This blog entry is written in real time. The following takes place between 10AM and 12PM, Eastern Standard Time.

It’s time to salvage whatever’s left of the premiership, Liverpool lost so we can secure our place in the top four with a win. Lehmann’s playing instead of Almunia which would tell me that Wenger values this game more than the Blackburn tie, isn’t that crazy? Watching this game on ESPN via P2P: And anytime Chevy Singh makes a prediction in our favor, we lose or tie and he picks Arsenal to win in a high scoring affair. This has not started well. But Singh seems to be a bit of an Arsenal supporter defending them on their recent losses by saying they still “played the way football should be played”. No Henry, Adebayor, Toure, Eboue, Rosicky or Flamini for this one, so the kids get to play this one out.

The first bad first-touch of the game came from Fabregas, after being setup by Hleb, Fabregas played it too long much to the liking of Hanneman who calmly collected. The first Arsenal chance of the game is a good one but is spoiled by young Cesc. I don’t know what makes Freddie Ljunberg think he can still break down and out-run two defenders who are both in front of him on the flank, but thats what he tries to do and gets stopped. Walcott’s playing in the middle a lot today and his first “chance” comes when he tries to make a Dennis Bergkamp type move to evade the defender by using a first touch would send the ball behind the defender, didn’t work but nice try. Arsenal have all the possession early on and are applying all the pressure but that doesn’t mean a thing now, does it? Until we score, Reading doesn’t care how much possession we have.

It’s stupid for us to expect Baptista to score given his history and his brick wall of a first touch. He has a chance early on right in front of the box, and after a decent first touch, his shot is wide to the right, should have at least challenged Hanneman. Arsenal are breaking forward with Fabregas leading the way and after an exchange of passes between Hleb, Ljunberg and Gallas, it’s Ljunberg who gets to apply the final touch but it’s straight at Hanneman who does well.

Fabregas almost found Walcott on a long pass down the middle but there was too much pace on the ball. At least Walcott is having an impact on this game and making his presence felt. Arsenal playing freely and without any restraints, everything’s happening quickly and there seems to be a sense of urgency about Arsenal’s game - after all it’s been a pretty crappy week. But all that urgency and possession haven’t counted for anything.

Arsenal starting to give the ball away in midfield and Reading is using that to string passes and confidence together. But nothing of consequence comes out of it. The difference between Reading and Blackburn is that Reading actually make a legitimate effort to go forward, albeit, it’s somewhat poor and lacking smoothness but it’s still not boring to watch.

Then typical Arsenal: Baptista and Fabregas have one man to beat and for once Baptista does everything absolutely right and set up Fabregas who just has to tap it in, something any one of us could do with ease, but his shot is a whiff, a complete whiff! He strikes it with his ankle and completely misses it. What a howler! Embarrassing. Definitely should’ve been 1-0 and Reading has to be loving this.

First Half Highlights

Chevy Singh is asked if he still is picking Arsenal to win, give the man credit, he sticks by the Gunners.

Fabregas with two quick chances early on, one setup by Walcott right in front but the defender proves to be more physical and Fabregas goes down too easily. Right after that Fabregas fires a good effort from far out. Stephen Hunt chases down a pass but Lehmann is quicker to it and Hunt responds by going down for no reason. He’s trying to get Lehmann sent off the dirty scum but he’s about to pay the price. Gael Clichy makes a run down the right and is brought down - penalty! No doubt about it. But wait, who’s going to step up to take it, it’s standing captain Gilberto who beats Hanneman to the right. Strong penalty, keeper guesses right but there’s too much power on it. No arguments on the Reading side about the penalty.

Hunt dives, Lehmann laughs, Clichy draws foul, Gilberto penalty 1-0

Walcott is down the right and tries to curl it in a-la Thierry Henry but he gets too straight and there’s no curl to the ball as it goes harmlessly wide. Walcott’s causing some problems for Reading down the right but most he can get out of them is corners of which Arsenal have had plenty all season with little to show for.

Arsenal on the counter attack and it’s Baptista who finds himself with just one defender to beat and he’s one-on-one. My first instinct was that he’ll screw it up somehow but after a couple touches (one where he gets lucky), he uses his strength to hold off the defender and slots it past the keeper.

Julio Baptista 2-0

3 on 1 break for Arsenal and Ljunberg plays it behind Walcott who has trouble controlling it. The game is wide open now and Reading are pulling all the plugs in hopes of going forward. So after Baptista scored today we really shouldn’t expect him to score for the next few weeks, it would be too much to ask and he agrees. At least that’s what it looks like when he half-heartedly strikes a ball which goes into the stands. I’m being a pessimist but I really think he got a little lucky on that goal.

