Defensive worries ahead of visit to Charlton

We start today's edition with the quite terrifying news that, with Gallas out with a hamstring tweak and Djourou to face a fitness test on Saturday, le Boss is preparing to play one of Gilbert O'Silva or ALEXANDRE BLOODY SONG at centre half against Charlton!

Jesus H Christ. I've been fearing the day that we would see Song make his first start for the season, but I hadn't even considered that it might be at centre half. I know we've got injury problems in defence, but we have players the same age and Song who's job it is to play at centre half that should really be getting a go before him. Matthew Connelly and Joe O'Cearuill spring to mind. I know that Charlton aren't going through the best bit of form right now but I think playing Song at centre half is taking the piss a bit. They're not so bad that they won't cause him all sorts of problems. Of course if Arsene decides to play Gilberto there instead, does that mean that Song will be replacing him in centre mid? The mind boggles.

Roy Keane has shown he's trying to change his spots and become a bit more diplomatic in his new managerial role by praising Wenger's ten years in charge of Arsenal, saying:

"He has done a brilliant job... I watched them last week against [Manchester] United and they were outstanding,"

Nice to see. Double D has also repeated his earlier offer to give Wenger a job for life at the club, suggesting Arsene should be given a seat on the board when he decides to hang up his managerial tracksuit. I'd be all for that, but not for another ten years or so.

Alex Hleb has said that he has been told to shoot more and is happy to do so, but will still look for a pass to a better placed team mate before shooting. I think he could score a fair few if he stopped passing square when he's ten yards out, so let's hope this happens.

Ten more years! Ten more years!

That's what every right-thinking Gooner is asking for. It is ten years to the day that Arsene Wenger became Arsenal manager, and the world of Arsenal Football Club changed forever.

You could point towards the trophies we've won, or the records we've set, but the overarching change made by Arsene was the way we play. We were transformed from a dull, negative team into possibly the best exponent of fluid, attacking and attractive football in the modern era (Barcelona might have something to say about that, but they can go whistle).

And of course it wasn't just Arsenal he changed, but English football as a whole. He brought in nutritionists, banned players from the club bar, emphasised different training techniques and basically made everyone take training and preparation seriously, and of course opened the doors for a flood of foreign coaches to join the Premiership.

Last season, during the Thierry Henry "will he, won't he" contract saga, I asked fellow Gooners whether they would rather lose TH14 or le Prof, and the answer was unanimous. Arsene Wenger is Arsenal Football Club. He was a driving force behind the plans to move to the new stadium, a project which began only a year or two into his tenure at the club.

He revamped our training facilities at London Colney and created a coaching set up that has attracted the best young players from around the world. Think back over the young players Wenger has brought in for barely anything at all; the likes of Anelka, Vieira, Fabregas, van Persie, Eboue, King Kolo, Bendtner, Lupoli, Merida, Vela, players that have gone on to establish themselves at the top level and players with bags of potential just waiting to get their chance, but all top talents.

Whenever I have to think about life after Arsene, when he finally concedes to his wife's wishes to give up the game and calls time on his Arsenal career, I break out in a cold sweat and start rocking slowly back and forth, not unlike, I imagine, a junky going cold turkey after ten years of sweet heroin addiction. Who on earth can replace this man, and who would want to be the man tasked with that? How could you possibly succeed following all that your predecessor has accomplished. In short, it worries me.

It's somewhat comforting to know that Double D, the man responsible for bringing Arsene in when I'd say 99% of Arsenal fans had no idea who he was, is still dodging and diving in his dealings for the club, and I'm sure will probably already have spoken to Arsene about his ideas for his long time successor. I know Wenger has a very good relationship with Paul le Guen, the former Lyon boss who's now falling flat on his face at Rangers, but beyond that, I've no idea. Hopefully we won't have to face up to that reality any time soon.

So I stand here and ask for ten more years, Arsene. Ten more years!

Gallas is pretty bloody good

First Champions League match proper at the Emirates last night (and my first visit inside the stadium) and a very welcome three points and solid performance against 2004's winners FC Porto. We started very well for the first ten minutes, suffered a lull for the next ten minutes, and bossed the game from then on.

Man of the match last night: William Gallas. What a player. The more and more I see him the happier I am about the deal which saw him and Ashley Cole swap clubs. He was fantastic on the ball, great first touch, tidy and consistent distribution and brought the ball out of defence with intelligence and poise. He was a both a comforting force at the back and a driving force going foward, and his burst from our own half to the Porto penalty area, beating three players en route, was the major assist for Arsenal's second goal. The only problem is that he picked up a hamstring injury towards the end of the match and will be missing for at least three weeks.

We played a 4-5-1 / 4-4-2 formation with van Persie drifting from wide left to wide right and occasionally through the centre, and RvP should have netted after being played in by Thierry down the right of the penalty area. With the keeper at his mercy Robin blasted over on his weaker right foot, and you could tell he was gutted. It was a sitter. He had about five strikes in the first half, most from distance, including a looping header that almost beat the keeper, but all in all he didn't have a great game and I fear for his starting place on Saturday.

We finally broke the deadlock on the cusp of halftime, with Eboue (I still think his final ball isn't good enough) sent a quite spectacular whipped ball into the box and TH14 headed down and across goal to make it 1-0. We deserved it.

Our second came almost straight after half time, with the aforementioned Gallas carving through the Porto team, passing square to Henry who played in Hleb, who, instead of looking for someone to play the ball backwards to, actually had a shot, and quite a good one at that, spanking it into the bottom left corner. 2-0, game over. I really hope Hleb starts shooting more, because in that position he's dangerous.

We should have scored more, Fabregas missed a good chance and had a decent shout for a penalty when he was literally shoved two-handed off the ball, but it was a solid performance in a game we controlled. Special mention also goes out to Justin Hoyte who had a good game at left back, some of his distribution inparticular was fantastic, and to Tomas Rosicky.

This boy is a player, boy is he a player. Always seems like he has time on the ball, quick to move it on when needed, holds it up when appropriate, can ghost past defenders like they're not there and, perhaps surprisingly (and to quote my father who was at the game with me last night) is rather tigerish in the tackle. He was an all-action midfielder last night, and got a ridiculous booking for one particularly fantastic tackle. His size belies his strength and I'm so happy we snapped him up for what looks like a bargain £6.8m.

