Aftermath...

Oh what a horrible day... It started quite brightly too until around 17:15. It was quite obvious how the game would pan out after Adebayor had a goal disallowed, despite it being a goal.

We drew 1 - 1 in the end and that was only down to a scrappy goal, credit goes to Toure and Schwarzer for their combined effort. Ironically, our lack of goals recently was tormented further by our former striker Alliadiere opening the scoring for Middlesborough. Oh, did I mention their goal was controversial? If not, it was; there I mentioned it.

There were no excuses about the performance today, the pitch was quality and Middlesborough weren't 'In our faces' like Arsene complains about against some opponenets, Bolton. Although that could be contradicted by Mido's red card in the 80 somethingth minute, a high foot which landed studs first in Clichy's face and then continued to mascarade it's way down. Although that sounds horrible, it was not that bad; a yellow card would have sufficed without much argument.

Now, we are level on points with Manchester United who got a late 1 - 0 win over Derby at Pride Park. They also have a game in hand over us, meaning we have lost our credentials of 'League Leaders' and that has been replaced by 'League Chasers'. Now i'm not trying to sound pessimistic but I get the feeling we are going to finish 3rd in the league, behind Chelsea. Our form in the league has been shocking with 1 win in our last 5 league games, that's 8 points dropped.

I suppose it's now upto Manchester United to make a mistake, let's hope they lose to Bolton on Wednesday by 8 goals so we go top on goal difference; wouldn't that be perfect?

Apologies for the less than optimistic post today, but I banked on an Arsenal win in this game and have been let down.

I will cover the reaction of the game tomorrow.

Have as good a night as possible.

Competition

Ok, I have been thinking about setting up a competition involving Arsenal, and I have now finalised by idea.

Anybody who wants to take part in the competition only have to Email me at lewisrmorton@gmail.com.

The Rules
There are four things you have to predict:

The Half Time Score

The Full Time Score

The Scorers

Which Half Each Scorer Will Score In

0 - 0 Cannot be predicted and this result nullifies the competiton for the day

For instance if I was to say in the Email:

Half Time: Arsenal 1 - Middlesborough 0
Full Time: Arsenal 3 - Middlesborough 1
Scorers: Arsenal - Adebayor 2, Flamini. Middlesborough - Mido.
Time of Goals: Arsenal - Adebayor (1st and 2nd), Flamini (2nd) - Middlesborough - Mido (2nd)

Now if this is exactly what happened I would win the competition and be given the prize money.

The Prize
The prize of the competition is £5 this prize fund will be given to anybody who can get all four factors correct. I will Email the winners back asking how they want their payment delivered.

The reason the competition is difficult is because the betting is free and easy to do too. (5 Minutes of your time for a possible prize). If anyone has any suggestions about this competition please feel free to Email me also.

Started
That's right, I will be reading Emails on predictions against Middlesborough. This competition will take place every Arsenal match day, so predictions a week before a game won't be accepted.

Lastly, winners will be posted in the after match post the same day. If there are no winners that day the closest prediction(s) will be posted and acknowledged but there will be no prize that day.

Thanks for taking part :)

(Remember, Email me your predictions at lewisrmorton@gmail.com

Champions League Draw and More

Good evening all, it has been a rather nice day here in England and only got better when I found out about our Champs League Draw. Everyone should know, but for those who don't we drew Liverpool and will be playing them at The Emirates in the first leg. This in context does give Liverpool a slight edge before the games are played, however we proved this isn't a huge factor for us against Milan.

Liverpool were the best draw we could have hoped for from the other three English teams, for those of you interested the other draws were:

Manchester United V Roma

Chelsea V Fernerbahce

Baraclona V Schalke

Now, when Arsenal beat Liverpool, which they will, we are up against either Chelsea or Fernerbahce which means there is the possibility of playing Baracalona in the final, depending of course whether they can beat Schalke and then Manchester United or Roma.

