ONE - NIL

2002-11-15T08:23:00.000-06:00

Ahh, so the CL draw has occured, and I had a bad feeling we would draw Valencia. You remember Valencia, don't you? The team we played in the knockout stages 2 years ago? We lost on a John Carew header away, losing on aggregate 2-2 due to the away goals rule. So wouldn't you know it, we draw them. The group (Group B) is made up of: Valencia, Arsenal, Roma, and Ajax Amsterdam. Not an easy group by any means. Valencia is shit-hot right now, Roma will be tough as well. At least DB10 will be able to make it to the away match at Amsterdam, assuming he isn't injured.

For a full breakdown of the groups and matchdates, click here.

2002-11-12T16:50:00.000-06:00

Arsenal 0 - PSV Eindhoven 0 - Well, what can you say? We didn't lose, and that's about as much as can be expected. We were never really up for it, although floppy-ears could have scored inside of five minutes. Shaaban seemed to have a decent enough game, and Toure got sent off. Of course, like always, we played better with 10 men then with the full 11.

PSV Eindhoven, however, can go fuck themselves. Their squad put on a horrible display. Pires was hacked down every time he touched the ball, as were many of the other Gunners. I understand being physical but when you have nothing to play for (other than a UEFA cup spot) you could show some sportsmanship. PSV committed 24 fouls (to the Arsenal's 13) and had five players carded. It was funny to see PSV scramble to actually play some footie after it was announced that Auxerre were one-up over Dortmund, knowing that if the results stayed as they were they wouldn't even see the UEFA cup. And the results did stay. Of course it pleases me to no end that these fuckers won't be in Europe anymore, and judging by Holland's performace I'm glad that tosser never came to Highbury.

Finally, in other CL news . . . after Houllier promised something special in Basel, and even though this fan says Pool were playing a yoddling version of Sunderland, they still could only draw and go crashing out of the competition. Question: why does it take Houllier 45 minutes and being down 3 goals to realize that Owen can't play alone up front and that Heskey is crap???

2002-11-12T08:42:00.000-06:00

Well I've been away for a while, apologies to anyone who stumbled onto the site only to see no updates for a week. It's been busy times around here, but hopefully I can get back to posting once a day or so. Anyway, onto tonight's match with PSV Eindhoven in the CL. Rami Shaaban will start as Seaman is hurt and depending on today's performance may make his Premiership debut against Sp*rs at the weekend. Campbell and Lauren are both out, meaning Igor and Oleg get starts. Expect Bobby Pires and GvB to start as well as they get back to match fitness. Bergkamp and Kanu will probably miss out, so we may see old floppy-ears Franny get the nod up front.

2002-11-04T08:44:00.000-06:00

Fulham 0 - Arsenal 1 - Well, we could use a little luck after our horrible run we've been on . . . only an own-goal after a shank by Steve Marlet and two gratuitous referee decisions (when is the last time that has happened?) helped us secure the one-nil away win and stop the winless streak. A win is a win, but let's get down to brass tacks here . . . this was a pretty pathetic performance. Cygan and Campbell are proving to be shaky in the heart of defence, and it's clear that TH14 and some of the other boys are gassed and need a rest. Let's hope for everyone's sake that we see a boat load of new faces (where are you Franny, Rami, Pennant, etc.?) starting in the CL match on Nov. 12, as that is sandwiched in between two important home matches with the Barcodes and Sp*rs.

2002-11-01T09:22:00.000-06:00

Not much today then, except the expected load of shit we can read in the press about how all of a sudden Arsenal are crap and should be playing in the second division and such . . . nevermind that. PV4 thinks we'll turn around our losing ways soon, let's hope he means Sunday against mini-Arsenal (aka Fulham). I had a nightmare last night that Inamoto scored late and we lost 1-0 . . . nothing could be worse than that.

2002-10-30T13:59:00.000-06:00

Dortmund 2 - Arsenal 1 -

PRE MATCH THOUGHTS: Arsenal's confirmed lineup: Seaman; Lauren, Campbell, Cygan, Cole; Pires, Vieira, Gilberto, Ljungberg; Wiltord, Henry;

A draw is enough to see us through to round 2. And Arsenal haven't lost 4 in a row for 19 years I think. There can be only one result . . .

