Saturday, 25 May 2013

Backpage Roundup: Wenger Won’t Quit Just Yet, Cazorla Rues ‘Inconsistent’ Form, Hill-Wood Suffers Heart Attack, Winning UCL Group Means Nothing and More

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Wenger Won’t Quit Arsenal Just Yet Arsene Wenger has declared that he won’t quit Arsenal just yet but will evaluate his options at the end of the season. The Gunners lost out 2-0 to Swansea at Emirates Stadium on Saturday, after which calls for Wenger’s sacking intensified. While the Frenchman hinted that he might leave [...]

Backpage Roundup: Walcott’s Bench Role Not a Punishment, Sagna Wants Maximum Wins, Gunners Lacking Confidence, Wenger Criticises Santos, Holtby Not Arsenal-Bound and More

Theo Walcott scores against Udinese

Walcott’s Demotion to Bench Role Is Not About His Contract – Wenger Arsene Wenger has once again denied media accusations that he is keeping Theo Walcott out of Arsenal’s starting line-up due to his contractual disputes with the club. Walcott, 23, was a regular for the Gunners until last season but has started just one [...]

Backpage roundup: Frimpong not fully fit, Gallas disagrees with Wenger, Arsenal losing N’Koulou battle, Szczesny set to return and more

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Frimpong Still Not Fully Fit Emmanuel Frimpong feels that his fitness is not at a level yet where he can play regular football for Arsenal’s senior side and he needs a few more under-21 matches to get back in proper shape. The 20-year-old midfielder has recovered from a serious cruciate ligaments injury that he suffered [...]

Arsenal vs Schalke: Match preview

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After a disappointing defeat to Norwich City, Arsenal would be expected to respond tomorrow evening with the visit of Schalke to the Emirates Stadium. In recent seasons, Champions League home games have proved largely comfortable for the Gunners, especially in the group stages. The last time Arsenal lost a home game in the Champions League? [...]

How much for 100+ goals?

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It occurred to me the other day that Robin van Persie must be one of the best pieces of business Arsene Wenger ever made for Arsenal, just on goals alone. When I thought about it further, I wondered where he would rank among the top strikers over the last 20 years or so, in terms [...]

The ‘Makelele role’ is still important

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On the same day that Arsenal’s main defensive midfielder was confirmed as a Barcelona player, Everton overran Manchester United in a very impressive and fully deserved 1-0 win at Goodison Park. The link here? United had no midfield. Sky called it a 4-3-3 in the pre-match buildup, but it looked more like a 4-2-3-1 with [...]

Backpage roundup: Pique loves Song, Arsenal’s Sahin and Niang chase, Wenger’s reluctance to do business with United and more

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Vilanova Refuses To Talk About Song Barcelona manager Tito Vilanova has refused to publicly talk about his club’s interest in Arsenal midfielder Alex Song but has also failed to deny that the Cameroonian is on his wish list. Song enjoyed a fine 2011/12 season at a personal level and showcased his vastly improved passing range [...]

United bid for van Persie signals end to rivalry

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Perhaps worse even than the sight of talismanic striker and captain playing in the red of Manchester United, is the fact that our long-standing rival Ferguson felt he could make a bid at all. If it wasn’t already pretty clear, it is now official: we are not the rivals we used to be. It almost [...]

The armband – does it mean anything?

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As I touched on in my article last week: with Robin van Persie surely set to leave Arsenal this summer, the club is about to face yet another change in captaincy, with the Dutch striker having only replaced Cesc Fabregas as skipper a year ago. I suggested Bacary Sagna as a replacement in my last [...]

The new Invincibles – a look at Juventus vs Arsenal

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It has passed without too much attention that Arsenal’s ‘Invincibles’ of 2003/04 were last week named the best team of the Premier League 20-year awards. A fine achievement considering some strong opposition down the years, but also very much deserved, with the team of Vieira, Pires, Bergkamp and Henry playing possibly the finest football this [...]

Backpage Roundup: M’Vila, Kagawa and Diaby’s Latest Injury

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Arsenal in Pole Position to Sign M’Vila According to The Sun, Arsenal FC manager Arsene Wenger has made up his mind to submit a bid for Rennes’ defensive midfielder Yann M’Vila and the Gunners boss is confident that a bid of £17 million will get him his man. But it seems that they would be [...]

