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Little Mozart

Posted by positivelyarsenal on June 11, 2013 in All Posts

A post by Abhishek Iyer from among our friends over at OTBAG. You can follow him on Twitter here: @Nickspinkboots

There has been a ferociously tectonic shift in the erstwhile dormant plates of English football over the best part of last decade. Nouveau riche owners have blithely sprinkled manna and gold dust on their toy-clubs, irreversibly distorting the financials of the football market in the process. One continuing consequence of this crazy doping is the shortening of patience-spans in football players. While a relatively level playing ground before meant that players could, in theory, stay at clubs for ‘right’ reasons such as stability, loyalty, and stature, the current landscape is becoming disconcertingly about chase-the-dollar.

This financial distortion hit Arsenal very hard in a period of already forced austerity as we waved Highbury a tearful goodbye and lugged all wares to the Groves of Ashburton. His wallet crippled, Wenger opted to rely on the fluctuating but exciting potential of youth. Arsene’s band of silky-toed ragamuffins started well, dancing to the ebb and flow of passing patterns, staying married to their footballing philosophy, growing up together to hopefully win together. But patience, as previously mentioned, soon grew thin (far too soon). Players who might have, under different circumstances, opted to stick with the club where they grew up in order to help the club grow in return, now migrated in droves as they got swayed by roubles and riches, swagger and silver. Arsenal were slowly starved by the twin disparities of money and quality, one often resulting in another. I don’t mean to disparage the players’ motives, which were far-ranging: some were bewitched by the sights and sounds of their hometown, some preferred a bit-part role in a title-winning squad, and some genuinely left for clubs higher up on the global popularity scale. But the regrettable undercurrent in this collective abandoning of ship is a lack of patience and desire to give back, as blinkered and idealistic as that sounds. And this is where I feel Tomas Rosicky bucks the trend.

First off, let’s get the elephant out of the room before it decides to ask for copies of the house key and order customized settees. Rosicy’s clusterfuck of injuries and the greying around his temples meant that he was never going to sell fresh and hot at the transfer bakery, but he has steadfastly denied whatever offers have come his way, choosing to remain with the club that saw him through 18 months on the treatment table. When he signed a long-term contract in 2010 (before the latest one in 2012), this is what he had to say:

“I am so pleased to have signed a new contract with Arsenal. The last two seasons haven’t been easy for me because of injuries but I feel it speaks volumes about the Club’s belief in me for this to be signed, and I truly believe I have a lot left to offer the Club, my team-mates and all the supporters.”

I know there’ll be a snort or two from readers who have learned to grow wary of all bromides that escape players’ lips nowadays, but these particular words have been backed by explosive action as Rosicky continues to enjoy his Indian Summer at Arsenal. He has proved a vital cog in Arsenal’s race to the finish two seasons running now; the dampening fact that he spent the initial parts of both seasons in the infirmary is overshadowed by his hectoring runs from midfield, turns-on-a-dime, and general willingness to run himself to the ground for the team. Romantic as the notion may seem in today’s corporately cocooned world of football, it’s almost like the unfailing trust shown by Arsenal has manifested itself in Rosicky as a springier step, a faster burst, a desire to give back.

The 5-2 victory against Tottenham (the first one) was perhaps his watershed moment; as the first Spurs goal went in, Rosicky seemed to shed his earlier aging self and emerge as Rosicky 2.0, with laser-precision matte finish instead of chipping dried paint. For two successive seasons, he has been the face of bloody-minded Arsenal comebacks: first against AC Milan and then against Bayern Munich, he marshalled the midfield in a kamikaze kitchen-sink dash that saw them almost overcome impossible deficits. An exhausted and distraught Rosicky sitting on his haunches and staring vacantly into space became the image of defiant Arsenal defeat.

As we trundle through the summer of 2013, and other Arsenal players temporarily drop the veneer of patience to sound clarion calls for potential suitors, Rosicky has quietly pledged his immediate future to Arsenal in spite of knowing that he may not be first choice. I know Arsenal fans now consciously try to not be emotionally attached to any one particular player (and rightly  so, after the ceaseless finger burning of the past few years), but I can’t help having a soft spot for our floppy-haired guitarist. Whether he eventually re-joins Sparta Prague or rides off into the sunset an Arsenal man, Tomas Rosicky will have stood true on some oft-forgotten but important principles. He’s not one of the names that will grace daily headlines, but I’m going to take pleasure in acknowledging this small flower of constancy and gratitude in the ferociously shifting tectonic plates of football.

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Nowt Much Doing

Posted by pedantic George @arseblagger on June 10, 2013 in All Posts

I am not entirely sure what this table proves,if anything.What it does show,is that according to what some hack has worked out on the back of his fag packet  Arsenal’s squad  is worth over £100 million more than we paid for it.According to this fellow from The Daily Mail then, of the major players in the BPL ,that is more than any other club.

If nothing else this disproves another popular myth that has grow”Arsene has lost his eye for a bargain”

That’s it for today I don’t intend to speculate on transfer nonsense,its all driving me around the twist.

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Unstoppable Says Mel O’Reilly

Posted by pedantic George @arseblagger on June 9, 2013 in All Posts

TAYLOR

Graham Taylor (possibly following his 2006 meeting with Mel)

On the Friday afternoon before the CL final last month, I happened to be at Stanstead airport and whilst waiting for the wife and kids to buy bottles of lukewarm water at treble the normal price and comics/magazines they wouldn’t be reading I noticed the waves of happy excited German fans swarming the airport having arrived for the game.

