By Dennis the Menace with Billy the Dog
On Tuesday we play Reading in the Diddly Widdly Cup. I know this because on the official Reading FC site (which is just about the most incomprehensible web site of any Premier League club) it tells me everything with ! at the end of each sentence!
If you want to go the tickets are £25 adults, £20 17-21s, £20 65 & over; £15 16 & under. Compare and contrast with the prices that would have been charged at Arsenal – £10 upstairs, £5 downstairs. Will we see any shock horror news about Reading charging 250% of the price Arsenal charge?
But before that we have Jack Wilshere vs QPR. So great is the clamour for Jack to return that when I spoke to Dennis Bergkamp before the game at his allotment in Enfield, where he was happily digging in the potatoes (or was it sprouts – these vegetables are rather confusing) he put forward a line up of
Wilshere
Wilshere, Wilshere, Wilshere, Wilshere
Wilshere, Wilshere, Wilshere, Wilshere
Wilshere, Wilshere, Wilshere, Wilshere
I did point out that this made it a 13 man team Dennis told me that Wilshere was so good that it appeared there were two of him half the time. Or more. Or less.
But I said that Wilshere is only 80% fit, and Dennis agreed to modify his team to
Wilshere
Wilshere, Wilshere, Wilshere, Wilshere
Wilshere, Wilshere, Wilshere
Wilshere, Wilshere, Wilshere
which I thought looked ok.
It was at this moment that Mr Wenger, armed with his pitchfork and wheelbarrow joined us for our regular pre match tête a tête in the potting shed and agreed to be quoted provided I got the circumflex accent in the right place
“If you look at a more selfish view, you can say a guy can play an hour. But during this hour it is important that he is fit enough to play. What I am considering is that he wants to play, it is an important game, but we want the players to be ready physically and he has not played for 14 months.”
Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is also available Mr W told us as we bit into a passing marrow. “It will be vital as some players finished very tired after Schalke,” he said. “We look to see how the troops are physically and mentally.”Mr Wenger calls Wilshere’s game his “little burst”, and he thinks this could be a shake up for the club. Dennis agreed suggesting QPR will set the bounds on Santi Cazorla, and in fact the howling was heard all over London this morning. Oxlade-Chamberlain is ok to play I am told. Then it is the eternal wait for Theo Walcott, Abou Diaby, Kieran Gibbs and Wojciech Szczesny.
We spoke too of Bacary Sagna and suggested dropping Wilshere from left back and playing Sagna there instead of Santos. Or perhaps Thomas Vermaelen at left-back with Laurent Koscielny in the middle. But that would leave us with only six Wilshere’s on the pitch and everyone agreed that was not enough.
“It is important to bounce back,” said Mr Wenger as his wheelbarrow got stuck in a pile of mud for which Enfield is justifiably famous.
“Arsenal have won more corners than any other premier league team,” said Dennis.
As for Questionable Perverse Ricochets (or QPR as they are known) they at top of the first division if you turn the league table upside down. The Ooze is their manager, so we know what to expect.
Arsenal
Mannone
Jenkinson Mertersacker Vermaelen Santos
Wilshere Arteta
Cazorla
Gervinho Giroud Podolski
Other people hanging around hoping for a moment of fame:
Martínez, Sagna, Koscielny, Chamberlain, Djourou, Ramsey, Coquelin, Gnabry, Arshavin, Frimpong, Chamakh
This is Saturday 15:00 game, we will win it.
It is time to bench Gerv and play Giroud.
Giroud score, 3-1 for us?
i would like to go with verm. in left and kos at middle
santos is not in his best
I would love to see 13 Wilsheres on the pitch , but who would win us the headers ?!Reminded me of an old article taking the mickey out of the height of the then Everton attack .I believe it was called ‘Snow White and the seven Everton forwards ‘!They included ,Cottee , Beardsly ,Beagrie ,Nevin ,the rest I can’t remember offhand.Calling people dwarfs was politically incorrect even then !
As for January 2001 , did Dennis score a hattrick ?
For December 1994 ,was George Graham sacked then ?
I have heard from local sources ( not Tony Fernandes ,of cause )that QPR are being reffered to as Quaintsparkyrevolters .
I’d love us to win ,but also keeping a clean sheet – 2-0 to us .
Up the Gunners !
Good luck today guys!
To my mind it is time to be bold and give Gnabry a start. He will give pace down the right, and looks the type to pick up on Giroud knock downs, and could also link with Jenks on the right. Another option would, possibly as sub or starting, would be Arshavin, and Cazorla on the right?
However, to recover the ‘balance’ to the side, we need an outlet on the left. Seemingly not in the squad, Miquel would have been an option? Santos does not stick to line and it detracts from Podolski. If Sagna was in line for a start then he would the obvious choice.
