Reading 5- 7 Arsenal: The Greatest Comeback Ever?

Capital One Cup: Reading 5 - 7 Arsenal

Match report

20 minutes gone and 3-0 down! And 2 of those goals were own goals really. First Koscielny put one past Martinez, then Martinez himself chucked one into the net in spectacularly fashion. I was bemused. Seriously, I was having a laugh. When it went to 4-0, I was looking forward to hear what Arsene Wenger would say at the end of the match after such a hammering. You see, I need new material; this "lacking a little bit the sharpness" thing is getting long in the tooth...

I was not even sure that this game would be televised. Around 8:45pm local time, I decided to flick through the channels. Lo and behold, Supersport 7 claimed they would televise the game. I didn't believe them but I waited around an hour to be sure.

When the game started, I thought the wait was worth it. I sat at the foot of my bed, close to the TV so as not to disturb Mrs. Afrogunner who was by now quietly snoring and snorting.

We started the game with the same usual Arsenal style of passing but the ball yet going nowhere. After about 5 minutes, Reading penned us into our half for the next 20 minutes or so. In the 12th minute, Jenkinson went AWOL on our right and  Djourou did not close down the cross early. Roberts found space to smash into our net. 1-0. I thought that would wake us up. I was wrong.

In the 18th minute, Reading found space, this time on our left flank. A cross was fired into our box and Koscielny turned it into his own net at the near post. 2-0. I thought, this is getting bad.

In the 20th minute, A reading player was allowed enough time and space to run and shoot from the edge of our box. The shot itself was nothing to write home about but what Martinez did was spectacular. He launced himself in the air like a shark attacking a walrus and did a one-handed thing like they do in volleyball. He tossed the ball into his own net. 3-0. By this time, I was laughing and finding the whole thing utterly ridiculous. Suddenly the decision to stay up so late to watch the game did not seem so good.

Reading started to sit back and we started finding room to passing the ball around, yet still going nowhere. The Arsenal midfield was nowhere to by found. The only player who was trying to make things happen was Arshavin but he too was being his usual lazy self. Chamakh was Chamakh. Theo looked a player who doesn't care cause he's leaving the club anyway.

37 minutes gone and reading scored from another cross down our left flank. 4-0. Reading fans were singing "Robin Van Persie is laughing at you" and "You are being thumped on the telly". By now, my Mancies United friends crawled out of every crevice and started making fun of me on Facebook. The Arsenal fans were singing "We want our money back" and "Bring back our Arsenal". Even some Chelsea cunt (Frank Lampard) twitted that Arsene Wenger would not be throwing any cups at the Arsenal players as Arsenal do not have any.

Just before half time, Theo finally found space and he ran like a fart, did a Carlos Vela to make it 4-1. When half time came, many Arsenal fans were leaving the stadium. The real fans remained, singing, chanting sarcastically. That was good to see, the Arsenal fans did not care that they  were being humiliated on the telly. Some were even dancing and smiling as the television camera panned on them.

The second half began much like the first half. Arsenal continued to be shit and Reading wasted chances to add further humiliation and insult upon Arsenal. Cometh the hour and cue time for Arsene Wenger to make his chances. Frimpong and Gnabry were withdrawn for Giroud and Eisfeld.

I wonder why Thomas Eisfeld did not start the game because as soon as he came on, there was a marked improvement in our midfield. Olivier Giroud too showed the difference between him and Chamakh.

In the 64 minute, Arsenal had a corner which Theo delivered and Giroud headed into the Reading net. 4-2.  By now, I was quietly confident we would equalise. Arshavin was now playing on the left wing, Eisfeld in the Centre with Giroud, Chamakh and Walcott jostling for centre forward position. We were looking stronger and crucially fitter than the Reading players. We started to ask questions of their goal but were lacking quality when it mattered.

In the 89th Koscielny made ammends for his own goal by scoring in the right goal. 4-3. only 4 minutes of stoppage time left. Reading tried to wind down the clock by keeping the ball near the corner flags, making substitutions and taking long to restart play when the ball went out. Arsenal had other ideas.

In the 5th minute of stoppage time and with the last kick of the game, Arsenal kicked the ball into the Reading box, Giroud controlled on his chest, it fell to Theo who scored but it was not seen by the line's man. Jenkinson was on hand to make sure it was trully in the net. And into extra time we went.

Jason Roberts was fuming on the touchline that the ref had increased to the time by an extra minute. Huh!

Arsenal were looking stronger now mentally and crucially, the momentum was with us. In first half of extra time, Chamakh scored a low shot after some good work by Arshavin and Giroud down our left flank. 4-5 the score. But it was over.

