I felt that recently we had quite good performances but did not get the results. Today we got the performance and the result, which is ideally what you want.

- Arsene Wenger, post-match wibbling session

Arsenal's January has been like the ice-skating learning curve from hell.

I watched the game and come away from it thinking "Good performance" and "Good result, we're through!" and being honest I cannot believe the negativity that has come from "Chelsea fans" on here and Twitter to me after the game.
Some of you lot need a kick up the arse and to get a sense of realism right now.

By Chris Wright

Short, sweet and does exactly what it says on the tin like Warwick Davis smeared in a mixture of Nutella and Ronseal.

But enough about the sketchbook that got me thrown out of Art College, here's Vincent Kompany Manchester City's erstwhile captain and leader being sent arse-over-teats backwards after being sneaked snuck snaken snook crept up on by a small blue ninja stealth bag during training.

Gareth Barry has acknowledged that Liverpool fans remain among the most influential supporters in English football but the Manchester City playmaker has also criticized them for verbally abusing him a few years ago.

Barry was touted as a replacement for Xabi Alonso and while the England international was even on the verge of signing for Rafa Benitez, he moved away from the protracted transfer proposition due to the impatience of Reds faithful.

Here is one for you: Andrey Arshavin has become the athlete of the year for the fourth year in a row according to a body known as the all-Russian public opinion research center. No, I am not making this up (for once). It says so, here, in black and white on AA23′s very own website.

Now, I really want to like our little Russian.

When Arsenal posted a very emotional message on their website to fans after the departure of our then captain and talisman people wondered how we would replace him and if we would even get into the top four in the coming season. Now, in January 2012, he is coming back. Does he still have the speed?

By Chris Wright

In which Agent 00Gamst, acting behalf of the Blackburn Supporters Club, misinterprets his 'Operation: Steve Kean Out' mission brief and decides to go down the 'literal' route during Rovers' 1-2 defeat at the hands of Stoke on Monday night...

Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but the complete lack of apology from Pedersen seems to speak volumes of the regard that Kean is held in at Blackburn.

Manchester City striker Mario Balotelli is once again making headlines for all the wrong reasons. The 21 year old Italy international missed City's 1-0 loss to Sunderland yesterday for reasons that still remain very unclear.

According to City manager Roberto Mancini, Balotelli was not included in City's line up because of an 'ankle problem'.

Just when I had considered giving up on Father Christmas altogether, he fills my stocking with dropped points by all of Chelski, l'Arse, Liverpool and even Man City. And – and - he even un-twinges VDV's hamstring. I'm not sure there has ever been a Christmas quite like it.

No reason not to expect another high-class performance, missed chances a-plenty and ultimately three more points tonight.

By Chris Wright

After just pipping the first leg 1-0, Pep Guardiola covered his arse by naming an incredibly strong side in the return leg against Hospitalet at the Camp Nou last night and it payed off, with Barcelona crushing the third-tier outfit thanks to goals from Pedro, Andres Iniesta, Xavi and braces from three players aged just 20: Isaac Cuenca, Thiago Alcantara and substitute Cristian Tello.

Season's greetings Arse addicts. It's been an unusual kind of week with two away games yielding mixed results. Yet we've probably found more praise for our performance in defeat at Eastlands than we did for our somewhat serendipitous victory at Villa Park. Football is a funny old, blah, blah, blah etc.

How Pippa Middleton made an arse of Joey Barton and Luis Suarez's daft quote of the week

After Joey Barton's recent Tweets about "mentally deficient, fame-hungry z-list celebs" who would "turn up to the opening of an envelope" helped win him a reported £150,000 advance from Penguin books for his thoughts on life, philosophy and porridge, the QPR midfielder will no doubt be delighted to hear that the same firm have just ordered up a party-planning book from Pippa Middleton.

There was something poignant about the moment, mid way through the second half, when Arsène Wenger made his first two substitutions.

Gervinho and Abou Diaby were bouncing on the touchline: primed, eager and ready while the fourth official fiddled with his number board.

Three yards away from them, on the pitch, a small Russian man was standing on his own, looking downcast and waiting for the inevitable appearance of the number 23 on the official's board.