Where are the defenders?

Wenger says he will not be forced to spend

I think it would be fair to say if you were to ask most people to people look back at what has set this Premier League season apart from others the answer you’d get would have to be: high-scoring games. For a slightly more pessimistic view: bad defending. It is in the big games where [...]

Arteta success story continues

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There could not be a more fitting match-winner yesterday than Mikel Arteta, who fired in a glorious late winner from long range to beat moneybags Manchester City at the Emirates Stadium. While Arsenal lost big names in Fabregas and Nasri last summer – the latter, importantly, going to City – the comparibly modest Arteta was [...]

Bilbao give a great advert for La Liga

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Since Barcelona and Real Madrid started regularly thrashing everyone and Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo would fight it out every week for who can score the most hat-tricks, it has become a widely accepted norm among English fans and pundits that the Spanish league is just weaker than our own. Barca and Real are great [...]

“In Arsene We…(Fill in the Blank)”

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This week, American businessman, billionaire, and possible future owner of the Los Angeles Dodgers Stan Kroenke flew into London in order to publicly express his full support of Arsene Wenger. Arsenal’s board of directors has had some interesting topics to discuss, which include, but are certainly not limited to: Robin van Persie’s future with the [...]

A reminder for Tottenham fans

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Most of the time I’m not one for animalistic rivalry. I prefer to put my bias aside and keep a rational head; to see football for what it is. But as derby day edges closer, I’m afraid instincts are kicking in. Firstly, congratulations to Tottenham. After a LOT of waiting, they finally have a very [...]

Chelsea look more like Arsenal every day

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When Arsenal collapse in comical style, such as from 4-0 up to draw 4-4 with Newcastle last season, or conceding a goal seconds after equalising in the 3-2 defeat to Swansea, it feels fashionable to say “only Arsenal could have lost a game like that”. And there’s something to it, to be fair, our defence [...]

Credit where credit’s Djou

Sorry about the title, but I can’t resist a good pun if possible. Misleading as it might be, I must stress that I am not saying Johan Djourou deserves any credit for his performance against Manchester United. However, for all the criticism surrounding Arsene Wenger for his choice to remove Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain just as he’d [...]

“Live Fast. Die Young. Leave a Handsome Corpse: The Arsenal Story.”

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So then, this is what heartache feels like. This is what it means to have the figurative broken heart. I have decided I don’t like this feeling, at all. And I want it to go away. Needlessto say, many hard-core Arsenal fans like myself are in agony at this moment in time. The team that we love so [...]

Desperate Wenger is living off his reputation

Arsenal fans who argue that Arsene Wenger should not be sacked can only come up with one reason – “He’s our most successful manager ever”. Others might also point to his unearthing of talents like Thierry Henry and Patrick Vieira. The theme here? It’s all stuff from an increasingly long time ago. Wenger himself resorted [...]

Arsenal lose three Premier League matches in a row

Three loses in a row

For the first time in five years we have now lost three Premiership matches in a row. I am starting this story now Tuesday evening the 17th where the thoughts of last nights radio conversation on Talksports Drivetime between Adrian Durham and Ray Parlour are still fresh in my mind. The radio show host was [...]

This might be a good time to play United

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I might be clutching at straws a little, but there’s a small amount of evidence to suggest that our best results against Manchester United in recent times come during difficult periods. Now is certainly one of those periods. After we looked like recovering a season that looked lost as soon as it started, we are [...]

Rivals Watch: Trouble at United?

While watching Liverpool take on Oldham last night, I couldn’t help but notice a much bigger deal (footballwise) going on in the media world – a leaked copy of tomorrow’s front page of the Independent, claiming that Wayne Rooney might be on his way out of Manchester United that had somehow found itself causing a [...]

Arsenal looking too complacent for top four

As we saw from the second half of the Wolves game, this Arsenal team is more than capable of creating chances and dominating the opposition all over the pitch, but as we saw from the first half – at 1-0 against an ‘easy’ team, they go to sleep. We’ve recently seen United win 5-0 twice [...]

Praise for Arsenal’s defence is a tad premature

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The in-thing at the moment, aside from rightly praising Robin van Persie for being a goalscoring machine, is to praise our new-found solidity at the back. While results have been good recently, I’d say it’s more down to the form of our attack than any miracles happening in defence. Looking at our form since the [...]