WHAT A N-E-IGHT!

“It was like waking up in the middle of a surgery and not being able to tell the surgeon that the anesthetic is worn out”

That quote explains how I felt yesterday night during the game, most of you will agree. It’s not like it was not expected. I mean, with the squad we put out there you felt that we were putting too much pressure on the young boys. We all knew it would take a miracle to get away with something from this game, but none of us saw what was coming..if you did smack yourself in the face for me, Warn a goner next time..

This was the second time we let in eight in our entire history, the last time you ask? 1896 we were thumped 8-0 by a team called Loughborough Town. Guess what happened the next time we met..we bamboozled 12 past them. Well putting 12 past this manure side is going to be a tough task, not unless they come as dilapidated as we were yesterday. History does repeat itself so let’s wait and see.

As we wait, some very tough questions must be asked. How did we let ourselves get to this? Look at who we let go this far, apart from the duo (Cesc and Na$ri) that we should have got rid off in May! Love them or hate them Eboue, Denilson and Bendtner would have helped us a lot yesterday, their experience would have at least put out a more respectable score line. I understand that the suspensions and injuries we have right now, but even with a full squad out right now, we still are not good enough. So what now? Well I am worried that we might see some panic buying over the next two days just to appease us fans. So brace yourselves for a few Bischofs here and there. We need a left back, a center back and a creative mid fielder at the bare minimum. Not kids but ready made players, then we can hold on to January so we can strengthen some more. That’s hoping that we won’t have any more players wanting to leave.

Who is to blame? I know you are all shouting Wenger, well partly yes but mostly No. It’s these monkeys we have at our board. We might get rid of the Prof but whoever comes in will be working with the same monkeys! It’s time Stan Kroenke did something as the ‘owner’ of this club! If I was to account for blame, the board would get 80% of it. Just to make it clear, getting rid of the bean man is not the solution. This board has used him as a shield and Wenger has been really civil with the situation, I wonder what Mourinho would have done with this board!

I won’t get into the game, it’s way too painful really. But just to mention, our defence was like a whore down at Huruma..open and willing! Sczcesny was left at the mercy of Rooney and Young he was not to blame really, for most of the goals. The penalty miss was what tied an anchor to our waists, after that point we tried to wiggle out with the first goal but just as the prof put it, we broke down physically. No ratings either as I’d give everyone D’s and E’s! 

Last time Manure gave us such a whooping, well close to it was the 6-1 in Feb of 2001. That squad included Henry, Vieira, Parlour, Ashley Cole, Ljumberg, Seaman, Pires and Wiltord among others. Back then I am sure most fans asked for the manager’s head and an overhaul of the team, it’s only natural. But see what the same players went on to achieve, the next time they visited Highbury that season we beat them 3-1, this was the same squad that won the league at Old Trafford the next time they went visiting. Aren’t the players I’ve mentioned there the core of the invincibles? Well I know that times have changed, but if you are anything like me, you are hoping that history does repeat itself and fast!



I hope that this will be the turning point that most of us have been looking for. Do you know that since our Carling cup final defeat, we have won just 2 of our last 14 league games, drawing 7 and losing the rest? Yes looks like the form of a team bound for relegation, time to shake this out of our system. I’m kind of happy that we have an international break after this fixture, as the players can have a welcome distraction. Then we can start our season proper on September 10^th. Surely the only way from here is up gunners, it has to be, this is rock bottom for us. 

With that Ladies and Gentlemen….It’s only a game (I think!) if there was ever a time to get behind this team..it’s now! I just pray that this is the last time I see such a score line with us on the receiving end in my life time. Now let me go look for my big brother he hasn’t uttered a word since yesterday, am getting worried!

They do make sense!!

P.S Ujinga ni kungangana kufunga bao 8 na point bado ni 3! 

KWISHA!!

Congratulations are in order to our ladies team..for winning the Womens super league over the weekend.

Manure Preview and a War Cry!

MANCHESTER UNITED VS ARSENAL.

VENUE : OLD TRAFFORD.

K.O TIME : 1900 hrs (Kenyan time)

It is here..the match that you look for first when the fixtures are released. The mother of all games, the match that decides whether you will go to work/school on Monday and how you will go! During this specific 90 minutes Nairobi indeed Kenya is divided into two..you are either a Gunner or you are not a Gunner, hakuna otherwise the rest just don’t matter. 

Before I go on, my apologies for the short absence, I had some pressing matters that I could not wiggle out of in time to write on the Liverpool and Udinese games. Back to it, Sunday sees us visiting that old stadium to face Manure. I have to say, that never have the odds been stacked against us as they are this time out..and do you blame them? (the odds). With a depleted squad, one of the worst starts to an Arsenal season, contrasting with their flying start and their star player Howard Webb at the centre of things, few will be brave enough to say otherwise. Just to make it clear from the start I am among the few. Manure fans are very confident that they are going to give us a serious ass whooping tomorrow, one even told me ‘siongei na wewe hadi after bao ya sita’ (am not talking to you till after we’ve scored the 6^th goal). This is the kind of confidence they are oozing, who do they think they are playing…Sher Karuturi? 

