ARSENAL EASTER EGGS WAITING TO HATCH

Some sweet irony in Arsenal all but ruining Man City's title bid at the Emirates yesterday. A club where ex Arsenal players Platt, Vieira, Kidd, Nasri, Clichy, Tourre and Adebayor (yes he's still a City player) all ply their trade. It was also ironic that two clubs with polar opposite financial strategies contested a match in which the the Pig who made his house of bricks triumphed over the Pig who constructed a flash new build.

The chase for 3rd/4th spot continues and on current form; WWWWWWWLW, Arsenal appear to hold the trump cards, however Chelsea and Newcastle are still lurking with intent.

What yesterday showed was once again, that as the season has progressed this current Arsenal side have shown character. Bouncing back after the QPR game by outplaying a Man City team who have been right up there all season.The Balotelli side show is a distraction from the fact that we were the far better team. We can now reflect that we have beaten Chelsea, Man City Sp*rs, Everton, Liverpool and Newcastle this season all teams in the top half who could be viewed as our peers.

This fact is heartening in that it shows that we have been pretty good in this league. If we do finish third it would represent good progress given that Man Utd & Man City have such leads above the other eighteen.

But today's fixtures reignite things ahead of Wednesday. It's been quite convenient that we have games after our fellow contenders in the forthcoming week and it is conceivable that, much in the same way that we have all but dashed City's dreams of a title, by the end of the Chelsea game on Monday we may have all but cemented Champions League qualification. We shall see what this afternoon's games bring so let's not count our chickens, rather let's see if we can look at our form guide next Monday evening and see WWWWWWWLWWW.If that happens then I believe we will have clinched ECL qualification. Then we can focus on supremacy of London.

At the moment though, our eggs are in the nest waiting to hatch.

Comments

Reasons to be cheerful?

So November arrives with cold weather and grey skies. Arsenal sit in 2 nd place with a great chance to make progress in the Carling Cup with a home draw against wigan Athletic. Poised to win our Champions league group and with six months of the season left have 3 of our five tougher away fixtures out of the way, having taken a respectable 4 from 9. I say respectable as, the Man City away trip aside the draw at Anfield on the occasion of Hodgson’s first game was a good result and the Chelsea game I don’t think anyone can really speak of any injustice. That leaves away games at Old Trafford and Sp*rs (who as we know raise their game for this fixture). With injured players gradually returning and the Polish goalkeepers showing signs of optimism, we’re in relatively good shape. Or so you’d think. Yesterday at the Emirates West Ham were put to the sword late on after some stout defending, a good performance from Robert Green and a couple of missed opportunities. The level of indign...

There's something rotten in the state of Denmark

A number of blogs are pointing out what was evident to me yesterday; as a season ticket holder and Silver member i like thousands of others made plans to purchase an additional ticket for the Barcelona game using the frustrating and irritating online service, but guess what? no joy, just lots of waiting finger tapping and watching the dreaded 'loading' bar (to make matters worse I had asked my missus to do this as I was doing training). But no one got these additional tickets, that is no supporters judging by the general feedback! It seems to me that the additional seats will have probably gone to customers of a corporate nature. Ultimately for such a marquee (to use an American commercialism term) game I suspect that the club where never going to sell to supporters of the club, there is clearly a undercurrent at the Emirates that the club wants to have the stadium full of customers ie; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ognvWIwjKTQ The Emirates of the future? It will be interesti...

PERSONALITY TEST

Played 23, 10 defeats, 4 draws and 9 victories; that's the factual bit out of the way. What does that tell us? I guess it is a set of statistics that reasonably reflect a mid table team. How we got here is something that countless column inches and hours of debate have gone into. How we move forward is the bigger question. Naturally, learning from past mistakes is a key element to moving forward but have Arsenal Football Club done that? Have Arsenal Football Club realised that a clear vision and plan is needed? When you look at the current squad its relatively easy to see where the strenghts are, and the weaknesses. The manager too, has strengths and weaknesses but one thing that is intangible is the personality of the club. Not so much "where are we" as "what are we?" To know what the club is is to know what the upper echelons think, what their plan and philosophy is and how the manager processes that information. We can assume that the club decision makers wa...

ARSENALISM©

Search This Blog