I remember the brother dissing me because Arsenal is not in the title race. And then he said that he won't give a shit if Arsenal beat Man Utd from now till the end of the season.
I'm sure he'll want to take that back right this moment.
Remaining fixtures are:
18 Sat Chelsea (FA Cup)
21 Tue Liverpool (A)
26 Sun Boro (H)
29 Wed United (A) (CL)
02 Sat Portsmouth (A)
05 Tue United (H) (CL)
10 Sun Chelsea (H)
16 Sat United (A)
24 Sun Stoke (H)
Cough. That's playing Man Utd 3 more times before the season ends. There are a hell lot of big games coming up.
So the headlines following Arsenal's 3-0 win over Villarreal at the grove are that of Arsenal cruising. I didn't think that was the case, besides the point where them yellow submarines didn't really give us a run for our money. No scares of any sort, which is so characteristic of Arsenal when you watch them and not go into cardiac arrest.
A very pleasing change, but we had to wait an hour for 2 goals which pointed more to safety. And it was well worth the wait. Villarreal were showing signs of getting back in the game, which was the best they managed. Showing signs. Nothing concrete resulted and Adebayor came up with another important goal. It was kind like Drogba when he scored for Chelsea who were 2-0 down at that time. We need someone who can score this kind of goal which gets the team going when they start to lose their footing somewhat.
That said, I kinda skipped Theo's goal. They're coming from out of the blue aren't they? In the last 2 games he broke his goal drought. Against Wigan it was crucial and it honestly came from nowhere after Arshavin was on the ground but what a splendid finish. Tonight's finish was spectacular so to speak, and it did look like out from nowhere. Who'd expect Captain Fab to back heel the ball so neatly into his path en route to the goal.
I conclude that Cesc Fabregas does not have blindspots. Either that or he has eyes behind his back. That would make him a total freak so yes, Cesc does not have blindspots. Wow.
The penalty was earned by Theo, who really had a fantastic game. He's coming of age isn't he? I read a recent interview about his growth physically and he upped a shirt size with all the work in the gym. Melanie Slade would be pleased and so would we all. He has the strength to hold off defenders and is still quick on the turn. The penalty is quite debatable since the defender was adjudged to get the ball but in truth, it went in that direction because Theo was attempting a turn so he could pass it. He wasn't going in for the penalty. Gotta love the dude. There isn't a bit of dirtiness in his play, unlike a few players we have. They're hilarious by the way. We all know the level of dirtiness of Robin. If he could stick one in without the ref looking he would. Haha.
Dirty but not dangerous.
The dancing is funneh. The dancing from the players is funneh. The dancing by the manager? That's the funniest. It's like they all practiced together during training but Arsene got it all wrong. They should make a gif out of it. It's so fantastically funny.
Back to United, they look like they're starting to get their footing back. They got their clean sheet in Porto with their 2 rock solid central defenders back. It's going to be a tight clash for us two but still fantastic nonetheless.
I didn't realise that we both played the teams which were with us in the group stages. United did what we couldn't and beat Porto at home while we did what United couldn't by beating Villarreal. It's like it all is fated.
So now, depending on Chelsea, the final could be all English once again. At least 50% of it will be. Either that or Barcelona's there to welcome either us or United in Rome.
I am not counting any chickens.
And there isn't as much adrenaline as compared to last night. Boohoo.Labels: Cesc Fabregas, Champion's League, Man Utd, Theo Walcott, villarreal
A Little Drunken Madness @ 5:34 AM
Watching football releases adrenaline. Adrenaline keeps a person from sleeping, even when it's human sleeping time.
Not that I was watching any of Arsenal in action. They play tonight in what I think should be heart stopping. I'll get to that later.
So, Chelsea 4 Liverpool 4. Chelsea progress 7-5 on aggregate. That is amazingly a lot goals more than Barcelona's 5-1. Whatever it is, they're going to be the teams battling out for their side to feature in the final.
8 goals.
Liverpool got 2 early ones which brought them back to perhaps getting through. By half time it was still 2-0 but I don't know what happened and they let Chelsea peg 2 goals back and Chelsea didn't look the side which beat them in the first leg. But they manage the goals somehow. Liverpool did put up a fight. At some point in the contest, they needed 2 goals, then they managed to score and made it back to 1 goal. Then Chelsea will score and then it goes back to where it was. I thought that was quite retarded. If you wanted to put up a fight, follow through till the end where you get a result. They went in half-heartedly and while being in reach of qualification with the deficit reduced to 1 goal. Then the deficit increased.