This squad, as depleted as it may seem..has a point to prove, and I don’t see a better opportunity to do just that than at Old Trafford tommorow. With the confidence boost they got from Italy, they are going to be a very tough match for the Manures. I do expect a cracker of a match, with very small goal margin, one goal will win this one. Not unless Howard Webb decides to pull an assist as he always does. Let me stop with the speculation. We have Koscielny back, which is good news as it should see Djorou play CDM which was a big worry for me. Djorou has played there before, when he was on loan at Birmingham so it won’t be new to him. Gibbs is still out, so I guess it will be Sagna at LB and Jenkinson at RB. The rest should pick itself, with Arshavin stepping in on one of the wings..here is my 11.

                                        SCZCESNY

        JENKINSON  VERMAELEN  KOSCIELNY  SAGNA

                                         DJOROU 

                            RAMSEY           ROSICKY

                   WALCOTT  VAN PERSIE  ARSHAVIN

Fabianski, Lansbury, Traore, Chamakh, Chamberlain, Miyaichi I think if am not missing anyone else, should make the bench. Just like Prof said, our season starts here. If we play with the heart and determination I saw us play with in Italy, am sure we’ll get something from this one. The key battle should be in midfield (as it is in any football match), how Djorou handles the likes of Cleverly will count for a lot. I expect Manure to attack us mainly down the right, targeting Jenkinson, how he handles Nani, Evra and Young down that wing will also be vital. Our defensive discipline should be at the very top if we are to come out of this game with anything, also our attack should be clinical with every chance they get. This game will not have any real impact on the title challenge, as its too early. But it will have a great bearing on the confidence and morale of the two teams going foward. On us more than them I feel, slightly though.

Finally, I have a small bone to pick with a certain clique of gunners, those that have already bent over and written us of tomorrow. How do you do that? This is war, you don’t go to war and bend over and tell your enemies ‘Okey we are here!’ You fight your heart and lungs out till the last minute. Come tomorrow and we win, these are the same fools who will be screaming out the loudest.. get a life! Either you get behind this team or you go suck on your big toe somewhere else.

So tomorrow wear your colours proudly and hold your head high, and lets go whoop some Manure ass!! But carry a jacket or sweater with you, it tends to get a bit cold on these nights..lol! One more thing people, please do not kill yourself if the results don’t go our way, it is only football after all! 

Park Chu-Young

If I were able to reach the squad in the dressing room just before they walk into the ground..I'd play them 'This is war' By 30 second to Mars. As I post this..we have drawn Shrewsbury Town in the Carling cup. We play at the Emirates on the 21st of September. And Monaco striker Park Chu-Young is set to undergo a medical with us in the next 24 hours.

With that Ladies and Gentlemen..

KWISHA!!!

UDINESE REVIEW.

A win is a win..so they say, and I agree. Not a typical Arsenal win but no less a win in any way. I’d rather win like this for the whole season really. This was a win based on team work and a whole load of discipline..defensive discipline.The fact that we held on to a lead, not just a lead, but a 1 goal lead for a whole 90 minutes is one that I am very happy with. There are those who will say that it was not such a quality attack force to begin with, to them I say that Udinese had the top scorer in the Serie A for the last two seasons in that attack force. Then remind them that last season Newcastle did not have the best of attack forces but they managed to crawl back from 4 goals down. It’s too early to get excited, I mean it’s only been two games but if our defence carries on with this form we might have great things to look forward to this season. 

Le prof decided to start with Walcott instead of Arshavin, to capitalise on the home advantage and inject a bit more pace to the side, an aspect that most Italians team don’t like that much. Also maybe to rest the Russian elf with the Liverpool game coming up. I couldn’t have asked for a better start to the game, a goal inside the first five minutes, I had expected us to go on from here and kill off the tie. The spirit and determination in the team was great, but we just couldn’t score another goal. The visitors turned up the pressure on us and looked more dangerous in most occasions during the game. I’ll attribute this to two things, one a rather shaky midfield and a non existant striker. We gave away possession on quite a number of occasions, pilling up the pressure on ourselves. 

Once or twice our defenders were caught out on a few occasions, Gibbs, Koscielny in the first half and Sagna, Jenkinson in the second from my recollection. The midfield was on a better level than it was at Newcastle but still not at the levels that we all expect, a notable improvement would be Rambo, he was the pick of this department for me. Song and Rosicky were all good as well, with Song doing well to cover the spaces. The attack was mainly a two man show, Gervinho continued to impress as did Walcott who was unfortunate not to get a brace. Gervinho would be better off if he tried to shoot with his left foot, on several occasions he cut in from the right but couldn’t shoot thus had to run into tight areas trying to tee up with the right foot.

