Arsenal fell flat on their tummies last Sunday, flat as flat can be.

OK, it was one of the worst pitches that they've played on in centuries, and it was impossible for their Gunners to play their slick passing game, but we knew about this already. Chris Kirkland kindly informed us about a week ago that their pitch was utter shite, saying something along the lines of - "They've got skillful world class players, but goodness knows how they are going to pass the ball on our pitch". Steve Bruce said something along those lines a few days ago, and really everybody knew that trying to pass a football at the JJB was going to be something akin to passing gas on a first date with the girl of your dreams... i.e. this was not the place for it.

Arsene actually seemed to have the right idea up front - big boys Ade and Bendtner starting together for the first time should have provided an aerial threat. However, what seemed like a ploy to play more "direct" football was in reality just the fact that we only had two fit strikers in the squad.

And the great irony in this game was that we consistently refused to try the long ball apart from a short spell in the first half, opting instead to try our quick, short passing game on a pitch that had "DON'T PLAY A QUICK. SHORT PASSING GAME ON ME" written all over it. Or something like that.

From the sublime to the ridiculous, utterly outplaying Milan one night, and utterly dismaying on another

Well, Arsenal are back at the Emirates briefly (Chelsea up next week, so at least that's still in London). Boro are the visiting side, and Arsenal will be wanting to put this one right - they have lost just one game this season in the league, away to Middlesborough, and it was an embarrassing, excuse-less night for the Arsenal, they were poor.

The big news for this game is that Robin Van Persie might start - it's a welcome bit of news given that he needs match fitness for the run-in, and Middlesborough are a decent side that try to play football, and (hopefully) won't try to break anyone's legs. 

Theo Walcott is back in the frame, and that's another (albeit unreliable) goalscoring option to help relieve the burden on the somewhat exhausted, stretched Emmanuel Adebayor, who has performed well above expectations this season.

Predictions? 

Quick update on the Arsenal players involved over the past few days of internationals.

Theo Walcott scored another lovely, Thierry Henry-esque goal for the England Under 21's. He's been doing well for them for sometime now, especially on the goalscoring front (he had an average game today), and let's hope he can shift this form over to his club games:

Things are not going so well for his teammate Mathieu Flamini however. Having finally broken into the France squad with his super performances for Arsenal this season, Mathieu picked up an ankle injury while playing for France's 2nd team against Congo today. It was a pretty under-the-radar friendly, and an odd one, since France are also playing Spain on Wednesday. They somehow contrived to do 2 friendlies this week - with Clichy, Sagna, Flamini and Diaby playing against the Congo, whilst Gallas is in the squad that will play France. Anyhow, let's hope it's not a serious injury, because he's one of the main reasons why the team is ticking.

And lastly, just a word for the much-maligned Alex Song. Even though he's played most of his games for us at centre-back this season, he remains a contender for the midfield role, especially after Lasagne Diarrhea's departure to Portsmouth. His performances at the African Cup of Nations have been excellent in that role, and he provided yet another assist, clipping a ball over the defence for Mbia to head home the opening goal against Tunisia. He came on as a sub in the first game, immediately had an impact, and hasn't looked back since.

I know most Arsenal fans verge on hating him (probably because of the work of a few irate bloggers, rather than too much wrongdoing on his part), but he does have a lot of talent, and he might come back a changed man from this ACN. I remember Manu Eboue returning from the one in 2006 after having had a shifty season until then, and he was a changed footballers on his return, and one of our best players in our adventure to the Champions League final. 

Arsenal struggled, and probably came away with an undeserved 1-1 draw against Spurs in the first leg of the Carling Cup semi final at Ashburton Grove. It was Tottenham who created the most chances and controlled most of the play, with Dimitar Berbatov especially impressive, but Theo Walcott shot deflected in off his own chest to steal a draw for the Gunners after Jermaine Jenas had given their local rivals the lead.

Let's keep this all in perspective however - Tottenham's first team put in one of their best performances of the season, and Arsenal's second team put in one of their worst performances of the season, and Spurs still couldn't beat us.

