Blow the transfer rumours, paps and press and lets put in a performance to make the football pundits start to believe that a big chunk of humble pie could soon have to be eaten!
I say lets get to Bolton, play the best eleven fit, make Coyle think he should have stayed at Burnley and we come home with three points.
Then on Wednesday when they turn up at our fortress the knees will be knocking, the confidence low and we can give them a lesson in football.
We have a midfield without Denilson, Ramsey and Song, great eh!! But what we do have which will make all the difference is our little magician back.
I don’t rate Denilson much anyway, so his loss is no big deal in my eyes, but the question is who does the boss play alongside Cesc?
Well on here and many other blogs, suggestion is to play TV there, I was all against splitting up the defensive pair but maybe today could just be the day to give it a try?
Let Sol play alongside Gallas and TV alongside Cesc…
Here is my team for today and we all know I am usually wrong so I expect to be again today 🙂
Fabianski
Sagna Gallas Sol Clichy
Cesc TV Traore/Rosicky
Nasri Eduardo Arshavin
We all know Manure and Chelsea won yesterday, today is about not letting them sneak away, keep the gap as it is and then pounce when they are not looking 🙂
Oh, and Happy Birthday kelsey….
avenell
JonJon
Avenell Road 
Morning all
Short post, but just thought a new match day one would be good…
Don’t think Sol is match fit yet after so long out but yes its the best option in the situation. would give sol the last 30 min though to warm him up today that would ready him enough for wednesday back at emirates. i think vm would give song a good run for the money.
Morning rico and all
I agree wholeheartedly with your view that we should get at ’em today come home with 3 points and then show them how to play football on Wednesday at the Emirates.
Anyone fancy guessing which team has scored the most goals from outside the box this season – by a long long way 😉
Happy Birthday kelsey 😆
Sorry I messed it up yesterday everyone 😦
Morning Roadsters 😉
Many Happy Retrurns kelsey 🙂
Good positive post rico 😛
Poor ol’ pool 😆
Morning Rasp and peaches, I thought everyone was having an hours sleep – I know I did 🙂
Good that the Spuds dropped points too, and Citeh got stuffed 🙂 🙂
Back to reality …. he won’t play TV as a HM.
I read that Arsene said that AA’s foot injury means he can’t kick the ball properly……. so not only do we have a 5ft 4 ins target man up front, but he can’t shoot 😦 Actually, all credit to AA for playing through the pain.
No way will he play TV there Rasp, you are right, so with the crab out will Nasri play there or maybe Tomas …
JET, Watt and Coquelin – Come On Down 🙂
Credit to AA Rasp, but what long term damage could it do? If we had the right squad, AA could have had a rest 😉
Morning All,
That report about AA sums up our problems. Playing an essential cog in our team through an injury is plain madness. Look at what happened to RvP when he was rushed back, and Nik’s groin problem was exacerbated by AW playing him when he was clearly injured, resulting in a 10 week lay-off at a time when he is desperately needed.
I hope it isn’t true.
rico 😉
True rico, I think pool have been playing Gerrard and Toprres with injuries and its finally caught up with them. AW proved he is prepared to risk players for the points when he put Cesc on last time.
He’ll put Diaby as the HM and play Nasri, Cesc, Tomas and Dudu, with AA up front I reckon.
Thanks for the good wishes.Glad we don’t have to play Everton again,at least in the league.
I hear Nasri is out,can anyone confirm that.
I like your team Rico, but he will stick with Almunia and I expect Diaby to be in there to add a bit of muscle.
Morning Raddy,
I wonder if this is the foot injury when AA had stitches at half time and then came out and pplayed the second half. I didn’t understand at the time how anyone could play with fresh stitches in their foot – you’d think they”d tear the first time he kicked the ball.
The mighty Arsenal have scored the most goals from outside the box so far this season – we have scored 11 – Cesc 4 Denilson 3 Arshavin 2 Ramsey 2 – just behind us with 5 are Citeh – Tevez 5 – and the chavs – Drogba 3 Essien 2
We won’t pay upwards of £15m for a top class striker .. end of.