In other news Cashley Tweedy's complete bastard of an agent Jonathan Barnett has been banned for 18 months (nine months suspended) and fined £100,000 for his role in Ashley-gate. I wonder if Cole will demand Chelsea pay his lawyer's fees. It's just a shame that the ban isn't longer. The slimy bastard.

Here's hoping for less gamesmanship and more football

FC Porto tonight and my first visit proper to the Emirates. I'm rather excited but also a little worried that the Porto of Mourinho hasn't changed much, and that they'll be card-waving and diving all over the place in the cheaty way we've come to expect from Portuguese football teams. Hopefully not though.

Not sure how Arsene's going to line us up tonight. Last season's European 4-5-1 has only been used away at Man Yoo this season, with our standard 4-4-2 being put out for all three Euro ties so far, but Porto might see a reversion to the system which did so well for us in Europe last year. If we do I hope it's more of a 4-3-3 and that we see something like this.

Whilst Djourou is apparently a doubt I expect him to play, whilst there's no reason in risking Freddie, who I thought had a good game against Sheffield United, when we have more attacking options. I think Cesc could find himself handed a bit of a breather tonight, having started every game so far this season, and I hope la Bestia is the man chosen to replace him. With Rosicky in the team, and allowed a more central berth in this formation, we still have the craft in centre mid, but Baptista will add the muscle and I'm really quite eager to see him make more of those bursting runs that he showed us a glimpse of when he came on agaisnt Man Yoo (and nearly scored in the process). Gilberto, as always, provides the balance.

Quite frankly that front three looks terrifying. The pace, skill and presence of RvP TH14 and YTW tearing down upon you would be enough to make any back line lose control of their bowels, and whilst I don't expect Wenger to employ this front line tonight, I look forward to the day when he does, because it looks so good it's frightening. I don't think Adebayor can operate in a front three and following his reversion to type on Saturday he would miss out in my line up.

All of this is irrelevant though, seeing as Wenger will not pick this XI. Be nice if he did though.

Shorter one than I'd like today because I was late in, bloody London transport.

2-0 tonight. Come on you Reds.

Unspectacular but much needed

Whilst it wasn't a great display of our fantastic footballing ability, Saturday's game brought a very welcome three points in our new home and dismissed any ridiculous talk of new stadiumitis (we drew twice for God's sake).

The first half looked rather worryingly like it was going to be one of those days. We were playing well, creating chances and not taking them, although fair credit should go to the Blades' keeper Bennett who pulled off a couple of very tidy saves. TH14 wasn't looking at his sharpest and you could just see a nil nil being drawn out by Sheffield United. Then of course Henry stopped pissing around.

After an hour played Thierry clipped a little ball through to Cesc, who miscontrolled it right into the path of William Gallas to smash home his first Arsenal goal, and therefore further endear himself to the home faithful. Henry then drove into the box past a couple of players and crossed, only for Phil Jagielka to put through his own net. 2-0. Then to finish things off Thierry got his goal with a nice header from a pinpoint Eboue cross. It all ended far more comfortably than it could have, and I was certainly relieved when I saw that third goal go in with ten minutes to play because I was then sure that we would take all three points at home for the first time this season.

We didn't really click into our rhythm during the game, a couple of players looked decidely off kilter, but I'm not going to name names and go through a thorough dissection. I'm hoping that we've just had our traditionally patchy October/November form early this year, and that we'll move on from strength to strength. We need to build up a head of steam now and keep pushing on all fronts. Speaking of which, we've drawn the Baggies in the next round of the League Cup.

And that's enough for today. I'm a busy little Gooner. More on Wenger's ten year anniversary and a preview to the Porto game (which I'll be attending) tomorrow.

Rio Ferdinand: a bit of a prat

The Sun has this week been serialising the next in what seems to be a neverending supply of footballer's autobiographies, and this time it's Rio "I don't have the sense the good Lord gave me" Ferdinand.

We've seen amazing, earth-shattering revelations about that disgustingly exploitative sex tape made by Rio, Fat Frank and Kieran "what on earth's happened to him?" Dyer (apparently "the birds" were "well up for it" because they were footballers), the justification for missing that drugs test (he was moving house and his missus wanted him to pick up some bed sheets - seriously) and now the ground-breaking announcement that he though Robert Pires was a bit of a diver and "starts crying" if anyone tackles him too hard.

What a twat.

Considering Rio currently plays with Cristiano Ronaldo, and formerly Ruud van Nistlerooy, the fact that he has the temerity to aim accusations at other players at other teams is more proof of what a simpleton this guy is. These two were probably the biggest culprits in the Premiership at one time (pre-Robben) and to come out and admonish another team's players without getting your own house in order first just reeks of hypocrisy. I'm not claiming that le Bob wasn't partial to the odd tumble, especially towards the end of his career at Arsenal, but I do believe it was fanned by the media following the penalty against Portsmouth. Pires was actually a surprisingly strong player when on the ball and went past many a fullback due to his strength as much as his pace or skill.

Also, on the crying front, I think some of us watching Arsenal games for the six years Bob was here might have noticed if he had a tendency to start openly weeping at every strong challenge.

Rio, you just "merked" yourself mate.

Thierry's been talking about how he'd love to have had the opportunity to play with Stevie G, but how it can't happen because TH14 would never go to another club in England, and it seems neither would Gerrard. He goes on to talk about Arsene's ten year's at the club (technically next week) and how he's changed Arsenal beyond recognition. I'll talk more about that next week.

Sheffield United tomorrow (isn't it just typical that they get back into the Premiership two years after I finished Uni there?) and a game that simply has to garner all three points for the Arse. Thierry should be back and I expect him to net a couple, and after a whole week's training (when was the last time Arsene had his team together to do that?) we should, hopefully, be ticking over nicely.

It'll be interesting to see what team Wenger puts out, as with a week's rest everyone who isn't carrying an injury is in contention (except for Alexandre Song, please), although as it's against Sheffield United and we've got a European game on Tuesday, we might not see Arsene's first choice XI (to be honest I'm not sure what that is, with question marks over Rosicky/Ljungberg/Hleb and Adebayor/RvP). Those with injuries include Senderos who's close to making a return to training, Clichy, Ralph and Diaby who are still some way off, and now YTW who picked up a shoulder injury whilst with the reserves.