Now to the flop of the match, Chamakh, he was awful. Could not keep possession, couldn’t make a complete pass, he was on a different wave length all together. But to be fair to the guy, it’s only one game. (His pre-season wasn’t all that either) I guess he is used to crosses coming into the area, which is clearly not how we prefer playing. I hope he does dust himself up and get on with it, he was quite impressive in the first half of last season. Where did that go?

We had a few additions to the ‘Arsenal hospital Fc’ (as a good friend puts it) with three players picking up knocks in the game (oh how surprising!), Gibbs and Djorou both doing their hamstrings. You have to feel for Djorou though, only 9 minutes in the game. Though he did make a great last ditch tackle on Di Natale within those minutes. That is three injuries in our defence so far, including Traore. If nothing else pushes the bean man to buy, I don’t know what will. With the Liverpool game coming up how do we line up? Do we push the Verminator to the left then bring in Squillaci, or we play Jenkinson at left back? Both are pretty risky situations, but I’ll opt for Jenkinson at LB, he’ll be out of position and you could see yesterday that he struggled. I’ll pick anyone right now over Squillaci. Rosicky is said to be also carrying a knock, fingers crossed.



Report Card.

1. Woijech Szceceny (A) – Again, the tall pole couldn’t put a finger wrong. He made spectacular saves, keeping out Di Natale and Armero. Can’t help imagine if it was Almunia between the posts. Contender for Man of the match.
2. Bacary Sagna (A-) – He was solid, kept his men at bay and defended almost faultlessly. Contender for man of the match.
3. Thomas Vermaelen (A-) – As expected, solid from the captain of the day. Made great tackles, aerial presence was spot on. Another Contender (don’t worry not everyone is!)
4. Laurent Koscielny (A-) – His contribution is most of the times overlooked. I feel yesterday he single handedly saved us on almost 4 separate occasions. He is growing on fast forward! Yes he is also a Contender.
5. Kierran Gibbs (B+) - He put in a decent 45 minutes before ‘Arsenal Hospital Fc’ came calling. Just to point out that he did his hamstring while sprinting to get back into position after an attack had broke down. (Though he did make the tackle that resulted in a corner for Udinese), see what being out of position can do to you?
6. Alexander Song (B+) – Provided great cover for the back four, especially when they charged forward. Although he should keep hold of the ball a bit better and control his forward runs, I feel.
7. Aaron Ramsey (A-) – Was much improved from Newcastle, better movement, urgency and ball distribution. More of the same and he could be the player that Cesc and I hope he will become. Yes a contender too.
8. Tomas Rosicky (B+) – Not as much of an impact as I would have liked. He can do better, maybe the Knock he was carrying restrained him.
9. Gervinho (A-) – Another great performance from the Ivorian. Like mentioned earlier just needs to take a shot more oftenly. Another contender for MoTM.
10. Theo Walcott (A-) – Gave us the goal, and threatened down the wings. He went silent though on some occasions. But a great performance over all.
11. Marouane Chamakh (D) - The only reason I am not giving him an E is well, he did try to shoot and he had some complete passes,right?
12. Carl Jenkinson – Not that much to rate, though he was called to play in an unfamiliar role and did well that being considered. Was caught out once, but recovered. He should get used to this role and fast, I see him playing there on Saturday.
13. Emmanuel Frimpong - A good run out, he needs to be a bit more cool headed with his tackles. Conceded two free kicks within the first minute of him coming in.
14. Johan Djorou – Sad for him, but did have a solid nine minutes. Wish him a quick recovery from ‘Arsenal Hospital Fc’ Gibbs too.
    
    
    
    From the above, my pick for man of the match is (drum roll) Bacary Sagna, was tested multiple times and was solid every time. He  did not give an inch out there!

It is half time in this tie, though we should be stronger in Italy, that is if we don’t have any more call ups to ‘Arsenal Hospital Fc.’

Wenger could face further punishment from UEFA for allegedly sending messages to the dugout. It will be another major fail if they do punish the bean man, as he would have sent messages any way from anywhere. I remember Mourinho being sent to the stands and using 

his phone to send messages to his assistant, I think it was at Chelsea and I did not hear any talk of ‘further punishment’ why is this any different?

With that, Ladies and Gentlemen…

KWISHA!!! 

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A Tribute to an Arsenal Cult Hero EMMANUEL EBOUE!

The day that I’ve been dreading,yet kind off looking forward to its imminent arrival is here. Well it was here yesterday..but What day you ask? The day the news of Eboue’s departure would be made official. The statement on Arsenal.com read..

"Arsenal have agreed terms with Turkish side Galatasaray for the transfer of Emmanuel Eboue."

We could all see it coming,though I was silently hoping that he’ll be at the emirates for another season. And as I’ve mentioned here before,not necessarily for footballing reasons but for his personality and what it adds to the club off the pitch.Which I understand is rather a stupid reason,as he is a footballer and this is a football club.I’d describe Manu from my own understanding,as the gell that holds the boys together.

