Thursday 14 January 2010

Redknapp charged, Sol's knowledge and other tit bits

It's been a day or two of amusement with an injury hit Liverpool being knocked out of the Cup by Reading and now 'Arry Redknapp being charged with tax evasion. Obviously 'Arry has been fitted up for this little bit of action by the nasty police, even so I can't help but hope he can be officially called a crook after the matter is heard by the courts, maybe his guilty twitching will give the game away, who knows. Liverpool are in big trouble, a torn meniscus for Torres will keep him out for over a month, Gerrard and Bennayoun are also out with more minor complaints. It's amazing how things can turn around, it was just last season that Liverpool pushed Manu hard for the title.

Sol Campbell has been speaking of the role his experience can play in the coming months. There's no doubt that it's useful to have people who have seen and done it all in the dressing room as the pressure mounts towards the season's climax. Sol had a decent 45 minutes against West Ham's reserves the other night. It was 4-2 in the end but both West Ham's goals were from dodgy penalties, the first a soft one for a tackle by Gilbert that took more ball than man and the second a shocking decision when Bartley took the ball very cleanly indeed. JET scored with a neat header, a deflected effort and a crisp ripper into the bottom corner when played through on goal. There is a lot of ability in the midfield area of our reserves, Merida is always inventive and lively, Coquelin is a classy yet solid player who gets the job done, Eastmond plays deep and mops up the danger, while Frimpong is a real box to box player, robust in the tackle but also very dangerous near the opponent's penalty box.

Like many other Arsenal TV subscribers I had hoped to watch this game in full and was more than a smidgen pissed off to find out that the club is not to screen these reserve games live, as had been previously promised. YoungGuns are on the case with this, and I have to agree that as one of the biggest clubs in world football our lack of a TV channel is a bit of a shambles. Obviously there are some things that Arsenal TV has done well, in fact watching live reserve and youth games has been one of their best bits of work. A lot of people would pay good money to watch an Arsenal channel on TV, it is just plain bad business that nothing has happened since Setanta wound up last year. Sort it out please Arsenal, there just isn't enough football on TV these days.

4 comments:

Rhinogooner said...

Anyone else worried about taking all 6 points from our next two matches v. Bolton?

By all accounts, we should expect to. But back to back matches against the same team is a tricky challenge.

I'm feeling a bit nervous about this, but then I'm usually nervous when Arsenal play.

I have to just keep reminding myself - Cesc is back! And Denilson is out so can't be picked ;-)

Okay that was sour of me. Apologies.

1979gooner said...

will be tough, especially with coyle just installed as the new boss

four points would be decent,

six points would be excellent

Obsinho said...

6 points is the only acceptable outcome sadly. We're in the run down to the end of the season and dropped points matter much more. Against this opposition, ignoring the proximity of games, we'd expect a win. We should ndot settle for less.

Given there are other factors to consider, 4 points would not be a disaster. We have fought hard to get back into the title race and we need to fight just as hard to stay there.

Anonymous said...

When Arsenal TV was on setanta it was great as you could see how the reserves developed and whole games you couldn't get to BUT the downside was the constant repeats,well wrong there,the repeats of repeats of repeats.there wasn't any imagination or original thinking put into the schedules.What i don't understand is that Laughapool in worst financial situation than us yet can still have TV channel on and we can't.I would pay a subscription for the tv channel but it has increasingly shown that the hierarchy of Arsenal are more interested in money than the fans.