It briefly took me back to Paris 06, I remember how excited I felt at London City airport and arriving in Paris for what was to be the biggest game in our European history and ultimately our bravest defeat.

I had travelled with 3 other fellas, none of us had tickets(me being a silver member didn’t entitle me to one) but if we were gonna win ‘old big-ears’ I had to at least be in the vicinity.The 1000 euros I had put by for a ticket proved not to be enough for whatever touts I could find on the day of the game.Even a surreal drunken conversation just before kick-off with ex-England manager Graham Taylor (I liked him- he wasn’t sure about me though) was not enough to get me in.

Watching the people-carriers full of UEFA suits and hangers-on roll into the stadium made my heart sink .Some things are not to be ,although I often wonder if I’d have made it in that night whether one more screaming Gooner would have got the boys over the line?…… sorry about that! Anyway back to the airport,those lovely Germans and in particular those lovely Dortmund fans,how good are they?

I,like most of you wanted them to win,Iin many ways they remind me of Arsenal.

A club operating within its means, trying to achieve success and not buy it, having to sell players to buy players(not any more hopefully!)

Klopp has a touch of a young Arsene about him,no? They, like us are fighting the good fight, the difference is they (the fans,club,players & manager) appear to be sticking together.

The following evening I was sat in a Spanish bar ignoring another Neil Diamond tribute act watching the game, my IPhone switched onto twitter which was full of its usual experts,’lets get Klopp’ ‘let’s get this Player’ ‘lets get that player’, the game itself was great and as we know the bad guys won.

Once again my lasting memory is of those Dortmund fans after the game-just fantastic. I’d seen them at our place and they were amazing but they’d grown even better, an example to all of us.

I suspect there isn’t a media whore amongst them who piggy-backs their club for their own agenda or a blogger who dedicates his site to slagging of the manager and players or bitter ex-players that get work from gullible media outlets by abusing their former employers or worst of all impostors that want the team to fail so there is a change of manager. To quote my good friend Graham Taylor “Do I not like that“.

For the record in Paris on our CL final night I watched the game in a bar close to the stadium and our fans both inside(Iwas close enough to hear them)and outside the stadium were fantastic.Since then things have changed. Personally if I could I wouldn’t ‘get Klopp’ or ‘that Dortmund player’ I’d take their fans.

The moaning,bitching,snideness,booing and stupid banners hasn’t worked has it?

I honestly think if we took a leaf out of Dortmund’s book and started sticking together we’d be unstoppable, as our amazing away support and the good folks on Positively Arsenal have proved,its possible, it really is

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A Day In The Life

Posted by steww on June 8, 2013 in All Posts

As he turned the corner at the end of the street the cold air that had been squeezed between the tall buildings of a narrow side road, angry at being so confined leapt at him from ambush. It threw dust in his eyes and swirled newspaper pages and Styrofoam take-away containers around his legs in an attempt to bring him down. He hunkered into his jacket and pushed his hands angrily into his trouser pockets. He hadn’t realised how much he’d been leaning into the spiteful buffeting wind until he had passed the entrance to the side road and stumbled into a lack, an empty pocket of air without the temper or momentum to support him. This time he swore aloud as an old and familiar pain burned in his left knee and he rocked like a boxer who in ducking a punch had gone too far and nearly failed to right himself.

Friday fucking night, he thought. Everyone else in the office seemed to revert to a playground mentality on the fifth and, for most of them, final working day of the week. The standard insincere morning ‘how are you?’ would more often than not be met with a waggle of the eyebrows or a theatrical tilt of the head and some inanity like ‘TGIF’ or ‘It’s Friiidaaay’ this last would be drawn out in an attempt at a jocose take on Noddy Holder screaming on Slade’s ubiquitous Christmas number one. He, in bleak contradistinction to his grinning colleagues, never felt anything more than numb on a Friday. Never felt any greater positive emotion at least. He had certainly felt less than numb. On many occasions.

To him, the start of the weekend said simply that he had flushed away another five days of his life. In his heart he knew that his co workers were better off than him. As much as he despised and despaired of them, as childish and feeble as they were, men and women of a base and mean intellect who challenged his patience with the least attempt at low and execrable wit, he still knew that they held a trump card he could not match. They were happy. They seemed genuinely thrilled at the endless grinding pointless repetition of their careers and the clichéd paucity of their social lives. They looked forward to a Friday night getting pissed in a pub which boasted only one attraction; it was the nearest drinking den to the office. What astounded him most of all was that to even the most cynical and intense observer they put up an impenetrable façade of pleased anticipation when discussing the prospect of yet another early evening in the same down at heel bar not two minutes from their place of work, and, and this was what really astonished him, the entire time to be spent with the same awful people with whom they’d just endured five miserable, tedious days.

He’d noticed a few weeks ago with a curiously perverse spasm of spurned disappointment that they didn’t even bother inviting him any more. Having refused their entreaties with varying degrees of politeness for the best part of two years now he supposed that it was inevitable, and of course he didn’t want to go in any case. He wanted to put immediate distance between himself, his job and his professional relationships, and so that is what he did. Every Friday, with a growing sense of despair at the grinding futility of his life he peeled off the fake plastic smile the moment he was out of the building and left it to blow along the streets with the other detritus and, head down, arms straight at his sides, hands deep in his trouser pockets he’d head for home.