It's not only me confident about beating the Reds, Wenger is also very confident about our draw, considering our form against Liverpool over the years he has good reason to be.

Wenger says:

"It is interesting and challenging too. It is a good opportunity to be consistent against Liverpool. We will know each other well after the three games"

The three games Wenger is referring to is the premier league game which is bang in the middle of our two legged affair in the Champs League. Three games in a week if i'm not mistaken.

Away from the far future for the time being and into the much nearer future, the future of 5:45 tomorrow afternoon. There is no change to what I said yesterday about the injury situation: Diaby, Eduardo and Rosicky are out and Walcott is currently undergoing a fitness test. The huge positive for all us Arsenal fans is that Arsene has hinted at Van Persie starting against Middlesborough.

He says:

"He is like a new signing," said Wenger. "He has only played the first eight games and scored five goals. At the time you thought that could make for an interesting total towards the end of the season. Now I feel he can give us the last push. He can give the final ball, take free kicks, he's dangerous on corners and, of course, he can score"

That's pretty much all the buildup hype that's been going around, most attention was focued on the draw. Other news involves Eduardo making a visit to Arsenal's training ground whilst Bendtner is eyeing an extended run in the first team, see nothing huge.

I will post tomorrow after the game where the mood of the post will be decided by the result of the game. Passion over professionalism makes this a blog not a book.

Have a good night, the game is on Setanta Sports tomorrow at 5:45.

Summer Plans and Saturday Buildup

Evening all, it's been another confidence filled day from the Arsenal camp. Following on from Adebayor's 30 goal this season promise, he also feels ready to race Ronaldo for the golden boot award, let's just hope this determination doesn't affect his decision making, like passing to Bendtner.

Alex Hleb also believes and expects European success for the Gunners, he talks about the experiance the young team Arsene produced has and how this will help them acheive big. He says:

"We are stronger now than when we reached the final in Paris. Even though we are quite a young team, we do have a lot of collective experience"

I happen to agree with him, we had a lot of under performers against Barcelona in the 2006 final and I feel we have a huge chance of upsetting the odds. (The odds place Barca as favourites despite their less than challenging run in thus far)

In regards to the fixture on Saturday, i'm still expecting a win for Arsenal, as is everyone proberly, even the Borough fans. We are still without Rosicky and Diaby but do have Van Persie and Toure maintaining their fitness whilst Eboue is avaialble after serving his three match ban. Another semi-plus is that Walcott has not been ruled out of the game and he awaits a fitness test to determine his place in the squad. I really hope he is named in the squad as I feel he is playing his best football all season and needs a decent run in the first team.

Regarding the title of this post "Summer Plans" Wenger has already made his intentions clearer by stating his happiness with the current squad and still refuses to believe a big name signing is required. I've trusted Wenger over the years, however this season I have felt we have lacked a sweet winger, and although the likes of Silva or Robinho does sound tempting, i'll wait to comment until the season is over and the summer stories begin.

That's about it for today, tomorrow there will be a bigger section regarding the buildup to the game on Saturday and other stuff.

Have a good night.

The Life of an Arsenal Fan

So, I wake up this morning to an utterly rubbish text alert on my phone, I look over to my clock and see the time "05:45" written in bright blue digital numbers. Unable to enter the trance I was previously in I decided to stroll downstairs for an early morning breakfast; most unwise I can tell you now. The bread was stale, the cereal boxes were empty and to top it of the eggs had turned a funny colour.

Determined to stay awake I sat down on the coach and watched a replay of the Barcelona V Villarreal match, I had been told the score a couple of days back but I wanted to watch the performance of the Barcelona squad. After 60 minutes of riveting football, right…, the final whistle blew. I came to one conclusion and that was that I wouldn’t mind drawing Barcelona on Friday in the Champions League.

Before you ask, yes those two paragraphs were only building up to that one conclusion. I may as well justify it to make it worthwhile. Firstly, without Messi Barcelona seemed to lack attacking depth despite the presence of Henry, Eto’o and Ronaldinho. When you see those three names on paper you wouldn’t ever rule out a goal, but it just doesn’t seem to working.