Three points and lots of goals please Mr Wenger.

Come on you Gunners.

Debt on the books, cash in the bank

Yesterday's only real Gooner news was the quite frankly unsurprising revelation that we are roughly £100m further in the red this year, following the move to Ashburton Grove and further investment in the transformation at Highbury which has now begun. The club expects to remain in the red for 25 years.

Peter Hill-Wood made a quick statement on Arsenal.con about the move to the Emirates and how that has, remarkably, affected our finances. I almost fell off my chair.

Chief exec Mr Edelman described the club as still being "cash rich" with a reported £36m in the bank and available to Arsene. I expect him to spend about £2m on some 19-year old French centre midfielder I've never heard of and nothing else. But seriously...

Edelman goes on to use a rather nice home owner analogy, saying:

"It is like an individual buying a new bigger house into which you have put more equity - you will have a bigger mortgage, but overall be in a stronger financial position," said Edelman. "The two things are completely separate and you do not say 'you have no money to spend because you have a mortgage'. A mortgage is something you pay off every month, X amount over a number of years then you look how much cash you have in your pocket to spend. Well, we ended the year with £36m of cash in the bank, in our pocket to spend now, so we are very cash-rich, although we have got high debts, which relate effectively to the mortgage on our stadium."

Nicely put.

And there's nothing else really going on. I read an interesting article on the ANR yesterday (which was posted much earlier but was temporarily lost in the ether whilst they switched servers) regarding the takeover rumours which was linked to the executive management of the club. In the article Myles suggests that whilst a takeover might not be advantageous, a shake up of the board and management might not only be in our best interests, it might be a neccessity.

Certainly food for thought.

More BBC bollocks

There's not much going on in the world of Arsenal this morning, so instead I'm going to have a rant at the BBC.

I sat down last night to watch the Panorama report which claimed it would "blow the lid off corruption in football". It certainly blew.

Recently BBC "special reports" have been treading a fine line between good undercover journalism and farcical sensationalism. Last night's report was laughable. It was amatuerish. And more to the point, it didn't really prove anything that the BBC had claimed leading up to it's broadcast, ie the guilt of any, let alone many, Premiership managers.

The main target of the programme was our old mate Fat Sam, old Walrus Face himself. I have no love for Sam Allardyce. In fact I have quite a bit of hatred in my heart for the Bolton gaffer, but after watching Panorama in full there is absolutely no concrete evidence linking Fat Sam to ever taking a bung. He was never recorded on camera. He was never recorded on audio tape. There is absolutely no concrete evidence whatsoever. Now I'm not saying Allardyce has never taken a bung, all I'm saying is that this programme did not even get close to proving it.

If we get past the fact that the presenter and main journalist of the report is such an amatuer in his field - listening to his narration was like listening to a five-year old read off flash cards and his insights had all the cutting edge of a slightly damp banana - all of the evidence presented was he-said she-said. Everything was merely one person's word against the other (apart from the Kevin Bond recording, and even then I don't think that's conclusive, and he never asked for a payment, just to work with the new agency that the programme was pretending to set up).

With all persons involved now claiming that they were lying, exaggerating and fabricating the truth to Knut whilst he was undercover, the only real evidence of irregularities is on Craig Allardyce's paperwork with the FA. Seeing as he has already retired from football, where do we go next?

The segment with Harry Redknapp was absolutely ridiculous. He wasn't even offered a bung, let alone accepted one, all they offered him were tickets to the World Cup and a nice hotel whilst he was there, which amounts to nothing more than corporate hospitality. If I were Redknapp I'd sue the pants off the Beeb for bringing my name into this.

It was interesting that the names of so many clubs and players were bleeped out during the programme, obviously because the BBC felt that the evidence linking these parties was even flimsier than the evidence against those named. The "tapping up" allegations levelled at Chavski and the 'Pool were just as flimsy. A guy turns up and says "this kid's unhappy where he is, would you be interested if he became available?" and you say "yes, if he were to become available we'd be interested" and offer to pay an agent's fee and a signing on fee (which you have to to make any deal in this day and age) and that is tapping up? Not in my book.

Some football managers take bungs, I am absolutely certain of this. What I am also certain of is that the BBC failed to prove any one manager guilty, and only really told us what we already know, that it is prevalent in the game.

It reminds me somewhat of the Newsnight expose alleging that Arsenal had broken regulations in dealings with Beveren and should be investigated by the FA and FIFA. Arsenal were cleared of any wrong doing by both, aided by the fact that there was no actual proof in the initial Newsnight report, just some irresponsible, sensationalist journalism (stemming from the producer who is a Spurs fan) which had a direct effect on David Dein being voted off the FA board. At least last night's programme was conducted over a year and involved some proper research, but it was still a poor excuse for investigative reporting and the only proof it put forward is that the BBC is continuing it's slide away from quality journalism.

Jens has lost his bottle

Could the Man Yoo fan who claims that the aforementioned bottle hit his son please give it back.

This of course is the story alleging that during injury time in the first half of Sunday's game, Jens belted his water bottle into the massed Old Trafford faithful, and hit a young Man Yoo fan. A complaint has been registered with the Greater Manchester police and Jens is expected to have to make a statement. I'm interested to find out how young this lad that got hit is, as it was only his father who made a complaint, and not him.

I hope it isn't true, because I don't want such a great victory to be remembered for this alleged incident, rather than the fact that we played United off the park, but also because a young lad who's gone to watch the football doesn't deserve to get smacked in the face by a bit of plastic. That said, have a look at an email that was sent to Arseblogger. If it's true then there was certainly a lot of particularly disgusting provocation that led up to the incident.

Still, innocent until proven guilty, let's see how this progresses before making any judgements.

Arsene has asked all Arsenal fans everywhere not to sing homophobic songs about Ashley Cole, and he's absolutely spot on. There are so many other things we can sing about this dimwitted turncoat that we don't have to resort to abusing his alleged sexual preferences. It's Cheryl I feel sorry for.