Home.

Shouldn’t the very word conjure images to banish the demons of his working life? Sanctuary, warmth, comfort. Weren’t these the words with which home ought to be synonymous? But that of course wasn’t how his life had transpired. If work was the mortar in which his days sat moribund, desolate, then his home life was the pestle which ground any remaining hope or ambition to a dry, inert dust. He shivered in the chill evening air and tried to burrow down farther into his jacket chewing absently at the neck of his shirt, his chin submerged beneath his collar. Maybe the wind hadn’t actually picked up, possibly the temperature hadn’t just fallen a degree. Perhaps, he thought as he passed the newsagents and looked for traffic at the familiar crossing which would take him to the entrance of the park, it was the very thought of home that had sent the cold shudder through him. Could she do that? Just by him thinking of her? Didn’t she have to at least take an active part if she was tormenting him from afar? Stick in pins or burn an effigy or something. He crossed the road and smiled a cheap humourless smile to himself.

It wasn’t home that was the pestle he realised. Home in itself was a perfectly pleasant comfortable nondescript terraced house like so many others in the city. They had a nice kitchen, a nice sofa, a nice deck out in their small but perfectly nice back yard, a nice bathroom and a nice if increasingly cold and passionless bedroom. What they seemed to have less and less of these days was anything nice to say to each other. No, it wasn’t wasn’t home that was the pestle. It wasn’t even her. It was them. Them together, them apart even when in the same room. The relationship hadn’t suffered any eruption, there had been no seismic disagreement leaving them stranded on opposite sides of a marital chasm. They had simply not seemed to realise that they’d both stopped watering and caring for the soil in which their love was supposed to grow. They’d killed whatever they’d had together through lazy, careless neglect and now what was left was so dessicated, so utterly beyond saving that even if either of them could summon the will to as much as try to resuscitate their relationship they would find the body long since removed, cremated and the ashes of their distant lost affection blown apart by the winds of domestic despair.

Lost in his dark thoughts and the gloom of the gathering night he found himself at their gate with no recollection of the final half a mile of his walk home. His fingers found the latch key in his jacket pocket and pausing for the merest fraction he drew in a quick breath and so emboldened unlocked the door and stepped inside. As he wiped his shoes on the words ‘Home Sweet Home’ ironically embedded in the fabric of the inside door mat, his spirits suddenly lifted a little. There was no sound from the living room. No television soap opera or game show and no light escaping from beneath the door. Perhaps she’d gone out for the evening. In fairness he had said he was going for a drink after work. Stung at no longer being invited to the apres office piss up and annoyed at her sarcasm when he’d mentioned it at the breakfast table this morning, he had said that, actually, he quite fancied a pint or two and so would be late home. She wasn’t to wait up. If she’d heard him she hadn’t acknowledged the fact but he supposed now that she must have and had decided to go out herself. Sauce for the goose and all that. Well, he thought, having the house to himself for a couple of hours was about as good as Friday night got. He would open a couple of beers and watch what he wanted on the telly for a change. No Ian Beale, no Ken fucking Barlow, but something intelligent, something informative, something, in short, that was actually worth watching.

It was then he heard it. He wondered afterwards if his subconscious hadn’t detected it when he’d stood on the Home Sweet Home mat but had filed it away as too unlikely to be real. As he stepped towards the kitchen door however there was no mistake. A small strangled cry had floated down from upstairs. Like a tiny fluttering bird knocking dust from the branches of his memory the sound was distant, strange and at once immediately, intimately familiar.

It was the sound of his wife having sex.

He placed his hand on the newel post at the bottom of the stairs and as if in a trance or drawn by invisible and at once irresistible threads he began to climb. The door to their bedroom was ajar. She was in the habit of hanging an array of towels and clothing over the top of it and so it was never properly closed. As he stepped onto the landing the unmistakeable, uncontrolled primal noises of his wife achieving a powerful, surging orgasm froze him to the spot. The spell was broken a heartbeat later when an unfamiliar yet unambiguously masculine groan shuddered from the room. He strode forward, his lips and knuckles white his body visibly shaking. As he pushed open the door the tawdry drama was revealed in all its mundane and sordid glory.

It wasn’t the tall, muscular physique of the man lying, sheened with sweat in his marital bed that robbed him of his courage and sapped his anger, although he was very tall and athletic with not an ounce of fat and biceps like a side of beef. Something else made him turn on his heel and stride back to the stairs. An emotion other than rage or fear was spreading through him. A bewildered dazed and confused disbelief led him stumbling blindly to the kitchen. He liberated a bottled beer from the fridge and absently fumbled for the opener in a kitchen drawer. There were the mumbled bass and hysterical treble notes of voices from upstairs and hurried movement on the ceiling above him. He sat and sipped his beer. He didn’t even look up as heavy footsteps descended the staircase. But when the door to the kitchen opened he slowly turned his head and to the confusion of the  lithe, muscular and impossibly handsome man filling it’s frame, a wide beautific smile spread across his face. The man had fine, dignified features, he was young obviously strong at the peak of human fitness and just before he left the house he had attempted a blushing apology and explanation in heavily accented English.

