevent them from scoring to unsettle the fans… So, we’ve had the revolution on the pitch, it’s now up to the fans.
As per usual, great post Tony/Tong. I was a bit disappointed by the “dive” and to me it did look like a dive but I guess you can’t rule out the fear of contact and whether or not Birmingham away Feb 2008 flashed through his mind as the charging Boruc came towards him.
But anyway, the most important thing that came out of yesterday’s game was another god damn injury. Ok, international period coming up so two weeks ’til the city game but we’ve still got to go to Old Trafford in between. I’ve had a look at the league game last season.
Last season we played the following (4-5-1)
Lukasz Fabianski
Bacary Sagna
Kolo Toure
Alex Song
Kieran Gibbs (77 Emmanuel Eboue)
Denilson
Abou Diaby
Cesc Fabregas
Samir Nasri (70 Nicklas Bendtner)
Andrey Arshavin (69 Theo Walcott)
Robin Van Persie
By the sounds of it Diaby might not play on Saturday and Ramsey is out so we’re lacking a bit of creativity. I’ve got a Feeling Wenger will go with his usual 4-5-1 again, switching to 4-3-3 when going forward. I think i’tll look something like this.
Almunia
Sagna
Vermaelen
Gallas
Clichy
Denilson
Song
Cesc Fabregas
Eboue (Right)
Eduardo (Left)
Arshavin (through the middle)
Van Persie
So, compared to last season, 4 changes strengthens the back 5. Song strengthens midfield defensively in place of Diaby and we have Eduardo on the left and Arshavin is Fabregas for a day. The only weak point is Eboue for Nasri but after the way he’s been playing this season the difference could be negligible. We could also be lacking a bit with quality to come off the bench but fingers crossed to having a fit Rosicky.
ooops i must stop using copy and paste ignore cesc in the second line-up
Almunia
Sagna
Vermaelen
Gallas
Clichy
Denilson
Song
Eboue (Right)
Eduardo (Left)
Arshavin (through the middle)
Van Persie
Paul: Isn’t it a sad commentary on Arsenal fans if pundits are now using us to knock our team? Arsenal has largely been “a rolling stone”. How we seem to gather so much “Moss” is beyond me. All the insatiable “trophy hunters”, “glory seekers” and plastic fans (the Moss) have constitute themselves into “Whips” with which to cane our team. Very sad indeed.
Hi Tony
Dalgleish managed to tie himself in all sorts of verbal knots yesterday –
Nationalistic drivel about British/English players only starting to dive after ‘Johnny’ foreigner arrived (I believe Franny Lee used to give acting lessons in the box way back when)- Celtic playing better with the scoreline obviously not showing that and then having to say the difference in class showed Ughh!! either they were better than us or they were not and it was pretty obvious that we were better and controlled the game upping the tempo when we wanted to.
The rest of the so called analysis – —just makes me mad sitting here typing and thinking about it – Drivel (kinda like that word – sounds as it means – half arsed miserable crap!) – nuff said.
Looked to me like a dive but you win some and loose others – If they wish to start retrospective action on incidents like that they must warn all players well beforehand and then be consistent in their approach – will that be done who knows
come on the arse
on the issue with the diving i think it is despicable in football, whoever the culprit. However, what is surprising is that a dive from an Arsenal player (or lets say a non- English player) attracts so much criticism when a dive from the crown prince of English football (Rooney) is never even mentioned. Rooney dived blatantly against Arsenal to end the most magnificent of unbeaten runs. I don’t remember it being mentioned anywhere with such venom. i don’t see Rooney mentioned amongst the likes of Nistelrooy and Pires. I agree that diving is wrong, and should be considered cheating, but it’s disgusting that after all the diving around by gerrard and rooney for their clubs, now they finally have an arsenal player clearly diving, all of a sudden its a big deal. Looks like its going to be another season of the media overreacting to everything negative about arsenal while turning a blind eye to the other teams. Don’t they ever tire of this. More Johnny foreigner bashing. Will you be as scathing when Gerard or Rooney dive? I despair.
