Old faces - Bobby Pires

Given that its one of those pointless weeks with international friendlies on, I thought it was ok for a quick stroll down memory lane to say hello to one of the best Arsenal players of all time, Mr Robert Pires.

Bobby was simply great. Signed for £6m from Metz in 2000, he replaced Marc Overmars (another fine player, but thats for another post sometime) who had gone to Barca for £25m in a joint deal with Petit (he was pretty good too).

Initially playing in front of Silvinho (also quite good), he first season was not that great, although I do remember his goal away against Lazio in the Champions League quite fondly. However, he took off in his second seasons and never looked back. His Premier League stats for Arsenal are very impressive: 62 league goals in 189 games (I couldn't find his stats overall). Roughly 1 goal in 3 games would be ok for most strikers, let alone a midfielder playing in a team with predators such as Henry.

So what was so good about him? Well, its great to score lots of goals but he covered back as well. I have a sneaky feeling that Silvinho and Ashley Cole would have been more exposed for their defensive frailties if they had been playing behind Overmars, who thought tracking back was for other players.

Secondly, he was a technically superb footballer who didn't just rely on pace or strength. You can count his bad touches on one finger. In fact, you don't even need one finger, he simply didn't make bad touches. Probably second only to the mighty Dennis Bergkamp in terms of technical excellence.

He was also an exceptional passer of the ball, created a lot of assists and didn't hog it in the manner that some of our current crop of midfielders can do. Diaby probably holds onto the ball for two touches too many on each occassion, whereas Bobby was happy to play first time.

Bobby also had a great link with Henry on the pitch. They seemed to laugh and joke their way through games and whilst there was the occassional cock-up, e.g. the penalty fiasco against Man City, it was usually superb to watch and you just had to feel sorry for the poor bastard playing right back against those two.

Lastly, and it sounds strange to say it, he was just so French and in a bizarrely likable way. He had a column in the Guardian and a chat show on French radio about something weird. Somehow he reminds me of a footballing Jonny Depp. Plus everyone else hated him, mainly because he was so good. Opposition fans called him a diving cheat, but he did no more than Owen (v Argentina), Rooney (most games) and Gerrard (v Milan) on that front.

Its also great to still see him playing so well for Villareal with that other Arsenal legend (not) - Pascal Cygan.

Anyway, on this most boring of weeks, Bobby Pires - we salute you.

At just the right time

This is the optimal time of the year to click into gear, and Arsenal are doing just that. Not many sides could go away to Manchester City and control the game so convincingly. Overall the 3-1 scoreline was rather flattering to City who barely forced Lehmann to make a save all day long.

Bar a rare error from the dominant Clichy, it was a great team performance lead from the front by the warrior that is Emmanuel Adebayor. The defence was solid, Sagna raiding at pace down the right with Senderos and Gallas imperious at the back. Flamini and Fabregas complimented each other nicely, while Diaby is starting to look like the player that he obviously has the potential to become, Hleb was decent too. Eduardo was razor sharp, capping a fine performance with a lovely overhead kick following a good piece of chest control to put us 2-0 up after twenty odd minutes. Adebayor was a beast, strong, dominant in the air and predatory in the box.

Clichy's error gave City hope, but they never looked like levelling matters. Adebayor made the game same with five minutes left when the referee did well to play the advantage. It was a shame the referee missed two pretty good penatly shouts when Richards fouled Adebayor from behind twice on seperate occassions, luckily it didn't matter in the end.

We are spoilt as Arsenal fans, to be able to play away from home and dominate a good side in such a manner is not easy, credit must go to the players whose teamwork and determination was there for all to see, and to Arsene for managing the club so excellently. Whatever the outcome at the end of the season, I am proud to be an Arsenal fan, the football is from another planet and it is done on a relatively small budget compared to our main competitors. I salute you Arsene.

Lets buy Spurs

The Scousers campaign to buy Liverpool FC from the nasty Americans for £500m has got me thinking. Whilst its very nice for the fans to own the club, if its basically just a question of the money being right, then anyone could do this.

Now, whilst that means that we could try and get about a million people together to buy Arsenal, it would cost too much and will never happen. Plus we might mess it all up and ruin the club we love, which would be a bad thing.

However, what is to stop us putting together a secret consortium to buy Spurs? We would have to be subtle and not let on that we were Gooners, but once we are in control, we can just liquidate the assets and close the club down, sack all the players (no point in trying to sell them), forfeit all the matches and refund all the season tickets. Absolutely brilliant.

We might lose a few bob in the process, but the development potential for turning Shite Hart Lane into a Pound-Saver supermarket means we might even make a bit of cash.

So who's up for it?

Flam tames the Toon

Its been pointed out that some of my so called 'short' posts are, in fact, not short at all. Well, I'm busy today so this one actually will be short.