Retarded, but a match with goals where it leaves you second guessing who'll go thought is quite thrilling. Doesn't matter to me who goes through. I was just thinking of Chelsea having one extra day to recover before they meet us at Wembley so if Liverpool got a 3-1 and forced the game into extra time that'll be awesome. But it wasn't all meant to be. And I thought Liverpool would have won but miss qualification anyway.
bahaha. So whatever. At least the FA Cup isn't all Chelsea is playing for?
Now onto our Villarreal game. I think they're going to attack from the first minute with nothing to lose. That frightens me. And I'm sure Pires will start this time. He is capable of causing us all sorts of problems. And with our defence in the state that it is in, it is highly worrying. But we all have to be positive. Maybe they can attack us at the grove but we have a lot of quality on the counter attack. If we get the first goal then they will have to attack a lot more and we should work to kill them off on the break.
Once again, the match is so dependent on that first goal. Chelsea went into their tie with a 3-1 lead but they were made to work to get through. We have a 1 away goal advantage and that means something, but truly, it really depends on tonight.
No goals for Villarreal please.
Alrighty then, since I can't sleep, I should get breakfast.Labels: Champion's League, Chelsea, Liverpool, one of my many theories, villarreal
A Little Drunken Madness @ 7:29 AM
..all I can say is..WHAT THE SHIT?!
And then maybe not.
Gosh at how Villarreal creamed us in the first half. And how they got their goal. The first half wasn't pretty to watch.
For the neutral fan, this would have been a fantastic game. For an Arse fan, it was painful, but we came away with a result, a good result. How often do we have an away goal in our bag. And this away goal was like the one and only time Arsenal threatened the opposition's goal.
The second half was way better, some sort of hair drying treatment? Except that we know that that's not Wenger's style. That's Ferguson's style. Which didn't work by the way. After their poor second half they didn't really improve and Porto came away with a 2-2 draw at Old Trafford. Woah.
All credit to Senna for his goal. Alex Song went to sleep. Actually, he challenged a second too late and bam, there the ball went. I don't like this Senna dude. before the game he was saying that Fabregas is not big enough of a superstar as Henry (-_-) so they'll beat Arsenal. And then Fab, provided that top top top class cross to Adebayor who controlled it with one chest and volleyed it into the back of the net. That kind of goal you don't see everyday. That kind of goal we haven't seen at Arsenal for a long long time. It was like the Sp*rs one? Or sort of. He need to do 1 wonder goal per season. What a goal which could put us through to the semis. The semis which in all prospects, might not be against Man Utd. That's another issue altogether, except that right now, it does look better to be play Man Utd doesn't it?
So the negatives from the game were mostly from the first half. Denilson and Song forgot why they were in the team. Maybe when Mr Diaby comes back again to push for places they might be back to their best. I wonder when that'll be. The two of them did better in the second half though, so the rest of the negatives are from the 4 yellows we picked up. So another caution for Fabregas, Adebayor, Nasri and Song and they miss the next game. That list is added to Robin and Diaby already on it. In Diaby's case he should have done a Beckham since he was getting injured and sitting out. Becks got a second yellow on purpose. Smart guy. And now I figured ROBIN SHOULD HAVE TOO. Those two are buddies in the treatment room.
And the treatment room welcomes two more. Almunia and Gallas. There would have been an argument about taking Almunia much earlier on before the goal. He was quite sure he wasn't going to make it. When you know that the opposition keeper has an injury concern, you kinda want to test him a little bit more just to try your luck. And Senna did, and scored. When Fabianski came on though, it was a welcome relief to know that he won't screw up. I just knew. But it's still a 50:50 if he could save Senna's shot.
Since I'm back at Senna again, um, Adebayor either hates him or loves him to bits. First he tried to mount him. Next he tried to spoon him. Somehow, watching football has evolved to enjoying those moments for me. It's funny because we all know they don't mean it but still do it. It's the game. It's sooo physical.
