Well that was a bit of a kick in the teeth, wasn't it?
I felt sure, so sure (to quote Take That) that the universe would be aligned in our favour for the game on Saturday. That we would hold the moral high ground with our system of breeding young talent against city's collection of hideously over-paid egomaniacs. Click to continue reading...

It was a tough game to take on Saturday. On seeing United's line-up I immediately felt we could win the game - Nani, Valencia, a fading Giggs, O'Shea, Carrick, Brown: these were players we could beat.
And so it initially appeared. In the opening half we dominated the game and deserved to go in ahead at the break. Click to continue reading...

I am appalled.
I don't care about the result; I care about Arsene.
To be humiliated in the way he was, in front of 80,000 braying mancunians. That isn't right.
Especially if all he did was kick a drink bottle!
Stuff the result, the ref was a disgrace today. Click to continue reading...

On Wednesday night in London the footballing world was rocked to its core as Croatian striker Eduardo (if that is even his real name) invented a form of cheating so insidious, yet so innovative and breathtaking, that many in the stadium, and across the world, were driven to tears by anger, despair and incomprehension. Click to continue reading...

Three games and 12 goals should leave no room for complaint.
Yes, the opposition was weak at the weekend, but so what? I remember going to a string of games in January/February last season where we played fairly mediocre opposition and couldn't buy a goal.
Portsmouth might be a shambles, but we can only beat the teams put in front of us. Click to continue reading...

You can really beat that for an opening day result, can you?
6 goals away from home. No matter who you're playing in the league, that's an exceptional performance.
And for some, an unthinkable result. After all, Arsenal haven't spent huge-wads of cash this summer. There's been no 'bail-out' of the squad. Click to continue reading...

The first thing to bear in mind is that we haven't lost anyone critical to the team's coherency or ability during this post-season. As I said in my last post, I think we've, at most, lost players who were our fourth-best striker and fourth-best defender. The fact both started games last season doesn't mean anything; even if they were first choice, Arsene, like myself, was suitably unimpressed with both of them to sell them off. Click to continue reading...

Hello all. I'm back. I needed to re-charge my blogging batteries so I stopped for the summer when Arsenal's season ended - after the champions league exit against United.
But I'm starting to get excited about next season in a most unusual way.
Normally, signings are the things that gets the modern football fan out of his seat and into the blogosphere. Click to continue reading...

I don't think there's too much point in swathes of analysis for this match because it's all quite simple.
Yes, a horrible, horrible mistake from gibbs cost us early on; yes, almunia should have saved ronaldo's forty yarder.
But 4-1 was a fair refelection of the utter dominance united had over us over two legs. Click to continue reading...

I don't know about you but I was actually physically shaking at the end of the game at Anfield. Not necessarily with rage or joy; just due to the immense amounts of adrenaline that had been pumped through my body during one of the more incredible games of football I've seen.
People have said it was a strange game as we had nothing to play for. Click to continue reading...

Something a bit different today: a guest columnist. Here is Russ and his thoughts:
You may not realise it but these are the groups into which every single winner of the PFA Player of the Year Award can be easily placed. Some actually fall into two camps. Consider Kevin Keegan (winner in 1982) as a clear example. Click to continue reading...

We should, really, be celebrating getting into the semi-finals of the FA Cup for the first time since 2005, but we're not because of Phil-Brown-accuses-Cesc-of-spitting-gate. br /br /Did Cesc spit at Brian Horton, Hull's assistant manager? No. Do I have categorical proof of this? No. But I'm far more willing to take Cesc's word over Brown and Horton's. Click to continue reading...

Well, that was a bit better, wasn't it?br /br /After what seems, and in fact was, months of tepid league matches with barely a goal in sight we were finally able to conjure up an extremely decent performance yesterday.br /br /Whether it was due to the opposition or not is probably a moot point; they were certainly no worse than some of the other teams we've struggled to score against this season, although i have additional thoughts on Sam allardyce to follow in a seperate article. Click to continue reading...

A long European night in Rome ended with a penalty shoot-out triumph, and for once I'm not going to over-analyse the match.
A midfield of Eboue-Diaby-Denilson-Nasri-Bendtner was always going to struggle away from home, and it was painful at times last night. Bendtner worked hard, Diaby occasionally shone, Nasri had a few moments, but Denilson and Eboue were predictadly average and awful, respectively. Click to continue reading...

At a personal level, it was nice to attend a match after having been unable to get to the Grove since the Bolton match in January. Being a relatively superstitious kind of person, I had hoped that my presence at the game might be enough to break Arsenal out of their goal-less funk, but evidently not. Click to continue reading...