Diminedave
August 27th, 2009 at 12:50 pm i totally agree, some of the rubbish that Andy Townsend was coming out with was serious crap & if i saw him on the street would slap him one for talking such crap…i mean even the commentators were saying Celtic are playing much better than Arsenal – ummm what games were these guys watching? All Celtic did after 20mins or so was to up their pace which they had to and all we did was to contain that but they made it sound like as if they were already 2-2 – in a way im glad eddy dived and got the pen – shut the idiots up
For one, I thought it was blatant dive and a pity because we didn’t need to do that to win it. The sad thing is whilst this has been blown out of all proportion, we can’t be at all surprised at the media reaction – I just wish he hadn’t given them the fuel in the first place. Eduardo had earnt a lot of public affection and it is a pity he has tarnished this.
Tony, I agree totally about Pires being maligned as a posterboy for diving in spite of the fact I too can only recall the infamous Fulham incident in his career. But let’s not kid ourselves on that particular day that WAS a blatant dive by Pires.
To me it’s important to be able to try and look at the incidents objectively – how would one have reacted if it had happened against The Arsenal?
In both cases (IMHO) they were clear cut dives – but it is sad that the media and pundits all gang up to scapegoat one player in particular forever more.
A good piece in the Telegraph of all places!!
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/sport/robkelly/100001400/arsenals-eduardo-should-be-punished-for-his-dive-but-the-furore-over-the-incident-is-hypocritical-and-embarrassing/
who were the ITV commentators last night? awesome wank-bags they were thats all i can say [why oh why did i not mute the stream]?
in the first half, Sagna brilliantly saved the ball from going out of play in the Arsenal half, but the c*nt Clyde tyld***[whatever his name] went on about the Eduardo dive; the other commentator had the presence of mind to shut him up and praise Sagna.
about the Eduardo dive — anything that gets Arsenal 3 points/victory is fine by me. As a bonus it got Boruc worked up — so please dive some more.
Now the only concern — “cheating” Arsenal denied a genuine penalty at Old Trafford; Rooney does what he does — cheat,moan,flail arms around, bully to victory against Arsenal.
There are major problems with TV replays and showing contact with high speed sports. This is clearly demonstrated by the cricket coverage.
Small nicks by the bat on the ball can hardly make the ball deviate and impossible to see by eye or on the replay. However the ‘snic ommeter’ and the infra red camera clearly demonstrate that the batsmen has made contact with the ball – ( I suspect that often the batsman is unsure if he has made contact it would be interesting to get some views on this from an international batsman!)
Low down catches are prime examples where frame by frame review has failed to convince me wether the catch has been made or not.
It is going to be really difficult to take into account the momentum of the player (especially at speed) and that a small contact can have a large effect, the fact that the player will be trying to avoid injury if they can see a collision coming up and will be in an unnatural position anyway.
I think the Cricket examples show how TV replays cannot show small contacts and also the diffiulty of determination of what happened first (in a low catch ball touching ground or fingers first) Player being fouled or falling over first
Anyway food for thought. As I said above(Diminedave misspelt) I thought it a dive but some of the TV angles do appear to how contact on a standing leg so there you go inconclusive!
Game was great to watch, but I was totally pissed with commentary (I am not sure was it Sky or some other channel). Moron in front of microphone was every half minute repeating that Arsenal scored in first game by players back and from “bizarre” OG. Than in second half he just added back, bizarre and of course “referee mistake”.
Somewhere just before we scored he was explaining “Celtic executed first part of their plan, they preserved their net, and now they can start taking initiative and trying to score”… I am just wandering, did he knew we won in Glasgow already ? Or he woke from coma few hours before game ???
I don’t care if it was a dive or not. It has happened against us many times and I did not hear such vociferous hysteria.
Doubt Cesc will be played on Saturday other than as a 60+ min sub. It may be the best time to play United before their team gels properly post Ronaldo’s departure. Rooney is the main threat.
I don’t know if Dudu “dived” or not because diving is NOT the act of falling, it’s the intention. Even there was no contact, there is not enough evidence for me to be convinced that his intention was to earn a spot kick by simulating a foul. Only Dudu knows what he tried to do there.
The thing about diving in Britain is that it’s nothing more than a cultural taboo. The Times came out yesterday and said as much – this is a part of public expectation of players’ behavior, not a technical issue. In the moralist eyes of the paper, Eduardo has committed a sin. Period.
