By Billy the Dog McGraw
I have this week been running a campaign for Mr Adebayor to be transferred week by week from club to club so that he can play us every week. For some bizarre reason Sir Hardly Anyone, chair of the Premier League has not replied to my letters, but I am still hopeful.
Aston Villa are a team much admired by the AAA since they once won the European Cup, and won the FA Cup and League 142 times in the 18th and 19th century.
I visited my old chum Dennis Bergkamp at the Rock n Roll Allotment site, Enfield, where he has a plot, and we spoke of the game and the habit of Villa of reducing the number of seats allocated to away fans who stand from time to time. Apparently we are now down to 17 allocated seats (which is why it is still possible to buy tickets for the match).
Last year we won 2-1 in this game at a stroll and Dennis gave me the run down on the affair. Apparently Arsenal are the bookies’ favourite and Dennis has put two cauliflowers on them to win at 11-8 on. Sounds good enough for me.
Our time will be
Szczcsyczcycazsy
Sagna Mertersacker Vermaelen Gibbs
Arteta Wilshere
Carzola
Gervinho Giroud Podolski
Most importantly we must be wary of Weimann (who has a pet pony called Haddock) who has scored two goals this season already and is the Villa top scorer. Bent also has two.
On the beach we will have Mannone, Gnabry, Oxlade- Chamberlain, Ramsey, Djourou, Coquelin, Arshavin, Jenkinson, Koscielny, Gibbs,
Mr Walcott has as dubious shoulder until the end of the month, Mr Diaby has a dodgy thigh, Mr Santos has a stomach with a problem, Mr Rosicky seems never to be returning from his calf injury, and Mr Fabianski is out until next year.
As for our leading league scorers we have three players on four: Cazorla, Giroud, Podolski 4
We don’t lose to Villa, at least not since the Battle of Waterloo, and we always score in the last few minutes.
What we will have on the pitch is the person who makes the most passes in almost any league of significance – Mikel Artete who has knocked across over 1100 passes this season alone. In fact only one player in the major leagues outdoes him and that is Xavi Hernández who plays in the two team league that is Spain.
So what of Villa these days. They have lost four and won only one of their last six, which is actually worse than Arsenal as we make our way back up the league. But we’ve lost the last two aways which is not so good.It is on ESPN so a good idea to turn the sound right down before the match starts, unless you are one of the lucky few to get a ticket in the away end.
As a manager Paul Lambert is worthy of a word. He currently has a win ratio of 33% – his best ever was just under 50% at Norwich.
He started out at Livingston. He managed 32 games for the club, won five (two in the league) and was sacked
He then went to Wycombe Wanderers and in the League Cup semi final held Chelsea 1-1 in the home leg but he left after failing in the league two play offs.
Next up was Colchester where he was a mid-table manager but left within a year to go to Norwich. He took them to the League 1 title and promotion to the top league. But then the fun started. Colchester claimed and finally got £425,000 in compensation. Norwich were fined £75,000, with £125,000 suspended for two years for breaching the tapping up regulations. Then Norwich refused to allow Burnley to approach him as manager.He then resigned at the end of the last season, but his resignation was refused. Yet despite this and despite having only recently signed a new contract he signed as manager for Aston Villa!
Now his side are third from the bottom, two points below Wigan and safety. Lambert will be in the stands as he is currently banned from the touchline for ‘improper conduct’ at last week’s match.
Last three games
Arsenal 3 (Gibbs, Walcott, Arteta) Aston Villa 0, Premier League, March 2012
Arsenal 3 (van Persie 2, Walcott) Aston Villa 2, FA Cup, January 2012
Aston Villa 1 Arsenal 2 (van Persie, Benayoun), Premier League, December 2011
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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”: crowd behaviour at the early matches
The sites…
- For the parent who really wants to know what is really going on in schools
- Referee Decisions – just what are the refs up to this season?
- The weight loss programme: The only guaranteed way to stay fit
this might be the best squad we have played till now, isn’t this the same squad (minus wilshere) that pounced SOTON 6 goals. hope they do the same.
Lmao …. quite funny actually…. coming from a fan of the biggest club in England that wins nothing and is happy to be fourth fiddle to the Manchester giants and their smaller neighbours in SW6. I’m sure our under 22’s will put a shift in against your underachieving overrated primadonna’s.
Hope they don’t find out that we have Gibbs at left back and on the subs bench at the same time !
