Defending big Phil

Whatever one thinks of Philip Senderos as a footballer, he has always come across to me as a genuinely top bloke on and off the pitch, in fact I don't think I have ever seen a player look so genuinely remorseful after being hashly sent off earlier this season. Big Phil is a good guy and should be shown a little bit of respect by us Arsenal fans.

One blog recently led with the headline 'Nasri signs, Big Phil off, excitement overload!' the other day, more than a touch disrespectful for a guy that has given 100% to the cause whenever he has been asked and who has always been the model professional. Some of us appear to have rather short memories, big Phil did form part of our super solid defence that got as far as the Champions League final in 2006 claiming clean sheet after clean sheet along the way.

More recently he has actually played very well for us on the whole, he came in for Kolo earlier this year and shored up the defense somewhat. Admittedly he was turned too easily by Torres at Anfield, but Torres is not a bad player and overall his errors have been few and far between. He did also play rather well away to the mighty Milan in that famous 2-0 win. There is certainly nothing that he should have to feel ashamed about, even if some rather fair weather fools insist upon turning him into a scapegoat.

Some so called Arsenal fans have been quick to offer Phil their mighty opinion with 'Fuck off and leave' and 'he seems to be an arrogant kind who thinks he's all that'. It seems that the majority of sensible Gooner opinion sees Senderos as a very good young defender who has been unfairly scapegoated. While it is fashionable these days to get carried away with far fetched and tedious transfer rumours about players that none of us have ever seen in action, some of us would do better to show a little bit more respect to some of the top professionals that we already have plying their trade at Arsenal Football Club. It may seem clever to talk of replacing most of our squad with some exciting new players from foreign leagues that have performed well on Championship Manager, however it most certainly is not.

A shame someone had to win

My heart bleeds it really does, it couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke than JT, a man who shows respect to officials week in week out, a man who never tries to cynically cripple his opponents with dirty off the ball antics. Just think of poor Ashley Cole too, another Champions League final defeat, there is no justice in the world.

In all seriousness, there wasn't a great deal between the sides, both sets of eleven c*nts were pretty evenly matched. It was a great shame that someone had to win the game, it would have been much fairer if both sides had lost and so much more enjoyable for the neutral.

The hype surrounding the game was really a little over the top, some people seem to have forgotten that it was only a game of football. However having worked themselves up into such a frenzy, the media then had to continue the pretence that this was to be the greatest game of football ever, it wasn't a bad one by any means, but it was certainly a long from being the greatest ever.

United will go down as legends, even thought they looked second best for long periods. Even though some people deny the existence of luck, United's double owes a great deal to it, while they do have a very solid defence and an exceptional talent in Ronaldo, luck has been the difference between the big three English clubs this season. Having said that, well done to United, winning such a double takes a lot of doing, as well as a fair amount of luck.

Prophetical transfer musing

The transfer speculation is reaching fever pitch, I particularly like A Cultured Left Foot's amusing take on events. It seems that some people do not learn that there are many boys aout there who like to cry wolf, naively seeing the French newspaper L'Equipe as a printer of the gospel truth. Having spent several closed seasons in France reading L'Equipe, I can tell you that it prints its fair share of complete rot, so trust any newspaper at your peril. Nasri may or may not sign, I haven't a clue, but I will only believe it when I hear it from Arsenal Football Club.

L'Equipe is probably more reliable than the Sun, however that doesn't really count for much does it? The latest name to be linked with the club is an author who died in 1931, I am sure some blogs and news outlets will still swallow this tongue in cheek Arseblog effort down though, nice photo by the way. Arsene has been talking about the influence that referees have been having on the big games this season, surprisingly I am inclined to agree with him on this, there is so little to choose between the top sides that it does often come down to a bit of dodgy refereeing.

If you need some cheering up on this depressing day for football, then you can always have a laugh at Tottenham, or you can enjoy this tackle on Ashley Cole brilliantly executed by his team mate Claude Makelele. It hurts me as much as it hurt Ashley, trust me.

Play up pompey!

Well done to Portsmouth, I did enjoy watching the cup final yesterday because it was a decent game, and it was played in a pretty sportsmanlike manner without the gamesmanship and cheating that would have taken place if a Chelsea or a Man U had taken part. The Champions League final promises to be a cagey and bitter encounter, it's a great shame the best footballing side got done out of it by some dodgy refereeing and a Ryan Babel dive. It's going to be a hard final to watch, the optimists amongst us will be looking forward to enjoying one of our great rivals losing, while the pessimists will probably not be watching.