It's time to sleep. The Gooners at El Madrigal were fantastic.Labels: Champion's League, Emmanuel Adebayor, Man Utd, one of my many theories, villarreal
A Little Drunken Madness @ 4:39 AM
The flying Dutchman will be missing the trip to Spain. Not much has been said about how long he will be out but I guess it wouldn't be that long since it was just 50-50 for this match. He could be back at the weekend for Wigan.
Anyway, looking at the Spain-bound squad, Nasri and Theo have passed fitness tests and will be in the team. It'll be an interesting line-up. I'm not one for predicting who starts because I'm either very wrong and I like to be surprised. Like when Eduardo started on his first game back etc etc.
Nonetheless, I think it's pretty much down to 2 options:
1) continue with the same formation against Citeh with Denilson and Song sweeping up in front of Gallas and Toure, allowing Cesc to go forward more, freeing up Gael and Sagna as well, with Nasri slotting into Arshavin's position.
2) Denilson partnering Cesc in the middle of the park, with Bendtner up front with Adebayor.
I think the boss will go with option 1. Bendtner and Adebayor are too similar and it looks like charity everytime they lay the ball off to each other to run to. If you noticed, when Eboue and Bendtner were coming on for Walcott and Adebayor respectively last Saturday, Bendtner got the routine teammate double high fives while Eboue got such a warm hug. Could be read any way, but we all know the whole team loves Eboue a little bit more than the others. Eboue's everyone's BFF. Yeah. I'm super damn sure he's Sagna's too. Along with his compatriot Toure. Haha.
Eboue the bff.
Villarreal have injury problems of their own with Santi Carzorla out for the rest of the season. I've got to admit I've never heard of him before. He's their star player apparently so that could be good news. They do have Bobby Pires who is raring to go after he signed a one-year extention which he claims will be a huge motivation to beat Arsenal.
Statistics wise, it ain't too good with Arsenal's away form in Spain looking out of sorts. 6 losses from 10 games, winning 2 and drawing 2. But with the team catching on good form I'm sure statistics don't really matter.
Villa managed to play an under strength Man Utd side and failed to capitalise. Going into the game, Martin O'neill has never beaten Alex Ferguson at Man Utd. And after yesterday, they still haven't.
Tomorrow night, Arsenal will show Villa why they're not Champion's League material. We will record a win in Spain.Labels: Emmanuel Adebayor, Emmanuel Eboue, one of my many theories, villarreal
A Little Drunken Madness @ 10:54 PM
Prudent. So prudent.
SAF a.k.a Sir Alex Ferguson has kick started his mind games right after Benitez signed a new deal.
What has that got to do with us?
He sez Benitez will be going on a spending spree this summer.
*insert ahahaha.
Well..
Sometimes people talk too much but we can leave them be. The important point from that article is the net spending figures over the last 5 years. It made me laugh. This comes right after Sp*rs declared many happy returns from their own sales but nobody really gives a fuck about them.
So here it is:
Liverpool £82.5m
Man United £85.5m
Chelsea £154.8m
Arsenal £3.4m
I am amazed. We're in single digit figures. It's like eye-opening. And this is also one of the reasons why I support the Arsenal. Money isn't the key to everything. If you take the nearest figure then we would have done away with £79.1m less. That's a lot to be channeled into more meaningful areas like youth development etc. And this is also why we don't need a billionaire to fund our spending.
With the Draw against Villareal it means Pires will come back. Boy did I love him a lot. There was one thing I didn't really understand about Arsenal, like why most of the players in this era leave after they hit 30 or so. There isn't too much of seeing out their whole career here like how Giggs and Scholes are doing at United. Now I know why.
Wenger explains here:
"When you get to 33 or 34 I can still use players of that age here but when you look at our fixtures you have to get players at that age to come off the bench, come in, go out, and it is not easy. It's very difficult mentally, at 20 it is easy."
There's something Wenger pointed out which we will all agree with: Pires is still a quality player. It would be exciting for the fans to welcome him to the Emirates. Should be quite emotional for him too.
Newcastle tonight. Can't wait. It's going to be a short international break till April and I'll be using this time to move to my new place. I should go take a few photos of my sexy red wall. It's almost like I planned an Arsenal shrine in my room hahaha. Didn't start out on that intent but why not. We'll see.
I should post pictures, shouldn't I? Prolly on Facebook first.Labels: Alex Ferguson, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man Utd, one of my many theories, villarreal
A Little Drunken Madness @ 4:14 PM
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