Arsene's also spoken about a World Cup hangover our players, whilst Raymond "Paul O'Grady" Domenech has said he's shocked that Gallas was allowed to leave Chelsea. Neither of these stories are in the slightest bit interesting.

The Independent's James Lawton has written a column entitled "What's wrong with Wayne Rooney". I'm not sure that this question can be adequately answered in the thousand or so words that make up the article, but it's a decent read. There's also a bit about Tony's new club Pompey and how well it's going for them.

Although I still haven't forgiven Tony for snubbing the club in our last year at Highbury (and DB10's testimonial), and being an absolutely rubbish pundit.

There's no midweek game for us tomorrow as we're not in the early rounds of the League Cup, and for some reason we're not able to catch up our game in hand like Liverpool are by playing Newcastle, probably because it's supposed to be against a team that is involved in the League Cup.

I say probably because I can't be bothered to check.

I've always rated that Adebayor

That felt really good.

Jens is a world class keeper, and treated us to another of his now legendary Jekyll and Hyde performances. Getting booked for picking the ball up "outside the area" (as Johnny Mac would say, the ball was on the line) and giving possession back to Man Yoo with some poor throwing was contrasted with a complete command of his area, a great face-first save from a fake Ronaldo piledriver, and a simply out of this world stop to deny Solskjaer at the death. He is the best keeper in the Premiership when he plays like that and I don't care what anybody else says.

The back four played well in general, and both Kolo and Willy Gallas were unlucky not to get on the scoresheet with a hammer of a strike and an attempted bundle respectively. That said, Eboue again looked defensively naive, his positioning almost let Man Yoo in a number of times and I would still play Lauren ahead of him if he were fit.

Cesc put in a solid 90 minutes, pinging the ball all about and working his arse off to make space and create angles of play for others. That said there were a few instances when he tried to be a little too clever for himself and gave the ball away or got caught in possesion. But the way he robbed fake Ronaldo to set up the winner, that was poetry.

Rosicky - what a performance. He looked class from start to finish, fantastic first touch, always looked like he had time on the ball, neat passing and had one particularly stunning strike on the volley, which Kuszczak did really well to palm away, because it was moving some. It's great to know that with both Rosicky and Fabregas in the side we've got two players who can dictate the game from midfield.

As for Adebayor, well. I have been one of his most vociferous critics around, bemoaning his Bambi-esqu playing style, inability to score open goals and appalling ability in the air for a guy who's 6"3 or thereabouts. He was fantastic. Deployed in a lone striker role he held the ball up brilliantly, brought other players into the game, won balls in the air and looked confident, skillful on the ball and just worked so damn hard. This is the player that Wenger saw before he bought him. Don't get me wrong, all is not forgiven, and he's going to have to put in some similar performances before I completely come around on him, but he's certainly bought himself some time. Well done big man.

We should really have scored three, although United could have had a couple themselves. Adebayor had another good chance but sidefooted weakly which Kuszczak saved down low, la Bestia shot just wide from outside the area following a surging run, Adebayor had a great header saved first by Kuszczak and then Scholes, and then the ball almost got bundelled over the line by Gallas, and of course Gilberto missed a pen. He was unlucky, losing the footing on his standing leg as he struck the ball. To be honest Kuszczak went the right way anyway and it would have had to be stuck right in the corner to have scored, but still, we'll never know.

Rooney did bugger all, Scholes and O'Shea got completely bossed, Ronaldo played well, as did Evra down that left side, aided by Eboue's ineffectual display, and Saha maybe should have scored with a header. Scholes also proved what an absolute thug he still is with his off-the-ball take out of Tomas Rosicky. I've defended Scholes in the past with some of his horrific tackling, thinking it's less malicious, and more that he just can't tackle, but he's definitely got a nasty streak in him, and with Keane gone maybe Scholes is going to take it on himself to be the team's prize cunt.

Of course now all the pundits are backtracking, saying we can still challenge for the title. If we win out game in hand we'll still be four points behond Man Yoo and the Chavs (who were lucky to beat the bindippers but at least scored a cracking goal from Drogba) and five behind Pompey (Europe this season), but I still fancy us to get in the mix. No team is looking unbeatable, and at this point in the season that's as it should be. It was laughable how everyone was predicting doom and gloom for us after three games and I think that this season might be very very interesting as far as the title race goes. Could be the best Premiership season in some time.

Much was said after the game. Wenger hit back at Chief Red Face's accusation that Arsenal are a team in transition (to be fair I think we still are, but so are Man Yoo, Chavski and Liverpool at the moment). It was nice to see Sir credit us with the win though, saying we deserved it. Possibly trying to call a truce to battle the evil Maureen? We'll see.

Arsene went on to say it was his best win at Old Trafford and warned people not to write us off. Adebayor dedicated his goal to Thierry and RvP and was otherwise thoroughly chuffed with the three points.

So three points in our biggest game of the season so far, and although we're only four games in I've got a good feeling. I think this could be the most open Premiership in some time and I can't wait for our next game.

Come on you Gooners.

Doubts for Man Yoo, RvP is a legend, takeover chat

Apologies for the lack of post yesterday, was a busy one and I just didn't have the time. I'm sure my three readers were quite distraught with their lack of YAMA love but never fear, we're back today.

I'll skim quickly over Wednesday's win against Hamburg, which was an average performance, a great result, and included a simply fabulous strike from ickle Tomas Rosicky. Fantastic finish, possibly better than his first against the US at the World Cup. Well done Tomas, a few of those on Sunday would be more than welcome. As for everyone else, we played okay, but the fact that after the penalty went in we only drew 1-1 with a team playing with ten men for 75 minutes is more than a little worrying.

The direct problems from that game are that both Henry and RvP have been declared doubts before Sunday's game at Man Yoo. Kolo, who went off injured, is likely to play, meaning that the back five should be unchanged. If both Thierry and Robin don't play on Sunday it would appear that we'll be pinning our hopes on Adebayor, who missed his customary sitter in the Hamburg game. I might just hang myself. I think the Beast could well end up making an appearance alongside him up front as I doubt very much if Wenger would start YTW at centre forward away at Man Yoo.

RvP has hit out against Cashley Tweedy's claims that Arsenal have no team spirit, citing the team's march to the Champions League Final (without a certain now-Chelsea-supporting twat, I might add) as proof of our spirit. Robin van Persie = top bloke. He also dismisses allegations he dived against Hamburg, and whilst there was contact, I think he did go down too easily.