Alone now, with no noise other than the ticking of the kitchen clock and the distant muffled sounds of his wife’s sobbing, he felt for the first time in as long as he could remember, truly happy. He opened another sweating bottle and raised it in a toast to himself before allowing the cold bubbling froth to run down his throat. This could be he thought the greatest moment in his life. It was impossible. And yet it had happened. This was a moment he would treasure for years to come. People would ask him ‘didn’t you mind?’ and they’d say ‘for God’s sake man he slept with your wife’ to which he would shrug ‘The guy didn’t realise she was married, not his fault ‘ and in any case he thought, I won’t be able to blame her for what she’d done. Hell, if I wasn’t straight he could have had me too, the man is simply gorgeous.

He glanced at his phone to check the date. He wanted this day to be seared forever in his memory. This special day, he thought , this happy happiest of days. The day I met Laurent Koscielny.

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Another Rant

Posted by pedantic George @arseblagger on June 7, 2013 in All Posts

My thoughts are all over the place this morning.I am beginning to think I am bipolar.

I read the full transcript of Ivan’s Q & A yesterday ,and was feeling ecstatic.He said everything I wanted to hear.

He confirmed everything I believe to be true and filled me with hope for the future of this great club.

It looks like Arsene is to be offered a new deal and he will finally have some actual money to spend.

Then I made the mistake of reading some tweets and blogs.

What possesses these people to think they understand better how to run the club than the professionals at the very top of their field who have proven time and again that they excel ?

In the last six months or so the team,commercial team and coaching staff have proven their worth.Yet these morons, that feel they know better ,cling to their entrenched positions and try to suck every bit of pleasure from us.

Look at the  site Untold Arsenal.Over there they rejoice in everything about the club.They rightly laud our manager and rejoyce in our every small victory.They look forward in hope.They applaud us winning the Fair Play League and savour the way we have progressed as a club.And what do they get ? Ridicule,that’s what. When what they deserve is our appreciation.

But other sites ,run by people full of their.own self importance ,deride just about everything the club does .They  though ,are held up as some sort of saviours.People doing checks and balances on our behalf.Well they are nothing more than pompous pricks leading the stupid to a place where they can all be miserable together.

I am heartily sick of reading some jumped up no mark telling us what formation we should be playing or who should or should not be playing .It would not be so bad if it was just that,but no,you are told that this is how it should be.Its done in a way that leads the reader to believe that the author is right and the manager is incompetent.

Then you get ” Its just an opinion,I am not saying I know better” When in fact they are doing just that.If you tell someone they are not doing something correctly ,and to do it a different way,its because you think you know better.Why else would you do it?

Ivan confirmed that we have been working within financial restraints.This should have been obvious to all but the retarded.Instead of accepting it those who have been insisting we have been awash with money for years ask why the has he previously said we had money ? Well I look at it this way,you can have no money ,but if your roof blows off you will find the money to get it repaired.Had Arsene insisted that we desperately needed to spend(perhaps to maintain our CL position,as we did with Arshavin)the money could have been found.

How many times will people have to be proven wrong before they are willing to accept that our club is run in an exemplary fashion by people of the very highest calibre ?

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The Fall

Posted by steww on June 6, 2013 in All Posts

The ledge was impossibly high. He could never conceivably have known how far they’d climbed. The ascent had been made in breathless staggering bounds, week after week for nearly ten months and yet despite all the investment of hope that he and his fellow clamberers, crawlers, strugglers and stragglers had put into scaling the height still they were amazed. And then they fell. The sudden free falling tumble into the apparently bottomless abyss took the breath from their lungs and whipped the understanding from their minds.

It was always going to be like this, he tried telling himself. The fall is as much part of the journey as the climb, the rushing wind which ripped the screams from their throats as they’d stepped into the limitless nothing like a breaking wave crashing from the edge of a flat earth into the howling silence of space was as much a part of this life and this boundless adventure as the pain or joy filled days of their upward march. As he slowly became accustomed to the falling the never ending falling, he tried to find a peaceful place inside himself, a stillness at the heart of the maelstrom. The sheer empty terror of the irresistible momentum that had sent them all over into the void was slowly settling. He began to take stock, to examine the path they’d followed which had led them to this inevitable plummet. The sense of falling sometimes left him and he felt more as if he were floating, buoyed up by some huge turbine many miles below which pushed just enough air up the face of the monolith to keep him in this rushing stasis.

In these moments he wondered at the apparent futility of their shared adventure and he took the time to consider the plight of those who hadn’t been able to maintain the pace, whose bleeding feet had betrayed them when the surface of the mountain turned unexpectedly into a jagged razored nightmare. He had been staggered by the betrayal of some, especially those who had made the journey many, many times before. Men who had previously earned a reputation for helping others less certain of the route, daunted by the apparently Quixotic idea of even attempting such an ascent. Men who had lifted the weak over boulder strewn paths and sheltered them from storms which threatened to pluck them from narrow vertiginous ledges. He had seen even men like this falter and fail. But that hadn’t been the worst of it. It wasn’t that they had turned themselves inside out and questioned the folly of the climb. It wasn’t even the ones who allowed their fingers to release their tenuous hold, their feet to stop taking each difficult step. It was the men who, merely weary of the journey, had plucked out their own eyes so rendering themselves blind to the mountain itself. As they simply refused to see and in so doing denied those very many parts of the journey which were radiant in their beauty. The gentle sweet verdant meadows, criss crossed with dancing ice clear streams where the weather was always benign and the views simply took people’s breath away. What was beyond the pale, beyond understanding and acceptance was that these men, in agonies at their self mutilation, had turned on other pilgrims and tried to convince them that the path was not worth treading.