In midfield it makes sense to have either Frimpong or Wilshere starting and the other to sub on the hour?
I would not mess with the defence too much, given the other changes? My eleven is:
Mannone
Jenks – Mert – Verm – Sagna
Arteta – Frimpong
Gnabry – Giroud – Podolski
Wilshere to sub Frimpong to add energy when they tire.
Arshavin/AOC for Gnabry
Leaving one sub for Podolski/Sagna/?
Why don’t wenger change the tactics of taking a corner? For example instead of just crossing, the boys can take short corners the barcelona style. We rarely do any tangible thing with those corners. I have started to hate those corners in favor of arsenal or can someone correct me out there?
See Wythemshawes finest is giving us nothing and them everything, would not be surprised at all to see QPR given a dodgy pen in this game
Arsenal still following the three P’s. Pedestrian, ponderous and predictable.
really looking forward to seeing the ref review on this one
Arteta makes us win 3 points, Mannone saves us from draw. Really ugly win, but sometimes we need it.
Mandy Dodd,
I must say that I wrote a separate article about some of the “heroics” of the ref today. I don’t know what it was but some part of the ref his performance were very suspicious or very poor performance of the ref.
It has been a while but I couldn’t resist that one today….
@the Billy and Dennis show,
Just had a ‘phone call from Lee, my mate who runs a rifle factory in Enfield and who rents the allotment next to DB 10. He has a small greenhouse and invited DB 10 over the other day to share the odd Cyprus sherry (not that awful stuff that Brussels make us import from Spain).
DB 10 told him that the trouble with the Arsenal team at the moment is that they are refusing to eat the Brussels sprouts that Brussels are insisting that all EPL teams have to eat on match days. As a precursor to being appointed manager to follow Arsene, DB 10 said that he had offered to to bury the Arsenal ration of sprouts, sent by the civil servants in Brussels, in his allotment in order to protect the team. This was what he had actually been doing when his chum Billy (not the brightest spade in the shed) had called on him the other day.
DB 10 said that a sproutless matchday would guarantee a 1-0 to the Arsenal win against QPR today.
look forward to seeing that Walter, some very odd decisions on what I could see. one of those games where the ref let them away with alot until well into the second half…then book Giroud for a great tackle. Have seen that so many times, notably when the Spuds beat us 3-2 at home. Think we have history with this Manchester ref…Sunderland? Granero should have been taken to task much earlier. Our players seemed to sense something was not right. QPR, when they stopped defending, hoofing and kicking looked quite useful! Looked to me like Jack was targetedas well. Still a satisfactory end to a bad week
Mandy,i suppose you don’t count the clearly offside goal Arsenal scored do you? Didn’t see you whinging midweek when Mannone should have been sent off and Schalke given a pen.No mention of Gervinho dive either.Worst tackle this season Kos on Pedro for France v Spain.A real legbreaker,should be banned for 6 months,isn’t that the Untold line on bad tackles?Still not been much to support the refs against arsenal debate this season so you will all be chuffed.
Where are all the doom and gloom mongerers?
Yes, our pockets aren’t as deep as we wish.
Yes, we don’t have the depth we would like.
No, we aren’t depended on one russian or sheikh!!!!
The ref was awful as I saw it. We were towards the end singing You Don’t Know What You’re Doing… I had to say he knew exactly what he was doing… we call it cheating
@Mandy Dodd Yes, quite a few strange decision including offside no-call on Arteta when he scored. On the balance I don’t think Arsenal supporters should have anything to complaining about.
@rupert cook
You sound like the AAA – Awful Asinine Ass!
Andrei,
this ref was awful in some parts of his game. Really and truly awful in how a ref should act. And I don’t talk about the calling of the fouls in particular. But some technical issues a Pl ref should not have.
His game handling was…well rather bizarre.
And Andrei, I will deal with the offside call as far as one can for the moment. I still haven’t seen an angle that covers the whole goal line during the whole event so I cannot judge it for 100%. But if it was offside, this was a moment where the assistant let him down. Or the assistant deciding to stop whatever the ref was up to? A pattern I have seen before with this ref and another assistant. Where after some poor decisions the assistant seemingly deliberately not calls an offside decision. Or just missed it. But when patterns can be seen again and again it raises questions and my suspicion.
Ivans,
we only do the Arsenal games on Untold this season. And no we don’t mention international games. We never did in our reviews. And I didn’t see the Spain-France game so I don’t know which tackle you are talking about.
And because we don’t have the time we don’t cover the CL games but this has been the case for the second season now. Unless something really strange should happen.
And can I understand from the tone of your comment that you are in 200% agreement that Arsenal has been cheated in the past 2 seasons?