All the articles quoting AW as wanting to buy have just bought the spin themselves.
The best we can hope for is another Sol-type signing. RVP is out of the question, so since Arsene has broken his ‘won’t take them back rule’, so as a good friend of mine suggested, he should try to get TH on loan till the end of the season …. never gonna happen by the way.
if dzeko did not have his heart set on milan, i reckon we could have splashed the best part of 25M on him
Great minds Raddy 😉 🙂
I dont mind the dippers doing it Rasp 😉
Got to pop out, back in a while..
Morning Roadsters…. Cheers for the post rico..
A interesting rumour that Quinny said on the radio this morning.
Gerrard had a row in the dressing room at HT during the Reading game and has been given a two week ban by the Dippers.
His groin strain was an excuse, because Babel who came on for him never warmed up during the break and only got ready at the start of the second half when he had already took his seat on the bench.. Oh dear..
We’d never pay £25m for a player in the current climate….
Morning ave 😉
Hi Rasp… you working mate?
Fraid so …. I need the money 😦
Don’t we all..
How is buisness? I have been really quiet fo a month or so. The last 2 days I have had to work though.. 😦
Today I need to get on with welding a 30 year old Land rover rear crossmember 😦 😦
At least we are back to normal in the cricket.. 😉
supply and demand, rasp
how many available strikers, of dzekos level, are freely available on the market right now?
20-25M would be a fair price today for a player of his level.
every team seems to be on the lookout for a top striker who can play on the ground and in the air.. as more and more teams adapt to a 4-3-3 formation to accomodate a lon striker type.
how many can we name that are available?
Yea, cricket is a disaster …. we capitulated big time 😦
Business is very poor – down 25% due to the weather
i think wenger knows that fact all too well.
if milan were not all over him, i’m sure wenger would stick in a record arsenal bid.
at 23, he is bang on the right age aswell.
From reading Arsene’s quotes it sounds like his is trying to convince himself that Dudu is getting stronger and stronger.
I hope we see what he can do today with the little maestro back in the team to feed him..
He like AA but even more so needs to be fed properly.
Eduardo is a fine player, no doubt about that. He needs to take one of his chances early in the game and then we will see his confidence flower and get our lethal fox in the box back.
SH,
Even I wouldn’t want us to spend £25m on a player the way football is going at the moment. We are reasonably financially stable and that is probably the most important thing. There are likely to be prem clubs going out of business in th next couple of years.
could not agree with you more, with regards to top clubs going bust soon.
but thanks to the way we have managed our finances since the big move.. i think we are not far off being able to spend 20-25 on one player and stay well within our natural means.
reckless spending in the stlye of red nose and 32m for berbatov, is never going to occur under wenger.
right now, 20M on a player like dzeko, could win us the league.. very easily.
or he could be another Schevchenko…..
ooops , didn’t read your post properly!
A loan has to be the way to go. We have the players but they are injured.
What do you reckon re: TH14 as a loan prospect Raddy?
Nah, forget that, they wouldn’t let him go, they need the back-up themselves
I am pretty much against loans, they never seem to work in our favour.. Reyes/Baptista. There are not many quality players who are available and if we get someone and it worked out it would just mean we have increased the value of a player..
I would rather we bought someone and when RvP and Bendtner is fit we takeour pick of the best 3 or 4 strikers then recoup our dosh by selling the one lowest in the pecking order.
Would be the very best Rasp. The VERY best, but as you say, highly unlikely. Yet there is rumour that Barca are looking to loan out Bojan
If I’m at the Emirates the first time Sol takes to the pitch I will cheer my lungs out – and even moreso if TH14 …. the young players need to feel that they are in the company of very special footballers and that hard work is key to all achievement.
Bojan is only 5′ 7″ so doesn’t tick all the boxes ….
Interesting point about letting the 4th best striker go ave …. I get the feeling that most of our ‘strikers’ are more like attacking midfielders……
bojan certainly is not the CF we need.
anybody seen much of this gignac fella?
He looks pretty good SH, but would be in excess of £15m from what I’ve read.
Just had a quick look at Gignac’s wiki page.. It says he was brought up by gypsies and is married to one. So perhaps he may not settle outside of France like JAR..