This may not be one of the most tactful footy-related commercials you've ever seen, but it's probably one of the funniest. Unless you're a City fan. The reverse edition would probably involve a City fan wiping its arse with fake banknotes. Or possibly a Tevez shirt.

Pretty easy to get lost in a few more Komplett ads, like the excellent usage of disciplinary cards in the workplace.

By Alan Duffy

Not only do Premier League footballers have to watch their own behaviour, but they also have to hope that their family members behave themselves too. Just ask Wayne Rooney.

Well Rooney's ex-United team-mate, Kieron Richardson, is the latest footballer to see his family in the 'papers for the wrong reasons.

Branislav Ivanovic took centre stage with AVB in yesterdays pre match press conference ahead of our Champions League tie against Genk and spoke out about our performance on Saturday and the fact we have been shipping goals lately. Respect is due to Ivanovic as he pulled no punches. It could have been easy to let the manager do all the talking about Saturday and moving on but Ivanovic shed light on what happened in that dressing room after the game and since then.

It's news I wanted to hear this morning and hopefully it will give AVB and the players a kick up the arse that they have needed for a while now when it comes to our defensive mistakes.
AVB "apparently" has given the players (as a collective and not pointing out individuals) a major dressing down yesterday at Cobham after our woeful defensive performance on Saturday against Arsenal.

Arsene Wenger gave a rousing speech to the Arsenal AGM this afternoon at the Emirates and made a very peculiar claim.

"I hope as well that in many years, people will look at this period and think that we have put the club on the right track and defended the right values and think that together we were not too stupid," he said.

By Ref Reviewer 02 The biggest game in world football my arse, the quality was appalling, the first half was dire, bad passing, poor technique, I cannot ever remember Arsenal passing the ball as badly as these two did in the first half, an advert for the EPL`s passion, but certainly not its quality.

By Chris Wright

Mere hours after some kind of sick swan ran amok at Old Trafford, a rather glum-looking Wayne Rooney celebrated his 26th birthday at Wings restaurant in Manchester with guests including friends, relatives, colleagues and several of the chaps that had just tarred and feathered his arse in the Manchester derby namely Joe Hart and Gareth Barry.

I look at Theo Walcott and I see a frustrated figure.
To me, he is in danger of becoming as stale as the loaf of bread that's been in my bread bin since 2007. Though he isn't as mouldy.
At the moment Theo doesn't look like he is enjoying his football.
His body language is worse than my French and his face looks like a smacked arse.

I have looked it in the eye, monitored its pulse-rate and threatened all manner of violations that contraven the terms of the Geneva convention – yet I can confirm ‘tis true: the league table doesn't lie. Newcastle are currently in the Champions League spots.

Not that even the most fervent of their breed would harbour much hope of them still being them come May 2012, but fourth they are, and reading between the black and white strips this points to a team pootling along in marvellous early-season form.

Brazil striker Neymar is knocked on his arse by team-mate Thiago Silva during Brazil training with no ball in sight.

New 2011/12 Brazil Shirt on Sale at Soccer.com!

By WAG Watcher

Music producer Jimmy Iovine, fashion photographer Rafael Mazzucco and pap rapper Puff Diddly Doo-dah Daddy have collaborated to produce a new book, imaginatively titled 'CULO', which features 248 photographs in celebration of the female derriere one of which belongs to Cristiano Ronaldo's other half, Miss Irina Shayk.

By Chris Wright

We're a little late this one as it dates from Saturday afternoon, but I've just stumbled across it and it made me do a little nose-laugh, so I thought I'd share it with you good folk on the off-chance it makes you titter a bit too here's Hearts hero Rudi Skacel going arse-over-tit-over-advertising-hoarding during the Jam Tart's 2-0 victory over Celtic at Tynecastle.

Part 1...Fat Footballers
If I was to ask you to name the fattest footballer currently plying their trade in the Premiership then what would your answer be? A difficult question to answer isn't it. Perhaps Yakubu? And even then he is hardly a Rik Waller lookalike. Fat Frank? Lets be honest here, this is really just a moniker and probably arose because over 10 yards he is slower than most people's grannies, rather then anything to do with his actual physique.

By Chris Wright

Just days after an unconcious player was dumped on his head in the Portuguese top flight, comes this yet more proof that the Iberian nation's stretcher-bearing industry really is (quite literally) on it's arse...

