Darren Bent secured a shock win over Arsenal who lacked the dynamism to open up the Black Cats' defence.
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Was this the realisation of the importance of Robin van Persie or were Arsenal just missing a certain amount of cutting edge in the starting line-up?

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Last season a late equaliser saved our bacon at the Stadium of Light. Yesterday there was no bacon saving as Darren Bent's goal consigned us to our third defeat of the season.

It was, it should be pointed out, the first time we've failed to score since a 0-0 draw at Old Trafford at the end of last season but our ability to concede was our undoing yesterday.

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Non Chelsea-related post: Well, not really. We play Voyeur's men in a little more than a week.

Quite hilarious advert from the Arsenal in support of their fundraising campaign this term. Cesc as a cute and cuddly pony is spot on; Theo as a lion, not so much. Never thought I'd say this, but well done Arsenal.

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Non Chelsea-related post: Well, not really. We play Voyeur's men in a little more than a week.

Quite hilarious advert from the Arsenal in support of their fundraising campaign this term. Cesc as a cute and cuddly pony is spot on; Theo as a lion, not so much. Never thought I'd say this, but well done Arsenal.

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The final international break of the year is over. How good does that sound?

Real football returns tomorrow, and unlike many Premiership weekends, it is Saturday that looks the tastier of the days. Liverpool and City play each other at lunchtime, United face Everton in the evening, Chelsea are involved and we have a very tricky trip to Sunderland to negotiate.

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FIFA & FIFPro (the players Union) have combined to announce thisyear the "FIFA/FIFPro WORLD XI Team" which will be announced the21st of December in a Gala at Zurich (Switzerland).For the moment the organizations have handed in their 55 candidatesof which 11 are Spanish players:Casillas, Reina, Sergio Ramos, Piqué, Puyol, Iniesta, Xavi, Xabi Alonso,Cesc, Torres & Villa. Click to continue reading...

SPAIN ended its last International Football game for 2009 with aconvincing 1-5 victory over AUSTRIA in Vienna tonight. The Austriansstarted with aggression & surprised a "cold" Spain in the 6th min when JANTSCHER scored for the home team.This awoken the "red beast" as Spain turned on the machine with Xavi,Iniesta, Silva, Villa & CESC FABREGAS taking over the ball & equalizingvia the later in the Click to continue reading...

Just before the Interlull Arsene Wenger said:

Traditionally November has not been a good month for us. But I explain that by the fact we had more injuries, it is the first period when they kick in.

Way to tempt fate, Arsene! I think he was probably referring to injuries that would occur through wear and tear.

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Well, I would be if I were one of those players having to play tonight and some nutter came sliding in towards me with a hard tackle in mind! We cannot afford any more injuries and the loss of any of the players mentioned below would be just awful. It doesn't even bare thinking about!

Even Sir Bobby Pires is concerned for us, but still believes we have enough strength and depth to get through this tough time.

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Spanish Sports paper "AS", publish today that REAL MADRID hasentered the "battle" to lure to Spanish Football the 22 year oldARSENAL FC Captain & Spanish International CESC FABREGAS.According to this same paper, there exists a "tacit" agreementbetween Manager Arsene Wenger & Fabregas, that the formerwill allow the latter to leave Arsenal at the end of this season. Click to continue reading...

Be honest, you'd forgotten entirely about the Under 17 World Cup and that's if you were aware of its running in the first place. We'll also accept admissions from those who confused it with the Under-20 World Cup (Lite) in Egypt won late last month by Ghana.

But it happened, and Switzerland yes, Switzerland took home the trophy, their first of any kind in FIFA territory, from Lagos against what had to be the heavily favored and exceedingly overaged hometown Nigerians.

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Wenger continues to pursue Bundesliga star.

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Arsenal are keeping tabs on VfL Wolfsburg midfielder Zvjezdan Misimovic, according to reports.
The 27-year-old has made 45 league appearances for the Bundesliga side since arriving from Nuremburg last summer, and was influential in the club's title triumph last season.

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Welcome to the first 'Groan in Brief', a look at recent events that may or may not have anything to do with Arsenal the focus of these pieces will be on any current football stories that I feel like commenting on. Expect the FA, FIFA, UEFA and Jamie Redknapp to be regular targets of ridicule.

The international break seems like a good time to start, given that there's no Arsenal news filtering through, at least until the matches themselves leave the whole squad crippled, so let's get on with it.

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This happened a couple of days ago, but, you know...(shrugs). 15 Arsenal players have been called up for duty over the international break. The entire list can be found here.

Of the 15, only 5 Diaby, Gallas, and Sagna for France, Arshavin for Russia, and Song for Cameroon are playing in meaningful senior international matches, as all of their nations are trying to qualify for the World Cup.

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And the way Nogo did it was typical Dipper Like!!

Having watched Sky Sports yesterday, I am at a loss as to why N'gog has not been taken to task by the FA for his mid air attempt at hand gliding. That dive by him was possibly the most exaggerated I have seen in a long while, there must have been at least six inches of air space between any part of his body and the foot of Carsley when he went over.

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It's funny how when you're playing well and in good form you find things going your way, little bits of luck that can help decide a game.

I think it's fair to say we got a bit of that yesterday against Wolves. You certainly wouldn't have put too much money on the final scoreline after the first twenty minutes.

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Arsenal traveled to face Wolverhampton Wanderers on Saturday, November 7, 2009 in the English Premier League. The Gunners were 3rd in the league table and could move into 2nd with a win. Here's a recap of the match along with video highlights.

Arsenal beats Wolverhampton 4-1 Video Highlights

Arsenal cruised to victory over Wolves on Saturday in the EPL.