He could understand if anyone chose not to go on. Life was nothing if it wasn’t about choices but he could never understand nor forgive the kind of man who would insist on dragging others down with him. Deaf to the music, blind to the beauty, these once great men had grovelled in the dirt at the side of the track and begged those who passed them not continue but rather to join them in self flagellation as if in some masochistic penance for ever believing the mountain was worth climbing in the first place. He and his closest companions had left these tormented souls behind and continued the journey, the fire that burned within them undiminished by passing squalls and blazing ever brighter for the attempts of lost pilgrims to douse the flames. They basked together during the long sun drenched days when the path was truly a joy to walk upon and they drew together for comfort and warmth on the rare occasions when the cold winds of winter blew. But no savage storm could daunt them and through their mutual strength they faced down the pitfalls and venomous reptiles which sometimes barred their way.

Two weeks he thought. It has only been two weeks since they’d achieved the summit and plunged into the silent screaming void together. Conversation was barely possible in the onrushing wind and no matter how much he told himself that they would surely gather together soon and set out on the foothills of another climb, he was aware that their fellowship was dissipating. Each man and woman was spiralling downwards as if encased in their own intangible field of memory and distant hope. He caught the odd shouted word before it was snatched away but much of it was speculation about the end of the fall and what would follow. How would they land? Hard or easy? How would the impact affect their ability to face the next mountain, and what could they expect from their next journey together? What lay in store for the pilgrims? What indeed. But he found himself unable to concentrate on their conjecture, their words, insubstantial and without the mass to withstand the force of the savage gale, were snatched away like dry leaves before a hurricane.

And so he found himself alone. Separated from his companions until their descent ended, which he knew it must, as abruptly as it had began. How many times in his life would he make the climb, just to endure the fall, he wondered. And how could such a repetitive experience so surprise him each and every time? Despite these musings he knew in his heart that nothing would stop him rejoining his fellow travellers as the long days began to draw in once more, as Summer turned to Autumn and as, with equal inevitability, their fellowship would be reborn. What had he once told them? ‘Hobgoblin nor foul fiend can daunt his spirit’ for when they walked upon the lush grass in the meadows at the foot of the mountain they would contemplate the climb with renewed relish, with hope in their hearts and a glad song on their tongues.

But that was for the future. Now it was just the endless falling, falling with nothing to do but fall and fall some more. And yet like a burgeoning seed nurtured in that still and silent place he was already beginning to dream of the distant day when they would link arms and stand together on the summit and savour that longed for moment when they could gaze down upon the lesser peaks all around them.

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Personal experiences of 2012-2013 season & Looking forward to the next season

Posted by pedantic George @arseblagger on June 5, 2013 in All Posts

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What a final few months of the season!
What a group of players!
What a manager!
Ok, I will stop saying what now.
What a club! …. Stop it SA!

We showed remarkable fight in the 2011-2012 season to finish 3rd. However, the end of the season did not have the special feeling that I have right now. I would even confidently correct that to, “we have right now”. Certainly, the lack of uncertainty is a progress over the last two summers. Digressing, I would even say that it was an achievement to stay at the level we were and not go down considering the quality of the players we lost. In order to prevent any doomers from picking up on that, I would like to stress that it is neither my or the Club’s ultimate ambition. Credit should however be given to the club and manager for staying afloat. Now to swim.

We have what appears to be a close group and a functioning team with steely resolve. More importantly, the team has shown consistency in a pressure cooker situation. They are going to face this in every match next season if they are going to win the title, but I am confident they can handle it. I also hope they are able to enjoy themselves. Arsenal are a sight to behold and quite lethal when they do that. I am sure Wenger will make that happen. That man thinks it is an obligation to entertain us!

Regarding summer buys, like others on Positively Arsenal, I am not sending a wish list to Wenger. He is not Santa. If Santa was real, I would wish that Wenger was my father-in-law. I would have such intelligent conversations with him all the time. Mind you, Santa might say that granting me wishes is not his department and pass me onto south pole. Bloody bureaucracy! Back from my second digression, Wenger will be the best judge of the players who could potentially improve the team further. Whoever he buys though, will bring excitement, his skills will be analysed and he will be a part of personal teams of commentors here. Looking forward to that.

Looking back at the season, it took a costly turn in the middle. For some reason, the players did not believe in themselves. I think it started with the visit to Manchester United (For those of you who do not know what Manchester United is, I am talking about manure) where we played with fear. In many of the matches after that, we were apprehensive, maybe too afraid to lose. We tried valiantly in the second half, but it was too late. Sadly, when the team needed the support of the supporters most, Arsenal fans let them down. It was a sickening sight watching moaners reveling when fence sitters joined them. However, sometimes out of something bad, something good comes up. Thus was born the beacon of light amongst Arsenal supporters, Positively Arsenal. Thank you guys.

