Arsenal break a sweat and chip a few teeth on Toffees

Arsenal on Sunday continued to show the grit and determination that wins Premiership titles as they narrowly beat Everton at Goodison Park.

It’s the way we’ve played for the past few games, not so much pure football, more poor football. But the way we’ve defended as a team has helped us get a couple of good results against teams we could have drawn or lost against given the recent lack of real Arsenalish performances.
Gone are the billion passes, flicks and great team goals. Now we seem to be grinding, scrapping and taking the odd chance to nick a goal. Then scaring the ghoulies out of the Gooners watching with hearts racing faster than Walcott’s legs. We’ve still scored the odd good goal and can still pass ok but no-where near as fluently and as often as normal.
Our goals tally on and off target and number of chances have dipped dramatically in recent games, plus we’re still missing the same ratio of chances. Not good.



During the Wolves game I felt a rush of emotions I’d not felt as an Arsenal fan for a long long time. I felt even more of a nervous wreck, I was scared, my confidence had wained.....I felt like SpongeRob Brownpants.

And I felt the same against Everton. I can’t remember the last time I felt confident that Arsenal would win. But we fought hard, worked hard, and chewed up all they could throw at us for most of the game. Until Cahill, inevitably, scored from close range. On that goal, I’d like to  thank Alan Smith - ex-Arsenal legend, for his ‘Commentators Curse’. At 2-0 up and with Fabianski making great saves to keep it that way, old Smudge decided to say “They just can’t beat him”. Twenty-six seconds later the score was 2-1. Cheers Smudger. We make things hard enough for ourselves as it is and we don’t need ex-Gunners making things worse, so from now on -  Shut-it!!


Anyway, so we were hanging on for what seemed like an eternity by Calvin Klein, Cesc scored a technically brilliant goal and Shavva set up Sagna to score his second for the Gunners!
As I mentioned, Fabianski made some brilliant saves again today but I'm not gonna go over the top until I’ve seen him keep this form up for at least 20 games in a row. After all, he is just doing what he’s paid to do. But well done Lukas.

I’m hoping that if we can get through ‘Nasty November’ in good shape and get back to our confident pure Arsenal style, but know that if we are under the cosh against the likes of the Chav’s and Manure’s we’ll grind out a good result, then I think we are going to win the title this season.

We’ve all being waiting for the Gunners to consistently find that grit and determination to grind out tough results when required for a long time. It’s been the one ingredient that Manure and Chavski have had for years which is why they have been the only title contenders for the past five years.
Following Manure’s lucky draw against a Villa side that typically capitulated (when will these teams learn to stop sitting back and play for 90 minutes plus Fergie time instead of thinking the games over half way through the match - Tossers) and Chavski’s 0-3 mauling by Scumderland at Chavford Bridge, we now sit in a healthy second place, just 2 points from the top and a point ahead of the Shite!

Barclays Premier League Table
Last updated: 17:17, November 14, 2010

	Team	P	W	D	L	Pts	F	A
1	Chelsea	12	9	1	2	28	28	5
2	Arsenal	13	8	2	3	26	26	12
3	Manchester United	13	6	7	0	25	26	15
4	Manchester City	13	6	4	3	22	15	10
5	Bolton Wanderers	13	4	7	2	19	21	19
6	Tottenham Hotspur	13	5	4	4	19	18	17
7	Newcastle United	13	5	3	5	18	21	16
8	Aston Villa	13	4	5	4	17	15	18

So, what am I worried about?! Am I being a little melodramatic about the way Arsenal are playing? Should I wash the brown from my pants and buck my ideas up? Of course I should.

Looking at the facts; these last two games have been away from home against tough opponents desperate to stay in the league. We have players still getting match fit after returning from injury, we’ve not had any new injuries so far, we’ve been defending as a team, Cesc’s form is improving, even Sagna scored today!

Here’s one to ponder; when we play our beautiful flowing football and get hacked to bits, we get injuries left right and up front. Since we’ve decided we can’t beat them so we’ll join them and are now hacking back, we’re injury free. Hmmm?

All in all, we’re in very good shape, we’re just in an un-Arsenal like shape. It’s not what we’re used to and we’ve been treated to such beautiful footballing eye-candy for so long, we get a sour taste in our eyes when we have to play Stokishly.
So let’s celebrate our rise up the table, let’s praise the toughness of our team. We can compete with the thugs of this world without breaking legs, yes we’ll pick up the odd red here and there but like I said before, I’d rather see the toughness of the Viera, Adams, Keown era return to the Gunners as that missing ingredient if it means we’ll be lifting that elusive trophy come May 2011.

Interesting that Nik B was not in the squad following his alleged outburst in the Danish press last week about not playing enough. But we were assured by WenGod that it was a medical matter and he would not be making the Denmark squad either. So he’s either pulled something in training, or he’s got a sore arse/earhole from the verbal spanking I’m sure Wenger gave him. I can only say what a lot of other Gooners have also said - ‘Nik, you’ve just come back from Injury, you’ve never been number 1 up front and you didn’t take your chance to claim that mantle whilst Van Persie was injured. So shut up, get your head down, get amazing in training and you’ll play more.’


Jack and Kieran have been called up to the England squad for this weeks Interruption - ops,  I  mean International. Crapello will probably leave them both on the bench though. Idiotini.
If Jack doesn’t get the nod ahead of over-rated thicko Gareth Barry for a friendly against France and doesn’t give Kieran a run out ahead of Cashley then he should be sacked. I personally want him sacked anyway, Sack the whole effin FA for hiring him in the first place as far as I’m concerned, but we’re stuck with him, so I can only hope he finally sticks to his original word and plays some youth in the team when he has the chance. We’ll see.  

Lastly, much praise to all at the ground today for an uninterrupted minutes silence for the fallen. There are always grounds where some muggy cnut - usually a chav, who decides to belch, whistle or shout loudly then brag to all his/her muggy cnut chav friends - “that was my belch on the telly innit” - these people don’t deserve to be able to afford a ticket to matches. CNUTS.

Let’s hope that after the International friendlies we still have a fully fit squad and that we mash us up some Spuds next weekend!

Rant over and out. 
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