I see Nasri is out now too – with Ramsey and Denilson, Song, Eboue all missing, that leaves only Diaby, Cesc, Tomas, AA and Dudu from the first team regulars …. who am I forgetting? … maybe Clichy will start and Traore will go into left midfield?
I agree Bojan is not for us. Another Vela style player. I would love to see AW give Vela a starting role, just for a couple of games. If he is good enough for Mexico, he must be good enough to start at The Emirates on Weds.
crikey thats some life story gignac has!
i would be very surprised if vela does not start today with nasri out.
i would stick him wide left, revert back to eddy in the middle and stick arsh out wide right… and then let all 3 rotate around and confuse the life out of the bolton defence.
john cross on arse tv on friday night seemed to think gignac was the most likely big money player wenger would sign.
he mentioned that wenger said in early jan last year that arshavin was too expensive for us.. yet went on to sign him less than a month later.
gignac has not had a great season and his price may be coming down… interesting.
Le boss…
“I like the player. I don’t need to send people to watch him because I know him well enough already because he plays for the French national team.
Lyon tried to buy him last year for nearly £20million, so the price was too high.”
First time posting here, but see some old friends from LG on here.
Strange AW says he cannot find anyone better than he has already…problem is we don’t actually have anyone at the mo! We about to start the run of games that will define our season, AV, Manu,Chavs and Lpool with the CL thrown in for good measure.
He is clearly pinning all his hopes on Bendtner being fit and doing the job…..must say I am very nervous about this. One because not sure Bentner has what it takes yet and the very likelyhood of him getting injured again after being out for so long.
I hope he gets it right because we have a great chance this year.
Afternoon peeps
No Nasri… He doesn’t travel well so lets hope he is back for Wednesday..
I guess it will be Cesc and Diaby in the middle then..
If we can’t be a team who are 2nd from the bottom today then I will be amazed!
Hi Wolski
Welcome aboard, nice to see you.. Sorry for the delay but you probably know first comments go into moderation – you are free to blog away now..
Regardless of Nikki’s fitness I still think we need a striker, just glad he is still talking about buying one rather than dismissing the suggestion – not that makes a lot of diffence with our stubborn old boss..
is he stubborn? or is he a mind games player extrodinarie?
Hmmm…is it mind games…I think it is a case of I recognised the need, but couldn’t find anyone of the quality we needed. I hope I am wrong because I think everyone can see that we need a quality striker.
Fingers crossed.
An hour to go,,,,,come on you reds.
Hi SH, stubborn, we can all see what this squad needs, so does he, but to go and buy three great players means he has to admit he wasn’t quite right about ‘all youth’ stubborn in my book 😉
Wolski, my bet is he has someone (if he is truthing) just waiting for it all to be agreed, maybe the young giant 🙂
If we play rosicky, arsh, fab, diaby, eddie then we can certainly score goals today, but we need that target man to build off…..
With only a couple of weeks to go till the window closes and our track record of the time it takes to sign a player…I just have a feeling in my water we won’t sign what we need imo.
Rico…I hope he has, i really hope he has…but you think the papers would have got a sniff of it by now.
I don’t think it is stubborness I think it is a form of arrogance…the french have this type of attitude..having worked for a french company.
Their way is the right way…
Almunia
Sagna
Gallas
Vermaelen
Traore
Eastmond
Fabregas
Diaby
Rosicky
Arshavin
Eduardo
Subs:
Fabianski
Silvestre
Clichy
Coquelin
Merida
Emmanuel-Thomas
Vela
He is keeping it close to his chest Wolski, so he doesn’t pay too much 😉
what “all the youth” rico?
the team that can go top of the league on weds will have 3 or 4 that have come through the ranks… its worked to an extent
we have stayed competitive without going bankrupt following the stadium build costs.
i dont agree we need 3 players, 2 at a push.
a striker for sure.. he aint the type of daft manager to buy for the sake of buying.. he done that once before with davor suker when anelka left and he wont do it again.
i agree with his principles… lets see, i still think we will see a striker before feb.