And yes I do think that the refs are better in the Arsenal games (until today). Maybe you should give it a thought on what the reason could be?
And as said about the offside goal: you need to see the whole goal line. If you can link me to a replay where the whole goal line is visible I will confirm the offside or not. But so far I haven’t been able to see such a replay. With the replays shown you only see some 10-15 meters of the field. I think the Emirates pitch is much wider. So to be 100% sure we need the have the whole pitch visible.
And if we can get a link to this, rest assured we will call it as it is.
Ivans,
just reading your comment again and want to ask you why Mannone should have been sent off? Just explain the rules if you can.
@Walter
I agree the ref today was awful, especially in the second half when he seemed particularly biased. I am not sure about the goal being offside, it was all too quick to see properly, it looked ok to me at the time, but then unlike Ivans I try to be objective.
I thought QPR did a lot of time wasting – they looked as if they would take a draw right from the start. And as for the post match comments from Sparky – what a bitter rascal.
Some supposed fans have come out to criticise the performance, but, in my view it was not all that bad, there were some areas where we need to improve but we did at times play very well. Further, I do like Giroud up front and how nice it was to see Wilshere, Sagna and also Walcott back on the pitch. Arshavin also made a useful contribution when he came on.
Walter, I look forward to your further comments on the ref.
I just had a look at the archive.
Anthony Taylor was 11th out of 15 refs in the Untold refs’ league last season.
In a review of his competence Walter suggested he should have been demoted at some stage because of his poor score. But he wasn’t.
I too look forward to Walter’s further comments on his performance in today’s match.
One must congratulate this pointless team for scoring an offside goal against a ten men QPR ! WELL DONE WELL DONE (APPLAUSE ALL AROUND) !I just cant wait to see a repeat at the slaughter house next week 8-2 is coming again ! ALL I KNOW IS THAT we ARE GOING TO be thumped AGAINST THE MIGHTY UNITED !
You can tell a club is on the slide when the moan about refs all the time rather than the inadequacy of the team. This has to be the worst Arsenal side since the eighties. If Manu are only slightly on form they’ll win easily.
You can tell a club is on the slide when the moan about refs all the time rather than the inadequacy of the team. This has to be the worst Arsenal side since the eighties. If Manu are only slightly on form they’ll win easily.
I thought the ref had a poor game, very inconsistent with his views on the advantage rule. The goal it looked like the player who ran with Arshavin was playing Arteta on side and then for the 2nd offside it looked like the linesman was unsighted and maybe unsure who knocked the ball forward.
A team that looks short on confidence wins a game against a stubborn team who made no attempt to win the match. Looking at the play charts QPR’s tactics were simple defend deep and attack down Arsenals left targeting Santos. In 90 mins of play(I will come back to this in a bit) Sagna made 1 yes ONE defenceive tackle(which he won) of the 21 tackles attempted by Arsenal only 6 came down Arsenals right hand side. If Santos plays next week I would expect the same targeting by Man U.
Regarding the time and the time wasting I know teams have every right to slow the game down if they want and play to their strengths regarding taking their time over throws, goal kicks etc but doesn’t the ref have a duty to keep the game moving. His allowance of time wasting yesterday was appalling. It is time the FA/PL, the ref’s association and the clubs sat down and gave clear guide lines on how long should be taken over kicks, throws etc. Supporters are now paying a high price for tickets that they deserve a full game of football. With ball boys throwing the ball back much quicker these days shouldn’t there be a set time for goal kicks and throws to be taken. The forth official could be in charge of an NFL type play clock the GK gets 10 seconds from the time he touches the ball to get rid of it at a goal kick and the same for a throw in. If there was more than 65 mins of football played in yesterday’s game I would be amazed.
@rupert cook
Then, may be all teams are on the decline!!!
Rupert,
We wish to thank you for stating the obvious and for your constructive criticism. Now, why don’t you give us some solutions, that don’t involve finding a sugar daddy or bribing the whole Premier League?
Apparently Ryan Nelson was behind the by-line when the ball was crossed so made Arteta on side. Can anybody confirm this rule and how it works
Yes Rupert, 4th place is definitely a sign of the worst Arsenal team since the 80’s.
@rupert cook
Time for you to head back to the AAA sewer, hopefully you do not need to be told twice!
some sure would be a bit more convincing if they would come over here on the numerous occasions when Arsenal was on the wrong end of decisions.
It is a bit like the AAA and when we lose a game. Suddenly they come out the sewer and try to rub our nose in to the dirt.
Alas for them, when we get a decision our way we do report it. But well it didn’t happen that much in the last two seasons. So the wait has been a long one I think.
where were you those last two seasons?