In the second half of injury time, with only about 6 minutes left to play, Reading equalised again after some sloppy Arsenal defending... yawn... 5-5. Now it was truly anybody's game, but Arsenal still looked the fitter team and most likely to score the winner.

And so it was. Arshavin drove down the left flank, into the Reading box and shot with his left peg. the ball was saved only to land in the path of Walcott who had been screaming for it from Arshavin in that move. He thumped into the net before him with aplomb. 5-6.

Reading tried to get another equaliser but they were too tired. corner was cleared by Arsenal, the ball bounced over a Reading defender in the centre circle. the poor guy was too tired to run. Chamakh ran past him, controlled and lobbed the keeper who was way off his line. 5-7 the score. Arsene Wenger just shook his head.

I went back to Facebook to look for my Mancies United friends who had been making fun of Arsenal during the 1st half. They had all crawled back to wherever they had come from and were nowhere to be found.

The greatest ever come back? possibly. But please let's never go through that again.

COYG!!

Arsenal Use Hand Gun: Cannon Still Missing

Arsenal 1-0 QPR

Match Report

Winning is never a bad thing, especially when you are as desperate as we have been in the last two weeks to turn things around. On Saturday, we literally stole 3 points from QPR. Did we deserve the win? Maybe, Was it a clear goal? Not really, it was actually offside. I'm I complaining? Hell no!

At the time, there was such a scramble for the ball that it was not clear whether is was offside or not, infact it only became an issue after the television replays.

This was a game we just had to get 3 points. After Arsene Wenger's comments (again!) that Champions League qualification is more important.... I got the feeling many an Arsenal fan had sharpened their pitch forks and machetes to do Wenger if we didn't win.

As it is, the pitch forks and machetes have been temporarily withdrawn, until Old Trafford at least.

I missed most of the first half, by the time I arrived and sat down to watch the match, the game had gone 42 minutes. I was surprised to see Jack Wilshere playing, I thought that maybe an injury had happened during the first half, only to learn that he had indeed started the game. Huh!

I don't know whether Jack is so good or the rest of our midfield is out of form so much so that he looked our best creative player in the first half (from the highlights I saw). He had a shot on target, was driving forward a lot, was exchanging passes and generally looking to make something happen.

There was a point at the start of the second half where QPR seemed to have decided that they could take the game to us and actually win. They started to attack us down our left flank. It is worrying the ease with which we seem to get hit on the counter... There was a free kick given after just outside the QPR box that was taken by Arteta so poorly it resulted in a quick counter attack from which we nearly conceded.

Olivier Giroud didn't get any supply, until Theo Walcott and Andrey Arshavin came on. Arshavin, the forgotten man, came on after a bad looking ankle injury to African Brother Gervinho (ABG). Arshavin provided the cross which lead to the goal, after a goal-mouth scramble.

I must say Theo too brought something different to our attack, he seemed to be trying to ping in early crosses from the right, something which we don't do often enough.

I was happy to see Bacary Sagna back. He was solid as ever, he too needs a few games to get back to his best. Carl Jenkinson is hard done by Sagna's return, but we need our best players at the moment. His turn will come.

The one player I feel is off the boil is Podolski. He seems to have lost his mojo in Germany. I noted how Giroud took a free kick, which would normally be taken by Podolski's left foot. Needless to say it was off-target.

On the whole, the team played better than in the last two defeats, but questions still remain about our attacking prowess and defending. QPR could have scored in injury time after some cunt run through challenges from Arteta and Vermaelen only to be denied by Mannone. Had he scored there, it would have felt like a loss and those pronged forks and machetes would have been out on Wenger.

Credit to the team for winning ugly. QPR were hard-done by the goal in fairness, but that other cunt who scythed Vermaelen and got red-carded allowed us more space on the wings with which to hurt them.

I don't like to see any team hard-done by a decision, case in point - Chelsea vs Mancies United. But considering where Mark Hughes used to play... nuh, I'll take 3 controversial points off him any day.

COYG!

Arsenal Cannon Goes Missing; No Gunpowder In The Amoury

Arsenal 0 - 2 Schalke

Match report

I have never had the privilege of watching a live Arsenal game. I hope that Arsenal travel to Southern Africa soon, as that represents my best chance of travelling to watch them live. I know, it would be a pre-season tour but hey... I get what you can.

I often wonder what the atmosphere inside the Emirates stadium is like. I watch live Barclays English Premier League games every weekend from the comfort (and loneliness) of my house. I have noted how Liverpool fans sing "you'll never walk alone" before every kick-off at Anfield. They will sing it at the start of the second half and at various times during a Liverpool match- win or lose.

