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Up the arse ...

Hello,

blog can also be found here from this day on.

*Clears throat*
What is to be written is nothing but the truth and truth only.

Right, before anything I would like to take you back to last month. Right before the Man Utd game when a certain disturbed oxymoron decided to run his bowl...

"In my opinion, Arsenal is just an Academy ... I watch their games, they’re a pleasure to watch, but will they win a title? That’s what people remember. In 10 years, nobody will remember of them.

Arsenal is a great Club, they didn’t win a trophy for 5 years, it’s a crisis in my opinion. People always think about the ‘Arsenal way of playing, but at the end, there’s nothing.

We can lose 13-0 against them, but at the end what happens? Nothing. No trophy, no nothing"

Patrice had a point to some degree and being totally wrong for underestimating us on the other hand (and for that, should've been him who broke a leg instead of Valencia) ...

"People always think about the ‘Arsenal way of playing, but at the end, there’s nothing ... but at the end what happens? Nothing. No trophy, no nothing".

That's a nail in the head, plain truth. Everyone admires The Arsenal's way of playing (I mean who doesn't?) but when it comes to football, only one thing counts really and that is the goals. S...

The last time we met these high £ spending fuckers on 24-10-10; If you all remember it was one of the greatest displays we have seen in quite some time (excluding v Chelsea) embarrasing them with a 3-nil win at City of Manchester.

Taking a look at the away games statistics against the two, you won't be suprised to see we are evenly matched with:

Wins: 6—6, Draws: 3—2, Losses: 2—2, Clean sheets: 3—3, Avarage goals per match: 1.82—1.9 and Avarage goals conceded per match: 1—0.9.

Home games statistics:

Wins: 6—6, Draws: 0—3, Losses: 3—2, Clean sheets: 2—7, Avarage goals per match: 2.44—1.27, Avarage goals conceded: 1.22—0.64.

Judging from the statistics above, the match today against The Citizens doesn't need much of predictions, the statistics speak by themselves. Looking at both teams ahead of today, injuries, winning streaks, home-away games and squad to play. We are very much similar. Not forgetting Citeh's current form. But fuck that....

By James Reuben (@jamesreuben)

A great win in Birmingham by the boys. Not that the Blues were any good, because they weren't, but because we finally get a win at what has been seen as a relative ‘bogey' ground, since the horrific Eduardo incident and Alumunia's bird watching last season.

We didn't quite play with the tempo we did vs Chelsea, but certainly more than on show at Wigan.RVP tried to go from hero to villain, getting involved and getting on the scoresheet, a terrible miss and a blatant handball. Cesc was always around and between him and Nana we were always going to get more. For me,I thought Jack played really well and I love what he brings to this team - persistence, determination, grit and ability. With Song playing the role of a proper DM I think we have found an excellent balance. If our new player Song Van Nasregashire performs coupled with on song AA23 and Theo, things look good for us.

So, the Transfer Window is now open and a load of rubbish starts to emanate from every possible angle around us.

I am pretty sure Wenger won't buy anyone and because of this my stance on what will happen this season won't change. We won't win anything because we are frustratingly just a couple of players short of a winning squad. I think everyone knows this, except Arsene.

By James Reuben (@jamesreuben aka gooneroobs)

So out of the shadows, which came so in focus at Old Trafford, emerged a team I barely recognised from the one we have seen over the last couple of years.

Here was a team who harried and pressed the opposition all game, pinning them back so their chances were rare and caused some killer unenforced errors.

What was more surprising was that the opposition were Chelsea, a team I have always felt were physically superior to us, which has helped them beat us on many occasions when they haven't played so well.

So hats off to Arsene and it was nice to see slight reminisce back to his glory days were he was tactically superior to one of his foes within the top  4 or 5.

The key to our win was the 90mins of pressing and a high tempo which we just haven't seen in recent months. We seem to want to slow games down and pass our way to goal. The momentum we carried also carried the crowd, who were once again great, but it shouldn't take games vs the big boys to get us pumped up. The team need to produce and if they repeat that performance the Emirates will rock for every game.