The goals are below:

Unfortunately Arsenal's thinning squad took further blows as Robin Van Persie, Johan Djourou and Philippe Senderos were all injured. With Kolo Toure, Emmanuel Eboue and Alex Song away in Ghana for the African Cup of Nations, and Lassana Diarra looking likely to leave, there suddenly looks to be a big shortage of defensive talent in the squad.

Gallas is the only recognised first-choice centreback, and although Justin Hoyte filled in well in the second-half for Djourou, he is not going to win many balls in the air. That might mean Gilberto dropping back alongside Gallas, but then with Diarra possibly leaving, it leaves Mathieu Flamini as the sole recognised defensive/holding midfielder.

Van Persie's unfortunate attempt at a comeback will be regarded less seriously at the moment due to the fine form of Eduardo, but things can change very easily. It's a big month or two for Arsenal, and Arsene Wenger just might look into bringing some players in, perhaps even on loan.

The first goal, scored by Eduardo. A cracker after good work by Bendtner, who had a good game without being too effective:

Second goal, again by Eduardo, and a great pass from the youngster Kieran Gibbs. Some of you might remember him from the Emirates Cup where he played very well against Inter Milan. He was on the wing in that game, and Arsene Wenger described him afterwards as a "mini Ryan Giggs". Well, on Wednesday he played at left-back and gave a good account of himself, even though he is primarily an attacking player. Just goes to show the "total football" philosophy that is running through the club at the moment:

As for the third goal, well Denilson had a pop from long range, and it went in via a slight deflection from the defender, although enough to deceive the 'keeper. Denilson had a fantastic game, and this was a great reward for him:

Other honourable mentions go to Theo Walcott, who looks much more confident, and hit the post, and Lassana Diarra, who looks a fearsome prospect (although he hung on to the ball a bit more than he needed do, but he was probably just trying to impress). 

First off, Chelsea are a bunch of fucking horrible cunts. Now that we've established that, we can move on (briefly) to the football, where Arsenal went ahead 1-0 with a great Theo Walcott finish. Chelsea equalised not too long after with a goal from Drogba, where he was clearly offside, but we're Arsenal, and they're Chelsea, so obviously nothing more can be expected of the officiating. Robin Van Persie scored a perfectly good goal last season against Chelsea, which was ruled out for offside, and Drogba was a good 2 yards further on this effort, so it was pretty poor officiating. The young, inexperienced Traore didn't help by being sucked upfield, and Drogba had time to take 5 or 6 steps to settle himself before slotting through Almunia's legs - no challenge on him at all. Then late in the game Arsenal gave the ball away cheaply in their own half, Robben crossed, and Drogba easily beat Senderos to the ball to make it 2-1. Another Drogba goal that is down to very poor defending from Senderos, and I don't know why Djourou wasn't playing. Almunia was OK without being great, but Cech was monstrious for them and it could have been 2-0 long before they scored if it wasn't for him.

So on paper, Chelsea win 2-1. Anyone who watched the game would have seen the real story - Arsenal's young players playing brilliant football, controlling the game, and running circles around a bunch of unambitious overpaid shitheads. Chelsea celebrated afterwards as if they had just won the Champions League (regardez the "Winners 07" shirt that they put on), and Drogba's over-exaggerated celebrations are always hard to take given the cheapness of some of his goals. I'm angry about this not just because of the late brawl, but also because the Arsenal kids didn't get the result they deserved. It was gutting. Overall there are definitely more positives to take out of this game than negatives, but footballwise only.

And now to the incident. Kolo and Mikel were challenging for the ball, and Lampard was around. Toure and Mikel were getting heated, and then Lampard wades in and says something and suddenly Toure went mental like you could never imagine and that sparked a huge brawl. Lampard was definitely involved in the middle of it, not sure exactly what John Obi Mikel did, and there were several players in the thick of things. Watch the highlights carefully, Kolo and Mikel are angry, but then Lampard steps in, and Kolo absolutely loses it like he's never lost it before, and that sparks a huge brawl. Cesc, who always gets involved, got involved, stepping in to let Lampard know that he can't just say and do whatever he wants, and then Lampard and him went at it, and Drogba came and had a go at Cesc as well, and once they were all separated, Lampard went after the little Spaniard again. I love that Cesc plays with so much heart, but i'm worried it will burn him out.