It was reported that former gunner Robert Pires can see Henry isn’t enjoying life at the Nou Camp like he thought he would at the start of the season. It’s hardly surprising when he, despite playing rather well, gets taken off for a 17 year old. The wrong move for Henry to leave the Emirates? Maybe…

In other news our new main man Mr Adebayor believes he will reach 30 goals this season, a feat which he dedicates to Henry because of his idolizing friendship with the Frenchman. Let’s hope he doesn’t let us down.

I would like to end today’s post with the same thought as that of Flamini. he believes Arsenal should stop making excuses and concentrate fully on being at the summit of the League table come May. I wholeheartedly agree and I know we need to buckle down and win all of our remaining fixtures bar Chelsea and Manchester United. Don’t get me wrong I would like nothing better than to beat those two teams however a more realistic approach would be to look for a draw and wait for Man U to slip up to another average side.

I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow.

Quartet Through and Other Arsenal Stuff

Firstly congratulations to Liverpool for completing the quartet through to the last 8 in the Champions League, first time in history 4 teams from one country have made it there.

Enough of other club talk and back to Arsenal, today there is very little to talk about however Arsene believes Cesc and Flamini to be the best partnership he has worked with at Arsenal. This is a great accolade when you think back to the great midfielders we have had in the past, including, Vieira, Petit, Pires, Gilberto and co.

It has also been suggested after our victory, AC Milan are monitoring and speculating about signing Flamini, something I am dead against, just wish he would sign that bit of paper.

I suppose another positive we can take this week is that it seems Robin has, despite playing a good 30 minutes of football against Wigan, come away with no sign of injury. A very promising sign considering Arsene feels he will make the difference in our title chase. I second that feeling however it may be in doubt after Robin was named in the Dutch squad to face Austria later this month. We all know how Arsenal players are prone to injury in Internationals and I will pray an anomoly occurs.

That's about it, have a dandy night. More tomorrow.

Poor Draw adds to Arsenals Sore

All the hype suggested our Premier League performance was going to pick up after the spectacular 2 - 0 win over champions league holders AC Milan, however it was not to be.

Our League form was again woeful yesterday with a third draw in a row. I can understand, just, drawing to Aston Villa however the Birmingham game last week and the Wigan game yesterday I had down as must win games, i'm sure Wenger did too.

It wouldn't be doing Wigan a discredit to say the state of the pitch was diabolical, from the countless bumps to the Rugby Union lines painted across the pitch. I have both understood and praised the way Arsenal play football, smooth, majestic passing from one end of the pitch to the other, however yesterday was a plain example that our methods need to vary. Now we have Adebayor in our side, a great ball hold up player as well as a good headerer of the ball, I believe when the time comes we can just boot the ball upfield and wait for our midfield to overlap the big man so we don't have to rely on perfect pitches to win football matches.

Although critism is sometimes due we did create a few decent opportunities against Wigan, none better than in the first minute when Adebayor was unleashed by Fabregas with a killer ball only to be denied by a great save from Kirkland. Other chances were more half chances until the 90th minute when Fabregas this time set up by Adebayor for a one on one chance of which Kirkland got the better once again.

That brief summary sums up our perfomance, briefly excellent and mostly average. No excuses next weekend however when Arsenal play in the late kick off versus Middlesbrough at the Emirates. I expect the pitch to be of immense quality and I truly hope the football Arsenal play that day follows it's example.

More to come tomorrow!

First and Foremost...

I’d like to say hello to all Arsenal fans around the world. I have decided to create a blog dedicated solely to Arsenal so you, the readers, can enjoy up-to-date news and personal, very bias, opinions on everything Arsenal.

I plan to update the blog daily in the afternoon sometime, i’m sure i’ll find a more stable post time somewhere in the near future.

For now though, I wish you a good day whilst I go write about our trip to the JJB, the home of Wigan Rugby.