Newcastle have been beaten 3-0 twice in the last 4 days. On paper, they have some decent players and I have to agree with 1979Gooner, our beloved creator on Another Arsenal Blog, that N'Zogbia is the pick of the bunch. Although he plays at left back most of the time for the Toon, he actually seemed a better player in the middle of the park on saturday. He could do a job for us, but is genuinely going to get in our side - not at the moment. I also don't think he is a winger.

Anyway, back to my main man, the Flamster. What a goal. Fully 25 yards out, he smacked it with his right peg into the top right hand corner of the goal. I haven't seen anyone work it out Sky Sports style, but it was from quite an angle and the total distance travelled by the ball must have been nearer 30 yards. Shay Given didn't even touch it.

It was the best goal I have seen at the Emirates. Ever. I think...

Tabloid style blogging

I was browsing the arsenal headlines on newsnow and noticed:

"Wenger tried to pinch Jonathan Woodgate from Spurs

Arsenal News Review 11:59 28-Jan-08"

It seemed strange that the above piece did not exist on ANR, while Arsene Wenger denied any interest in Woodgate today. Has someone been sucked in by a baseless rumour and had their fingers burnt?

Anyways good to get back to winning ways with a solid win against Newcastle, it seems that we always win when we play badly in the first half without going behind. Eduardo is looking sharp and Ade has certainly zeroed his shooting boots.

It always a bit strange when you have to play the same side twice in a short period, as both teams know exactly what to expect. However I suspect we may be too strong for them again, even if they do wheel that young criminal Barton out of his cells for the occassion. Touch wood.

Slack jawed hacks and Cole amusement

I would recommend that everyone has a read of this Arsenal analysis piece which neatly outlines just how much pap is being spouted in the press regarding the Adebayor Bendtner 'incident'. Let's just remember that there were umpteen cameras and photographers at the lane, and no one caught anything conclusive on camera. The Sun has been making up quotes as usual and trying to destabilise the Arsenal camp, no change there then.

The Daily Mail is up to its old limp tricks of pretending to be objective but reporting baseless rumour as fact yet again:

'No doubt remains that Bendtner was the victim of an attack by Adebayor at Tottenham which would have produced a red card had it been spotted by referee Howard Webb'

Horseshit. If there was no doubt about it then the FA would have charged him you cretinous halfwits, the FA are always keen to throw the book at Arsenal for things that they routinely ignore Manure doing. Some interesting stuff from someone who actually saw what happened:

'What I saw was the two seem to have words in the box (it seemed to me as though there was confusion over which should take which run) and then, maybe 30 seconds later they squared
up. There was no headbutt, although Ade did seem to catch Bendtner with his hand in a kind of jabbing motion. Seemed to me that he was making a point with his hands, certainly not a punch or anything. That's when it kicked off and Gallas jumped in.'

This is a mountain out of a molehill. The brain dead hacks who choose to stir this up should know much better, it seems that nothing much really happened and there is certainly no evidence that something violent was done. Let it drop and stop rumour mongering. On past records, Ade has shown a great temperament game in game out, whereas Bendtner has shown petulance and arrogance in abundance, I know who I would choose to believe. If you want to read something to cheer yourself up then have a peek at this on Cashley Cole, even if it is probably made up.

Round up of events

It appears that young Carlos Vela is showing some exciting glimpses of his ability at Osasuna, a nice goal at the weeekend and hopefully we'll be seeing him play a bit more regularly for the rest of the season. This time of year seems to be when the papers and other media outlets like to make up some rather fanciful bull to get people to read their drivel, for example there have been numerous baseless rumours about Walcott going out on loan, even to Liverpool, please spare me this kind of rubbish. There is some interesting news of a match between Arsenal Reserves and Trevor Mputu's side, a striker Arsene has been casting his eye over.


I am not a fan of people jumping on Ade's back. Adebayor may have done wrong the other night, but I suspect Bendtner is not entirely blamefree, if things were that clear cut then I think FA charges would have been brought, they always love charging Arsenal players with something. Everyone should be allowed the odd mistake, other than that error I think Ade has been impecably behaved in his Arsenal career so far, often the peacemaker in fact when others are losing their heads. Taking things to the extreme, some bloggers reckon Bendtner is ten times better than Adebayor, he is not half the player that Adebayor is, he does have promise but Adebayor has been awesome this year, the all round striker that we have been waiting for.

Scary news from the ACN with Toure being stretchered off with a possible groin injury, hopefully it will keep him out for the remainder of the ACN but he'll be fighting fit for just after the competition ends, fingers crossed. Some great news on the Flamster's contract, some promising sounds emerging, so touch wood there too. Onto Newcastle on Saturday, I agree with the Cannon and reckon it will be a pretty strong side, but not quite full strength. I expect Clichy, Flamini and Senderos to return, with Adebayor and Eduardo renewing their partnership un top. It won't be easy as Keegan wil fire up the Toon army, but I feel we'll be too strong for them, especially in midfield where I think they are particularly weak aside from N'Zogbia. We'll need to be fired up though, as more lethargic complacence could see us undone again.