Kolo and Mikel did nothing but shove like crazy, maybe they deserved their reds, but Lampard got away with just the yellow. As always, it's Arsenal who are portrayed as the dirty ones, but Lampard is as fucking horrible as anyone else you'll find. But what else is he? He's English, he's one of England's only half-decent midfielders, and he's a fat overrated overpaid cunt playing for a team run by an arrogant monkey and owned and funded by a criminal. As you can see neutrality is not my concern at the moment. Cesc stepped in, alternating between aggressor and peacemaker, but Lampard was the one who waded in to start with, and shove, and say something, and then just kept going at it. Cesc was booked, and he was frustrated but he understood. Lampard you could almost see smirking as he received his token yellow - he knows he's untouchable.

Most ridiculous though, was the sending off of Emmanuel Adebayor, who stepped in 3 times as a peacemaker when everything was going crazy. He did absolutely nothing, and he was quite rightly absolutely livid when the assistant ref told the linesman to send him off. He was furious, he had to be restrained, and it took the physio Gary Lewin, Henry and everyone else to get him off the pitch. This was the problem with the replays not being shown, but to everyone watching it just looked like a bunch of angry thugs being sent off. Adebayor did NOTHING at all, and that was why he was angry. I'm told that Emmanuel Eboue might have clashed with Wayne Bridge and that Adebayor was sent off for this. What kind of stone age are we in where the linesman can't tell a 6'3" ponytailed black man from a 5'10" shaven headed one? This was nonsense. African football fans will be very, very unhappy.

It's very dissatisfying as you could imagine. Lots of positives for the youngsters to take, because they outplayed Chelsea, but the red cards are a horrible after-effect - Toure and Adebayor suspended for 3 matches. Cesc's yellow will mean that he needs to be careful, because he's gotten a few this season. Diaby and Denilson were oustanding, and the team was in general. Up front Aliadiere worked hard, and Baptista tried (but was sluggish and off the pace). Once again, Senderos was at fault for Drogba scoring a winner, and despite all the qualities of the Swiss defender, his mistakes seem to outweight them.

John Terry was injured in the game as well, heading a 50-50 ball and getting a kick in the head from Diaby for his troubles. It looked like a very serious injury, and I was concerned for him at the time, but right now i'm just disappointed that the big fucking r***ist hasn't ended up in a coma. Diaby had a wonderful game, but he looked quite distressed by what he'd done to Terry, and I think that's probably more the reason why he was substituted.



Unbelievable bitterness stemming from undeserved loss is what the doctor would probably diagnose right now, but Chelsea really do make it difficult with the way they behave, and the media compound it by always pointing the finger at Arsenal and their "foreigners", and always backing up Chelsea's nonsense, especially as far as Lampard and Terry are involved. I'm sure Zokora and King and Chimbonda over at Spurs were quite happy to see TheWorld'sBestDefenderAndBestPlayerInEnglandCosHe'sEnglishJohnTerry flat out on the turf.



Anyhow. Enough. That's two losses on the bounce now for the Arsenal, and it's tough for the team. The lack of an offside call for Drogba's goal was pretty gutting as well, especially when the big fucker acts like he's just scored the best goal ever. Last year Robin Van Persie had a brilliant left-footed effort disallowed for offside when he was at least 2-3 yards more onside than Drobga. But it's Chelsea, or it's Arsenal, or maybe it's both. Explain why Michael Essien wasn't given a second yellow, while poor Denilson good booked for a harmless foul. Early on, a cross was put in from Walcott, and Baptista dragged it back instead of taking a shot, but was tackled, and the defender was nowhere near the ball. Where was the Penalty? Where was the penalty when Aliadiere was brought down clearly at Blackburn? Where was the penalty when Hleb was chopped down at West Ham? Where was the penalty when Flamini was brought down at Highbury a couple of years ago against Chelsea?

Arggghh. Big, tough week of football up ahead. Congratulations to Chelsea, good luck to the Arsenal, and fuck off to Fat Franky Lampard. Look out for some heavily biased, heavily edited highlights to start circulating all over the place soon. I'm sure you can guess by now what the purpose of those will be. Rupert Murdoch can't die soon enough, the disgusting prick.

Apologies for all the expletives.