3-1 to Arsenal .
Up the Gunners !
How is it that ManU, Chelsea & Everton have two home games this week, whereas ManC & Arsenal have two away games? Fair?!
0-0, nothing less than we deserved. Gunners had nothing to offer in tough conditions.
Its strange when Poldi’s fighting for the ball and on fire the team play much better, but today he was very quiet.Shame we couldn’t nick it, its always tough at Villa Park. Horrible conditions though…
The stadium was there, the fans were there, the pitch was there, even had 22 players on the pitch. You might have thought a game of football would’ve broken out?
THe conditions didn’t help Adam. It’s no excuse for our poor performance, but it was a factor. You could see it affected both sides. It was tough to play a proper game of football out there.
@Shard, Im fed up with trying to be positive about this team. the only saving grace for me is everyone bar Man u has less points than this time last year, they have the same, 30 points. City were out in front 4 points clear with a game in hand. So the target remains for Arsenal at least 37-41 points going in to January. The most points a teams has had going in to Jan has been 45. Not much more room for error.
Still hopeful but we need to win games like these, look how quickly we moved the ball around last week, then tonight nothing, We have only beaten 11 players in the league once since we thumped Southampton back in early september.
OK Winge over.
To quote a person from twitter “Major trophies in decades: 40’s=1 50’s=2 60’s=0 70’s=3 80’s=2 90’s=5 00’s=5 Which #Arsenal do you want back?”.
Pretty poor game. Weather not helping.
As has been said many times before, it’s difficult to achieve the level of performance needed to beat the likes of Aston villa after a tense CL game a few days before.
At least we didn’t get beaten, unlike Celtic and Real Madrid this weekend.
some week we are high on performance, some weeks we are not. I simply can’t understand our erratic form. not many expected a draw but there was this dreaded sense (evening kickoff + bad weather) that arsenal might surprise us.
more than arsenal, arsene surprised us by his unorthodox subs. may be today was an indication of things to come in January but a DMF subbing a Striker has kept many fans baffled and maybe angered.
all in all our defensive trio : mert, kos and SCSZ did really well. SCSZ really deserves a pat in the back for his performance.
I hope we do well against ‘dipping in form’ Everton.
Tuff game villa played their socks off we needed fresh inspiration , wasn’t happening upfront today. nothing more than that, not a disastrous point in the grand scheme. This squad still in development after van Persie fucked off it will take time for new signings to be consistant stay behind the team. Ramsey stats were actually good today, didn’t lose possession once which is normally his weakness. Now just needs a goal or 2 to give him confidence. Ox and podolski indifferent , giroud tired . Need gervinho to improve or maybe another striker in jan
My 2 cents are on the team playing at just the required level as to not lose, but saving energy for the CL game with Olympiakos, which if we win can still bring us in a better position than finishing second.
@ Limpar
Ramsey had a decent game. Had 3 shots on target???..or is it 2. And his back heels, quick returns, and one-twos all worked, and he helped out the defense as well.
Ramsey, stats or otherwise, actually looked like he was trying to make something happen. Ox, Cazorla, Arteta, all had poorer games. Podolski’s first touch was horrendous throughout. A lot of our passes were not finding their mark. But that was true for both teams. The weather was a huge factor. We should however, have found a way to deal with it. Probably a set piece or something. When we did get an opportunity, with Koscielny unmarked in the 6 yard box, it went over. The defense was one positive. I think we need another midfielder to give us more options (Rosicky or Diaby would have helped today but we can’t keep relying on them), and we need another option up front.
As for the Giroud substitution, the most likely factor is the kick he took on his heel. He seemed in a lot of pain because of it. Do people not remember that?
@Shard
Correct – Giroud took a nasty tackle from behind, the AV player did not get the ball & yet no foul seemed to be given.
A disappointing result, but not a disaster.
Adam
ref comment at 11:13
I’ll come back to you shortly about the points situation
Yes Mandarin, I liked that comment too.
As I remember, we never got easy game on Villa Park. After Spud game and CL game, we away to Villa Park. Not a good result, but I can accept that.
Celtic lose, and surprisingly Madrid lose (and not score). We can not played Jack because it is to risky to give me so many games in a row after he recovered.
If yesterday not raining and slippery, maybe we can win 1-0 or 2-0.
After this, we have another hard game, Everton, away again. I hope Lady Luck back to our side, sometimes we can get a very good result at Godison Park.