Arsenal, Arsenal, and more Arsenal

"Don" Vito Mannone is...The Goalkeeper

Sat, 26 Sep 2009 19:34:15 -0500

Buongiorno

You may have seen Arsenal beat Fulham 1-0 today. You may have seen me pull off a string of, how you say, stunning saves. All the pundits, they give me great praise. They know to respect the Goalkeeper. I hope you Arsenal fans recognise my great performance today, as some day you will have to, in return, do me a favour. Or else you will end up facing the same fate as Manuel and Lukasz, both of whom have mysteriously gone missing recently....

Ciao

Don Vito

Top 10 worst Arsenal performances

Sun, 18 May 2008 14:29:49 -0500

Top 10 worst Arsenal Performances

Ok. First of all, I’m really sorry, I’m sorry for writing this as it brings back tortuous memories to all Arsenal fans. I’m also sorry as in posting this we will inevitably get the annoying Spurs fans leaving comments like “LOL I fiNk ur dA shIteSt tEem on Da plNt rofl 5-15-1-5-1-5-1 LOOOOL”

Which will be problematic as first we’ll have to try and work out what they’re saying, then when we do it’ll be just annoying as we’ll have to remind them how shit their team is and now, the Mickey-mouse under 12’s cup is not a real trophy. It will be like stooping to their level, and that my friends, is low. But this list was written after the 4-0 loss to a very good Manchester United team in the FA cup this year. Depressed and despondent, I thought that this year I’d seen two of the worst performances an Arsenal team have ever given. So rolled of a list of the ten worst, and then to cheer myself up, I wrote the list of the ten best to cheer myself up, which was posted in the earlier blog. Here goes….

Top 10 worst Arsenal Performances

1. Manchester United 6-1 Arsenal 2001

Igor Stepanovs…..yeah, that’s it. Blame the new guy. A very weak back four were lambs to the slaughter at Old Trafford in a season where Man United cruised to the title.

2. Manchester United 4-0 Arsenal 2008

Both sides fielded weakened teams because of upcoming European ties and, quite simply, Manchester United’s second choice wingers (Nani and Anderson) ran rings around Arsenal’s second choice fullbacks throughout of the game. Arsenal were at the time suffering their worst injury crisis all season and were forced into playing an injured Cesc Fabregas.

3. Tottenham 5-1 Arsenal – 2008

Well done Spurs, for the first time in 9 years you beat us. In what your assistant manager called “the biggest game of the season” I think I may take up a lot of space just to hit back at all the abuse spurs fans have been throwing at us. Spurs fans have been claiming that it was a full strength Arsenal team they played. One word - bollocks

Fabianski – 3^rd choice keeper, we don’t just save him for the Carling Cup cos we think it’s the most important. I.E we don’t take the “Tottenham Hotspur Lesley King approach”

Sanga – only played because the only other fit right back in the squad was playing in central defence

Hoyte – 7^th Choice Centre Back

Gallas – only played because there was no alternative

Traore – not first choice, 18 years old

Gilberto – not first choice

Denilson - not fist choice, 19 years old at the time

Hleb – first choice, played so Walcott could go up front and because Eboue was away at the African Nations Cup

Diaby - not first choice

Walcott – 18 years old, not first choice

Bendtner – not first choice and had only just turned 20, so our strike force had an average age of 19

“Yeah but you had Fabregas and Adebayor playing” – shut the fuck up they came on as subs and Fabregas only because Denilson was injured.

The league winners can be called the best overall team, the cup winners can be called the cup specialists, and the Champions League winners can claim to be the best in Europe. What can Spurs claim? To have sneaked into Europe using a competition only invented to make money out of midweek games when floodlights were invented which has in recent years been won by the giants of football Leicester City (twice in the last 10 years!) and Middlesboro, and has also been won by Luton, Oxford and Swindon.

So please spurs fans, give it a rest. Phew. Moving on…

4. Arsenal 0-3 Middlesboro – 2000

I can’t be bothered to write up this one so:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/1274584.stm

5. Arsenal 2-3 West Ham 2005

2-0 down at half time, and with our most experienced defender at fault for both goals. Sol Campbell sensationally walked out of the stadium at half time, and was not seen for several days afterwards. Campbell was later found tied up in a straight jacket in North London’s Barnet mental hospital, mumbling incoherently and foaming at the mouth. This was especially strange as at this point Barnet mental hospital had been shut down for several years and converted into luxury flats. Campbell never really recovered from the trauma, as this was one of many bad performances for him that season. He was sold to Portsmouth, where his glory days came to a halt. His tragic decline means his whereabouts now are unknown, and he was allegedly last seen captaining a small amateur team in the final of some kind of cup competition.