Then there are stadia such as Carrow Road, St. James Park, Britannia .. to name but a few. I listen to the noise the fans make in these places, often for 90 minutes. They cheer their team on, they jeer/taunt/insult/harangue/ harass/ the opposition the opposition. This tactic does not always work for them in that their teams do not always win, but boy to come away with a result from such places you really need to work your socks off and be strong mentally. Bear in mind I observe all these things from my TV screen and my sound system.

I have observed how at the Emirates stadium, you can barely hear the Arsenal fans except when the team is winning. When the team is not playing great, Arsenal fans are often quiet in the stadium and the away fans (who are the minority) can be heard singing their lungs out as if they are the home team. Now, It could be the  acoustics in the stadium, or it could be the television director playing tricks with the stadium sound, favouring the away fans, but I think you get where I am going with this rant.

I could be wrong, but from where I sit (which is several thousand miles away from the stadium) I don't hear the Arsenal fans willing the team on when the players need it most. Instead I hear groans, moans, whistles and aahs when the team are not playing well. The Arsenal players need us now to lift them up. To hail insults at them or the coaching staff will not bring as back to winning ways. The team has lost confidence and appears to be jaded. Not even Steve Bould knows how this happened. But it has happened. The team looks  tired, slow, blind-folded, clueless and one legged.

At home, you would expect Arsenal to have troubled Schalke. I think most fans, myself especially, can live with defeat if I feel the team really played to their best, created chances but were just unlucky on the day. What I cannot live with is the lukewarm performances I am seeing in the past two defeats. This is the most worrying thing for me.

We can point at our lack of creating chances, our poor defending, our jadedness etc but the truth lies here; our midfield is not strong enough nor balanced. Arteta, Cazorla, Coquelin and Ramsey is not a very strong midfield, nor is it balanced. It is made worse by the fact that our best striker, Podolski is not getting a run through the centre when it matters. African Brother Gervinho (ABG) is something of an Emmanuel Eboue at the moment. He has great potential but will he ever really realise it? At his age, I tend to worry. I thought playing him through the centre will make a Thierry Henry of him. why? because he has the same type of awkward dribbling skills, speed and ability to turn in tight spaces. He has been playing as a winger throughout his career and now Wenger decides to use him as a striker. I can see why. And he has shown glimpses of that potential so far with the goals he has scored.

Santi Cazorla looks tired. Period. He needs a rest. A few substitute appearances might do him good. Thomas Vermaelen, for a team captain, does not cover himself in glory when it matters during a game. Aaron  Ramsey cannot play in a wide position. Francis Coquelin is a bad omen. Everytime he plays, we seem to lose.

Andre Santos is not playing very well from an attacking point of view at the moment. We spoke too early about the Steve Bould effect on this team. we are still too easy to break down and we do not close down quickly when we lose the ball.

The worst thing for me is this: we are not playing to the best of our ability. I cannot live with that.

Arseblog does a good job conveying my feelings about the game and the team at the moment.

I will continue to support The Arsenal though. Hopefully the cannon, together with the gunpowder and cannon balls will be found soon and we shall start to fire once again.

COYG!!

Gunners Leave Gun Powder At Home: Cannon Fails To Fire At Canaries

I have been away for the better part of a month. I that period, I hit a 12 year old boy with my car on my way to work, at a curve and while avoiding a head-on-collision with an on-coming truck. Don’t worry, the little boy is fine, he was discharged from hospital last week Tuesday. He didn’t break any bones (miracle!) just some cuts and bruises. There is a God somewhere I swear!

Also during that time, the real football went on break, giving way to international games and just to show you how much I care for internal football compared to Arsenal FC, I had this to say about internal football:!
The real football returned with Arsenal once again.

We travelled with our cannon to shoot some canaries. I know, I know, it’s an over-kill to hunt a canary with a cannon. Much to my frustration/bemusement/anger/hopelessness, we failed to fire our cannon even once! It turns out we forgot the gun powder back home.

We had to improvise by throwing pebbles at the canaries from under the Carrow Road tree, while they chirped, danced from branch to branch and defecated on our collective heads.

We could not start our moves from the back. Every time Don Mannone played a short pass to his defenders, Norwich closed us down, forcing the ball back to the keeper and he would hoof it up-field. You would think a team with our technical ability would pass their way from the back regardless of the opposition pressure. This tactic proved very effective for Norwich on the day; expect more and more teams to do the same for the rest of the season.

Arsenal not only lacked confidence but they lacked ideas. I thought that the Norwich goal would wake us up and bring down the wrath of  the Arsenal cannon upon the Canaries. Instead we remained under the tree, throwing pebbles at the Canaries as they chirped and shitted on our foreheads again and again and again….