Academico de Viseu vs Sanjoanense in the Portuguese third division, in case you were wondering.

By Chris Wright

In which, during Mirassol's 3-0 victory over Workers in the Brazilian fourth-tier, referee Rodrigo Nunes de Sa sees fit to issue a Mirassol defender with a red card for something or other.

Taking umbrage at his dismissal, the No. 6 begins bawling in the official's face, twitching as if to threaten a head-butt, at which point De Sa hits the deck quicker than <insert relevant humerous quip here>.

By Chris Wright

In which Heerenveen forward Oussama Assaida gets pipped by the offside trap during his side's 3-0 Eredivisie win over Groningen at the weekend and runs through, rounds the 'keeper and flicks a doozy of a trick-shot into the empty net regardless...

I'm sure I wasn't alone in willing Assaida to fall arse-over-tit there.

I went into a state of utter despondency at the end of this transfer window, even allowing for the entry into the Champions League stages failed to lift my spirits. The 8-2 thrashing by Manchester United rubbed salt into very big wounds. I took a break to reflect, the International Break helped in a sense, to enable common sense to dawn.

By Chris Wright

In an interview with The People, Carlos Tevez has admitted he was so depressed over the summer that he developed a bit of a binge-eating 'crisis' a weighty problem that presumably entailed no small amount of barbecued steak:

"I'm not the shit that they say I am.

"I want to come to England to win trophies and that's why I accepted Chelsea's offer. It was also a question of sporting achievement, not money. Arsenal and Tottenham were both interested in me but they did not compare with the Blues. I want the Premier League title and this is possible at Chelsea.

By Chris Wright

We literally have no clue as to what's going on here, but the clip shows a hot(ish), blonde Ecuadorian 'journalist' taking to the pitch after a game and attempting to get one of the players to sign her arse for her so we thought we'd share...

As you can see, the bemused player doesn't play ball but that doesn't stop our compelling protagonist from getting her backside out for the baying crowd behind the goal you'll go far honey.

By Rumour Monger

After a relatively quiet summer (only Brad Friedel and Robbie Keane's dream move to LA Galaxy to speak of), it looks like Tottenham are ready to wade into the transfer cesspool by tying up deals for Scott Parker and ex-Arsenal mard-arse Emmanuel Adebayor.

By Rumour Monger

After a relatively quiet summer (only Brad Friedel and Robbie Keane's dream move to LA Galaxy to speak of), it looks like Tottenham are ready to wade into the transfer cesspool by tying up deals for Scott Parker and ex-Arsenal mard-arse Emmanuel Adebayor.

Over the years, RoM has had many a chat with Chelsea Den from The Chelsea Blog in the lead up to match days and season. This year, we get to hear about the hopes for the latest Chelsea manager, what went wrong last season and United's best players.

Scott the Red: So, after spending periods of the season in fifth before pulling it back to just nine points behind us, were you happy with your team's performance last season?

By Chris Wright

The photo above lit a bit of a fire under Arsenal fans yesterday when, after the club held an open training session, several papers published it along with captions reading somewhere along the lines of 'Cesc is a mardy arse who hates Arsenal and obviously wishes he was fondling dolphins with Barcelona 4,500 miles away in Miami' the argument being that it was little more than a single, isolated snapshot of Fab merely looking glum while getting drenched to the bone in torrential rain rather than a glimpse into his very soul.

Football is back. I should be excited. But I'm not. And that's unusual. The impending football season for me is like the unwanted return of the Genital Herpes which you thought you had shaken off, only to return when you least expect it. This really shouldn't be how I feel.

The Championship is a few days away and is swiftly followed by the return of the Premiership season.

By Chris Wright

Given that Dynamo Moscow almost definitely signed Kevin Kuranyi as a 'striker' last summer, we reckon that the Russians probably now have decent grounds to sue his worthless arse for flagrantly violating the Trades Description Act against Volga over the weekend.

So there's football today and with football comes press conferences and with press conferences we get stories.

We'll start with Cesc who won't be playing this weekend because of the speculation/situation over his future. This time last year Arsene was defiant, refusing to countenance the sale of his captain.