For those who have been in a class system,I’d compare him to the funny,social guy who seemed to have a special connection with everyone in class,the one who you couldn’t stay mad at. Sometimes referred to as the class clown,In most cases he/she (just remembered not all of us went to boys schools) was not the sharpest tool in the shed but their contribution in the well being of the class could never be overlooked. During a boring lesson they’d crack the class up with a comment or an answer,play pranks on everyone and anyone. In one way or another they made school bearable. Now imagine your class without this character..It’s not like class will grind to a halt,but it will be that much less bearable.

Back to the football. Eboue signed for us in 2004-2005 season,made his debut against stoke city in a FA cup game, he scored his first goal vs sunderland in the carling cup in 2005. He was mainly limited to reserve and cup games until January 2006 when made his first team debut as a sub vs liverpool at Anfield. He went on to cement his place at right back,replacing the cameroonian international and invincible Lauren by getting in solid performances against the likes of Juventus and Real Madrid in the champions league while Lauren was out with injuries. By the start of the 06-07 season he was a firm fan favourite winning player of the month in September 2006,his problems started when he got injured at the Africa cup of nations in 2007. As many put it,he never actually came back,was on and off for the remainder of the season struggling with injuries. The arrival of Sagna at the beginning of the 07-08 campaign meant that prof would try him at right midfield and what a disaster that was! He began going to ground way to easily,he started running out of ideas faster than you could say fast. Although this was the season that saw him score his first premier league goal against Bolton at the Reebok,it also saw him become prone to primary school boy errors and lose out on the support of many fans. But in typical prof style he turned a blind eye to his failed plan and persisted with Eboue at right midfield. Come the 2008-2009 campaign and most will remember the date 6^th dec 2008 a game vs wigan at the Emirates when he came in as a sub for the injured Samir Nasri on 32 minutes. He was coming back from injury and as always he put in 110% despite being in an unfarmiliar position on the left and at times at central mid field. Things just did not work out that day,which saw him replaced at 90 minutes with Mikael Silvestre after some nervy balls and a really harsh crowd at the ems on the day.

That day,I felt had devastating effects on the player,though he did put in some spirited performances notably his brace at Blackburn Rovers.As if to pay back,the next season (09-10)he scored against the same Wigan side at the emirates.By now he mostly came off the bench,scoring against Porto. As was with his last season (10-11) and when he got a decent run of first team appearances due to Sagna’s injury towards the end of the campaign. Which saw him score his last goal for the gunners a screamer vs blackpool at bloomfield road. It was during the same run when he conceded a penalty in the last minute (102 or something like that) against liverpool which saw our title hopes fade away yet again. It was that incident in my opinion that sealed Eboue’s fate. In total he made 214 apps scoring 10 goals and creating 25 others.

When Eboue was good,he was world class but when he dipped unfortunately the same could also be said. I’ll miss him a lot am sure most gunners will. Join me as I salute Emmanuel Eboue a CULT HERO at the Arsenal Football Club.My memories of Eboue will include the face he made (yes the one captured in title photo of this post),rather his reaction,when he conceded the liverpool penalty (A very funny one indeed) then these shots of him holding a weeping Jack Wilshere after the Carling cup final.

With that Ladies and Gentlemen...on a sad day for me..

KWISHA!

Udinese Preview and the Obvious.

 

 Game : ARSENAL VS UDINESE

 Venue : Emirates Stadium.

 Kick off : 21.45 Kenya time (GMT +3)

So despite the obvious story, I really want to stay focused and concentrate on the game ahead. Although I’ll get to it in a bit. We Play Udinese later today, in the first of the two most important fixtures this month, the other being the away leg obviously. I do know that we play Liverpool and Manure in the same month, but must I remind you that this is a CHAMPIONS LEAGUE QUALIFIER?! We are getting into a very tough patch in the fixture list, which goes something like Udinese (h), Liverpool (h), Udinese (a), Manutd (a). After these games I think we can have a more vivid picture of what to expect this season.

Onto the game, we have Nasri (yes he is still here) and Rvp suspended oh Wenger too, will be serving his touchline ban, Rosicky had a knock against Newcastle and will undergo a late fitness test. Nothing major, I expect him to pass as fit. There is still no date to Jack’s return and Diaby is still a good way out. With those absentees I expect us to line up as follows :

SCZCESNY

SAGNA   KOSCIELNY  VERMAELEN  GIBBS

SONG 

           RAMSEY          ROSICKY (ARSHAVIN)

GERVINHO (WALCOTT)  CHAMAKH  ARSHAVIN (GERVINHO)

With the bench looking something like this: Fabianski, Djorou, Frimpong, Carl, Alex, Miyaichi, Bendtner. If Rosicky is passed fit then I expect him to line up alongside Rambo, if not, then Arshavin should take the central role with Walcott filling in on the right and Gervinho moving to the left. Le Prof says he expects Bendtner to feature as he is still with the club, maybe one last taste of champions league football before he goes? I like the tall dane, in fact I prefer him to Chamakh at the moment, he is a good player (not as good as he thinks he is) but he has such a big ego that it gets in his way most of the time.