The Telegraph is reporting that Arsenal made history on Wednesday night because we are the first team to field eleven players on the pitch who each come from a separate nation. And one of them was actually English. Huzzah.

The big story this morning is that Arsenal have been approached regarding a possible takeover by a group of, yep, you guessed it, Russian billionaires. Apparently informal discussions took place back in June of this year, with a figure of £350m quoted, which would be separate to the debt on the stadium which would have to be bought as well, which initially scared some parties off. However, this is by no means the end to the story.

If these rumours are true, and at the moment, that's all they are, rumours, then I am very worried indeed. Whilst football seems to be going the way of the super rich private investor, and before that when lots of football clubs were floating, I've always been glad, and rather proud to be honest, that Arsenal Football Club has always been just that, a football club. Not a plc. Not some Eastern European Billionaire's plaything. A football club. The day might come when we have to consider some sort of buy out just to compete with the Chelseas and Portsmouths and West Hams who are seem to be turning to super rich owners. I just hope that day doesn't come any time soon. You can expect more on this as and when it comes out.

Bring on the Hamburgers

Right.

Today we kick off our European campaign proper, now that the qualifiers are behind us. The big team news is that Thierry misses out due to a recurrence of an injury he picked up with France last week. He allegedly had an injection before Saturday's game and it looks like Wenger is taking no risks ahead of Sunday's match at Man Yoo. Which is fair enough. I'm confident we'll take three points off Hamburg tonight, and below is the team I hope we put out to do it.

With Wenger already stating that Flim Flam will not be playing left back this season unless everyone else who could possibly play there breaks every bone in their bodies, Willy Gallas will continue there, meaning an unchanged back five from Saturday.

I'd hope Rosicky comes in for Ljungberg who looked off the pace at the weekend, and other than that unchanged again in midfield. There would be a temptation amongst many Gooners, myself included, to play Young Theo Walcott (YTW) from the beginning of this game, having been completely rested at the weekend, but I can't see it happening and Arsene's already been talking this week about wrapping YTW in cotton wool and trying to get him through to 20 without sustaining a major injury. I imagine his starts will be limited this season. That said, expect to see him come on in the 66th minute and absolutely beast out.

Speaking of beasting out, I've stuck Julio in my XI for tonight, mainly so that I don't have to put Ade "Akinbiyi" bayor in. I still don't think that the Beast should be playing centre forward, and should be used more from centre mid, but we also need to keep the gazelle on ice skates out of the starting XI in vital away games. Baptista could well start in midfield tonight instead, with Wenger giving one of Cesc or Gilberto a rest before Man Yoo on Sunday. Van Persie keeps his place.

Of course all of this is assuming that Wenger doesn't revert to the 4-5-1 that we used in our European campaign last season. Personally I don't think he will, as we have more options in the centre and up front, whilst we've lost some of our wide players such as Pires and Reyes, and Freddie is looking less and less like a wide player by the game. In a 4-5-1 wingers are essential, and I don't think we have a single natural winger any more. That said I'd like to see a front three of Walcott, Henry and RvP sometime in the near future. But not tonight.

In other European news Liverpool took a point from their trip to PSV and Chavski beat Werder Bremen at home. I watched the Liverpool game and thought they were unadventurous and negative, and that Zenden's having a laugh if he thinks he can play centre mid. I can understand Rafa resting players for Chelsea at the weekend, but Bolo Zenden in the middle? Ridiculous. Chelsea's second goal last night was a penalty from... Michael Ballack. Take that fatty. How long before Lampard's chewing on bench for a living? Soon I think. Seeing Ballack and Lampard in the same side makes you realise just how much better Ballack is.

Francesc Fabregas Soler is about to sign an extension to his current deal, taking him through to 2014 (that's eight years for the remedial among you). I'm a happy little Gooner today. Although I'm sure the 2013 season is going to be another horrific "will he stay, will he go" debacle with Barcam Real Madrid and any other self-titled "big club" circling.

What am I saying? It's going to be like that EVERY summer he's here...

Nicklas Bendtner got himself sent off for two bookable offences last night as Birmingham beat QPR 2-0. Apparently the first was for dissent and the second was for raising his arm, which is a bit vague but it was reported that he just pushed another player away. Sounds a bit harsh to me.

We will be wearing a special away shirt tonight, as both us and Hamburg are sponsored by Emirates, and both teams have to wear different sponsorship details. As the away side we'll be switching to some sort of "Dubai" graphic. Not all that exciting really.

So, let's get the job done tonight. Three points and at least a couple of goals to take some momentum into Sunday's match up with Man Yoo.

Come on you Gooners.

Ashley who?

I've decided that, as Mr Tweedy's new pack of lies (read "autobiography") is being serialised in the press, and that there will be a new installment each and every day this week, that unless something extraordinary comes out, I will give it the attention it deserves, ie none. I will be ignoring all "revelations", all "shock truths", all "completely fabricated bollocks" that emanate from that dullard's PR department. Shame on The Times for serialising it, as it's generally the only newspaper I can take seriously.

In more interesting, "actually happened" news, the Arsenal reserves came from 2-0 down to snatch a 2-2 draw against the Spuds last night. Particularly impressive seeing as the team we put out was such a young one. Francisco Merida Perez, our latest Catalan beast, was man of the match, setting up one goal and scoring the other with a smashing 30 yard free kick. Good job young Gooners.

Carlos Vela, our young Mexicano beast, also scored the other day for loan club Salamanca. He's 18 next year so we could well be seeing him arrive in the summer. That said he might spend another year out there, who knows. We seem to be overun with talented young strikers at the moment. Lots of Gooners are excited about this kid, with a couple of rumours circulating the internet that he appeared in one of the publicity shots for the new home kit (he didn't) leading people to believe that we'd be seeing him in Arsenal colours this season. He certainly set the U-17 World Cup alight, leading Mexico to the title and beating Brazil 3-0 in the final, finishing the tournament with the Golden Boot as top scorer.

Swiss boss Kobi Kuhn quite likes Phillipe Senderos. But not in a sexy way. I'm looking forward to having Phil back to give a us a more bruisingly physical option at the back, hopefully some time in early October.