The game was open till the end and Senderos is brought in to defend the corner and quickly concedes a header which goes in. Poor Senderos, God hates him. On the replay, it looked like Fabregas might have tipped it in, so after a howler in the first half, Fabregas gets an own goal. Sidwell comes close to equalizing but Lehmann reaches down to his left to save Arsenal blushes. Aliadiere is also in the game and he has a chance to ice the game but misses a free header that makes him look a little stupid.

Arsenal don’t close this one out the way they wanted to but come out with three points. The Champions League is next.

Fabregas own goal and complete match highlights and analysis

Enjoy.

I’m going to write this post the way the Raptors played this game - sloppy. Bargnani gets to play tonight because his flight got canceled because of the weather but he’ll miss the Cleveland game and fly home to Italy. This reminds of the time Vince Carter chose to graduate on the day of Game 7, nah, not the same. Let’s get to the game, have you heard of Charlie Bell? I haven’t, but after the first half you’ll know all about him, he can shoot and score. Just ask the Raptors. Maybe it was the Rockets win that gave the Raptors the idea that they could just walk into this one and expect a win. It really looked that way as they played like they were expecting the Bucks to be impressed by their win in Houston - they weren’t. Milwaukee hadn’t won in almost a dozen road games and they come into our house and handily beat us. Yes, handily. It never felt like the Raptors were in control of this game. Even Chris Bosh couldn’t assert himself against Brian Skinner. Every time I hear his name, I remember the superintendent from the Simpsons yelling, Skinnneeeer!

I don’t know if I blame Bosh for not demanding the ball or TJ Ford for not giving it to him. It’s probably a bit of both but Bosh didn’t get many touches in this game and when he did, he chose to launch 19 footers instead of taking it to the rim. Even when the game demanded him to drive and set an example, he was too busy wondering whether to turn left or right on his fadeaway. Michael Redd helped us out by having a sub-par game but it didn’t matter because in the fourth when we really need to score, we couldn’t. After Bargnani and Calderon hit back-to-back threes in the fourth to cut a 12 point lead to 6, the Bucks failed to score on 4 straight possessions and the Raptors couldn’t score once in those 4 times. That was the game.

I caught the fourth quarter on radio which is always a pain, an extreme pain really. Listening to Paul Jones is torture, utter torture. And now he’s in the habit of pronouncing Bargnani’s name in what he thinks is the correct Italian way. So now we have to hear Bareignnani every time he does anything. Paul Jones even goes out of his way to say his name, he’ll even mention it when Bargnani isn’t even in the play. He’ll say something like “Charlie V rebounds it but Bareignnani was there if he had fumbled the ball” or something stupid like that. My point is that he compounds the misery.

The Raptors missed a lot of shots they usually make, especially Mo Pete from three, ever three he took was one that was make-able and one that he usually makes. Same for TJ Ford who missed all but a couple of his in-the-lane jumpers. Maybe if he focused more on following through on his shot instead of talking trash to the Bucks bench, he’d have more success. Calderon fared no better today.

Hey, does the lead official get paid more than the other officials? Lot of scrutiny over Bogut these days, whether he deserves more touches or not and whether he’s worth the #1 pick. After this game, nothing was resolved. He didn’t play all that bad and he didn’t get that many touches. I think that’s going to be the story of his career. How come people don’t let Ruben Patterson just shoot the ball instead of dealing with his drives? Note to the Raptors: HE CAN’T SHOOT, BACK OFF HIM. Random thoughts now, how many times have you heard Chuck Swirsky say “he’s on of the classiest people you’ll ever meet” or “he’s a total class act”. I think he was referring to Mo Pete today in those lofty words.

At halftime I got a glimpse of that 1 vs. 100 show where some chick was confused whether 913 Fahrenheit actually equalled 913 Celsius. It was a treat to watch. Best part of the game for me.

One thing I HAVE to mention is the technical foul on Bargnani. Him and Patterson are contesting for a rebound before the FT is taken, the FT is made and there is some very normal pushing and shoving going on. Patterson’s doing 85% of the shoving and Bargnani gets called for a TECHNICAL foul. If you have to call a foul, call a personal foul on Patterson, nothing else. That call came out of the refs ass. One more Bargnani note before we go, he played some excellent defense on Michael Redd on the baseline. The quicker Redd drove baseline on him and Andrea Bargnani used his feet to cut off Redd’s path to the baseline and drew the charge. Excellent quickness and smarts shown by the Italian.

Now I’ll finish this entry off like I’m writing a really bad high school paper: So in conclusion the Raptors lost because they turned the ball over, couldn’t make open shots that they usually make and also because Chris Bosh did not assert himself in the manner that he needed to. TJ Ford also preferred to go 1-on-1 instead of looking for his teammates - that’s always a recipe for disaster.