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Good Saturday to you all. Here is the news.

It looks like Manuel Almunia is back in pole position. Or, he would be if Arsenal was a Forumula 1 team and he'd just come fastest in qualifying, but you know what I mean. A mixture of a chest infection, family tragedy and just plain old poor form meant his start to the season was a bit all over the shop, but it seems as if the manager is ready to put his faith in him again.

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The 4-1 thumping of Alkmaar in midweek was an immensely satisfying affair, a triumph of footballing philosophy over the defensive nous of coaches such as Ronald Koeman, and yet another demonstration that this Arsenal team is serious about combining footballing beauty with tangible success.

But prior the the match, there was a definite sense of relaxation amongst the fans, as if the game really didn't matter, so assured was our progress regardless of the result.

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Arsenal came into its own with crisp, free flowing football. Cesc with a brace, Nasri with a very welcome contribution on his return, and Diaby rounded up the scoring. But Arshavin was the source having a hand in three of the goals. And Wenger singled him out.

Wenger highlighted Andrey Arshavin - who had a hand in three of the goals - for special praise, saying: "He was outstanding.

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Phew, writing something vaguely interesting (even for me) at this time of the night here� is hard enough. Where do I start? I know, I'll start� with a Lithuanian most of you have forgotten about.

I was watching (albeit very briefly) Inter at Livorno the other day. It finished 2-0 to Inter btw.

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November 2, 2009 (10/11 games played)
EPL Top 5 player leaderboard, goals + assists:
1. Cesc Fabregas, Arsenal
5 goals, 9 assists
1. Didier Drogba, Chelsea
9 goals, 5 assists
3. Robin van Persie, Arsenal
7 goals, 6 assists
4. Fernando Torres, Liverpool
10 goals, 1 assist
5. Click to continue reading...

Hello to all of you reading this on a Sunday or Monday or maybe even 3 years time when you are caught reminiscing about this game making it 20 games unbeaten against Spurs.

Like the title says, 11 seconds, that is all it took for Spurs to crumble and fall to the knees (literally when Cesc went past half of the Spurs team for his goal).

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Morning All – I did a little bit of multi-tasking yesterday, using my vast experience and skill around the keyboard; I typed while watching our wonderful team put in a lunchtime shift at the Emirates!
Ok, I am fibbing, I just typed as I watched and corrected a huge amount of spelling mistakes afterwards, it took an age!

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So yet another installment of the fiery North London derby has passed. Tottenham, missing Jermaine Defoe through a suspension and Aaron Lennon through injury, looked a shadow of the side which threatened to take over one of the top 4 spots earlier in the season. Arsenal, on the other hand, were magnificent.

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Well it will have to if the big city of London has had the rainfall we have had here in Berkshire!!

The Daily Telegraph, well the Belfast version reports Cesc has signed a pre-contract agreement with Barca! Worried for a second, but then I saw the word ‘Adeybayor' in the same sentence you know him, the one who feels he has the right to an opinion about us!

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With Almunia frozen out, and Mannone beginning to show understandable signs of being a little out of his depth in the first team at this early stage of his career, the stage seemed set for Fabianski to return to the fray against Spurs this afternoon, especially after a decent showing against Liverpool in midweek.

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At the Euro 2008 Semi Final, I love this picture! Thanks to whoever who took it.

Two of Arsenal's holy trinity have been nominated for this prestigious award. The third component of this trinity,� Robin� van Persie � curiously has been ignored.� Since November 2008,� Robin has� been the most consistent Gooner full stop.

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See below for match highlights followed by Arsene Wenger's post-match interview.

Tuesday's match with AZ Alkmaar was full of deja vu on so many levels. Arsenal created a similar amount of chances to most of their other matches this season. Also, our inability to take our chances and kill the game off with the second goal was reminiscent of last season.

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Wenger got the team wrong last night. But first, it's important to recognise a couple of things.
Firstly, a draw away in Europe is never a bad result. We had six points on the board, now we have seven. So despite Alkmaar's last minute equaliser we're sure to go through. Which is more than can be said for Liverpool. Click to continue reading...

The Champions League group stages are not renowned for providing scintillating, exciting football and last night was no exception.

A rather dull game looked like it was going to provide Arsenal with three points but there was an inevitability about AZ's late equaliser. Ronald Koemen said before the game that Arsenal had defects and although it took them 93 minutes to exploit one, exploit it they did.

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With the Ballon d'Or nominations finally releasing this weekend, the headlines have mostly been devoted to the fact that world champions Italy have no representation whatsoever. But why blame the press for paying excessive attention to an irrelevant detail? After all, the award itself is destined to be heading Lionel Messi's way, which means very little is there to be talked about in terms of debating the winner, right?

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That was an oddly hard game to find. I had to watch it on tape delay on Arsenal.com.
Two quick goals in the first half from Van Persie and Diaby were enough for the points.
Walcott started ahead of Arshavin, but Walcott went off injured in the first half, and Arshavin played the last hour, scoring the third in the 85th minute, I think it was. Click to continue reading...

Victoria Beckham has bagged a guest spot on Gossip Girl. In other VB news, her dietary "secrets" have been revealed. It's all sushi and berries.
Cristiano spotted out with Raffaella Fico. 1. that is one unromantic looking cheek peck 2. She's twenty-one years old? We call urgent peptide cream intervention.

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Victoria Beckham has bagged a guest spot on Gossip Girl. In other VB news, her dietary "secrets" have been revealed. It's all sushi and berries.
Cristiano spotted out with Raffaella Fico. 1. that is one unromantic looking cheek peck 2. She's twenty-one years old? We call urgent peptide cream intervention.

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