RUNNING GAME UPDATE: I feel nervous already . . . Dortmund hit the post after 90 seconds, uh-oh! . . . Thierry Henry lines up to put one in Row Z from a free-kick, but wait, he's shanked it and it's gone in for a goal after 18 minutes of play . . . Game on, One-Nil to the Arsenal! . . . 22 minutes and the Gooners chant, "You're not singing anymore" . . . FUCKING HELL, 38 minutes in and Dortmund equalize after an exact replay of Zola's goal against us at Chelsea (Free-kick takes a slight touch off Gilberto's head but Seaman was stuck on the goalline . . . again.) FUCK! . . . Halftime, 1-1 . . . Second half begins, Dortmund controlling possession . . . Long ball from Dortmund splits the defence and Koller is through 1-on-1 with the keeper . . . It's a fucking penalty . . . Rosicky scores and Dortmund go up 2-1 after 62 minutes . . . better news though as PSV are up 3-0 on 9-man Ox Hair . . . and if the results stay the same Arsenal will back door their way into the 2nd round . . . Bobby Pires comes off after a subdued performance, Toure comes on . . . Kanu and Edu come on for Super Sylv and Gilberto . . . 4 minutes of added time . . . And it's over. Our 4th successive 2-1 loss, yet we slip into the 2nd round through the back door. BULLSHIT! As I said above there can only be one result, of course this isn't the one I was hoping for. However, considering we had lost three in a row by a 2-1 scoreline, I guess it makes sense . . . .

2002-10-25T08:38:00.000-05:00

Uggh . . . it certainly hasn't been a great week if you are an Arsenal fan. Although secretly I support Soton . . . but nevermind. Anyhow, here's a quick recap of the Arsenal-fucking that us fans have witnessed over the past 7 days:

Saturday, October 19, 2002 - Lost our first game since 1960 to a 16-year old, 1-2.

Tuesday, October 22, 2002 - Lost our first Champs League game of the year, signalling the first time we have lost two games in a row since 1937, failing to comb the Ox Hair, 1-2.

Tuesday, October 22, 2002 - As if losing to Ox Hair wasn't enough, it's announced the cost of the new stadium in Ashburton Grove is £100million over budget.

Friday, October 25, 2002 - Finally, PV4 gets banned 2 games and fined for telling a ref that he has 'no personality.'

Saturday, October 26, 2002 - Edu scores twice in the Blackburn match, however one goes past Seaman into his own goal, and Dwight Yorke grabs the winner as Blackburn take the 3 points, 1-2.

To continue on about Paddy, here's my take: If he was going to be banned he should have made damn fucking sure he DID call him a 'Fucking Wanker' which the FA determined he didn't do, even though fuck-face D'Urso said he did. So the FA punish PV4 for telling D'Urso he has no personality, however I'm sure the FA will do nothing about D'Urso's false match report. Make sense? Of course it does. Alan Smith and David Beckham can say anything they want to the refs, because let's face it, they play for the English national team and they would have to literally kill someone on the pitch for them to get banned. However foreign players are not their concern so they don't give a fuck. Tossers, nothing but tossers in the FA.

Finally, this string of bad luck follows Arseblogger changing the logo on his site. He has since changed it back, but the damage done is irreversible. I BLAME ALL OF THIS ON YOU ARSEBLOGGER! That and the fact I didn't wear my kit for either of the past two matches.

2002-10-23T08:30:00.000-05:00

Are you truly an Arsenal fan . . . or do you subconsciously support another team? BBC has the quiz for you to find out. And after all was said and done, your's truly is . . . A SOUTHAMPTON SUPPORTER. Fuck me.