The team identified problems and with the collective desire to man up and win at Bavaria and each of the 10 cup finals, we improved drastically. A few hours before the start of the Bayern match, I had posted a comment here addressed to the team asking them to fight and play so well that Bayern will be scared to face us next time around. The team did just that. I hope we get to play Bayern in next season’s Champions League. P.S. I am in no way claiming my comment spurred the team.

This season, we narrowly missed out on seeing my dream midfield of Arteta, Diaby & Rosicky in action over a stretch of games. Add Arshavin to the front left and…. *wipe drool off the chin*. Maybe we will be lucky enough to see that next season, minus Arshavin (Goodbye little genius).

Cazorla and Rosicky have quickly developed a good understanding. During one of the 10 cup finals, Rosicky poked the ball a little ahead and peeled away. I only saw an opposing player on the screen and was scratching my head when Cazorla nipped into the screen and played a one touch pass (I think back to a forward running Rosicky).

In my opinion, great footballers should think creatively of solutions and use physics consciously too. Gervinho has showed glimpses of that. In one of the matches last season, when Arsenal counter attacked, the ball was passed to Gervinho at pace and it also bounced. At one particular instant, the trajectory of the ball was such that it would be air borne when it passed the defender in a few fractions of a second. So the defender lifted his leg up anticipating this. Gervinho kicked down on the ball and it bounced under the defenders feet. A second later, the ball was at Gervinho’s feet, a yard ahead of the defender. Gervinho is in the hands of the best man who can improve him. It is upto him to ignore the “supporters” and step up.

 

Ramsey was a revelation to some, wasnt he? To us, he just got back to what he is capable of. Kudos to those who recognised why he was played on the wing. Even Ramsey (atleast publicly) doesnt seem to realise why he was played there. Maybe he will when he gets to Arteta’s age and maturity. When Ramsey started playing in midfield, I noticed him on the right wing a few times in every match either supplementing attack or covering Sagna.

Regarding other players, Fabianski and Szczesny have created a healthy competition for the goal keeping spot. I hope Fabiannksi stays over for next season. When Koscielny goes for the ball, Koscielny gets the ball, no matter where the ball is. Opposing team strikers better learn to accept this fact. Mertesacker showed that you can look like you are going to fall over when you run, have a big smile on your face and still be calm and steal the ball from the likes of Augero. Deadly should be the word used to describe Waclott this season. Podolski showed why he plays for Germany and Giroud has the graceful movement of a striker in his prime.

The prospect of this team improved in understanding and cohesion next season is mouth watering. I would have preferred FA Fergurson to have stayed. They are already saying that the changes at other clubs gives us an opportunity. As though we can only strike when the others are weak! Bullshit!!

The rivals are going to blow us out of the water in terms of spending and try to win the title before the first whistle is blown. Does not matter. I am looking forward to seeing a silky and determined Arsenal next season

By Sensational Arsenal

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Personal Experiences of the 2011-2012 season and the summer after

Posted by pedantic George @arseblagger on June 4, 2013 in All Posts

Before the season started, our beloved Cesc proved that he was still a boy. Na$ri left? Meh. However, there was one thing that gave me a bad feeling. Judas was muttering that he would wait until his aunty’s cold became better and after his car started giving good mileage, etc., before he would even think the contract, but he “loved” Arsenal. Obviously, he was toying with the club and making us wait. All of this combined with the glee at Arsenal’s fall (oh false it was) both outside and inside the club put us in turmoil. This is when I saw Wenger’s true strength. The man was down and kicked, but never beaten. He has said that Frimpong is the kind of guy you want to go to war with. For me, Wenger is the kind of guy I would go to war with.

The 8-2 defeat was one of the two Arsenal matches I have stopped watching mid-way. It felt like luck was smirking as she twisted her knife in us. Everything they tried went in. After the match, we had to pick ourselves up either quickly or suffer for a long time.  Credit to the team for doing the former.

In the 2011-2012 season, we showed glimpses of our potential. We even had unforgettable moments. My personal favourite was how Rosicky & Co. spanked the team who were apparently “better than every Arsenal player except Judas”. The second one would be the game against Newcastle, when Vermaelen charged down the length of the pitch in injury time and won us the game. I am glad Rosicky and Vermalen are still with us. Last,  but not least was the return of the king. I am unfortunate to have missed his and the golden team’s reign but I got to see Henry playing in an Arsenal shirt. The words “Henry! Chance! GOAL!!!” will forever send shivers down my spine. Those words were followed by, “He maybe cast in bronze, but he is still capable of producing truly golden moments”. That shows you what good commentary can do. My brother’s reaction was “meh, it is not a great goal”. My reaction was incredulity at his comment. Now I realise, that moment is extra special because only gunners like us can feel that emotion. I feel privileged to be a part of this club and for this club to be a part of my life.

Then Judas had to try and overshadow it all in the summer. Make it all about him! The club has no ambition?! You have no ambition mate! You have no stomach for Arsenal’s fight! Thank god you are gone! We are better for it and now have a group who have shown class and steel in equal measure. This group is on the cusp of something great and I am truly glad you are not any part of it.

Needless to say, the exit and the manner of it brought us all down. However, I was glad to see the wise Arsenal supporters online say, “Fuck him! We are Arsenal!”. P.S. To all the doomers and moaners out there, this is where you say we are Arsenal! Not as a desperate attempt to justify your moaning.