Now Udinese is no push over, with the likes of Di Natale, Kwado Asamoah and Mauricio Isla in their ranks you do see why I am abit cautious with this one. Even more that we are playing the 2^nd leg away after facing Liverpool and before facing Manure. That being said, we should have enough in us to see off this depleted Udinese side. The ideal situation would be us demolishing them today, thus taking the pressure off when we meet in a fortnight, but being an Arsenal fan you do know that we don’t normally go the ideal way. I just hope that this will not be one of the many times where we make it really hard on ourselves, at least let us not concede today. 

I don’t have much in stats but I know that we do have quite a record against Italian opposition, four out of five times we have come out victorious in two legged ties! I expect them to defend deep, as any team would at the emirates and try to take us out on the counter. They are also quite a force when it comes to set pieces. I won’t predict a score line but I’ll call a victory for the gunners and No am taking no draws, a non scoring one maybe. 

Wow...you just had to do this!

Now to the story on everyone’s televisions, radios, timelines, news feeds…yes it is finally over! The soap opera that was threatening The Bold & The Beautiful in length. It has taken forever but it’s finally done, not the ideal ending but an ending none the less. I don’t know what to feel right now, rather since the news broke out on sunday night. I kinda feel like a guy who has been left by his super model girl friend for her high school sweet heart, who is an s.t.d infested loser (though he doesn’t look like one). Only time will tell, back to my mixed feelings. Am happy, that the saga is over, then really sad that it had to end this way, then really pissed at the price that we sold him at, then just really mad at the Cunts (As I always am.) This is not very easy for me, those who follow me on twitter (@pitseh_poghie) know that I ranted quite a lot. Moving on swiftly, like the club should. It will be interesting to see who le prof brings in as the replacement.Whispers of Eden Hazard and Marvin Martins are already doing rounds, but I don’t expect him to splash the cash, as according to reliable sources the £30M will be paid in installments, we only have 12M – 14M of that in the account, so yeah. Sorry if I burst a bubble there. The other talking point with his departure is definitely the arm band, as much as I’d like to see the Verminator have it, you feel Robin is already defacto captain with Rosicky his likely deputy or more probably the Verminator. With Rvp’s injury record, whoever gets the deputy’s post will surely see more of that band around his arm than usual deputies do. There is another scenario which I see possible, with Le Prof so keen on keeping Nasri, he might use the captaincy as bait. Recent history has turned our captain’s office to the last step towards the exit door at the emirates. I really hope that I am wrong.What about Sagna? Next, what happens to the ‘Cesc role?’ do we do away with the current system, which was developed to suite Cesc and his abilities? Or do we elevate another player say Jack, Rosicky or Arshavin, Nasri maybe (*hides*) to that role? 

Whether his loss is for the better or not will be a question that only time can answer, but if I were to call it. Definitely for the better, he had become an excesc (it’s not a typo) baggage to the team and his situation had affected the general focus and balance of the squad. As a player he is definitely is a big loss but overall it’s a loss that we can take. I feel that he has left just when he was at the brink of being a legend here, guess he wasn’t patient enough. Whenever I hear the name Cesc Fabregass, I’ll remember the Pizza throwing incident at Old Trafford or that night at Millan, or the one man show goal against Tottenham or even the 20 minute demolition of Aston Villa. For these and many more memories that you have left us, I salute you Francesc Soler Fabregas and wish that you turn out like your friend Hleb! Okey am joking (this part is really hard) I wish you all the best in your future endeavors! (there I said it!) As the best might see you back here. Yes there is a buy back clause in his contract that gives us the first refusal incase the cunts want to sell him. As in we have to refuse buying him first before they can sell to another club. If we do not buy him, then we get a 50% of the fee that they sell him for. Quite the deal huh?! 

As I post this Emmanuel Eboue *sob* has signed a 4 year deal at Galatasary,more to follow.

With that Ladies and Gentlemen….

 

Kwisha.

Newcastle 0 - 0 Arsenal Review and Score Card.

I said that I’d take a draw from this fixture, from how we played and that we finished the game with ten men. I’m glad we walked away with a point. This match will be remembered more for its side shows rather than the game itself. Not that it had that much on offer,it was a rather boring game to be honest. We dominated possession as always but lacked the ideas and directness to convert our possession into goals. 

Going into the game, all eyes including mine were on the defence, I must say they outdid themselves on this occasion. We defended absolutely well, especially on set pieces which is great to see. The Veriminator and the Kosher were rock solid..Dancing rasta (Sagna) and Gibbo were also not bad though they were caught out once or twice..nothing alarming. Then the tall pole never put a finger wrong the whole match..he was exquisite. It’s good to finally have a decent goalkeeper. With these performances you feel le prof will be abit reluctant to buy a defender. Though we do need one more, It’s only one game after all. 