WOW eastmond gets the nod to play DM.. youth project on real show test today!!
SH – he goes on about believing in youth, we all know he has good youth, but he needs a good balance rather than just youth imho …
3 players = GK, HM, CF
I think most would want to see that three bought..
Make that 4 SH, CH too….
i think in fabinski and chesney we have 2 keepers who have it imo… i especially rate fabinski, he has a superb aura, brave as they come and an unbelievable shot stopper.
chesney is raved about, by many in the game, read bob wilson somewhere online quoted as saying something along the lines of ” if he is not the best keeper in the world within X years ”
lets see how eastmond gets on today, big test for the youth and for the HM backup we already have.
CF is a given in terms of us buying one, we have nobody coming through.
rico, we have campbell, djorou, nordveit, ayling, bartley all there next season
wenger can never win, if he buys.. he is told he is killing the youth.. if he does not buy he is stingy.
nice to see le coq on the bench aswell.
SH, if he buys, he is the one that says he is killing youth, not us 😉
Anyway, I am off to watch, see you all later
wrong, go back 5 years and read what some fans/journos wrote.
he is damned if he does and damned if he donesn’t
fact.
enjoy the game fans.
i for one hope eastmond does well today.
Sky have agreed we’re unlucky not to have got a pen 😦
clear pen on replay
honestly, when it happened live i thought fab went to go over the keepers feet
he got let down by being too quick of mind… a worse player would have clean got a pen there.
arsh, traore and tomas are having mares
Oh dear oh dear for Traore, just stay in position
Vela is the only player on the bench who could come on and change things 😦
he just keeps coming infield and they attack the heck out of him.
lovely from eastmond, lad is doing ok
well done ref
Cool cool cool Cesc 🙂 1-0
and THAT is why we support the best team in the world 😆
magic linking from eddy, he is back
Lovely goal.
Eastmond not afraid of it so far doing okay.
omg eastmond should have scored
taylor you 3rd rate slime
Hello Irish – didn’t know if you were up, r u ok 🙂
Same shower of dirty wankers
hahahah 😆
Hiya Peaches – yep wide awake at twenty to four in the morning GOOOOOOOOOOOONERS 😀
Its fecken on, NOBODY messes with my man you dirty, cheating little prick
so much self assurance from eastmond
awesome from a 19rd old playing such a pivtoal position for a title chasing side.. away from home.
nooooooo
I reckon hes got his boxing gloves on……
That should have been 2-0 wonderful play
this match has got my blood right pumping
Vermaelen is offside more than Adebayor was.. lol
ave 😆
they wanna be careful fucking with traore
he will go get his nunchuks at HT and storm the bolton dressing room 😆
Arshavin has had more touches today than I remember him having for weeks …… 🙂
I thought his weapon of choice was a knuckle duster..
😆 Ave
Clichy for Traore?
Fabregas = touches.. Denilson has better stats though.. 😉
yeah sorry thats it… it was a knuckle duster he took down the lane 😆
A YOUNG Arsenal star was arrested on suspicion of carrying a lethal knuckle-duster at the Spurs match on Saturday.
French international Armand Traore, 17, was allegedly caught with the weapon outside a turnstile at White Hart Lane.
The first team squad member, who was not playing, had gone to watch with a pal.
Stewards are said to have seen him acting suspiciously and asked him to turn out his pockets.
Police were called and both men were arrested on suspicion of possessing an offensive weapon.
They were taken into custody for questioning and Traore was given a formal warning.
A club insider said: “Armand had no idea he’d done anything wrong because the laws are different in France.”
An Arsenal spokesman said: “He has apologised.”
________
PMSL the laws are different in France 😆
Nah don’t wreck Traore’s confidence.. Cesc won’t let this one go..
i am on a mega high, we take the 3pts today, and we will go top of the league wednesday night.
come one.
Traore has cocked up any chance of joining the Spuds..
Redknapp is a two faced tosser..
tight pants or his ugly father?