6. Arsenal 0-5 Chelsea – 1998

This was Arsenal’s worst ever defeat at Highbury, and came as a result of another weakened league-cup team. Looking back at the program notes, I have no idea who two of the players were (Caballero and Grondin anyone?). Such was the weakness of the team that Remi Garde wore the captains armband for the first, and, as far as I am aware, the last time.

7. Arsenal 1-4 Liverpool – 2007

Peter Crouch, a man who can in many ways be described as a freak of nature, produced a freakishly good performance by his standards and somehow managed to score a hat-trick

8. Middlesboro 2-1 Arsenal – Carling Cup Semi - 2004

Even though this was the Carling Cup squad, and they had already reached the Semi-finals, it was still a disappointing win and a poor performance over the two legs. 1-1 after the first leg, Arsenal needed a win or a 2-2 draw to progress. Keown was sent off in the first half and despite Arsenal taking the lead Boro' came back to win, with new big money signing Jose Antonio Reyes scoring an own goal in one of his first games to loose Arsenal the match. Martin Keown was a great defender at Arsenal, but as he grew older he inevitably lost his pace, and often tried to make up for this with cynical fouls on quicker strikers that often got him red cards.

9. Arsenal 2-4 Barcelona – 1999

A night in 1999 when a team with little champions League pedigree were simply outclassed by a team featuring future World Players of the Year winners in Luis Figo and Rivaldo. Such was Arsenal’s inexperience in the competition that a 1-1 draw at the Nou Camp in the return tie was considered a huge result for the team.

10. Spartak Moscow 4-1 Arsenal 2000

Arsenal travelled to Moscow and, like Hitler and Napoleon before us, were defeated by the Russian winter. The conditions of minus 389 degrees Celsius meant that four Spartak counter attacks ended up with the football gathering so much snow that it flattened Arsenal goalkeeper Alex Maninger on the way in.

Of course if you look at the lows, there aren’t that many, and I struggled to make up this list so little have Arsenal lost in recent years (We usually loose about 6 games a year, and win forty…..). I haven’t posted Youtube links like the last time, it’s too painful to watch. Let us never speak of this again.

Top 10 best Arsenal performances

Sun, 11 May 2008 08:49:59 -0500

At 21 Years old, I reckon I've been watching the Gunners play for thirteen years. During that time we've had significantly more success than failure, and some excellent games that have been a joy to watch. I present to you now, from the depths of my memory, Arsenal's 10 best performances from the period 1995-2008. Note these are performances, not results. Winning the FA Cup versus Man United was good, but the team didn't play well. Beating Everton 7-0 meant nothing, but was awesome from start to finish.

The 10 best Arsenal Performances

1. Inter Milan 1-5 Arsenal – 2003 When the team win's 5-1 at one of Europe's biggest clubs, there's not much more you can ask for. Having lost 3-0 to Milan at Highbury, the team took a 2-1 lead, before pulling clear in the last ten minutes with three late goals.

Watch : http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=omlMHRGBx1A&feature=related

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PFuvnvKIaDI

2. Real Madrid 0-1 Arsenal - 2006 Arsenal became the only English team to ever win at the Bernabau in a competitive match, and my gosh they deserved it. an 18 year old cesc Fabregas outplayed his central midfield legend Zinedine Zidane, and Thierry Henry showed why he was at that point the world's best player by taking on the whole Madrid defence single handedly to score the winner.

watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbjvf23Qy

3. Arsenal 7-0 Everton - 2005 Towards the end of the 2005 season Dennis Bergkamp was soon to be out of contract, and Arsene Wenger was unsure as to whether he should give the aging genius another year. He gave Dennis a chance to prove himself with a start in the last home match versus Everton. Dennis then proceeded to give a master class in football. Setting up four goals and scoring one himself as Arsenal beat an Everton team who finished fourth that year by seven goals. It was a lesson in how to play the beutifull game from a footballer so good he sometimes made Pele cry with feelings of inadequacy. Bergkamp walked of the field at the end to chants of the crown of "one more year", and his new contract was secured.