The worrying part was mainly our creative end of the midfield and the attack. Rosicky though he had a decent outing was not as creative as I’d have wished. Rambo also had an ish ish game, a couple of misplaced passes lost possession quite a number of times too. The little Russian assassin did pull out some clever moments (Yes the chip) here and there but I expected him to have a larger impact on the game. Gervinho was dangerous down both wings, but his final ball was wanting most of the time. I like the fact that we have started using the wing interchange..Gervinho, Arshavin and Rosicky at times worked well together. Vanpersie, well he was wasteful and looked rusty let’s hope it was just this once. In this department I felt that we lacked in creativity and sharpness, Rambo and Rosicky were abit slow on the ball when I felt that they needed to be a tad bit quicker. Let’s face it, this is exactly what Nasri and Cesc offered us. One their day they were our creative engine.

Now to the incidents,first I’d like to hail Song for his foresight. He stamped on that Barton prick for his yet to come antics. That being said, Song deserved to be sent off for the stamp as it was rather a stupid thing to do at the time. He still might get red carded in retrospect by the F.A, this would mean that we face Liverpool and United without him and Gervinho a very tricky situation as Wilshere is still out. Then to the mother of them all, a story of reacting to contact, no matter how small it is. There was contact when Gervinho hit the ground from the challenge albeit very minimal, not enough to bring him down but it was there, meaning it was a penalty. Then the nut job that is Barton felt he had to air his grievances the best way a he knew how to, dragging Gervinho to his feet warranted a sending off, no question. At this point any man would have reacted the same way as Gervinho, though with varying degrees of force. Being a sharp man, he used an open palm and taped Barton’s face and yes the tap means there was contact thus Joe reacted to the contact and what a reaction it was!! The Ref here has no option but to send off both of them, but what does he do? Books Barton and sends Gervinho to the showers. I think Barton plays his role quite well,he gets under our players' skin with great ease,two players sent off in two games against us.On a side note,I couldn’t help but imagine if this was Manure and Gervinho was let’s say Nani. Barton would have been banned for months and Manure given a penalty. Two if possible,the first for the tackle and the other for Joey Barton, oh well..to be a gooner! I don’t think that we’ll appeal this one, and if we do it will be a very long shot.

Here are some quotes from le prof on the game..

"I thought we had a solid performance and were in control. Newcastle had last season’s 4-4 more in their mind more than we did. They organised not to concede goals, defended well and it was very difficult for us because we played a team who was highly focused to defend.
"We missed something, the regret is that we missed something in the final third and in the speed of our passing. But, overall, we had a good performance. I can’t remember giving Newcastle a chance at goal and, away from home, you have to give credit to our team for that.

We try to play football and, if you watched today, you will see that. Overall, I feel we have been very harshly punished today. We try to play and sometimes we overreact. We have to take control of that. If we have an area to improve on, then that is it. We will learn from that today."

The score card :

1. Woijciech Szczesny (A-) – As I mentioned earlier, he never put a finger wrong. Though he was not called up that much, he commanded his area superbly. Came out for crosses perfectly, he is like a breath of fresh air out there.
2. Bacary Sagna (B+) – Was solid, though he looked rusty going forward and his crossing was not all that good. Was caught out once by Obertan but got back well. Was one of the few that tried a shot from outside the 18’ though it went into Orbit the idea was good.
3. Thomas Vermaelen: (A-) – He was rock solid back there, was impressed by the way he handled the aerial balls against Demba Ba. He stood his ground after Orbetan’s back heel to close down the striker denying him a clear shot.
4. Laurent Koscielny (A-) – Was also impressed by his aerial prescence and his awareness, made a few vital interceptions and tackles. Great to see him forming a partnership with the Verminator
5. Kierran Gibbs (B+) – He did outdo himself out there, performed better than I had expected, though he sometimes got carried away and was caught out of position once or twice. He can also do better from his crosses.
6. Alexander Song (B+) – He broke down their play oftenly, using his strength to bully the Newcastle defence. How many times did he shield that ball off them? Quite a number. He covered the back four well tracking back every time.
7. Aaron Ramsey (B) – An ish ish game from the Welsh captain, not bad but not good either. Not the best passing, also his urgency on the ball was wanting. Though you have to admire his work rate.
8. Tomas Rosicky (B) – Another one with a great work rate, and just like Rambo he had an average game. He needs to have a bigger impact on the game as he is our chief creative mind out there.
9. Andrey Arshavin (B+) – Was abit more involved but like his counterparts did not have that much of a game either. Another one who should take up more responsibility now. Liked the rotation with him the Little Mozart and Gervinho.
10. Gervinho (B+) – Was terrifying every time he charged down the wings, but his final ball let him down. Great in 1 on 1 situations. Also has a great work rate, he should shoot abit more though.
11. Robin Van Persie (B) – Was wasteful in a number of situations, took a lot more time than he usually does to shoot especially in the penalty area. But shot really early towards the end of the game, when he should have taken a few more touches. Another one who had an ish ish game.
12. Theo Walcott (B) - Injected some pace into our attack, got into decent positions and had a shot in too. (One of the few). He still is running straight at defenders, he should learn a trick or two.
13. Emmanuel Frimpong and Johan Djorou – Not much to rate from the two, as they were to hold on to the point when we were down to ten men. Glad to see Frimpong though, he should give Song a run for his money.

