Owner: A Cultured Left Foot URL:http://aculturedleftfoot.wordpress.com Join Date: Sat, 03 Feb 2007 10:39:25 -0600 Rating:0 Site Description: A Look At The World Of Football Through Arsenal Eyes Site statistics:Click here
We're Gunner Go To Cardiff 2007-02-01 07:00:14 The opening goal though came with just over ten minutes to go; Rosicky played Adebayor through, Huggy Bear coolly sending the ball into the bottom left hand corner with Robinson going to the right. 1 - 0 and surely that was that. All that remained was for the team to show some defensive maturity and see the game. They did not and have learned a valuable lesson.
Within ten minutes, Tottenham were level. Jenas hit a cracking ball in from a free-kick and Mido headed home. To be honest, you cannot really criticise the defence for conceding as it was a well-rehearsed move and good header. If I was to nitpick, I would suggest that Almunia was about three or four feet too far to his “back stick” leaving the rest of the goal open. A defender on the line may have solved that problem but it was not to be so extra time loomed.
Extra time came and the technique I spoke of earlier came to the fore, with the level of possession football being worthy of any big stage. Tottenham were f Read more:Cardiff
, Gunner
Michel Platini - Good For Arsenal, Good For Football? 2007-01-27 07:00:48 “He is a very intelligent man and he loves football” . The latter is not in doubt, someone capable of producing such sublime skill on the pitch must be in love with the game of football; what had not necessarily been seen in the wider audience was the former. Any doubts in that respect should be dispelled by his proposed change to the Champions League.
The more you look at it, the more you have to admire the politics behind it. In the first instance, he is saying to the smaller nations that their Champions should be respected for their achievements and not shunted into the UEFA Cup just so that the fourth best team in England, Italy or Spain can add a few more notes to their increasing piles. Where Platini
has really put the political boot in though is to open up another argument with the G-14 clubs. His manifesto is another attack at the clubs, looking to weaken their increading stranglehold on football. By attempting to marginalise the big clubs to the small, he is hoping Read more:Football
, Arsenal
Another Missed Opportunity To Add To The FA's Scorecard 2007-02-06 07:00:35 here.
Much brouhaha in the media recently about the appointment of Stuart Pearce as England’s Under 21 manager for the next six months; Manchester City’s Board and Supporters are understandably concerned that it will have an adverse impact on their season which is rapidly taking a downward plunge whilst Steve McClaren and a host of other former England Managers believe the role should be full-time. Pearce is a blue-eyed boy, doing OK at City and nothing more, but in the tired eyes of the assorted former Fleet Street hacks, he is perfect fodder for the future occupier of the hotseat at the helm of the national team, the Under 21’s job is seen as an ideal stepping stone.
There is little evidence to support either Pearce’s claims for the top job at present nor is there any to support the view that the role of Under 21 manager should be full-time. The most successful incumbent in recent years was Peter Taylor who managed to combine that role with steering Hull and n Read more:Opportunity
Just Chillin' 2007-02-07 07:14:06 here.
Last night’s encounter at The Emirates was a decent match, Portugal overcoming Brazil by 2 - 0. Gilberto Silva played the full ninety minutes but at least he has not got much travelling time to get home, the journey from North London to Hertfordshire not noted for inducing jetlag, which means he should be fit and raring to go on Sunday. Staging of these matches is good for the Club in that it is a showpiece that allows them to apply for staging a UEFA Final at some point in the future which would be a prestigous event, and a snub to the newly completed Wembley Stadium if the Authorities chose The Emirates first. Arsenal Ladies home leg in the UEFA Cup Final was supposed to be held at the stadium but quite how much influence TV has over football is shown by the fact that the game is being held at Borehamwood FC. Arsenal had suggested that the match be staged after a League game with the hope of some of the crowd staying afterwards to watch the Ladies in action. However, that
Saturday Round-Up 2007-02-10 09:56:32 Hampstead and Highgate Express ran a report yesterday that the club has the highest number of members of any club worldwide, currently standing at 175,000 with Benfica supposedly second with 161,000. Interestingly, the report makes no mention of Barcelona and Real Madrid, both of whom have more socios than Arsenal’s membership total but I suspect that these are split amongst the various other sports such as Basketball, which are part of the clubs in question. However, that is not denigrate the efforts that the club have made in recent years to exploit this commercial avenue. It helps to boost figures when only members can get tickets at the new Stadium but even that cannot account for the huge numbers enrolled. The Club also deserve credit for attracting 29,000 to the Junior Gunners scheme which is easily the best in The Premiership.
The Club itself is responsible for some other interesting data, 27 million fans worldwide is the reported figure from 2005 which apparently makes i Read more:Saturday
PREVIEW: Arsenal v Wigan Athletic 2007-02-11 06:00:07 BBC is largely devoid of any defensive cover which is surprising as unless I have missed something, Connolly is fit and could fulfill that role for the first team. However, Arsene seems to know what he is doing and assuming that the notoriously unreliable Beeb are right, the team I foresee starting is:
Lehmann; Hoyte, Toure, Djourou, Clichy; Walcott, Fabrega, Gilberto, Rosicky; Adebayor, Henry
with a bench of:
Almunia, Flamini, Aliadiere, Baptista, Traore
I suspect that Gilberto is deemed to be the cover for either Toure or Djourou whilst an injury to Hoyte may well see Flamini increase his repetoire of positions filled at Arsenal
to right-back as well, although I have a feeling that he has carried out those duties already. At my advancing years though, the memory is one of the first faculties to go although typing is not far behind because I am all fingers and thumbs in doing this. And you will have to forgive any spelling errors because I cannot get things right.
Anyway, I digress. Read more:Wigan
, Wigan Athletic
Turning Back The Years 2007-02-15 10:26:15
Step forward Gilberto, cool, calm, collected despatcher of Tottenham with a penalty brace to blaze this one so high and wide that the Ministry of Defence had to phone the UN Security Council to confirm that the UK had not launched a pre-emptive nuclear strike against anyone. It is now in orbit with Chris Waddle’s penalty kick from the 1990 World Cup Semi - Final.
That miss deflated the team a little but they still produced counter-attacks as Bolton pursued an equaliser. The confirmation of the win looked to have arrived when Adebayor broke free with five minutes to go, rounded Jaaskaleinen and promptly shot against the post, watching the ball rebound across the face of the goal. This time, in fairness to the analysts, they tried their hardest to prove that the ball had bobbled before Adebayor shot. But it didn’t.
At that point the Footballing Gods decreed that Arsenal had created enough opportunities to win the game and Bolton should be allowed an effort on target. As at t Read more:Years
, Turning Back
Are You Sitting Comfortably? 2007-02-16 08:41:14 one. The story itself is in fact a pile of something that you avoid when you go for a walk in the countryside for the attendance figures at matches are never about bums on seats, all about tickets sold, which is effectively all the club can report. They have sold 60,000 tickets so that should be reported but it is not the attendance figure, ie people in the ground. Perhaps it is the name that is wrong, a new moniker would stop confusion. There is another reason for reporting ticket sales, for the tax authorities have long used them as a countercheck for reported figures for revenues, ensuring that they bear semblance to the revenues reported.
For the football fan, it has regularly been a bone of contention to see swathes of empty seats at sold out games. There are always occasions for not going when you have tickets, we’ve all been in that situation where the match is re-arranged or you’ve been too ill to attend although given that there are more mobile versions of life-s Read more:Sitting
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