Sorry Irish… The tax paying one.. he’s the HT dimwit on Sky… 😉
What’s Andy Gray talking about .. we have no big players.
ask folk who worked with HR at bournemouth 25 years ago what they think of him and money.
they will tell you about harry and his love of fruit machines.. and i dont mean he played them.
but he certainly knew how to empty them
100% FACT
Eastmond, Diaby and Traore giving it away far too often.
Traore has eff all help over there either got to sort that out.
real fall in our tempo and concentration
Shouldn’t the Bolton fans be sitting down? it’s the law
eddy has been immense today, his movement 10/10
if fab had pace…
my word
Calm finish
Rasp
Are you as happy as me with Fran’s goal 🙂 🙂
be a quiet day in blog world… in some quarters tommorow 🙂
We can’t let Merida go – he’s pure class
pure.
He’s magic rico, I agree with peaches – we must keep him. Tomas didn’t impress. Good subs by Arsene
He’s magic rico, I agree with peaches – we must keep him. Tomas didn’t impress. Good subs by Arsene
Humble pie from me……. Almunia had one of the best games I’ve seen him play, Diaby was good too. Cesc got kicked topieces and not one yelow for the fouls against him.
I’m of home – ketchup later ….
wonderful game, wonderful display
wonderful to be a gooner.
Ok, my view, and I always see things so different from many 🙂
Tomas was ok, couple of times he needed to shoot, he was in the right place..
Eduardo was poor, as was Traore, Sagna, Almunia and AA
Cesc – what a boy, should have had a penalty and Taylor is a thug, and he was born and bred not far from me!!
Merida’s goal was class, pure class – and that could have just sealed his new contract, I mean that from his point of view rather than the clubs.
Eastmond, I feel for the youth when they are asked to step up – he will be good but for me, too much too soon…
We win by 2 clear goals wednesday we are top of the table by my calculations
eduardo was poor?
no way rico, his movement and touch was immense, you dont need to score to have a good game as a striker.. especially the lone striker in this team.
he caused them so many troubles with his movement, and was only inches from getting on the end of a move so many times.
his touch to set up fab for the first goal was genius.
Rasp, the fumble by Almunia to gift them a corner – I can’t get that out of my mind – thats why I thought he was poor, after, he was a bit better 😉
SH – we will have to agree to disagree
fair dues, rico 😉
But to be inches away you may as well be yards away SH 😉
as i said, its not about scoring goals in this team as the lone striker.
its the movement to open space for others from midfield.. the touch the vision to set them up… as evidenced by the first goal.
oh well, either you see it or you dont.
as you say, agree to disagree.
Sky just said, win Wednesday, we go top….
yeah, we have been saying that for a few days rico.
the table never lies 😉
YES, Jamie Redknapp has just said this team are carrying eduardo 😆
about as big a stamp of approval as you would need
rico – where have you been 😳
Chelsea have a better GD
They have 34, we have 32 so we need to win by 2?
merida is off, judging by wengers body language to that question just now.
2 today and the normal 3 on wednesday – that should do it 😀
SH – who gives a toot, we won, we come home we three points and we are in the mix ….
Roll on Wednesday and show them just what we really are about…
I do think Clichy needs to be bought back at LB…
Even Jamie Reddknapppp and Gary Speed think we were the mutts nutts
But they do also say we are ‘carrying’ Eduardo 😉
What do they know 🙄
rico, gives a toot about what?
He looks like he’s buying to me ………
exactly, JR is hardly known to get much right on sky sports.. the fella is about as bad as they come where pundits are concerned 😆
peaches – Do you watch Eastenders ?
Family 😉
be some sad gooners around tonight
we finsihed the game with how many of the “yoof project”?
diaby, cesc, merida, traore, clichy, vela?
not bad going imvho.
SH, about you and I talking about Dudu 😉
We have just won at one of our bogey grounds, I am just happy….
oh i see, yes of course.
I see ur back to inches again rico…………… 😉
Thought Ed did ok but still not back to his best but the midget forward line did pretty well to be honest and tracked back pretty well 2. Eastmond did well first 45…. Traore got roasted but to be fair had no help what so ever from anyone in front of him, soon as Clichy came on problem solved…!.
would prefer gibbs to be back over clichy… best left back at the club.
