BBC farce, Rooney disgrace and media blackout

Despite being a Manu player I have to say Ryan Giggs is a great footballer and he has had a fine career, however the decision by the viewing public to vote him as the sporting personality of the year merely demonstrates just how bereft of intelligence so many people are. How can a player whose form last season was decent at best have picked up the PFA player of the year and the BBC sports personality of the year?

I would argue that it shows just how many stupid people believe a lot of what they read and hear, without stopping to think, engage their small number of haphazard grey cells, and come up with a decent bit of rational sense. The PFA award showed just how dense footballers are on the whole, the BBC's shows just how many moronic Manu fans are out there and this explains a lot about the way the media works.

The media is constantly trying to keep this collective of imbeciles happy by refusing to highlight the disgraceful behaviour of certain Manu players such as Rooney's routine cheating and by praising Manu incessantly. You can tell I'm sick of this horse sh*t. Let the facts do the talking. Ryan Giggs started 15 league games last season, in fact he only made 28 starts over the whole season scoring 4 goals. I know it's not bad for a geriatric sheep shagger, but come on, it's hardly the stuff of player of the year is it?

Wayne Rooney's utterly pathetic bit of cheating against Aston Villa was quite remarkable for a number of reasons. Firstly it was one of the worst dives I've seen all season, far worse than Eduardo's or Ngog's. Secondly the media appear to have pretty much ignored it. Funny how Thierry Henry was pretty much a paedophile mass murderer rapist carbon dioxide producing member of the Taliban after his handball against Ireland. Saint Wayne the granny-shagging chav who behaves like an estate dwelling ASBO child can do no wrong in the eyes of our lovely media. What hypocrisy and double standards.

Game of Two Halves Sinks Scousers

Well how the hell did that happen? In the most non-sensical game of bad football since the 4-4 mess at Anfield last year, Arsenal went from dreadful, to brilliant, and every shade in between, during a relentless game to beat the Scousers.

And can I start by saying that I have rarely seen such a bunch of diving, cheating, moaning, fouling, toss-pot bastards as this Liverpool side. They really are up there with Van Nistelroy's Man United sides. Although I expect very few will agree with me, Howard Webb did his very best to control a game that could easily have seen penalties and red cards galore. He probably should have booked several Scousers for exaggerating fouls and diving, but that is somewhat wishful thinking. Gerrard and Torres should be on Strictly Come Dancing the way they hit the deck from minimal contact.

Anyway, back to the action, and there was plenty of it. Arsenal lined up basically as expected, with Walcott wide right, Arshavin the lone midget striker, Nasri somewhere on the left, leaving three tight in midfield of Cesc, Denilson and Song. Now, I am not someone who gets too influenced by scorelines, and in plain speaking terms, Arsenal were absolutely shite for most of the first half.

The Scousers started at a massive rate of knots, and Torres was put in after 12 mins in a similar chance to that which fell to Vela in midweek, and like the young bandito, Torres scuffed it tamely to Almunia. But it was a big warning sign.

After about 25 mins, Gerrard drove straight at Gallas at the edge of the box, Billy stuck out a leg that had me rising to my feet shouting "noooooooo" in the deep way that happens in slow motion replays, for sure enough Stevie the ballerina took the invitation and threw himself in a heap. Now, Stevie had probably overrun the ball, but this was a blatant foul on England's Steven Gerrard (who does not dive), at Anfield. But as the sickness in my stomach rose, Howard Webb waved play on. And whilst there are any number of reasons why he did not give the penalty, I like to think that Howard Webb was remembering Dirk Kuyt at the Emirates, or Ryan Babel at Anfield, or Gerrard himself in Istanbul, Goodison or virtually any other ground he has played in, as he gave a goal kick. It was a decision which said "I know Gallas fouled you, got no contact with the ball, and it was surely a penalty, but you are a diving cunt and a don't like you". So thanks for that Howard, a good decision, well done.

As half time approached, it became increasingly clear that the kids had done a much better job in Athens at pissing about in midfield with no threat on the opposition. Cesc seemed to be in a slow daze, Denilson wasteful at best, Nasri, Walcott and Arshavin generally uninvolved and ineffective. But just when I thought we might sneak into half time at 0-0, a nothing sort of straight-at-him free kick was inexplicably flapped by Almunia, which fell to Kuyt to shin home for 1-0.

As Andy Gray droned on about it being the least the Scousers deserved, the whistle blew and the cameras panned to Jamie Rednapp in his stupid thin-tie in the commentary box, grinning from ear to ear in his cheap looking expensive suit, and the resentful tide of hatred began to mount for everything the Scousers have cheated their way to over the last 18 years or so since they last won the league. I still don't know how we lost the 2001 cup final, I really don't.