Arsene Wenger looked like a man bereft of ideas. The entire team lacked a spark. Nobody could rise above the collective mediocrity that I was seeing. I wished a certain Abou Diaby had been fit for this game. Irritating and frustrating he may be on occasion, but he is a maverick, capable of doing something absolutely strange/ridiculous/outrageous/fantastic/magical/you name it.

Questions really have to be asked why Arsenal keep being this toothless time and time again when it matters. I endured the Mancies United game earlier that afternoon with my brother-in-law (yep! He is a Manc-ie!). I noted how they looked sharp and full of energy. Manchester Shitty too had a tough game but they kept at it, eventually winning with 10 men and coming from a goal behind.

Arsenal on the other hand looked tired, did not trouble the Norwich goal or keeper the entire afternoon. Yes, let us give credit to Norwich for defending very well, but let us look at ourselves and admit we were poo on the day. I will not bother to dissect individual poo, suffice to say everybody was poo. The tactics were poo. In fact there were no tactics. We were just playing and hoping to somehow score.

Onto matters more positive, Tonight we face Schalke in the Champions League. This is an opportunity to “put things right”. I hope for the sake of the team that we win tonight. Failure to win will knock our confidence even further down. We cannot be feeling sorry for ourselves; we need to get right back up and continue fighting.

The latest injury news is not too bad, we should be able to cope without the Ox; we have Serge Gnabry. Bacary Sagna, Emmanuel Frimpong and Jack Wilshere played 90 minutes each in the under-21s on Monday, meaning they should all be playing in the first team very soon. I am really looking forward to having especially Sagna and Wilshere back playing, but surprisingly, or rather strangely, the 1 player I really want back is Abou Diaby.

I know Jack is a special player and Bacary Sagna is the best right-back in the league, but for me, the player we really need is a fit Abou Diaby. I just have this funny feeling he is the key to our success. I can’t quite put it into words, but it’s just a gut feeling I have. There is something about Diaby that will bring success to this team- if he can be fit long enough.

So, let’s keep going, don’t let disappointment keep you from supporting The Arsenal. Remember that we never do things the easy way, and the season still has a long way to go so perhaps it’s a good thing that we are faltering now because there is plenty of time to rectify these weaknesses.

Enjoy the Schalke game wherever you are.

COYG!!

Arsenal v Olympiacos: John Terry is Cunt.

My cousin is a Chelsea fan. He was aggrieved when the FA decided to charge John Terry over his racist remarks towards Anton Ferdinand. I said to him, "John Terry is a cunt. The FA will crucify him from time to time whenever they need someone to crucify. Get used to it."

Now, what does John Terry being a cunt have anything to do with Arsenal? Nothing. What has Arsenal's defeat got to do with Chelsea? Nothing. We shot ourselves in the foot on the day and just weren't good enough. I thought all hell would break lose in the second half after we equalised with a few minutes before the half time break, but it wasn't to be.

Instead we came back and shot ourselves in the other foot immediately after half time, meaning we were fucked for the rest of the match.

Abou Diaby did his thigh (surprise!) and had to come off. The whole game hit home a now familiar refrain: We are still conceding cheap goals and are not as solid defensively as we have been over-hyped so far. But that said, we need to pick ourselves up and move on. We can't feel sorry for ourselves. Just ask Mancies United who were beaten by Spurs.

Tonight we have an opportunity to put things right. The players especially will be keen to get back to winning ways as we face Olympiacos. There needs to be a rule against facing the same teams in the group stages of the champions League, just saying... ahem.. we have faced them 2 times in the last three years I think.

Mikel Arteta has a knock and I wouldn't risk him, considering that Diaby is out for 3 weeks. Starting him tonight could see us lose 2 of our starting 3 midfielders and that could prove too costly. Aaron Ramsey will be eager to play in place of Diaby while Coquelin needs to start getting games. The Manager says that Diaby's injury is an opportunity. Sad but true.

Szeczesny is also injured, but hey, for the first time in donkey years, I am not worried about our goal keeping situation, not with Don Mannone in goal. That guys looks so scary that a striker could miss a penalty just looking at him.

Upfront, It's time Cazorla, Podolski, African Brother Gervinho (ABG) and Olivier Giroud started banging in the goals. No more shitting around in front of goal. We really must be ruthless in front of goal. To his credit, African Brother Gervinho (ABG) scored a belter against Chelski at the weekend. Long may that continue.

I'm really hoping for 3 points tonight. Anything less will be a big disapointment.

COYG!!