Apparently Julio Baptista and Gilbert O'Silva are quite the Brazillian/Irish jiggers, with the Beast a dab hand on the ukelele, whilst Gilberto plies his musical trade on the mandolin. Looks like a folk jamming session could be on the cards.

Arsene's apparently a bit miffed about our start to the season, saying that we're making it hard for ourselves. I think that's a bit disrespectful to the teams we've played so far, who have been undeniably outclassed but still set out with a game plan, stuck to it and taken points off us. You know what he means though.

Champions League proper kicks off tonight, with Liverpool taking on Ronald Koeman's PSV Eindhoven, and following the bindippers' defeat to Ronald Koeman's Benfica last season Mr Ronald Koeman is quite optimistic that Ronald Koeman and Ronald Koeman's PSV can beat Liverpool. Ronald Koeman.

If you didn't realise, with all the Ronald Koeman references, Ronald Koeman fancies himself a bit.

Chavski kick off their campaign against Werder Bremen. I hope they get stuffed and Cashley gets his legs broke. Oops, I'm not supposed to mention him...

Someone's going to get an absolute pasting

Sooner or later (I'd hope next weekend but I'm not that optimistic about stuffing Man Yoo in their own back yard) someone is going to get five or six knocked past them by this Arsenal side.

It might seem like I'm just trying to put a brave face on what is, quite frankly, two points dropped against a team we normally roll over at home, normally netting a fair few in the process. It was a disappointing game, and one in keeping with the way our season has started.

We had 17 shots to their one, and we both scored once. Whoever keeps saying our problem is we don't shoot is talking out of their arse, we shoot plenty, but from too far away and with an accuracy that makes American Military friendly fire look good. Typical. I watched bits of the Man Yoo v Spuds game afterwards and Spurs threw away at least three very, very good chances, which I'm sure they would have stuck away against us as everyone else seems to be sticking their one and only scoring opportunity.

So is this just a case of bad luck? Yes and no. Certainly at the back we've been a little unlucky, but we've also made our own mistakes which we've been punished for. Up front it's a little different. Henry still doesn't look fit, and neither does Ljungberg. Van Persie doesn't seem to have the same confidence playing for us as he does for Holland and Hleb, who I thought actually had a pretty good game against Boro, is still giving us absolutely no width.

Eboue had another of his attack-minded games and looked good on the rampage down the right, but against better teams (and Man Yoo next weekend springs to mind) he'll be leaving us exposed. Gallas, the Boro goal aside, did well, but I think we'd all rather see him at centre half, which would give Djourou a break, and it looks like he might need one.

Of the three second half substitutes only Rosicky really brought anything to the table, I think he looked good, had a couple of shots, played some decent passes. Adebayor was Bambi on ice and Baptista didn't really get into the game.

Wenger has been talking about us still being a tired team after the World Cup and recent internationals, but that's nothing that the other big teams in the Premiership aren't also having to deal with (that said Liverpool aren't looking too hot at the moment either). I think we'll click very, very soon but at the moment it seems more and more that we've got a team out there which doesn't know what everyone's job is. Sounds like blasphemy I know when you consider the way Wenger organises his teams, but that's what it looks like to me. I've spoken before about our new lack of width and the congestion in the centre of the pitch, and this looks to be a big part of the problem. Back to the training ground boys.

In other news, Ashley Cole is still bitching about how horrible Arsenal were to him over the last season, and how it upset him that Arsenal fans were still chanting Thierry's name, begging him to stay, whilst no one really gave a toss about Mr Tweedy. Surprising that, Ashley. I mean Thierry went to meet Peter Kenyon and Jose Mourinho in a London hotel to discuss a transfer to one of our biggest rivals on the eve of one of our biggest games of the season, didn't he? Oh, wait...

What a proper fuckwit. It's made even more noticeable since we've decided to leave the past exactly where it belongs. You betrayed the fans Ashley, not the other way around. He goes on to claim one of the physios questioned his commitment. Too bloody right.

Hamburg on Wednesday and a tough away game to kick off our European campaign. No team news as yet.

Come on you Gooners.

For the love of everything holy, give me some proper football

As you might be able to tell from today's title, I'm very much looking forward to proper, non-international-against-piddling-little-teams football tomorrow. With the Arse looking for their first Premiership win of the season it's a big game against traditional home whipping boys Middlesbrough. Of course the Emirates probably still doesn't feel like home to the players or us fans, but I'm still confident of a result.

Here's the side I would hope starts the game tomorrow. With Djourou likely to miss out due to the injury he sustained against England U21s on Wednesday, Gallas looks a dead cert to start in his preferred centre half role, rather than left back. Justin Hoyte havs been given a fair run in the side so far this season in both the Premiership and Europe without impressing, so I'd like to see the Flim Flam man back in at left back, although it's very likely that Arsene will persist with Hoyte. The rest of the back four picks itself.

In midfield, despite others giving Freddie a fair amount of praise so far this season I'd rather see Helb and Rosicky on the flanks. Now that Pires and Reyes have both left we do have a real problem in that we don't really have any true, byline-hugging wingers (although I think Walcott could find himself playing there a fair bit rather than up front), and both Alex and Tomas both have a tendency to drift inside both with and without the ball (and Freddie does too). We really need Fabregas and O'Silva be more dominant in the centre with our own players (let alone the opposition) and let them know that they need to keep wide.

Up front Thierry and RvP both performed very, very well for France and Holland respectively on Wednesday, with Henry netting and Robin bagging a brace, and I think this international form is good enough for both to start. A lot of people are hankering to see la Bestia unleashed, but I'm fairly sure he'll start on the bench, and if and when he does come on I'm still not convinced as to where he'll be playing, midfield or up front.

With the bench comprising five of Aluminum/Poom, Hoyte, Freddie, Denilson, Walcott, Baptista and Adebayor, that's a decent level of depth to call on if needs be.

In other news Michael Carrick is talking about almost joining Arsenal rather than the Spuds from West Ham two years ago. Quite how this is news seeing as we all knew this already is beyond me, and I can only imagine it's coming up because we've got Man Yoo next weekend.