I expect the truth will never emerge from what happened in the Arsenal dressing room at half time. There will be rumours of course, of old-fashioned bollockings, of sticking Nasri under the hair-dryer until his eyelids blistered. And rumours of older magic still. Of a quiet room, with a tall, thin, grey Frenchman in the corner, who stayed silent for what seemed like hours. The players shifting uncomfortably as they occassionaly caught someone's eye. And then, as the bell rung and they rose to go to the door for the second half, one solitary sentence was said. We'll never know what elvish charm it was, of course, but judging by what happened in the next 15 minutes, it was a bloody miracle.

For suddenly the luck turned, not a little bit here or there, but a massive piece of Glen Johnson sized fuck-up piece of luck that really does not happen that often. The sort of own goal that trickled so slowly over the line that even the Anfield mole would have had time to dig his way from the penalty spot and pop up to nod the ball clear. It was the sort of bad-luck own goal that Vermaelen scored against Chelsea.

And at 1-1 after 50 mins, Liverpool suddenly seemed to re-discover their form as mid-table ball thumpers. Arsenal at last seemed to have a bit of space to breathe, Cesc began to pick some passes, Nasri seemed to actually want to play a bit of footy for his 50k this week. And then, with only 58 mins on the clock, Nasri (i think) floated it over towards Arshavin at the back stick, for Carragher (i think) to slightly miscontrol the interception, leaving Arshavin to collect it beautifully and cut right to find a precious quarter of yard of space, and unleash Sputnik 5 into the top left hand corner of the goal. It was a belter. This bloke really, really does like playing at Anfield.

So, 2-1 then at Anfield. Who's the daddy? Arsenal are right back in this title race. Except there was still 30 mins to play, and countless more times for a Scouser to fling themselves to the ground near the box. Its frankly a miracle that the Scousers did not get a penalty, not that they deserved one, but the tango routine that those cunts put together of foul, foul, then dive, sometimes mixed in with foul, foul, foul, then dive, or just the plain old dive, was a real pleasure for the average "every handball is a penalty" Rednapp type twat.

But Arsenal's back 4 looked very solid. Tommy V was a tower of strength, Gallas made some decent tackles, Traore put in a good shift before getting injured (what is with left backs?) and Sagna had his best 45 mins for a while. There were a couple of hairy moments when Flappy the Spanish Waiter tried to remember how to be a goal keeper, but the Scousers didn't really bother to have a shot on goal second half, which was jolly good news.

Whilst Arshavin will get the plaudit for the way he belted the ball for the winner, the hero of the day, for me, was Alex Song. In circumstances where Lucas and Mascherano were doing their very best to win FA Cunt of the Year, Alex Song put in the sort of strong, dependable performance that was truly noteworthy. I spent a lot of the game wishing that Denilson would simply get out of his way, and I quite like Denilson. Song has that knack when the ball is bobbling around between a couple of jostling players to magically appear through the melee with the ball at his feet. Not even the much lauded Flamini had that knack.

In fact, Song may be the best defensively minded midfielder we have had since Vieira. There you go - I've said it. But who else is there? Apart from a couple of bad experiments with Diaby and Nasri, its really between Song, Gilberto and Flamini for that title. And as things stand, I would pick Song ahead of any of them.

And if we can get through January without Song, we might just be on for a bright second half of the season. Because Lucky Arsenal are back in town.

The intensity builds

What a set of results for us before the biggey at Anfield tomorrow. City only take a point from Bolton, Chelsea draw at home to Everton, Spurs lose at home to Wolves, Manu lose at home to Villa and Wayne Rooney gets booked for diving. It isn't just foreigners that dive you know. Moving onto tomorrow, today's results have focused my attention somewhat.

I remember the 4-4 draw from last season vividly and if we are to take anything tomorrow it would help if we were to admit that we were very lucky to get a draw and that the tactics were all wrong. Arshavin converted all four of four chances to save our blushes, as on the balance of play we were not the better side. I think it will be a tough game for us tomorrow for a number of reasons.

Firstly Liverpool, despite their troubles, have a very good record against as at Anfield and have a good record of rising to the bigger games under Benitez, remember their recent win over Manu in which they really upped the ante despite their generally poor form. Secondly I am a firm believer that the best way to win at Anfield is to defend by attacking, to do this one needs to have enough up front to hold the ball up, thus soaking up pressure by keeping the ball.