With the talent Wenger brought in, the players already here and the return of Diaby, preseason 2012-2013 brought anticipation and excitement. The group looked to be solid and of sterner stuff. To me, Vermaelen looked affected right from pre-season. This is entirely my speculation, but I think he was affected by what Judas did. Maybe he took his side of the friendship seriously.

Every season of watching Arsenal is rewarded with glorious moments and feelings. Many times it is sub plots that the world doesnt know or doesnt care about that bring us a lot of cherished joy. Only gunners like us get the premium Arsenal ride. Enjoy it!

By Sensational Arsenal

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Genius And Loyalty In Adversity

Posted by pedantic George @arseblagger on June 3, 2013 in All Posts

It would appear that someone has taken my “trying to teach quantum physics to parrots” quip and run with it.

Here it is then, a guest post from Jayfree LordGunner Szczesny via our partners at OTBAG.  Enjoy, I did.  PG

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I set out in my own little way to try and teach quantum physics to parrots, seeing there are far too many these days. As an avid reader of this blog I may not hit the great heights of the usual writers but I will simplify it a bit to a level even the moaning parrots can understand. I do love history and a stat or two, but not today.

Rather, I’ll be looking at the period 2005 to now that created the Great Schism amongst our fan base.

In 2006 we reached our first ever Champions League final which was swiftly followed by a move to the majestic Emirates stadium coupled with a state of the art training ground in the shape of the Colney. However the lack of any trophy in the following years delivered a schism that showed the true colour of every Arsenal fan.

Judging by what detractors, moaners and haters have made of this period one would assume it has all been stagnation and mediocrity. This is very far from the truth with the club achieving so many club bests and records, not to mention the avoidance of the pitfalls that befall many a club following a change of stadium (e.g Man City, Wigan and Nottingham).

With the Anti-Arsenal crescendo growing there was emergence of a true and intelligent fan base to rival the camp made up of lazy journalists with half baked lies, moaners, glory hunters and other such filthy ilk. I prefer to call them the parrots, repeating the same old lies over and over in hope we all fall for them as gospel truths.

However, much to the chagrin of our club’s enemies, we stood firm in our faith and support.

The parrots seeing they were destined for an epic failure resulted to spreading doom and gloom. The other option  for them was to label the true, faithful, loyal and intelligent fans as AKBs, blind, deluded, sycophants etc. This was a serious case of the blind choosing to ridicule the sighted for being far-sighted. It also leaves one asking: if our most decorated manager doesn’t know best then who does? The idle bloggers with zero games managed? The social media account holders who have become experts on scouting, injuries, signing, tactics etc.  Or even the journalist who would earn more as a manager if he could but only put his footballing theories to the test.

Maybe it still remains to be seen who is deluded.

But when you sit there asking us not to support EVERY player in our shirt then you are clearly deluded. Delusion is a guy who has never even managed a Sunday school team having the arrogance to  ask us to agree with all his doom and gloom, trust his untested opinion rather than that of our most successful manager.  You can write a million blogs on surgery but I wouldn’t trust you over a proven surgeon, no day no way.  Would you rather be a sycophant to a moaning blogger who knows next to nothing about managing a football team or a sycophant to a manager of the decade?

Wait, don’t answer that.

Some typical examples of parrot lies include the following gem:  The players don’t have heart.

While this may be true of those who left us (like Adebayor, Cole, Nasri?) for more money or to ride on the backs of others for a quick trophy (Cesc, RvP?), it is certainly not true for those who stay and fight for the shirt.  As you moan and throw your toys out of the pram, the likes of Diaby, Ramsey, Sagna stayed and put their bodies on the line for us.  At the very least, they deserve our love, support and respect.

A common lie that we have all heard is that the club is not ambitious and Arsene has money to spend.  Which of course he never spends, season in season out. I guess having a blog, working for a local tabloid or even owning a social network account makes you, as an individual more ambitious than those who actually kept us stable having overseen an ambitious move to a new stadium.  A move, incidentally, others such as Spurs and Liverpool, are STILL struggling to make. If Arsene had kept back £60m every season, his mattress would have hit the ceiling by now. Anybody with half a brain will know we have not been in the financial shape to compete with Man Utd or the sugar daddy clubs.

Then somebody yells: even smaller clubs spend more than we do! And that is why you have Rangers, Portsmouth, Coventry, Leeds etc paying the price.

A realistic Arsenal fan  – a sincere fan – would never ask the club to spend beyond our means knowing it could put us in a shallow grave.

The most comical parroted lies touch on the manager.

How many times have you come across this crap that the manager doesn’t do tactics, the manager doesn’t train defence or know how to buy a defender?  But these people – many of whom write on social media, maybe the odd pundit who has failed as a manager or as a blogger who has managed zero games, knows less about tactics than a League Two manager, let alone Arsenal’s best manager and, again, incidentally, the EPL Manager of the Decade.  Some of the best defenders in our history like Campbell, Toure, Cole, Lauren, Sagna, Koscielny etc, are all HIS buys. Holding the European record of 996 minutes, the unbeaten season, all apparently achieved without Arsene bothering to get around to training the defence are all obviously HUGE contradictions.

In all this I have discovered we have several types of parrots.

The first type of parrots are the Trophy Hungry Brigade who demand a trophy at all costs. They will use history to tell you we are a big club that fails if it does not get a trophy, yet they tell you don’t use recent history of Arsene trophies to appreciate him. Of this group Bergkamp wondered whether they love Arsenal or just Arsenal with trophies.