With that, ladies and Gentlemen…

KWISHA!!

Newcastle Preview

The season is finally here,tomorrow all the talking stops and the football kicks off in earnest. Personally am not so happy with how we are going into this campaign,we have spent the better part of the transfer window doing basically nothing. Yes we’ve brought in Gervinho who is the only addition worth mentioning really. Not taking anything away from Carl,Ryo and Alex,but in all honesty they have a lot to prove. We have let go of Clichy and Denilson though temporarily which were good moves,I still maintain the previous should be replaced. Then there’s the Cesc,Nasri saga that won’t just go away..yesterday le prof had this to say…on Cesc 

"We hope it will be sorted out very quickly one way or the other. We'll know very quickly."

And on Nasri..

"The Nasri situation is stable,"."Again it is very difficult to speak about possible transfers but we are in a situation where we have to make decisions one way or the other. Ideally you want it to be sorted out before the season starts."

This morning he said…

"I expect nobody to leave the club," he said. "I believe the best thing for us, one day before the season starts, is not to focus on the possible transfers. I cannot say it will never happen, I cannot say it will happen. At the moment there is no news and if we have any news to give you, I promise you we will do it."

Now am I the only one confused here? He is the same guy who said if we let Cesc and Nasri go we can not be considered a big clu..then he syas this today..

"Manchester United let Christiano Ronaldo go, do you think they are not a big club?"

Let me diverge and give you my quote of the interview..

"Do we want to buy? I don't know because at the moment we have too big a squad. We have too many players.

"To add players, there is a strange thing that I don't believe people who watch football are still conscious of what is going on in the world.

"There are 350 players in England who have no job and we have a massive squad so we are not in a position where we are short of players."

I won't get too much into it..but I pray that he's just playing the pres.

Back to the siasa,I think the management is to blame for letting this saga drag on this far. If rather when we lose the duo right now,we’d definitely have to replace them and pray to the Almighty they gel in as fast as humanly possible. This whole situation would have been averted by doing our business early. Getting players after the respective leagues have kicked off is a real hard task.

  Game : NEWCASTLE Vs ARSENAL

  Venue : ST. JAMES PARK

  Kick Off : 19.30 (Kenyan time)

To the game,we do not have very pleasant memories of our trip to Newcastle. This fixture last season was the start of our now famous melt down. This time it provides a good chance for the boys to exorcise the demons that have haunted them since last time,early on in the season. We should,I’d imagine look to start off strongly with a win here as the next couple of fixtures are not any easier. We have virtually everyone back from injury except Jack and Diaby. Cesc will miss due to ‘lack of match fitness’ (yeah right) and Nasri is a doubt as he has developed 'a sickness' according to Mr.Bean,yeah a cash sickness! We should have a fairly strong squad out,which can see off the magpies. I expect us to line up as follows

                                              Szcesny

  Sagna  Koscienly      Vermaelen   Gibbs

Song          Ramsey

Rosicky

Gervinho      Van Persie     Arshavin

  

Fabianski,Carl,Traore,Djorou,Walcott,Chamakh,Frimpong,AOC(Chamberlain),should get an opportunity from the bench. But whether Walcott starts in place of Arshavin or Gervinho is the only contention I see and maybe Traore or Gibbs. I know that I have not put him there,though I'd like to see him get a run out,yes Ryo. This game will give us a slight idea of what Wenger has been cooking up all summer,I surely hope that it does taste good! It will also do one of two things..silence the doom brigade or turn them up a notch higher. I’d want a victory here though a draw would be acceptable too. Another school of thought would want a defeat that may serve as a wakeup call to the bean man then maybe he can buy some players, maybe. I don’t buy into this, a loss would dent the already fragile situation at the camp and will not necessarily assure us that Le prof will buy. If it would have an assuarance that he’d buy were we to lose tomorrow then I’d definitely take the loss! 

These were the images last time.

As I said before,this match will give us an idea of how we’ll play tactically this season,any new twitches and all to our previous systems. I’ll have an eye out every time we concede a set piece,see how we’ll defend them. Any improvements in this area will be highly appreciated. The midfield battle will be interesting as Rosicky comes up against Barton,also look out for Tiote and Gutierrez down the left. I won’t do any statistics on this one,as the only one that I feel matters is,we lost a four goal lead here last season. With that I’ll be bold enough to predict a 2-1 win for us..fingers crossed,eyes closed!

With that Ladies and Gents,wear your colours tomorrow with pride,I know I will..and do enjoy the game and the weekend. Word of advice though, don’t let your weekend hinge on this one…

KWISHA!

 

A worried Arsenal Fan.