Defensively, bar the Chelsea's goal, we held strong and I'd like to see Djourou given a longer run in the team with, for the moment, Kos. He too played well, but the goal needs to serve a ...

By James Reuben (twitter: http://twitter.com/jamesreuben  aka gooneroobs)

So a weekend of snow,meant a boring weekend of no football. The big story then for Arsenal was the Champions League draw.

I called a week ago that we would get Real Madrid and Spurs would get FC Copenhagen. We got Barca and Chelsea got Copenhagen, so I wasn't far off.

Getting Barca serves us right for two miserable away games in the Group Stage. Yes we were unlucky to finish 2nd with the points total we got, but why don't Arsenal ever put things to bed when things are in our grasp?

I was privileged to go last season home and away against Barca. At home, the first 20mins was best passing and possession football I have ever seen. Even in all the championship years under Wenger, I have never seen anything like that. As for the away game, well Messi was majestic and that was that.

Will we win this time around? I admire those who say ‘bring it on', and of course my heart says that too, but my brain is saying that it will be extremely difficult. I am not being disloyal, just being realistic. We stand half a chance if the entire 1st team is fit, but when have we had that in the last few years?

Of course Manure and Chelski will go through, and I think, unfortunately, Spurs will too.

By James Reuben aka gooneroobs

Sorry to use such an old cliche but it is so true of Arsenal over the last couple of weeks.

For those who don’t know me well let me explain my viewpoint on the Gunners this season. We aren’t going to win the league or the Champions League this season, period. We simply don’t have a good enough defence.

Now before you have a go saying how negative I am (despite being top of the league) I live and breathe Arsenal Football Club PLC - a North Londoner born and bred, Season Ticket Holder and about 80 years of follow-ship in my direct family. I always try to be a realist gooner and simply believe we aren’t good enough. However, I will be delighted to be proved wrong.

So, it is a funny old game and the last couple of weeks have been so descriptive of that. Like most the North London derby was a massive disappointment.I am never shocked by our ineptitude at the back whilst Wenger doesn’t seem to want to bring in some decent CBs and a GK and simply wants to develop our attacking play at the behest of our defence, but that defeat by even my realist view was a massive blow.

Braga for me was even worse. We didn’t want to even try to win that game. How can we be in position where we may not qualify from a group of such poor quality teams w...

I remember Arsene warned of the psychological damage that could be done if we did not put the Spurs defeat behind us quickly.

But after yesterday's yet another late defeat, we have fear for our squad's fragile mental state and confidence to worry about. I don't have to go about writting down every single action that took place last night (we were all witnesses). So a defeat, damaged hamstring to our Captain Cesc Fabregas, again and a streching off of Emmanuel Eboue with knee ligament damage ahead of Aston Villa away this weekend in the Premier League. How is that for luck?

To say the least, for some reasons, the football gods must have left us a long time. We can't have such horrific things happening towards us without a reason. We are getting punished, god knows why... Oh! I know why, atleast one reason, Bendtner's big mouth. Seriously, when you talk the talk, you must walk the walk. Big Dane showed such poor form last night and I'm sure Bragas goalkeeper didn't even notice he was there untill Vela came on.

On this evidence, there will not be many clubs beating a path to our door to sign the...

Hello to you,

what a hectic tuesday morning it is ahead of Braga away later at night.

Right, on to business. Arsene compares our title chase to a Formula One race after admitting we came off the track against Tottenham because we were too busy thinking about the finish line to complete the job:

It's a bit like a Formula One driver when he goes into the curve and thinks: 'I want to cross the line at the end' then he goes in the wall. But if he focuses on how he wants to take his curve he has a chance to get out of it. And it's a bit the same in our game.

I think he has a very good point there... Inorder for us to win this we must think of 'HOW?'. In doing so we can come up with different tactics. Which really, it's Wenger's job as a coach. But to some point, we 'Fans' have the right to question his ways and tactics that will govern us in winning silverwares.

Due to the recent defeat by The Spurs, Boss fears our season could crash in spectacular fashion unless we get over our derby hangover stressing on the need to put that behind us and stop our recent slip-ups becoming a mental block in The Champions League campaign taking place today against Braga...