Ashley Cole is claiming that his move to Chelsea has nothing to do with money. Seeing as he fell out with Arsenal over £5,000 that his agent told him he'd been offered, then swore he'd never play for another Premiership side, he can fuck off, the lying scumbag. It's a nice piece by Matt Hughes, who paints Cashley as the unprincipled simpleton he really is.

Football tomorrow. Come on you Gooners.

International nonsense is over for a bit, hurrah!

There were a number of Arsenal players involved in international duty last night, with many giving a very good account of themselves.

Thierry scored in France's 3-1 win over World Champions Italy, RvP banged in two and set up another as the Netherlands beat Alexander Hleb and Belrus 3-0, Theo scored a nice goal and Djourou got injured as England U-21s beat Switzerland 3-2, Freddie missed a penalty but Sweden still won 3-1 against Lichtenstein, Mad Mad Jens kept a clean sheet as Germany walloped San Marino 13-0, and Cesc came off the bench to see Spain lose 3-2 to Northern Ireland.

Good to see so many of the boys doing so well on international duty, but back to the matter at hand, and three points up for grabs on Saturday, and that's where the lads need to put their focus. The injury to Djourou means that Gallas is certain to start in the centre of defence, but I'll talk more about line ups tomorrow.

In Chelsea news, looks like they're going to continue their cuntiness by tapping up Nicklas Bendtner, our young Danish striker who's kicking copious amounts of arse in the Championship. They can well and truly fuck off.

Gallas refused to be drawn on the Chelsea issue last night, and instead talked about how excited he is about making his debut at Arsenal. Good man.

Peter Hill-Wood has also said he's not interested in making the newest Chelsea farce run any longer. That's how a football club should be run.

Til tomorrow.

More Chelsea v Gallas

The William Gallas story continues to rumble on. Even the newspapers that were quick to label Billy as a disgraceful money grabbing cheat are now shooting derisory glances at Chelsea and the web of lies that is their communications department. There are large proportions of the Chelsea fanbase who have also stood up against this latest development, and whilst the club is quite clearly a few cards short of a full deck, at least a fair percentage of their fans are not.

The Daily Mirror has led with a story claiming that Gallas will look towards legal proceedings against Chelsea over the matter, whilst the Independent claims that the FA will press Chelsea to provide proof of these libellous allegations. The Independent goes on to suggest that Arsene is in France for their European qualifier against Italy, and will try to convince Gallas not to take it further so that the whole affair will come to an end sooner rather than later.

All of this is rather dull to me, as I'm fairly certain that Chelsea are, for the most part (Jose Mourinho, Bruce Buck, Peter Slaphead), a bunch of liars, so I feel that there is little interest in the conclusion of this debacle. It will be Gallas' word against theirs.

The more interesting story for me that came out yesterday is the news that instead of taking the number 3 shirt, as first though, Gallas has instead opted for Dennis' number 10. Personally I would have liked to have seen the number given some breathing room after Bergkamp's departure, at least a season. Some fans have been made a bit upset by the decision, some are suggesting that it was Wenger's idea to give him the number 10, whilst I think that Gallas is desperate to stay away from 3 as it's a left back's number and he doesn't want to be freely associated with that position. As Gallas was initially given the number 3 on his profile I think it's far more likely that he requested a change than he was intentionally given the number 10.

Our new number 9 was in action against Wales for Brazil last night in a friendly played at White Hart Lane (I love the fact that, whilst playing two friendlies in England, Brazil played Argentina at the Emirates and John Toshack's leek munchers at the Spuds' shed, fantastic analogy) and was booed for pretty much the entire game by the Spurs faithful. He spent a lot of time pushed out to the right where he looked ineffectual, but whenever he came into the centre, where he should play for us, he looked dangerous.

Roll on Saturday.

Chelsea put through own net by releasing own goal "threat"

There's only one story dominating the sports pages this morning, and that's the news, from a Chelsea press release on their website, that William Gallas allegedly threatened to score own goals, intentional get sent off and make deliverate mistakes if forced to play again for Chelsea.

If you ever needed proof of the lack of class, the lack of respect, and the wholehearted stupidity of this west London football club, here it is. Now this "revelation" may or may not be true. Personally, I don't think it is, and if there's any grain of truth in there at all then it's been ridiculously embellished upon by the Chavski communications department (on that note read this bit from arseblogger, interesting who Chavski's director of communications is).

This, as others have already said, greatly contrasts with Arsene Wenger's approach to the departure of Ashley Cole, which was reserved, gracious, and above all respectful, especially considering everything that Mr Tweedy has put the club through over the last 18 months, events that have actually been proven to be true, unlike Chelski's accusations.

The Chavs statement basically stems from the fan backlash at the departure of their best centre half (I don't care what anyone says, he's better than John Terry, who will suffer this year without him) and their need to justify selling him to one of their top competitors. Considering these threats took place before Chelski's game against Manchester City on August 20th, and that Jose Mourinho was reportedly furious at his departure only last week, it seems hard to believe that the decision to offload him was due to this alleged threat. Too much time passed, and Mourinho would not stand for such behaviour and make such a fuss about him leaving if it were true.

Gallas responded to these claims by saying that the accusations are baseless, and that Chavski lack class. He also went on to say:

"If people want to hide behind these ridiculous accusations to explain why I left to keep onside with their club's supporters, that's what they do. I don't think it'll fool anybody."

He's absolutely right, and well said that man. You are endearing yourself to the Highbury faithful more and more each day.

And that's enough chat about that. Quite frankly they don't deserve so many people taking them seriously. Which I don't.

In proper, actually happened news, Arsenal.con has released a bit more information about our other Brazilian signing Denilson. I'm still worried that this appears to be an identical type of signing as Diaby and Song, and I'm not sure there's room in the team for all of them to breakthrough as they are all a similar age and play the same position (and we all have doubts about Song, who has now officially taken over Cygan's mantle as biggest first team liability). We'll see.

Six days til proper football is back

As you might have guessed from the title of today's post, I can't wait for the Premiership to restart and all of this international friendlies/qualifiers against gash teams business to be over. I watched England on Saturday and we were convincing, but certainly not spectacular against one of the worst sides I've ever seen in world football. To be fair you can only beat what's put in front of you, but a 5-0 win was the least we should have expected. It was yet another game where you could have been forgiven for thinking Fat Frank wasn't playing.