2002-10-22T16:08:00.000-05:00

Arsenal 1 - Ox Hair 2 - Not an impressive performance by any means, with the result being that we've now lost two games in a row for the first time since 1937. Ox Hair took a shock lead through Olivier Narcisse Kapo Obou (yes, that's his real name) after only 8 minutes and doubled it 20 minutes later from Fadiga. The second half looked more promising with Kanu pulling one back, but we never could unlock their 11-man defence for the equaliser. Still . . . all is not lost. 9 points from 4 games is a decent haul, and we've still got a damn good shot of going through to the second round.

Tough match against Blackburn coming up. Nothing other than the 3 full points, or else . . . ???

2002-10-22T09:06:00.000-05:00

Ahhh . . . sorry for the lack of updates over the past few days. I felt like I took a two week nap during the international break. During which time I had a nightmare that we actually LOST to Everton on an injury-time wonder goal to some 16-year old kid named Rooney. But now I have returned and so too, hopefully, has Arsenal's great European form when they take on Ox Hair . . . erm, Auxerre, tonight at Highbury.

On the injury front, Bobby Pires is back although I don't think we will see much of him other than a quick runout to get his match legs back. However, Dennis Bergkamp and Franny 'Floppy Ears' Jeffers are out up front, along with Parlour, Keown, and GvB. PV4, TH14 and Sol are slight doubts, but they figure to play.

Lineup Prediction: Seaman; Lauren, Campbell, Cygan, Cole; Ljungberg, Gilberto, Vieira, Wiltord; Henry, Kanu

Match Prediction: The clean-sheet streak continues. 2-0 to the Arsenal, courtesy of Henry and Wiltord.

2002-10-15T13:39:00.000-05:00

KEANE FOUND GUILTY - Earlier today the twats at the FA found Roy Keane Fucking Wanker guilty of two counts of misconduct and has been ordered to serve a 5-match ban and pay a £150,000 fine. Both counts are subject to appeal.

2002-10-15T09:15:00.000-05:00

Arsenal 5 - QPR 1 - No, you didn't miss a Worthless Cup match. This was a hastily arranged friendly to test Robert Pires' fitness, much like Arsenal did with Freddie Ljungberg playing in the Reading friendly. By all accounts Pires had a nice match, he played the full 90, scored Arsenal's 2nd goal and set up another. After the match he said, "Physically I feel very good. I'm not tired, although obviously it will take a while for the technical side of my game to come back. But I'm very happy with how it went today." Let's hope he can make an appearance soon, preferably one of the next two CL matches (at home against Auxerre and away to BV Borussia Dortmund).

2002-10-11T16:24:00.000-05:00

FERGIE'S A PERV - Well, maybe not, but when checking the news outlets I stumbled upon two very interesting articles. Apparently Fergie got sauced up (again) and got into a car with a woman and went to make move and she told him no. At least that's my take. But I have to think there was more to it then that because this woman has filed a complaint with Cape Town police and Fergie is facing an allegation of indecent assault in South Africa! WOW! After all the mind games and shit he's piled on to the Arsenal in the past . . . I'd love to see him end up in the clink sharing a room with two 300-pounders named Biff and Rocky who would like to indecently assualt him. That should teach him, fucking tosser.

Here are the article links: one from the BBC, and another one from FoxSports.

2002-10-10T08:36:00.000-05:00

International weeks blow . . . obviously there isn't much going on that is just Arsenal related . . . so expect little updates over the next few days until the buildup to the Everton match on October 19 starts. Unless of course I post updates on any number of our international players getting injured, which undoubtedly will happen.

2002-10-07T08:48:00.000-05:00

UPDATE: Peter Reid has been sacked following the 3-1 loss at Highbury. This coming after his side has scored just 4 goals through 9 league games and have amassed only 8 points in those matches.

Arsenal 3 - Sunderland 1 - This game was over after 9 minutes, Kanu bagging two quickies to, in all reality, put the game away. Vieira headed in a rebound right before the half time whistle, and the Arsenal took a 3-0 lead into halftime. It was a stroll in the second half, and the back 4 weren't ever really troubled, although Sunderland did grab a consolation goal late on. No matter though, the full 3 points, and all our record runs are extended another game. The only downside was watching Mikey Owen grab a late winner for Pool and stay only 2 points back at the table. Damn him.