The silly season is upon us, meaning that we are being linked with hundreds of players and it isn't even yet the end of May. Frankly I can't be arsed to keep up with the details because the vast majority of them are completely baseless bull. It is worth keeping an eye on what the mighty Arsene has to say, as this is often more revealing than any rumours in the tabloids:

"I think a huge player is better than a huge name, you have huge names who produce very little at the moment. There is plenty of demand from players who want to join us and what we need next year is two or three maybe."

Arsene is quite right. We don't need time big time Charlies for the sake of appeasing some rather mindless fans, fans who are happy to slag off our own players because they believe the odd made up rumour in the Sun, mentioning no names of course Le Vacuum. One particular blog labels Flamini 'a tosser and a greedy narsissic delusional twat and tells Adebayor to f*ck off calling him 'last season's biggest joke'. Some people have more mouth than brains, they would certainly do better to think before letting fly, unfortunately they may be a little short of the grey cells to do the thinking, while the less said about their grammar the better.

We need two or three hungry young Sagna/Eduardo types, players who are not household names, but who are approaching their peak and who will be able to drive us onto some silverware next season. The big names are often not as hungry and keen to prove themselves, while one also has to pay over the odds in terms of transfer fees and wages.

Meanwhile Arsene has hinted that he sees Alexandre Song as a centre back for us, and his solid performances there for us at the end of this season certainly add weight to this argument. Personally I remain to be convinced that a partnership of Gallas and Song or Toure and Song would be big enough for a title winning run in the Premiership. Whoever else Arsene signs we certainly have some rather exciting prospects coming through already, Vela is to be part of the squad next year, while the likes of Gibbs, Randall and Merida will all be part of the squad.

The Fabregas show

I was fortunate enough to obtain a backstage pass for the much hyped Cesc Fabregas show that is due to be shown on Sky this Monday coming. I'm not normally one for this type of mildly glitzy occasion but seeing as Cesc, Arsene and a few others might be around I thought it would be fun to head down.

The location was a largish studio just opposite Wembley Park tube station, which appeared slightly decrepit from the outside. Having gained entry and a very exciting photo ID badge, some tasty cold beverages were consumed within while having to endure some rather tinny two step beats blared out by a DJ who had a haircut that was somewhat reminiscent of the legendary Forest player 'Jason Lee', although the pineapple had been replaced by more of a mango shaped crop.

The show itself was rather glitzy and superficial, lacking the content that an Arsenal anorak such as myself would desire. The presenters, can't remember their names as I see no need to memorise the names of unamusing nobodies, blundered along with some rather poorly scripted gags while presenting Cesc's career so far in a rather disjointed manner.

Despite the tabloid style programming from Sky, one thing stood out for me, and that was the impressive young man that is Cesc Fabregas. His desire, commitment, intelligence and incredible modesty were there for all to see. His softly spoken eloquence impressed me and stood out in contrast to the tacky banter from the presenters. He is a great role model for any young kids out there, his desire to educate himself, learn another language and experience a new culture are things that make him a class above so many of his English counterparts. This all came over in the interview despite the lack anyone with a brain being present to ask some decent questions.

Instead of criticising foreign players, out media should sometimes look at what we can learn from some of the magnificent young professionals that travel to our shores to ply their trade. Some of our 'great' English youngsters can barely string a sentence together in their native tongue, while getting hammered is apparently something that we should all aspire to. Enough of the rant, the best bit of the night was when I bumped into Arsene and managed to muster the words 'I'm a big fan of yours' before forcing him into a hand shake. Well done Cesc, keep up the good work my son.

Birthday card dilemma

It's always satisfying to end the season with a win and a clean sheet, one Theo Walcott goal being enough to see off a determined Sunderland side. All in all a total of eighty three points is pretty impressive by anyone's standards, it's just a shame that we couldn't have mustered five more. Manu won the title thanks to a Ronaldo penalty and a Giggs effort near full time which gave them a 2-0 away win at Wigan, it might not have been their day had Steve Bennett shown a bit of bottle and sent of Scholes for shoving a Wigan player when already on a booking. Obviously Manu thoroughly deserve their league title and it could never be said that luck or dubious refereeing have contributed to their success this year.

I am sure we're in for a speculative close season, how exciting, I can barely restrain myself from buying copies of all the tabloids to see who we're being linked with every day. It seems that some Arsenal commentators are becoming more deranged by the day (here I am referring to Myles Palmer and not the excellent Goodplaya of course), maybe the hot weather has a greater effect on the brains of arty farty fools. Maybe the club should just indulge our Gooner Championship Manager armchair experts by buying a few overpriced Turkeys in the summer, they would obviously then stop abusing their own players at the Emirates as the club had showed it's ambition by wasting money in an irresponsible and short sighted fashion.

