Arsenalist

This game brought back some painful and familiar memories. It looked like all the optimism of the preseason was about to get two-flushed down the toilet up until the 83 minute mark. Now it might appear like Tony Warner had an unbelievable game but we’re Arsenal and we’re in the business of making average goalies look great, so we did that again. We created 36584 chances in this game and probably should’ve scored on 12587 of them, but it’s good for us we managed two.

Lehmann had a brainfart that reverberated the entire stadium, instead of just clearing the ball, the fucker decided to be cute and cuddly and play it back to Clichy while doing a sort of fucked up German dance, it didn’t work and the 65,000 at the Emirates plus the 100,000 watching on Sopcast were in shock disbelief. How could he fuck this up so early in the season? We had barely gotten underway.

We can’t finish worth shit but we can create chances, that’s been our story the last two years and it looks like that disease hasn’t been cured yet. Rosicky, Fabregas, RVP all failed in their early goal-scoring opportunities, at times denied by Warner who at one point actually thought that he might win this game for Fulham (Where’s that smirk now MFer?). Although we were down 1-0, this still looked like a 3-1 result for us from the beginning, it’s just when the clock struck 80 that fear crept into me.

Our defense looked suspect just like it did in preseason and we should all thank God for Toure. The man saved at least a couple goals – make him captain already before it’s too late. If Fulham had their wits about them they probably could’ve scored at least another goal but we got bailed out by the Gods. We were playing a very high line at times which almost cost us. The Eboue experiment as a midfielder is officially over, he was taken out for Walcott who still appears raw as hell. Eboue is NOT a midfielder, he’s a foward-thinking back, let’s all accept that and never speak of this game again. Fabregas was brilliant in the second half after a so-so first where he was being tackled a little too easily. Rosicky for the better part of the game was in goal-hunting mode which is what he was hired for.

Hleb should’ve had a penalty awarded when he was brought down in the box but the referee made up for it later by making a 50-50 call our way. RVP nailed the penalty. So let’s get to the man of the hour, Alex Hleb, he says he can score 10 goals and he’s on his way. Excellent game overall by Hleb although at times both him and Rosicky were shooting without looking for other options but I’ll welcome that anyday over too many passes. Hleb isn’t the quickest of cats but he’s crafty and worked the ball around well on the left side all day. I know Fulham is a shit team but Hleb looked really good today, maybe some of you fuckers who hate him should ease up.

At the end of the day we should be concerned with the lack of finishing quality which looked eerily similar to last year. We should’ve won 5-0 but ended up scraping by 2-1. To me that’s cause for concern but then again I’m a pessimist. Anyway, here are the highlights that you came for.

Healy 0-1 ’1: Lehmann fucks up and Healy tucks it in. Inexcusable shit from Lehmann, should be benched for a couple games for this blunder. The worst start in Arsenal history. Ever. Download.

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Robin van Persie 1-1 ’83: 50/50 call went our way. Instead of the penalty in the first half, we get it now. Was it a block or did he run into him? You decide. Download.

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Hleb 2-1 ’90: Aimed for 10 goals at the start of the season and at this rate he’ll score 38. Inury time winner. Great patience, great goal. Saves Arsenal. Download.

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