The second group are the Moaners. This is the most absurd group, crying and whining instead of supporting.

The Moaners crumble at the first sign of difficulty but are the FIRST to blast the players for not showing heart.

Moaning at every signing, every substitution and every line up. This group has already predicted Sanogo will flop.   Amusingly, just like they did with Koscielny and many others before him. After predicting every player will flop they do get a perverted we told you joy when it doesn’t work out for a player. The hindsight moans after every line up and substitution could be the subject of a great satire. Ramsey has left them with egg on their faces, but even now, they STILL think they know best.

The third type are the Pseudo Experts – among them the bloggers, the journalists and managerial failures turned pundits. The first two use misleading headlines and twisted stories to spread their Anti Arsenal/Arsene agenda. The pundits talk too much over how practicing managers aren’t doing the simple A,B,Cs of the game whereas they failed or dare not try.  Turns out it could just be peer jealousy.  Arsene once said he “is paid to manage they are paid to talk”. Well we all know talk is cheap, so let them talk.

The fourth type are the trolls from other clubs who masquerade as Gooners to be part of the anti Arsenal/Arsene agenda. Their agenda is to act as a catalyst to self destruction, attempting crudely to push us over the edge. They paint a picture of an Arsenal fan who is always angry, frustrated or bitter with his club, management and players.  Sadly for them, we see through them all.

The true genius of our manager has been seen in adversity.

The loyalty of our true fans has been seen in adversity.

The manager deserves to be hailed for the ambitious move to Emirates and how competitive he has kept us against all odds.  Paul Kaye and his mates unveiled the ‘GEORGE KNOWS BANNER‘ not only as a tradition but a show of our class. True fans like myself never fear parrots and we always chant, ‘ARSENE KNOWS BEST’. We are never afraid or shy to proclaim always, ‘IN ARSENE WE TRUST‘.  A true fan stands for something and never falls for anything or gets blown by the winds of doom and gloom.  You will never find a better, stable and more successful 17 years in our history. Never forget it took us 44 years to build and rebuild for our first ever trophy.

On the subject of celebrating fourth, a certain King Henry made it clear that in our celebrations we were happy to prove our detractors wrong and to bamboozle the enemy, nothing more nothing less.

With better days ahead keep the faith and support Arsenal.

I can be found on Twitter as: @LordgunnerJefri

Jayfree LordGunner Szczesny (Facebook)

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David Rocastle – Mel’s Favorite Player

Posted by pedantic George @arseblagger on June 2, 2013 in All Posts

Some players just look right in an Arsenal kit.You couldn’t see them in any other .Some join other clubs and you come all over Gok  Wan when watching them (I better explain that!) and find yourself shaking your head saying “no, no that’s just not you”.

It’s not just our club,I mean Glen Hoddle ‘looks spurs’ just as much as Thierry ‘looks Arsenal’,but the man who looked Arsenal more than anyone who wore the red & white and carried the canon with style,skill and that ‘we ain’t losing this one attitude’ just happens to be my favourite player David Rocastle.

I was fortunate enough to be at wembley to see him pick up his first winners medal,a league cup against the Scousers ,and I bet he was as gutted as me a year later when we lost to Luton.

He was that type of player.

One of us.

The fan on the pitch.

He never gave up and we loved him,always will.

1989 saw him pick up his first title on that magical night at Anfield .Again I was lucky enough to be there and I remember at the end Rocky came overwith his great big smile and his dancing eyes.

He had been amazing in that game,in fact you’d have trouble remembering a duff appearance from our number 7. I think Arsene would have loved him and i think the feeling would have been mutual.

He went onto win another title for us in a team that lost just once that season, but George Graham had started to play him central,frustrating for us who loved his banana shaped passes up the line,his powerful running and his knack  of scoring beautiful  and important goals,(look up the league cup semi final at the lane and the one that kissed the bar on the way in against the Mancs at Old Trafford).

He was a tough so and so too,his comment about the brawl at Old Trafford(for which Arsenal were docked 2 points but went on to win the league anyway) was typical-” it was our team mate, our little blood brother in trouble. They were kicking Nigel (Winterburn) like a nighclub brawl. Thats what got us upset. if it was just a bad tackle,you wouldn’t go in like that,no chance. But when I saw them kicking Nigel,I ran over thinking ‘you can’t have this’ we went in there and stuck up for each other. At Arsenal we never started fights-we just finished them”.

Despite playing in every league game the following season something was obviously up and Graham sold him to Leeds via that famous conversation between the 2 men in a car ,which left Rocky in tears.

He didn’t want to leave,he knew where he was loved but George clearly had reservations about the players knee injury, which ultimately was correct.

He went on to play for Leeds and Man City ,never reaching the heights he had at the Arsenal, where young players coming into a dressing room full off strong characters were welcomed always first ,and encouraged by Rocky.

That speaks volumes for him.

You will find no-one who has a bad word about him and where his name is still sung at every game to this day,he died tragically ,way too young ,but is remembered always by his fellow gooners.

I’d like to think he’s up there being watched by a grinning Geordie Armstrong in his red & white kit.

As and forever our number 7 .Terroriisng old spurs defenders! He wore it well, in fact no-one has ever worn it better

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