On a lighter note, it was recently my birthday and one of my so called friends happens to be a Chelsea fan, and his sick idea of a joke involved buying me a signed photo of Ashley Cole in his lovely Chelsea shirt as a present, I am sure it was completely unrelated to the fact that I bought a delightful Arsenal card for his wife's birthday. Anyway I resisted my initial Neanderthal impulses to rip up the photo, spit on it and burn it. I got thinking, ethically what should one do with such a photo? Would a better option be to sell the photo to some sucker of a Chelsea fan on Ebay and then reinvest the money in Arsenal merchandise or perhaps a pint of cold ale? In this way I would be depriving a Chelsea fan of some money and increasing the quality of life of an Arsenal fan, while also helping Arsenal financially. Anyone got any opinion on this ethical dilemma?

Ken Friar books long summer holiday

Arsene Wenger recently said this to the Arsenal's Supporters' Trust:

"I must say this year we had among the best attack but we have conceded 31 goals which is six or seven too many," he said. "It's as close as that to win the championship.
"We didn't give more goals away than any other team in the League on open play, nor on set pieces, but where we gave more goals away was on direct balls, in the air, through the middle, and most of the time on second balls.
"On set pieces and open play we were as good as Manchester United and Chelsea. The numbers are available. But we have to rectify how we deal with direct balls. When a team just goes for long, direct balls against us, we have to improve."

Its the usually sensible comments that Arsene is famous for. But he doesn't actually say anywhere that he wants to buy a centre-back. Nevertheless, and lets not let facts get in the way, that is how its been reported. Football 365 run it with the headline that "Arsene Wenger has confirmed that he is searching for a new centre-half". It may be the context of Ken Friar being busy on the phone gave the impression of lots of transfer activity this summer, but the quotes from Arsene don't actually say that at all. In fact, the Ken Friar bit didn't get quoted either.

Apparently its become gospel truth that Kolo Toure and William Gallas are now terrible players and we must sign someone else who is expensive. Immediately. Otherwise we will never win anything ever again and there will be blood on the streets of Islington.

Oh well. Its probably correct that if an excellent centre back was available for a decent price then we should try and get them. It would be nice but I doubt that's going to happen. Come what may, I'm more than happy to nail my colours to the mast and say that Kolo and Billy can work it out.

It appears though that Arsenal fans are now almost unanimous in their demands for a lot of money to be spent this summer. Theres no real consensus where it needs to be spent, but we all want the cheque book to come out big time. There were even a couple of morons at the Everton game chanting "no more kids, no more kids". Well go and watch Chelsea then.

Arsene Wenger has made his entire career based on spotting young talented footballers and playing them in the first XI when no one else would have dared. Any idiot can sign a player from Real Madrid for £30m. It takes unbelievable skill to spot a player at 16 and bring them through like he has done with people like Cesc Fabregas, Gael Clichy, Nic Anelka and Ashley Cole. Or to bring someone unknown from a foreign league like Bacary Sagna. The lists are endless.

Anyway. The cabin fever is clearly here to stay so its going to be a long summer of ranting for signings. Maybe clubs should run an X-Factor style contest to get some imbecile a contract with a bigger club. The morons would happily spend £5 a day each on phone votes to get Jimmy Bullard signed for ManUre ('parented' by Waren Barton in the Sharon Osborne role), or vote for David Bentley to go to Liverpool (you know its going to happen and you know it won't work). The Sun would love it.

Instead, if you actually read Arsene's quote, he just says that we were a bit shit against straight long balls. Yet again, it looks as if the so called football professor has been stealing his best lines from my posts again - its almost a quote from Nails and Stuff (shortly to be released in hardback). On the other hand, its patently obvious to anyone with eyes that we need to be better at dealing with straight long balls. But I reckon Arsene's a regular on AAB all the same.

I almost find it amusing that for all Arsenal's amazing football this season, the simple punt down the middle on the park has been our un-doing. There's no point in getting angry about it and I'm quite sure that anyone else we sign is going to make mistakes as well. We just need to think a bit more about our defending. We sorted ourselves out on set pieces and crosses, so why can't we deal with the long ball as well?

So, in other news, I am going to spend the summer writing a Myles Palmer style auto-biography about Me and Arsene. The blurb on the back cover will go something like this: "me and Arsene think along the same lines. I've never met Arsene but I always knew which substitutes he would bring on and when. Its spooky. Like we're twins or something. So I've written 300 pages of shite that you will regret buying......."

I'll put K-Man down for a pre-order of 10,000 copies.