Technically, most players at the top level these days are educated to control their fall to protect their body, with or without contact from opponents – do you ever wonder how Ronaldo stayed fit for so long despite being the most fouled player in the league? I don’t like his style, but it worked. Tactically, your willingness to be “feather light” adds a dose of uncertainty into tacklers’ mind. This too increases your protection.
The line between controlled falling and simulating a foul is sometimes thin. Like the one we saw last night. Dudu might have fallen because he expected contact. When he realized non was there it was already too late; he already lost his footing while momentum was pushing him forward. He might have said to himself “So what? A yellow is all it’ll take.” (People only remember successful diving, we all forget the yellow cards doling out for failed efforts)
In fact, when a diver gets what he wants, the only sin committed is one by the referee – he fails to do what he’s there to do. When more and more players think it’s a good idea to foul, the sin is on the regulating body – they fail to construct reasonable rules and reinforcing rules (by technology or more referees) to deter players.
I’m not amoral, I think rules should be set up to prevent diving efficiently. They should do so by punishing the diver properly. But they should also punish diving players to free them from fans’ judgment, which are very often inflated by emotion and unjust.
Going back to our players, I must say I feel very unjust for Eboue. One fall and he earned the title diver forever – the one at the CL final game and it wasn’t even for a penalty. No-one ever wants to hear the man defend himself. We all are so sure of our moral authority that none was necessary.
For what it is worth, my take on the diving lark…
Untold Arsenal has formally demanded that UEFA and FIFA investigate the Scottish Football Association for gross incompetence.
Among the complaints made are
1. When there is a real case to answer on an issue they do next to nothing. They did nothing for years to stop the singing of the racist Famine Song by Rangers supporters, despite a ruling in the Justiciary Appeal Court showing that this is racist.
2. They have shown total and absolute incompetence in overseeing negotiations for Scottish football on TV, with the result that Scotland’s football is now a laughing stock, and the clubs are sitting there without money. A deal with Sky when offered would have given them much more money than they now have – but they turned it down, taking their regular “we know best” attitude.
3. They failed to act when it was clear that there could be problems in Manchester when Rangers appeared there.
4. They have the idea that they can be judge and jury (as with the Eduardo case yesterday), arguing not just for a hearing, but for the result of a hearing, before the hearing takes place. It is as if they have watched Liverpool supporters complain about court rulings they don’t like, and thought, oh that is how justice works. They are utterly ignorant of the notion of fair hearings, and of giving any accused person the chance to put a case, of reviewing all the evidence, and having fair representation before judgement is made. As such they are utterly unfit to be involved in any form of activity involving players and clubs and should be disbanded.
5. The SFA thinks it is fine to postpone matches at very little notice as when Rangers were due to play Forfar recently but then called off the match just four hours before kick off, with many Rangers fans already on the way. The match was called off due to the weather – but the weather was exactly as the weather forecast said it would be. Maybe before judging Eduardo they should get themselves a TV with teletext.
6. In November 2006 SFA chairman Taylor said that the SFA take racism “very seriously”. Yet, at that moment, an e-mail was sentto non-league Spartans that effectively said they had no right to appeal a “could not be proved” verdict on their complaint that Whitehill Welfare player Wayne McIntosh called another player “a black bastard” during an East of Scotland league game.
Despite Spartans lodged an initial report that named the player who had witnessed the abuse and gave details of other witnesses. But the wonderful SFA heard no direct evidence from anyone before deciding that they could not act.
I could go on, but really, the SFA is just a total embarrassment to all of football, and should be wound up at once.