I also watched the Brazil v Argentina unfriendly at the Grove on Sunday, and boy was I impressed with the Brazilian lads. They were without Ronaldinho, Adriano, Chubby, Emerson and the newly retired Cafu and Bobby Carlos and looked much better for it. When I saw the two lineups I thought that Argentina's looked the stronger, but for all their posession they never looked threatening and Brazil fully deserved their 3-0 victory, which was capped off with a splendid solo effort from Kaka when he nicked the ball of Messi's toe and then ran the length of the field before calmly slotting the ball past Abbondanzieri.

In proper football news, more has come out about the decidedly dodgy dealings down at Upton Park. Apparently Tevez and Mascherano were pimped around the big clubs, with no one prepared to pay the asking price, before Chelsea, Manchester United, Arsenal and even Portsmouth turned down the same loan deal that West Ham accepted.

The details of this loan deal include no money changing hands, MSI retaining the rights to decide when and where both players will move next summer, West Ham receiving no money at all when they do move on, West Ham only paying half their wages, and contractual agreements stating that both Tevez and Mascherano must play every Premiership game that they are declared fit for. No wonder everyone else told MSI to shove it up their arse.

Arsene has been speaking out about the vast majority of international football being shite. He's spot on.

The Beast played a small role in yesterday's friendly, and speaking afterwards said he's looking forward to playing for Arsenal and working with Wenger, and would like to sign a four year deal at the end of his loan deal. What a top chap. I'm still intrigued as to what type of role Wenger has in mind for Baptista and wonder if he'll be rotated with Cesc, Gilberto or both. I still don't seem him playing up front. I do like him in the Arsenel jersey though. It just looks right some how, like he was always meant to wear it.

Thierry has gone ahead and made me look like a proper chump following my worries that he would feel a bit miffed about our summer transfer activity by saying that he's pretty chuffed with the players that we've brought in. In the piece he calls Gallas the best centre half in the world (a little over the top but he's up there, and there's certainly no better in the Premiership) and thinks that the Beast can have a big impact on our season. So that's nice. Wonder how long it'll be before Baptista misplaces a pass and Thierry refuses to speak to him for the rest of the game.

Roll on Saturday.

No surprises on deadline day, more's the pity

So that's the transfer season closed for another four months. And quite frankly, I'm very disappointed, and for possibly the first time I think that Arsene has made a miscalculation on what we need, and a major cock up.

We ended our transfer dealings with four signings proper - Tomas Rosicky, Julio Baptista (on loan with a view to a permanent deal), William Gallas and Denilson (read the bottom).

We ended our transfer dealings losing six players proper - Dennis Bergkamp, Sol Campbell, Ashley Cole, Robert Pires, Pascal Cygan, Jose Antonio Reyes (I am not including any player that has left on loan other than Reyes as they are all youth players on temporary deals, whereas Reyes' move is likely to become permanent).

Quite frankly that is not good enough. That is not nearly good enough when you look at the experience we have lost from an already inexperienced, young side. This Denilson could turn out to be the best defensive midfielder in the world, but he certainly won't be for another four or five years, and looks to be an identical type of signing as Diaby and Alexandre Song (let's pray Denilson is better than Alexandre Song).

Deadline day brought the conclusion of the most tedious transfer deal in history, that of Cashley Cole to Chelsea. We got William Gallas and £5 million. Quite frankly I think we've been screwed. Wasn't this the same deal Chelsea allegedly proposed a week ago and we turned down outright?

Now don't get me wrong, I think that Gallas is a fantastic player, but he was in the last year of his contract and cannot claim to be the best player in his position in world football. Mr Tweedy had two years on his contract and is the best player in the world in his position. So we get a £5 million readjustment? It should have been double that. This deal has been fucked up by Double D and the board from the beginning and I'm disappointed in all involved.

Reyes has, alledgedly, moved to Real Madrid, with Baptista moving in the other direction, on loan with a view to a permanent deal. I don't understand this move at all. We have so many forwards we don't what to do with them, with Lupoli and Bendtner to return as well, and he's not the type of centre midfield player we need. Then there's the fact that he looked appalling at Real last year.

No-one's going to shed any tears over Cygan leaving, and Gallas seems to fill that whole to bring us back up to four centre halves, but Gallas will also, I imagine, be covering left back until Clichy is fit again. Given that one of the main reasons Gallas wanted to leave Chelsea, and in doing so take a huge pay cut, was that he didn't want to be played at left back anymore. So this makes little sense. It also means that Senderos is now third choice centre half when everyone's fit, and Djourou, who I don't think has done badly since coming into the side, is pushed back to fourth choice.

Add to all of this the fact that Tevez (who I can easily live without) and Mascherano (who I desperately, desperately wanted to come to Arsenal, and who Wenger has almost bought about five times now) have moved to West Ham and it's all ridiculously depressing.

That said, the above transfer deal is sunk deep in conspiracy theories and dodgy dealings involving both MSI, who control Corinthians, count a certain Russian billionaire as a key decision maker (although there are no legal ties) and have tried to buy West Ham in the past. Rumours abound that MSI are either shunting all their top players to West Ham on the cheap before launching another takeover bid, or that a certain Russian billionaire is using West Ham to keep Chelsea's future targets warm and stop their rivals, both European and domestic, from acquiring them.

If either is true then we really are living in a new era of football, and it really worries me that the game is headed down this road. The fact that West Ham are refusing to release ANY specifics about the deal at all is a further worry, and quite unlike West Ham who revealed all and sundry when they bought Dean Ashton for a very well-publicised club record fee of £7.5 million.

Don't get me wrong, I hold no ill will regarding West Ham and their good fortune. If it turns out to all be above board I'll be the first to congratulate them on what is quite frankly the transfer coup of the century. We'll have to wait and see whether it is though.

But all in all I'm a bit pissed off, and honestly worried about how we'll do this season. It is now clear that this is going to be a second year in transition, which really isn't acceptable. Of course if we end up storming the league and get our hands on that elusive Champions League trophy I'll take it all back, but I now doubt it very highly.

Thierry, who stayed not only because he loves the club but also because he was convinced of the club's ambition moving forward, must feel like he's been mugged.