talkingOfArsenal.com

A splendid display by Rooney playing for England, got me wondering - has he learnt his lesson? From a selfish point of view, I'd sometimes, perdiocially, rather he didn't, considering that everytime he loses his sense of perspective, it's Manchester Utd who suffer for it. Having said that, I don't buy the whole argument about taming Rooney being the end to...

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The BBC's website last Friday quoted Manchester Utd's manager, Alex Ferguson as saying that Liverpools Benitez was going to be handed a war chest for the coming summer. Buried in the detail of that article which did mention Arsenal, was the following: "In terms of net spending - taking into account income from sales - the clubs are...

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Recent weeks of stalemate at the Emirates has led to certain sections of the crowd booing off the Arsenal players at the end of the game. The obvious question is - how is booing going to help? Is it going to lift the players to higher heights? Will it inspire them to play better? Mind you, that's not to say...

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The price clubs play for dropping out of the Premier League has resulted in the so-called lower-table teams, adoping measures to increase their chances of staying up. And who can blame them? And certainly, Wenger doesn't. One of these measures (apart from being out-and-out physical as sides such as Bolton and Blackburn have adopted), has been to park 12 (I include the visiting teams manager) men in front of their goal, leaving the home team to find the initiative to penetrate. This isn't a phenomenon that is exclusive to Arsenal. Both Manchester Utd and Liverpool, both to a lesster extent, have also been been given a taste of this - in Manchester Utd's case, this has resulted in some late, late 1-0 wins, whilst with Liverpool, they've also suffered a few surprising draws at home. The question is...

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Eduardo marked his return to first team football with an impressive brace against Cardiff City in the FA Cup fourth round, second leg replay at the Emirates. And how we have missed Dudu. Fifty-one weeks, Arsenal have had to do without the talent of a player of Eduardo's mettle. Few non-Arsenal fans appreciate just how much of a negative impact...

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This weekend just gone, asked whether he thought he might one day end up being at Chelsea, Mourinho reportedly ended his answer with the following quote: "It seems to be different for Chelsea than other clubs. Chelsea have not won (a trophy) for one and a half years, Arsenal have not won the title for five years," he said. "It looks like everything is good at Arsenal, but at Chelsea everything is in bits. Maybe Chelsea has a different, winning character. "Some managers have a big excuse when they go to a...

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And so another transfer story engulfs our beloved club, and the "will they, won't they" saga surrounding Zenit accepting our valuation of their star player continues. Last summer, after the Euro competition, I wrote about the possibility of Andrei Arshavin joining us, and concluded that although Wenger was an admirer, this was likely to remain from a distance rather than as an Arsenal player. When the stories first broke about us signing Arshavin, my initial reaction was one of skepticism, considering the age of the player, and likely high price of such a signing. The media maintained that we were interested, and in the end, Wenger more or less confirmed that we were looking into the possibility. Le Boss never ...

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Some people assume that football clubs have some kind of God-given right to remain solvent under any and all circumstances. The credit crunch has seen large, historic financial institutions, some hundreds of years old, all worth many billions of pounds, vanish into thin air overnight. Yet more such institutions have been deemed by their various host Governments to be so important, as to justify the exercising of taxpayers funding towards the saving of such institutions a priority. Football clubs will be given no such protection, especially as they are not...

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It's been a long while since I've blogged. What's been up with me? Well, I've had a few life-changing events happen in my personal life - one of which included the birth of a second baby girl, by way of my having to deliver the baby at home with instructions being provided over speakerphone by a nice lady who answers the phone when you dial 999 for an ambulance. Suffice to say, we misjudged the time we had to get to the hospital. Maybe one day, I might bring myself to elucidate in more detail. In that time, Arsenal have lost to Hull, drawn with Sunderland, and snatched a draw from the jaws of a victory at home to Tottenham. We went 2-1 down to Stoke City. Long term injured are Fabregas, Rosicky, Walcott and Eduardo. Walking wounded are Gallas, Silvestre and Song. What's been up with the Arsenal?

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It looks like the world of football as we know it is finally coming an end. If we are to believe the various sports news outlets, Man City have allegedly put in a £100m bid for Kaka, intending to pay a reported £500k per week to the Brazilian maestro. The reported scale of what we are witnessing, makes Abramovichs take-over at Chelsea some 5-6 years ago look like a poor 30-second trailer for a 2-hour Hollywood blockbuster. This is because in Man City's case, the Abu-Dhabi owners are purportedly hundreds of times wealthier than the Russian oligarch. If history is anything to go by, then the arrival of the world's richest club owners at the blue side of Manchester shouldn't be too much cause for concern...

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