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Saturday 29 October 2011

I’d lov3 to be an Ar5enal fan

So today, we played arguably our toughest game since the Manchester United away game which saw us lose spectacularly 8-2. Today we face Chelsea, who lost Didier Drogba to suspension and really looked poor even with most of their first team in tact, and so did Arsenal, yet we won!

The game was your great end to end derby which was a fantastic advert for the Premier League and showed why defences in England are typically poor this season.

The game started with many end to end chances, Gervinho and Van Persie missed a sitter each, as did Torres and Sturridge at the other end, that was until Frank Lampard scored in the fourteenth minute to put Chelsea ahead. Twenty-two minutes later, Ramsey played a brilliant ball through to Gervinho who ‘jew-goaled’* it to Van Persie to grab an equaliser. It looked like the Premier League pendulum would turn Arsenal’s way with many a chance to make it 2-1 Arsenal before Half-time, however, defensive mishaps by Per Mertesacker and Mikel Arteta meant John Terry could get in and make it 2-1 to Chelsea just before the half-time whistle.

Really, the game could go either way in the second half, if Arsenal could score it would make it an interesting game, if Chelsea got a two goal cushion, it would be over.

Arsenal started the stronger of the two, and scored two goals in ten minutes after the restart to make it 3-2 and actually looked defensively adequate despite keeper Woijciech Szczesny almost getting sent-off for a Professional foul on Cashley. That was until the ball was given away with ten minutes to go and Andre Santos who scored in the forty-ninth minute although you could argue Lakaku fouled Santos before Mata struck the ball.

At 3-3, one man came alive, the Dutchman, Robin Van Persie, who right now deserves FIFA’s Ballon d’Or, even ahead of Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo, John Terry slipped as RVP ran through skipped passed the helpless Petr Cech and made it 4-3 and with the game in stoppage time, Chelsea threw everyone forward in a desperate act to make it a 4-4 only for four Arsenal attackers to go up the other end and Arteta to gift RVP a stunning hat-trick with a brilliant swerving strike.

A long way to go before Arsenal are title rivals again, but in this form, they are arguably as good as they were last season, any faltering's from either Manchester club could gift Arsenal back in it in this forever surprising, forever changing season.

Chels3a – Ar5enal

Tuesday 25 October 2011

The Sadly Ironic Month of October

Here in the United Kingdom, October is Black History Month, it is also when Kick it Out’s ‘One Game, One Community’ campaign runs. The campaign sponsors Sky’s coverage and is supported by Ford, its also supported by Football players who train wearing the campaign T-shirts.

So how sadly ironic that during this month there have been two complaints of racist slurs in England and another in Spain, which begs the question: Is this campaign working?

Let me set the record straight, anything racist said by John Terry, Luis Suarez and Cesc Fabregas (who will all be mentioned) is NOT condoned. I am warning you now in case you get the wrong idea later on.

Last night (or early Tuesday morning) I started tweeting, saying that I didn’t feel John Terry was an overt racist for his alleged comments on Sunday towards QPR and England defender Anton Ferdinand, looking more into it, I can see I may have been incorrect in my arguments. I still stand by that Terry is not as racist as lets say a member of the KKK, BNP or EDL may be deemed as being, but still calling Ferdinand a “f***ing black c**t” is a racial offense and for Terry to deny this despite video evidence (taken from the Guardian online). Terry, who I tweeted “doesn't make him next in line to lead BNP.” through his racist comments, isn’t an overt racist as he shares a pitch every week with other black players such as: England team-mate Ashley Cole, Didier Drogba, Nicholas Anelka, Jose Boswingwa, Florent Malouda, Ramires etc. and Terry who has been known to exhibit a lot of power as captain of Chelsea would surely refuse to take to the pitch with them.

However, this is not the first time Terry has made such comments, in a match with Tottenham he was said to have called Spurs and England defender Ledley King a “lippy black monkey” and also racially abused Samuel Eto’o in the past as well.

Maybe I’m wrong, I don’t believe Terry says these things because he’s a racist (or at least I hope not because he’s a diverse nation’s captain) I believe he says these things for a reaction and because he’s stupid. The match he’s in is followed by hundreds of camera’s, he’s bound to get caught. I don’t feel he’s a racist, I think he’s just ignorant and stupid, and if he’s found guilty by the MET police who have started an investigation, then he should be punished to the full extent with him being stripped of England and Chelsea captaincies for good and I’d even ban him from the England team now.