With RVP and Bendtner out we have no one who is really expert at leading the line and holding the ball up effectively, plus the back up option of Eduardo is also unavailable due to yet another niggle. Arshavin will play in the central role but we really lack the personnel to select someone to play up with him who can get stuck in physically and hold the ball up, for this reason I am not overly optimistic of our chances. What does make me optimistic is the fact that Liverpool are playing poorly, are struggling for goals, and with two key players in Torres and Gerrard who are not fully fit.

If I were Arsene tomorrow I would stick to a 4-4-2 formation. The danger of a 4-3-3/4-5-1 formation is that without an orthodox striker there is the tendency for the ball to keep coming back at you because the front man simply cannot hold the ball up on his own. I would go for the obvious back five of Almunia, Sagna, Gallas, Vermaelen and Traore. I would have Song and Cesc in the middle, with Nasri on the left and Denilson tucked in on the right side of the central two but not out wide.

I would then stick the pace of Walcott up top with the little Russian genius roaming alongside him. I can think of no better option up front, I also think Theo is quite good at making runs beyond the last defender and would benefit from a bit more freedom, rather than being stuck in a rut on one flank where he sometimes seems to lack the craft to get past his man. With RVP and Bendtner fit I think we would win this game, without them it is going to be a tight and stuttering encounter that will be difficult to predict.

Another Brilliant Defeat

Well, the kids did it again. Yet another sterling silver exhibition of passing football, yet another good performance from a team where the entire XI cost less than Darren Bent, and yet another defeat, this time 1-0 to Olympiacos.

Before the game, I was roundly of the opinion that anyone who was eligible and likely to play against Liverpool should not take the flight. And of the starting XI last night, only Alex Song is a genuine first XI player, so that gave games for real fringe players like Tom Cruise (did well and played well), Kerrea Gilbert (did fine), Kyle Bartley (fine again), and some more start time for the more well known kids, like Jack Wilshere (ok but weighed down by expectation), Merida (did well), and Rambo (a top performance).

In fact, the only disappointments for me were Carlos Vela, who could noy buy a goal at the moment for all the donkeys in Mexico. He really should have scored yesterday. And Theo, who probably was involved less in the game than anyone else. Including Fabianski. But Theo is just back from yet another injury, so I'll let him off.

But if you had to guess based on last night's performances who two of the players who were likely to be going to the World Cup, you would not have guessed Vela and Walcott.

But lets dwell on the positives briefly, because in many ways this performance from a bunch of unknown kids was no-worse than the first team. They played some terrific football. Rambo was terrific (Cesc cannot afford to be complacent), Merida looked very solid in midfield, the back 4 played with composure throughout, Fabianski made two or three excellent saves - almost playing as a sweeper at times.

And if Vela had taken either one of his solid gold chances, the kids would have left Athens with a very impressive draw and we would all be crowing about it this morning.

Meanwhile, at Anfield last night, the Scousers again defended badly and went down again to late goals. Whilst that bodes well for us on Sunday, Arsenal are now the team who can't attack, and I am sure that the Scousers will be delighted if we just piss around with the ball in midfield. Three days of shooting practice would not go amiss!

Injuries, injuries and more injuries

Personally I think there are quite a few reasons for our injuries. Firstly we have a few injury prone players such as Tomas Rosicky, secondly we are not the biggest size wise and thirdly because of the fast passing football we play we are liable to being nailed by late tackles, both RVP and Gibbs were done by bad tackles for example. There is also that thing called lady luck and we haven't had much of that in the past few seasons. Having said that several other clubs such as Manu are struggling with quite a few injuries, maybe the increasingly congested fixture list is partly to blame.

The injury list is impressive, it includes RVP, Bendtner, Djourou, Eboue, Rosicky, Diaby, Eduardo, Gallas, Clichy, Gibbs and Traore. However quite a few of these players are not far away from returning to action, Diaby, Eboue, Gallas, Eduardo and Traore have only minor problems, while Bendtner and Clichy are not a long way off. The problem is that when you have a few injuries, the problem can exponentiate as those players who are fit get too much game time and then themselves get injured.