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xeUy7Iy77Uc

4. Arsenal 3-0 Manchester United – 1998 Basking in the glory of the championship win in the previous season, Arsenal then went on to beat Manchester 3-0 twice within the space of a month in the Charity Shield and the Premier League. Goals from Adams Anelka, and a newly signed Freddie Ljungberg making his debut made it a game to remember. Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvVVY_xGydw

5. Arsenal 4-0 Everton – 1998 – to clinch the championship Displaying arrogance true to Manchester United fans everywhere, Fred Done, Man United fan and owner of Betfred bookmakers, paid out mid-season in 1998 to all of those who had bet on Manchester Untied to win the Title. Unfortunately for Fred, Arsenal then went on a 10-game winning streak that culminated with the winning of the league with a demolition job on Everton, causing cocky Fred to lose £500,000. Tony Adams, the rock on which the championship was built, scored the fourth goal to cap a great season and win the League.

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4UehS4PGUc

6. Arsenal 2-0 Juventus - 2006 Another game from the Champions League run of 2006. Arsenal caused Italy's biggest club to fall apart on the pitch, culminating in them having two men sent off. Arsenal legend Patrick Viera was under the spotlight, but was robbed of the ball for Arsenal's first goal and ended up with a yellow card, meaning he was suspended for the second leg.

7. Arsenal 2-0 Chelsea – FA Cup Final 2002 In a team noted for their foreign flair, it was "the Romford Pele" Ray Parlour that scored the winner as Arsenal cruised to the F.A Cup with help from a great defensive display and a superb second goal by Freddie Ljungberg. Upon asked after the match what it was like to win the F.A Cup. Freddie famously replied "it's fucking excellent"

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2YnsLrLPsU

8. Arsenal 2-0 Manchester United FA 5th Round– 2003 This was billed as the final before the Final, such was the dominance of the two teams in English Football at the time. It proved to be true as Arsenal went on to lift the cup later that year. Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson was so enraged that after this game he famously kicked a boot at David Beckham, causing the England Captain to need stitches, and fuelling the bust-up that saw David head for Madrid at the end of the season.

9. Arsenal 7-0 Slavia Prague 2007 Slavia were top of the Czech League at the time, but Arsenal made them look like an amateur team and scored 7 goals to give the home fans a treat. Theo Walcott was given a rare chance to start as a centre forward and repaid his managers faith with two goals.

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2RmqQclQQs&feature=related 10.

Liverpool 3-6 Arsenal– 2007 When the kids came of age. A team with an average age of 19 and containing six teenagers thrashed Liverpool and became the first team to score six goals against Liverpool at Anfield for 76 years.

Match Report - http://www.the-onion-bag.com/index.php?story=486

Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKFhSCpvbbo&feature=related

Coming up next on the blog...a delve into the darkest days of the club as I recount the 10 worst Arsenal performances........beware.

Top 5 Arsenal Players' Haircuts...EVER!!

Thu, 8 May 2008 13:23:37 -0500

apollogies for the real lack of any serious football insight in my first ever post but really, I should be doing my dissertation anyway. Having just had my long locks cut to their shortest point since I was fourteen, I'm now at the point where not even my own friends recognise me anymore. Even my ex-girlfriend who I still speak to didn't recognise me from about 15 metres away and the guy who hates my guts didn't give me my usual "fuck-you" blanking that he usually does when I passed him earlier. Which got me thinking...

Top 5 Haircuts by Arsenal Players

1. Martin Keown – short back and sides - A fashion icon to millions, the catwalk models of London Fashion week have never quite perfected his "bulldog chewing on a wasp" stare

http://football.guardian.co.uk/pictures/0,,1055221,00.html -

2. Cesc Fabregas – The mullet - I think a tear came to my eye when he shaved this off

http://offthemeatrack.wordpress.com/2007/11/02/fightin-talk-from-cesc-fabregas-ahead-of-tommorrows-big-game/

3. Feddie Ljungberg – Red Mohawk - We loved Freddie, because he had red hair, we loved Freddie, because he was everywhere, we loved Fredie because he was Arsenal through and through.....until he went to West Ham and scored against us. The goal was dissalowed wrongfully for offside, but that didn't stop me sreaming at the TV in the middle of a crowded bar that it was the right decision because "WE MADE YOU FREDDIE, WE MADE YOU!"

- http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/a/arsenal/1693214.stm

4. William Gallas – Mr T tribute - William pitys the fool who questions his position as captain

http://www.football.co.uk/shared/images/news/400x400_1198335720_spt_ai_arsenal_tottenham_21.jpg

5. Charlie George - the haircut which, until two days ago, my own was based upon.

http://www.normanhood.co.uk/charliegeorge.jpeg