2002-10-04T08:37:00.000-05:00

UPDATE: The awards just keep rolling in. TH14 has been named Barclaycard's Player of the Month, and Le Boss recieved the manager of the month award as well.

Congratulations to Thierry Henry, who was named OPTA player of the month for September, after scoring 4 goals and notching 2 assists in the month.

As reported in my post yesterday, Freddie missed the Auxerre match after a bout with migraines. He goes on to detail the problems in this article, and is quoted as saying, "It's like a nightmare. The pain was so bad this week that I puked. I was very sick - but it became even worse. I lost my vision and could not feel anything down the left side of my body" Fucking hell . . . that's not a migraine, that's an LSD reaction.

In unrelated news, my '10 beer migraine' is killing me right now. Ugghh . . .

2002-10-03T08:21:00.000-05:00

Had a look this morning at the video clip of the match highlights from UEFA.com for the Auxerre match. Gilberto's goal was well taken, great work down the left flank from Kolo Toure, who crossed into the box finding Wiltord, who drew about 4 defenders and then squared the ball off for a streaking Gilberto to fire in the goal. Well taken indeed.

Just a quick comparison between last year's CL and this year's comp: Last year Arsenal's first 3 games were played 2 away and 1 home. Through the first 3 matches they scored 3 goals, while conceeding 4, and only took 3 points (two away 1-0 losses and a home 3-2 win). This year has the same setup: 2 of the first 3 matches are away matches. In this campaign, the mighty Arse have scored 7 goals, conceeded 0 (none, zero, nothing, nil . . . you get the point), and have taken the maximum 9 points of the first three games.

So what's the difference? New tactics? New players? Kanu actually doing something for once on the pitch? For me it's all mental, all about confidence. Last season the team slowly started building up confidence, we started winning away (in England, not Europe obviously), scoring goals all the time, and it culminated in a double. I think they parlayed that success and confidence from last year and have carried it over, and I think it's made them more prepared mentally when they travel in Europe this year. They go on the pitch expecting to win, and that's what they are doing.

TH14 reckons he may still be able to make this weekend's Sunderland match after tweaking his hammy last night. Furthermore that same article goes on to tell us the reason Freddie didn't get a run out last night: he suffered an overnight migraine. Apparently he has had these off and on for roughly 10 years. Funny, I've had the same condition for about roughly the same amount of time. Although mine are usually triggered by 10 or 12 beers before sleep.

2002-10-02T15:54:00.000-05:00

GILBERTO CELEBRATES HIS WINNER WITH WILTORD AND LAUREN

(image courtesy of UEFA.com)

Auxerre 0 - Arsenal 1 - I'll take it. That's about all I can say. Sounds like this wasn't a very pretty game at all. Auxerre had their fair share of possession and we didn't crush this side like some fans have become accustomed too. No matter though, a classic 'one-nil to the Arsenal' win, soak up pressure, hit back on the break, get a goal up, and then let the defense take over. To be fair to Auxerre, they did hit the bar in the later stages and forced a few saves from Seaman, but we never looked like losing this game. However, the injury bug has bit the squad . . . Henry tweaked a hammy and was replaced by Pennant early in the second half. Shortly after that Edu came on for Toure (not sure if this was an injury though). Finally Cole went down late in the match and although he wasn't replaced, he may have picked a knock up as well. We'll wait to hear what Le Boss has to say on these.

2002-10-02T09:12:00.000-05:00

Auxerre tonight then . . . My last two predictions have been 1-1 draws and we have won 4-0 and 4-1, both away matches mind you. No sense in changing anything, given that I would be happy with a 1-1 draw, Auxerre is a damn good team (even without Cisse, who will be missing tonight), and I'm superstitous as all hell. So 1-1 then with Fadiga opening the scoring (although I would like Benjamin Mwaruwaru to score just so I could hear his name announced) and Super Sylv equalising. Bergkamp, Keown, and Parlour are all still out with achillles, hammy, and another hammy injuries. However Edu makes it back to the squad, although I reckon he will make the bench. Lineup: Seaman; Cole, Cygan, Campbell, Lauren; Wiltord, Vieira, Gilberto, Ljungberg; Kanu, Henry.