I agree with all the Arsenal opinion out there that says we should play a very weak side in Greece. There is no point risking anyone key for this meaningless game. Gooner Talk isn't far off with their guess at the line up, it's more of a case of who shouldn't play than who should. Sunday's game against Liverpool at Anfield is massive. Liverpool aren't as many points off us as one might think and with Torres likely to return this will not be an easy game. Three points at Anfield would see us looking very dangerous at the top while nulle point would see us pulled back into the mix. Sunday is key.

ps the club have announced the squad for Wednesday's game and it is very youthful indeed as predicted: Carlos Vela Theo Walcott Aaron Ramsey Alex Song Mikael Silvestre Jack Wilshere Lukasz Fabianski Vito Mannone Fran Merida Kyle Bartley Francis Coquelin Thomas Cruise Craig Eastmond Jay Emmanuel-Thomas Kerrea Gilbert Luke Ayling Mark Randall Gilles Sunu. I would like to see a line up of:

Fabianski; Gilbert, Bartley, Silvestre, Cruise; Coquelin, Eastmond, Merida; Walcott, Vela, Wilshere.

Massive Relief as Stoke crumble

Morning all. And I think its only right that I make it clear from the off that any optimism in this post is largely caused by the news from Eastlands yesterday evening that Mark Hughes' despicable mercenary chavs had beaten Abromovich's moronic neanderthal mercenary chavs. And thats because it gives everyone in the top 6 or 7 spots in the table some hope that this season is not over. Until next week. And despite the sinking feeling that almost all football fans seem to have at the moment.

Manure have their worst side for years, plus an injury list that is about as bad as ours - with barely a recognised defender fit to play at the moment. The Scousers that are still alive are suicidal. As are the Evertonians. Even Chelsea fans are hesitant - the sensible blues (there are some) know they are incredibly reliant on Drogba and worry about January. Plus their second half of the season form has been traditionally poor. Which really only leaves the constantly delusional Spudders, but they are not crowing much at the moment either. I suppose if the Spudders get three points this afternoon then normal service will see Robbie Keane announcing after the match that Spurs are a shoe-in for the title this year. The twat.

Anyway, I digress. So what is there to say about the 2-0 victory against Stoke. Well, compared to recent weeks, with blanks against Sunderland, Chelsea and Man City, this was a drug fuelled sex romp with more cocktail waitresses than Tiger Woods has ever met. Except it really wasn't. This was more like the teenage fumblings of a blind impotent.

The absence of Eduardo from the match squad was apparently due to a late injury/illness, but it meant we had no recognised strikers whatsoever. Arshavin was given the central strikers' role, and to give the little 'un his due, he played a major role in almost everything that Arsenal did well against Stoke. Eboue took the semi-advanced right side role, Rosicky the left, in a very makeshift version of the 4-3-3 system, which with Denilson sitting in from of the back 4, Cesc tucked in behind Arshavin, and everyone else pretty fluid around that, was more like a 4-1-3-1-1.

And Stoke were rightly bamboozled by the bizarre hourglass formation. Tony Pullis ignored Ricardo Fuller's advice in mid-week that you just need to kick Arsenal to beat them, and dropped him to the bench. The 4 Stoke defenders had no-one to mark, because we had no forwards and Arshavin dropped deep, plus we hit nothing over the top at all. But Stoke did not adjust their formation or try and man mark Arshavin or Cesc, were content to mark space and effectively conceded possession of the ball to us and said "do your worst". Which is pretty much what we did.

Now, don't get me wrong. We did create some decent chances in the first half, Arshavin put clean through by Cesc after about 8 mins, Nasri through on the right after about 35 mins. But we barely looked like scoring. There is simply no belief that the ball will go over the line. So when Rory Delap bought Arshavin's dummy and hacked him down for the easiest penalty the Mark Clattenburg will give this season, I had no confidence that Cesc would slot the spot kick home. And so it proved. And by the way, that was not the worst penalty in the world. Sorensen guessed right and made a very good save.

Thankfully though, Arshavin kept plugging away and a semi-neat exchange of passes with Cesc put him through, Andrey kept steady under pressure from two defenders with the ball a little stuck under his feet, put he somehow neatly tucked it away. It was probably the hardest chance he had all day.

The relief was short lived however. A desperately empty Emirates stadium did not think 1-0 was enough, and sat and waited grumpily in the rain for something to go wrong. In a comedy of bad luck, a decent Traore cross took a massive deflection off Abdoulay only to hit Stoke's post rather than going in (no such luck for Vermaelen last week), but the ball fell kindly to Cesc to smash it in, except Eboue managed to block the ball on the goal line. Whilst the official attendance was over 60,000, the 50,000 who had actually bothered to turn up all whimpered a collective tear of frustration.

Rosicky, who did ok but is clearly not flavour of the month with Wenger, was replaced at half time but Carlos Vela down the left. Carlos did very little wrong second half, but also did very little to think that he is ready at this level. Wilkinson, the Stoke right back, is clearly the son of a butcher and was knackered after chasing Traore and Arshavin, but Carlos did not really take him on for pace once. And having seen the little burrito machine do a good impression of out-pacing Jolean Lescott at City, I find that almost unfathomable.