Tony Attwood
excellent points with regards to SFA TOny,
It is becoming increasingly apparent how much dislike there is for our team out there, this penalty thing has been blown out of all proportion, lots of people calling for Eduardo to be banned, there have been far worse dives that have gone unpunished, how can Uefa say they are looking into it when the blatant dives against us by Liverpool went totally unpunished. I have looked again and there was clear contact with Eduardos ankle by Borucs thigh, maybe not enough to bring him down but contact without touching the ball is a foul and it was in the area so its a penalty. Its plain to see why we get so many people on this forum who are not real fans but just here to wind up the true supporters, no matter what goes on if its done by an Arsenal player its far worse than if done by other teams players. On tyhe main forum we have the mancs and bindippers going on about the “dive” when their teams are the greatest exponents of it, yet there is never a call for their players to be banned, I have also never heard the TV pundits have a go at other teams, we are clearly singled out for special treatment.Celtic were nevr going to win the match they probably only had 2 shots on target in 180 minutes and were totally outplayed, the SFA are also calling for Eduardo to be banned but I cant recall them ever banning a player in Scotland for doing the same,double standards
I’d like to expand the debate on Eduardo’s dive and say that this media hysteria is yet just more of what seems to be a partisan press serving some kind of vindictive witch hunt against our beloved Arsenal. The unfair bias reporting would, in other countries have them laughing at what can only be described as crooked Where was the uproar following Pederson’s dive last season? The calls for Gerard, Owen, Rooney to be banned for their acrobatics? I heard some pundit (probably that prune Adrian ¿I hate Arsenal¿ Durham) say that it was clever for these players to do it? It’s seems its clever if your English, cheating if your foreign. I speak with many m8s who are Spud, Chav Manure,Palace, Irons, Pool, leeds, PNE fans to name a few and nearly every single one of them can’t understand why the press always seem to be having an unfair go at Arsenal now for what seems to be the past 3 or 4 seasons, We¿re too weak, we’re crap, we’ve got no money, we can’t win up north, you can’t win with kids, Gallas this, Fabragas that, etc, etc, etc, it’s seems anything is fair game when it come to The Arsenal. For the past four season we haven¿t been that far away, reaching the finals and semis of the champs league, reaching the group stages for the last how many 11 years seems to go unnoticed whilst the other 90 odd clubs in the EPL rarely do anything of note. I hate conspiracy theories, but it got to a point where I thought surely I can¿t be the only one who is seeing this??? Is it because we ruined these journalists reputation by going a whole season unbeaten?? Is it because we unfairly try and run our club sustainably? Is it because we rarely buy the dross that is a British football player? Or am I just too hard core a gooner who can¿t take criticism???
for the last couple of seasons, ronaldo dived quite a bit for manu. he also got stick in the press for it, mainly because he one of them forrun fellas, but also because most people could see his talent and realise that he didnt need to do it. he was good enough.
however it was all tempered by the fact that he played for manu and SIR alex ferguson. one of the queens own, british through and through. the same goes for most manu players who over the years have behaved like this.
when i saw it, my initial reaction (always the best imho) was that he was running out of space, the goalie was coming at him and he jumped over any potential collision. he didnt look for the penalty.
watching it again from many different angles, it doesnt look as good. there is minimal contact but the way he falls implies more contact. i dont know if he was looking for a decision, but on the face of it, watching those replays i can understand celtic fans being miffed that the penalty was given.
itv were brutal last night, the two commentators were laying into our team from the off. i dont know how many times they mentioned that gallas had been ‘stripped’ of the captaincy, or how his last two goals were off his back and chin.
obviously celtic started brightly, they had to. they interceted well and their outnumbered midfield performed excellently. but it was obvious to anyone watching that we had bucketloads more class, yet the commentators seemed to be watching a different game.
after the penalty it got worse, they had a bone, and they chewed it, all through the rest of the half. then they passed it to the studio who chewed it some more.
i was happy when the mrs commandeerd the telly and i had to get a stream on the pc going. poor quality picture, but high quality commentary, chinese, or korean maybe. i couldnt understand a word but i could still hear the crowd. result.
of course the press is going to have a field day on the back of this. theres bugger all else going on in english football, apart from our great start to the season, and that is never going to make headline news eh?
Oh just let them talk.
The togetherness will be bigger then before. The harder they try to write us off the harder our players will fight back.
I already liked Denilson alot but yesterday he showed some things that he didn’t show before and that is a sign of him being almost grown up.
Not only was he taking the ball to start the move for the third goal but later on when there was a bit of trouble between Wilshere and a Celtic player. He came to interfere and to defend his younger teammate. I thought this was really great. It is in such things you can see that the players are maturing fast.
You can still try to kick them of the pitch but we are getting stronger and are not longer affraid to stand up for ourselves
i missed the second half.what a pity! but the first half had shown me many things to be proud of. we played wonderful. i saw positive
Arsenal has the best collection of young players of any club.
Arsenal consistently play the best football in England.
Arsenal have the most talent coming through their academy.
Arsenal have the best manager in the premier league.
Arsenal forever.