Sunday 11 May 2008

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?

8 comments:

Ted said...

Sounds a very thoughtful gift. Perhaps you can get it foam mounting for some kind of punch-bag?

Re the deranged posting - I assume you are saying Myles Palmer is an idiot, rather than Goodplaya?

1979gooner said...

oh yes,

goodplaya is spot on,

some of the stuff MP said sounds utterly ridiculous,

strangely the post has gone from ANR

Ted said...

Bit of random stats for this season:

Theo Walcott - 7 goals from 39 games (19 as sub)

Shaun Wright-Philips - 4 goals from 41 games (10 as sub)

Joe Cole - 10 goals from 54 appearances (10 as sub)

Ashley Young - 8 goals from 39 games (1 as sub)

I think Theo comes out very well on these stats.

Obsinho said...

And wasn't Ashley Young in most people's teams of the season?

Makes Hleb look even more of a tool when you include Theo's asissts as well.

1979gooner said...

Indeed.

Makes Myles Palmer look like a proper bellend, as he keeps taking pops at Theo and claiming that Ashley Young is the best thing since sliced bread.

Young is good, Theo is as good and has the potential to be on another level to Young.

Ted said...

And whilst stats are just stats, Niko Kranjar's aren't so hot either:

- 5 goals from 41 appearances (3 as sub).

This suggests he is much more of a Hleb than a Pires. In fact, given that Kranjar's career stats in England are 7 goals from 69 appearances, this doesn't really fit the description that 1979 has put out for a free scoring wide-midfielder.

Ted said...

Ok, the stats thing will cease to amuse me soon (buts the BBC website is an absolute goldmine), but here is one that really surprised me:

Adebayor is now the top scorer still playing at Arsenal - 46 goals in 105 appearances.

RVP has 43 goals in 133 appearances.

Fab4 has 26 in 198 appearances.

Rosicky has 13 in 61 appearances.

Contrast that to Henry's later years when he was on about 200 goals, Bergkamp was on over 100 and Pires was on 60 odd.

To me, it really shows how short a period this current team has played together and reinforces my view that it needs at least another season to develop. If we make 3 or 4 changes to it now, we might end up going backwards next season, just as Liverpool and Spures have in the last 12 months.

K man said...

Ade and RVP have got a very good record on those stats and Theo deserves a decent run in the side now. I'm pretty sure Arsene will start with him next season but it looks like he still prefers him on the wing - it will be interesting to see if Eboue finally gets his marching orders or whether Theo will get stuck on the left wing while Rosicky is permanently crocked.

Must admit that I'm pleased Man Poo rather than Chelski won the title. Still think the football chelski play is absolute dross, and if they get rid of Drogba, big phil will have the happiest summer of anyone in the Premiership...