Arshavin continued to plug away, but after about 55 mins the limping Eboue was replaced by Aaron Ramsey (who has slightly disappointed in recent outtings), but Rambo was pretty excellent down the right for 40 mins, and scored our much needed second goal after 78 mins, a blocked pass was collected by the young Welshman, which he trapped nicely into his stride, jinked in between the defenders and shot nice and early from outside the box. It was no thunderbolt, but he used the outside of the right boot to swivel the ball over the wet grass into the bottom right hand corner.

It was a nice goal. But as Rambo celebrated in slightly muted fashion in the corner with Vela, my eyes remained fixed on Cesc, who avoided the celebrations and trudged back to the centre spot with his head down, eyes on the ground at all times. Cesc did not even acknowledge Rambo as he jogged back to position. Maybe its a Spanish thing, but I found that very odd indeed. My impression, at least, is that Cesc was still sulking about missing a penalty and Eboue doing his Tigger impression on the goal line to block his shot. Well, in a week where good sportsmanship has been high up the agenda for Arsenal, I would like to have seen our captain do a lot less sulking yesterday.

I guess, with a bit more luck, Cesc would have scored twice yesterday and we would be basking in the glow of a 4-0 thrashing. Stoke are no mugs and the fact that we produced a relatively decent performance with an injury list that reads like something from the Somme is no bad thing. I just hope that Arshavin manages to find this much space at Anfield next weekend - another four goals please Andrey !!

Hughes the moronic chav leads classless City to victory

Oh dear oh dear and I'm not talking of Arsenal's performance last night, I thought our young side fought hard and gave a decent account of themselves against City's heartless mercenaries. For most of the game you couldn't tell which side was made of young hopefuls and which was made of thirty million pound internationals. The difference between the sides was that class and penetration in the final third.

The behaviour of Mark Hughes and a few of the city players was nothing short of a complete and utter embarrassment. Hughes's pathetic words are beneath contempt, he pretends Arsene is a sore loser and that is the sole reason for the lack of hand shaking at the end, nothing could be further from the truth. Hughes behaved like a caveman on steroids last night, strutting around aggressively and abusing Arsene with some rather below the belt insults. Arseblogger has it spot on, Arsene's actions took a lot of courage, he acted on a matter of principle, there is simply no obligation to offer your hand at the end of game in which your opposition number has shown you less than zero respect for the entirity. The irony of it all is that the bullying Hughes has the audacity to accuse Arsene of not 'knowing how to behave', pot, kettle and all that.

The xenophobia in the English media and a rather large conglomerate of the English football establishment is blatant. This appalling behaviour that Arsene has been subjected to has happened on numerous previous occasions. In particular I recall Alan Pardew, Phil Brown and Brian Horton all getting away with murder and not getting any criticism or punishment for their actions. It seems to me that the FA have no desire at all to clamp down on the bad behaviour that is endemic in certain quarters of the English game, in this I include the appalling dissent that referees are subjected to from certain teams and players, for example Craig Bellamy's consistent barracking of the ref last night. It seems that the game is almost lawless for some people.

Overall I thought that our young side deserved to come out of yesterday's game with a lot of credit. We had Djourou, RVP, Bendtner, Senderos, Clichy, Gibbs, Sagna and Walcott all out injured. So the side played City's first team was in reality a slightly weak second string side. We competed well for most of the game, ironically we played some better stuff in the second half and this was when we conceded the goals. The first saw Eboue let Tevez come inside too easily and then Song went to ground far too easily, Tevez's finish was top notch. The second was a brilliant shot from Wright-Phillips but Silvestre was backing off a little too readily. Vela worked his socks off up front but was mainly limited to half chances, he did have one good break in the first half but he couldn't quite steer it goal wards when played through having outpaced Lescott.

The midfield played some tidy football but there wasn't nearly enough support for Vela, we had three neat small ball players on the field in Merida, Rosicky and Wilshere but no one who could hold the ball up or knock people out the way. With two of our top strikers injured we have been left well short of options up front. Fabianski looked very solid and confident. Silvestre had a strange game, looking good at times, but at others making some rather poor decisions. Traore put in a good shift and I thought Eboue was pretty handy on the whole. The midfield worked hard but were too lightweight, we gave the ball away far too freely at times. Again it was no 3-0 game, but if this trend continues we shall all get fed up with this kind of consolation.