Merida will stay, he has to stay, he and his agent will know that any other side will not give him the chance that Arsenal will.
Lets get a petition running 😉
GET HOLD OF THAT YOU DIRTY BOLTON BASTARDS!
Please excuse my French.
rico, the writing is firmly on the wall i’m afraid.
too much smoke without fire re: signing for atletico.
We need AA, Eduardo and others to convert the attack into goals, speciallly Eduardo, who is missing so many opportunities these last games.
If Bolton attack wasnt so clueless about where they should shoot to, we could be in trouble. And Almunia did well today.
No problem giving a goal or two, as long as we are up to 3 or 4
Hi wath, he is a long way from being the old Dudu, but as long as we win, then he is getting games and getting fitter within the match, but yes, a way to go yet for him.
I am ignoring the yards wath 😉
I am off for the night, look forward to the match review…
Get your pen out Franny 🙂
Nite rico….. Yes Ed getting better and he does create a lot with his awareness but we need him poking the ball into the net. Lets hope he gets there.
And the south korean player stealed so many balls from Traore (and others) that we should have done what Bolton tried to do with Cesc: tackle him away.
well that was a nice present 🙂
have to say wenger got the subs spot on today
one can only hope that eduardo and rosicky come back to where they were.eduardo played more like an attacking midfielder than a striker,but he’s got brains.
How exciting is wednesday going to be……there are loads of spare tickets so if any gooners out there want to go and don’t have a ticket get in touch……..
Hi kelsey – hope the rest of your day was as good as that 😉
What a great cobbled together team we have…..off to see George Clooney – I hope he wants to talk footie 😆
http://bleacherreport.com/articles/327750-catalonia-combo-gives-arsenal-three-points-away-to-bolton?just_published=1
Can we not post links anymore or as I just banned from whoring my wares?
Dunno Irish…. Nothing to do with me.. here you go.. 🙂
Thanks Ave 😀
rico – if you read this early tomorrow morning, I made my assessment of the game from the last half hour, so maybe your judgement was better than mine.
I def thought Tomas was lacking in confidence because there were a couple of situations when he needed to shoot and did the ‘Hleb sideways pass thing’.
Fantastic result, I just hope their plan to kick Cesc out of wednesday’s game has failed. He admitted in the interview that he was really tired towards the end so I reckon he may be rested for the FA cup game …. we need him on wednesday to get the 3 points with the ‘big 3 games’ we have coming up….
Great result, good comments Rico, always good to stuff the DNBs.
I still think Almunia and Merida should go. Traore needs some TLC and hard training, not sure what is up with him.
Let’s hope its 5-0 on Wed. never mind 2.
Ave
you must be right about Gerrard. Contrast him with Cesc. Both have mild hamstring injuries. Gerrard runs off and leaves his team to get knocked out of the Cup; Cesc comes on, scores two goals and wins us a critical match.
Cesc=hero, Gerrard=zero
Gerrard is just in it for himself wonder how true the rumours are of a row with Rafa, Gerrard prob said I wanna come of got tight hammie Rafa says noway we need you….! Ooops poor dippers…!
10/10 today to Arsene for his substitutions……
Curently Cameroon 0, Zambia 1 ….if Cameroon lose, Song comes home 😛
I agree Rasp. AW was spot on today, both with the Subs and their timing.
And Almunia had a decent game for once, but why can’t he learn that we play in Red & White? His distribution is dire. Truly awful. He finds touch more often than he finds one of his own.
Hi Raddy, in retrospect I was a bit OTT as regards Almunia in my earlier comment, but he deserves praise for a decent performance by his standards.
I wondered what Arsene was thinking when he brought on Clichy but played him in midfield instead fo LB and moving Traore to midfield. But it looks like Traore was instructetd to stay back and Clichy was just getting some match experience after being out for so long – and it worked!
Think what it also did Rasp was gave lot more cover for Traore with Clichy in front of him….!.
Eastmond was out of his depth. I would be surprised to see him on Weds. Though he worked hard.
Cameroon 3 : Zambia 2 😦
Morning rico.. if your about look in drafts.. 😉 cheers..
new post up