As for Luis Suarez, I’m going to skip over that one because I don’t have enough facts to say anything on this one, what I will link is a quote from the Daily Mail article saying Black players should take it on the chin and move on. (Quote taken from Arsenal blogger ‘LadyArse’ on Twitter, I recommend you follow).

Lastly, our old friend Cesc Fabregas in sunny Spain has been found to have said “puto Negro de mierda" which means "fucking black shit" (Quote taken from ‘FourFourTom’ on Twitter, I again recommend you follow) towards former Tottenham old boy Freddy Kanoute. Which actually caused Kanoute to lash out at Fabregas. What is arguably worse about this one, was the fact Fabregas is clearly shown saying it and then got on Twitter to have a self-righteous dig at Kanoute calling him a liar and a coward. What angers me almost more is to think that Fabregas was once heralded so much and now is on the defensive so much after saying something stupid. Again, the term was racist and I don’t believe Fabregas is a racist, much like I don’t feel Sergio Busquets is a racist (he’s just a cheat). However, these outdated terms are offensive and have to be stamped out. Also when you way up the history of Spanish players and fans (referencing the ‘monkey’ chants in a friendly between Spain and England in 2004 and Sergio Busquets’ repeated name calling towards Marcelo in a Barcelona/Real Madrid clash last season) you have to question Fabregas’ motive.

Overall, all this is a massive let down to a month that should be held up as one where players rally together to stop anyone saying these despicable words and phrases, rather than more of it. Although, maybe this is behaviour that goes on all the time and because of it being this month more of it is being reported by players because more action will be taken this month than any other. I don’t feel any of these players are calling for slave-labour to be brought back or hoping these players are evicted from the country like some racial groups do, however, these are all racist attacks and must be investigated, especially those of John Terry and Cesc Fabregas as it got that much of a reaction.

Sunday 23 October 2011

“Sunday, Perfect Sunday”

So the weekend has been a little bit of a sombre one in our household, tomorrow will mark a year since my Grandmother’s passing and the title of this blog is sort of dedicated to her as her favourite hymn was “Peace, perfect Peace” and its also wrote on her gravestone (as I noticed today), so I thought it was a nice touch to alter the title.

Anyway, enough of my personal life onto the Football. Last season, Arsenal thoroughly cheered me up by thrashing Manchester City 3-0, this season, I don’t believe that all this was a coincidence, call me strange, but even as an atheist I somehow believe my Grandmother is having some sort of effect on the Football results in an attempt (which always works) to cheer me up. The first, came in the form of one of the funniest games in history:

Manchester United 1-6 Manchester City
The amount of little Manchester United plastic fans who I’ve had say “I’d 8-2 to be an Arsenal fan” is ridiculous, so for them to lose 6-1, and I mean to lose 6-1 with their FIRST team, not with half their first team squad missing like when Arsenal lost their, not losing 6-1 when they’re meant to be finish nearer the bottom than top, losing 6-1 to their rowdy neighbours is bloody hilarious.

Frankly, United were embarrassed by City, and were it not for a great strike by Fletcher would have been 6-0. I know must United fans will make the excuse that Evans being sent off will have changed the outcome, but City looked so good against a really poor United who have been slipping gradually recently, would have won at least 3-1 anyway.

Arsenal 3-1 Stoke City
Arsenal played Stoke today as well, and although the game was not on the telly and I haven’t had time to watch Match of the Day 2 yet, but I will say, hearing Arsenal smash Stoke 3-1 in what I hear our best performance is fantastic news, and I’ll get a better overview going once I’ve watched MOTD2.

Still, more goals for Van Persie, who proves that he is our best player and people do need to understand why he needs to be rested some days to evade injury.

Queens Park Rangers 1-0 Chelsea
The funniest of the three games may be the West London Derby, Bosingwa and Drogba both got red carded therefore miss the Arsenal game. They also lost 1-0 through a silly penalty and even though they didn’t look terrible with nine in the second half, Chelsea looked a little poor all game and even Arsenal can beat them.

Overall, a brilliant day, best of the season so far, I’d like to apologise though that there’s been a lack of blogs recently, I’ve been on holiday, had a lot of UCAS application stuff to finish and my A-Level work as well, I’d like to get some more done when I can, and now my illness has cleared up, I wouldn’t mind doing a podcast.