In other news . . . TH14 has pledged his future to Arsenal and is ready to sign a new deal (even if it means less money) to stay a Gunner. He's quoted as saying, "Arsenal gave me a hand when I was down and as long as they want me I will never walk away." Furthermore, Bobby Pires is about 3 weeks away from making a full recovery. He is currently training but Le Boss wants to wait for the full 6 months to pass before risking him.

2002-10-01T12:38:00.000-05:00

The FA have set PV4's hearing date for October 24. Assuming a 3 match ban is imposed, which let's face it is highly likely with the wankers at the FA, he would miss matches at home to Blackburn and Newcastle, and away to Fulham. The next match after those 3 is Sp*rs, so let's hope he makes it for that match so we can see him kick the shit out of Davies, Redknapp, and the rest of their shite midfield. Funny though, if Paddy's name was Alan Smith or he played for Thuggish Ruggish Leeds or ManUre, do you think he would be on trial? Answers on a postcard to the FA . . .

2002-10-01T08:27:00.000-05:00

Not much news the day before another big CL match against Auxerre. TH14 has signed a new deal with Nike, which is a handsome little payout at £9million. This is reportedly more money than Beckham gets through Adidas . . . excellent! It's always nice to go one up on the Mancs, on or off the pitch.

2002-09-30T12:47:00.000-05:00

Paddy in contract talks . . . and it's not with Real Madrid either - Hopped onto Arsenal.com to read this interesting little article on how PV4 is currently in talks to extend his contract which expires in 2004. This coming from France Football magazine, where in an interview he said, "I am taking part in talks to find a common ground and I cannot see any reason why I shouldn't stay.”

2002-09-28T20:26:00.000-05:00

"Men and boys" - That was the quote with about 20 minutes left from the FSW announcer as Arsenal were cruising 3-0 on their way to a 4-1 win over dirty Leeds. And that really explains it all. It's hard to explain what watching Arsenal feels like, but I know that every time they get going on the break I think they can and will score. This team carves up midfields and defences with their pace and fluiditiy (feel free to insert other adjectives here), and the defense, while not as legendary as the famous 'back 5' can certainly hold their own. For more accolades, read the Insider on Soccernet.

Oh yeah, almost forgot, Sp*rs lost 3-0 at home to Boro. That's a bit more like we expect from them, isn't it?

Time to get the beers in.

2002-09-27T10:18:00.000-05:00

Thuggish Ruggish Leeds tomorrow - and I can't say I feel very confident about this match at all. The team spent a lot of energy in Eindhoven just a few days ago, and an early Saturday kickoff is not a great way to recuperate from a Wednesday evening Champions League game. Squad news: Bergkamp is out at least three matches with an Achilles injury, while Keown's hamstring, Parlour's hamstring, and Edu's groin are all acting up, forcing them to miss the match as well. My lineup: Seaman; Cole, Campbell, Cygan, Lauren; Ljungberg, Vieira, Gilberto, Toure; Wiltord, Henry.

Record watch - A goal for Arsenal would break Chesterfield's record by scoring in the 47th consecutive Premiership match. Avoiding defeat means they will equal Manchester United's Premiership best of 29 unbeaten set in the 98-99, and would also break Nottingham Forest's top flight record of 22 away League games without defeat.

Prediction - The boys are probably running on fumes, but they are the more skilled team. Leeds will be crashing in tackles all day, and El Tel will have them fired up. Leeds have done a decent job of keeping our attack nuetralised in the past. 1-1 prediction, with Toure and Smith getting the goals.

2002-09-26T10:06:00.000-05:00

An interesting article here, regarding why BBC thinks Arsenal can and will win the Champions League. I personally think that the talk is a bit premature, I'd like to see us in the quarters or semis before we go talking about winning the thing. However, it makes for good reading. Special thanks to 'ClockEndOrange' who posted this on the Soccernet Message Board.