Ruper u re an idiot,screwo off
Apparently Ryan Nelson was playing Arteta onside for the goal even though he was off the pitch. Can anybody explain this part of the offside rule.
Sorry double post my Internet is playing up 🙁
@Florian, I see you agree with me.
I’ve been supporting Arsenal for 41 years so I’ve been around for a few seasons. Refs are never going to be perfect, just get over it and be thankful yesterday’s one missed the offside for our goal. As for the insults from a black coat labrador, congratulations on having a talking dog, when said dog can form a constructive sentence it may have something useful to say.
Fourth place, oh wow, that’s our target achieved then. Perhaps some of you could stop using Chelsea and City’s money as an excuse for Wenger’s poor tactical decisions and terrible performance in the transfer market in recent years. If you care to peruse a site called Swiss Ramble and look at our finances they’re not as poor as many would have you believe. Arsenal could spend fifty million and not go into administration.
Stg,
when a defender goes behind the goal line from the game action he still is counted as on the field and so one defender who stays behind the goal line can play the rest onside.
This doesn’t count when a player was already behind the goal line with an injury and being treated of course. But when for example a defender tries to block a shot, goes behind the goal line he is still active and counts for the offside position. A defender that leaves the field deliberately by stepping behind the goal line to put a forward offside is also still counted and then the forward is not offside.
Thanks Walter thats cleared Mark Hughes’s “cock and bull” comment up from MotD last night. Perhaps managers should take a reffing course as part of their trainning badges
You would be amazed how many managers and players don’t know the rules and come up with all kinds of crazy things when they don’t agree with a decision.
Rupert Cook,
4 th place is not the worst since the 80’s. Grow up & act your age!!
@ dan
Where are all the doom and gloom mongerers?
You just hit below the belt like the Chelsea/MU game didn’t you? If Untold don’t ban posters who disagree with their views I assure you there will be tons
@ Stuart, it’s not the end of the season yet so we have not yet achieved any thing. It’s funny how people who have different opinions are shouted down on here, insults are hurled and hardly any informed debate is forthcoming. All teams have these type of fans so it doesn’t anger me, merely makes me chuckle.
@ rupert
Agreed with your less than optimistic assessment at the quarter mark. I’ve seen every team for the past months and I’m just worried for 4th…
Rupert, thank you again for spotting my irony so promptly. You know what they say about people who are stating the obvious…
Now, leaving the joke aside, I remember taking a two-semester basic economy class, at the end of which I took a management simulation exam. You would be surprized how thin the error margin is in business and how quickly things can go sliding. That’s why it’s always easier to have someone bail you out because you were irresponsible enough to get in a difficult financial situation. With respect to the other alternative, the ones that do the dirty tricks on the refs need that for their living, as their income depends on the number of trophies they win. Last season was a blip and they can’t afford to have a repeat.
And, before I go, one friendly advice: ease off, stop taking things so personally, and try to live a life.
Florian, of course you have to be cautious with spending money. But there’s a difference between being circumspect and stupid. Arsenal have at least 50 million lying around doing nothing. I’d like to see that invested in the team.
After all the club have no qualms about charging extortionate ticket and food prices. It would be rather splendid if they invested some of that in some talented players.
Whoever wrote the lead piece seems to secretly agree with me. That our team isn’t that good or why would you have Wilshire playing in every position? Even the gk. It’s possible that he might be better than Mannone.
Rupert Cook,
If you believe I have insulted you I do apologise however, I do not believe I have insulted you so you may deem that a hollow apology if you wish 😉
@Stuart, I’m not easily insulted. I said people insult people without actually debating. Or they make an anodyne statement and then finish it off with an insult.
I think there are important questions that need to be asked about the direction of the club. I have no issue with those who disagree. And if they want to fire abuse at me they’re welcome. It only reflects on their lack of debating qualities.
@Rupert & Nick and everyone else.
Ok let’s face it, this team isn’t as bad as it is nor is it one without obvious flaws.
The 3 summer recruits are quality recruits.
Podolski is both a midfield goal scorer and brings defensive stability on the left.
Carzola plays the role of the link up man that RVP had to fill last season, and he is more dynamic and mobile.
OG looks like a Nick Bendter minus the ego (don’t laugh, Big Nick is a good striker).
And here lies the problem, we did not fill up the void left behind by RVP. OG, is a great leap in quality from Chamakh, but he is not a goal scoring replacement for RVP.
Which points at a bigger problem, 50M in the bank is basically a one shot ammo for a media friendly replacement for RVP and unless Wenger is 100% sure he is better off with his finger off the trigger.
Unlike the blue side of London, we won’t survive a 50M flop of a striker.
@ Black Hei
well, it depends on your expectations. For me, with the earnings and the wage bill, I expect more.