I wrote this on the 8th of August..after watching the Charity shield game the previous day..did not get time to post it but finally have..enjoy.

It’s the eve of my birthday and instead of preparing for the festivities ahead,I just had to write about this club that I’ve come to hate the fact that I love,this much.

Lets get to it then,on Sunday I,like many of you here watched the community shield game for one of two reasons. Just cause you had missed the football weekends or as a gooner to gauge our opponents ahead of the season. It was a game of two halves I must say.First half,Man city’s sheer strength,power and grit saw them take a two goal lead into the break,deserved or not is not the point. This half worried me as an arsenal fan,I kept asking myself how Koscienly,Gibbs,Wilshere hell even Vermaelen would handle Balotelli,Yaya Toure,Micah Richards,De Jong and the other watu wa mjengo they have. These guys were banging Vidic,Rio,Evra,Carrick off the field at every opportunity. So at the end of the first half,I was confused. I laughed at the manure fans (I never let such chances go by,lets face it they are very few of them these days) but was really worried at the fact that we had to face Man city a minimum of two times next season. How did the swahili wise men put it,’ukiona mwenzako akinyolewa…?’ exactly.

So with the second half I expected more of the same from city but had a keen eye on what Saf would do to try and stop hawa wasee wa mjengo! I had to confirm whether the substitutes he had made were actually correct. You are bullied off the ball and what do you do? Replace your old heads with younger overall lighter players. At that point I was sure Saf had found Mr.Bean’s supply,it took a whole ten minutes for my ordinary football mind to realise what the gaufer had just done. He had replaced the old, familiar and rather comfortable with the young,hungry and more passionate. All of a sudden the mjengo guys were being run rugged around the ground with crisp quick touches and movement off the ball. Whenever they had an opportunity on the ball they were being pressed,no the right word is gang tackled out of it.These kids were like hyenas out there. So I wondered what saf would have told the young lads he brought in,well simple really “You want a chance..here it is prove yourself!” Here is a player who knows that there is a ‘better’ player ahead of him and this might be the only chance he has of playing first team football in a while.(not unless you are Rio’s sub ofcourse!) Do you think he’ll give a rat’s ass whether it’s a mjengo guy or a steel pole ahead of him? He’ll bite his way through if he has to! After this half I was a really really really worried young man.. 

Quickly to my point before you start checking your address bars,yes this is still Kenyan Gunners,the Arsenal blog. What Saf did,is prove le boss wrong on a few fundamental points that he makes. The major one being that experienced players kill the development of the young crop. This principle has seen us lose Ljumberg,Pires,Henry,Gilberto..(I’ll cry if I go on) with the promise that we have young players with loads of talent to fill in. But who do they have to look upto? The difference between say Wilshere and Cleverly no this will not bring it out the way I want to,Jack is several steps ahead of the ka ‘clever’ guy. Rafael and Gibbs,the kid from samba has the likes of Vidic,Evra as role models to look upto. Gibbs on the other hand has Squillaci! And no the Verminator is not yet there in terms of experience. The difference between these two sets of kids is that the Manure set are more hungry,determined and dare I say more focused than the kindergarten we are running. Our kids are spoilt,they have an unlimited number of chances,they know that even if they fuck up this weekend the manager doesn’t have much of a choice than to stick with them. Thus they get comfortable,it’s like taking two hunters to a jungle give one an unlimited number of spears and the other,just one. The  first guy will be like our Kenyan police,trigger happy! He'll shoot at anything he/she sees they’d be reckless,the other dude will be more careful,precise,he wont make a shot until it is beyond doubt that he is going to make the kill. Now you get it..

These kids as much as they are talented,more than the manure ones by far if I may add,lack the driving force to realise their respective potentials as individuals and as a group. How do we rectify this? In my humble opinion which has been floated severally..is bring in some old heads and do it now. The kids will now have a hard time securing a regular position in the team thus they’ll work harder! Then maybe I can stop almost peeing my pants every time I watch other teams play. And as if they were reading this post,Arsenal have just confirmed the signing of Alex Oxlade Chamberlain from Southampton..yes another kid (18). For a fee growing to up to £17M anyone say Matta somewhere? Don’t get me wrong this kid is dynamite (just like the rest of them) and will add a new dimension to our game fast and direct. (don’t we already have that? Read Walcott,Gervinho,Miyaichi) Why risk £17M on a kid who has played  43 games scored 11 goals and created 9 others in the second division when you could get a world class defender maybe even two (this is Wenger after all!) who can..I don’t know help us with our real problem?!! Okey am not the manager here,so let me hope that I am wrong and all this makes sense in September or even better May 2012.

Looking at this from another angle though,the bean man is adding lots of pace to our attack,last season we were guilty of being one dimmensional and closed down way too easily. Imagine Alex and Miyaichi coming on from the bench in the 75^th minute…

With that ladies and gentlemen..a happy birthday to me oh and…

KWISHA!          

P.S If I were you,I'd start getting rid of my Cesc and Nasri Merchandise like right now!!