First Half Highlights: Watch

Robin van Persie 1-0 ’47

Own Goal 2-0 ’50

Their goal 2-1 ’53

Robin van Persie makes it 3-1 85′: Watch

Full Match Highlights: Watch

All the Goals (nice package): Watch

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Hahahahaha. Yeah, this one was a laugher. Just for kicks we should’ve subbed off Almunia for Lehmann after 6-0 just to piss him off further. Why didn’t we start subbing off everyone after 4-0 is puzzling. Remember that RVP got injured when the Dutch were up 2-0 in a meaningless game. Walcott almost ended his year of drought with a hatrick, got absolutely denied by the goalie late in the match. Read the Match Report. I also uploaded this interesting discussion about the team from the Champions League post-game show. Check it out, it talks about how Gilberto and Lehmann are in the same position but the former has chosen to STFU while the latter hasn’t.

Time to put this behind us, two huge games coming up: Liverpool at Anfield this weekend and Man Utd at home the following weekend. RVP wasn’t missed at all in this game but we’ll need Adebayor to compensate for him in the next little while. It says a lot about Ade that he couldn’t get a goal in a 7-0 rout.

Two words to sum up the evening: Perfect Football.

Make sure to grab the feed. The individual goals are below, here’s a full highlight pack (download):

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Fabregas ’5 1-0: Download

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Hleb ’24 2-0: Download

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Walcott ’41 3-0: Download

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Hleb ’51 4-0: Download

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Walcott ’55 5-0: Download

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Fabregas ’58 6-0: Download

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Bendtner ’89 7-0: Download

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Arsenal’s domination of Tottenham extends beyond just the Premiership, let’s go back to Saturday and Euro 2008 qualifiers, it’s Germany vs. Ireland (highlights here) and Jens Lehmann is in goal. Robbie Keane blows two great chances to put Ireland ahead, one of them a weak attempt at a lob which goes straight to Lehmann. Keane’s striking abilities are later heavily questioned by manager Steve Staunton. Just something that brought a little sunshine to my weekend. Speaking of Jens, he vows to be back in goal against Bolton next weekend, a game that I will miss because of travel.

“I was injured, it was the first time since I am at Arsenal and I expect the boss to play me.”

Of course this comes right after he accused Almunia of not showing any respect towards him and not that long after Oliver Kahn took another swipe at him. Jens sure makes a lot of news. Even though I like his grittiness and toughness, it’s getting awfully hard to look past the friction and annoyance he’s probably causing in the squad. There’s confidence and then there’s cockiness, the latter tends to piss people off and I think Jens is exuding more and more of it. Anybody here find himself cheering for Almunia even though we all know he’s NOT the better goalie? Sounds a little sick, doesn’t it?

Thierry Henry has confirmed that he might’ve been a bit of a negative influence at Arsenal over the last couple years. Not that anyone cares at this point, to be frank I’m getting a little tired of Henry comments about Arsenal even though they’re positive ones. I mean, lest we forget, but it’s about time to move on already.

That’s all I got. Grab the feed.

Still comfortable with Almunia in the net? He’s got to save the second goal and preserve the lead. It’s alls well that ends well I guess but we definitely saw a chink in the armour. Not a big chink but moments in the game where our passing ability deserted us and we were carelessly giving the ball away. Sunderland grew in confidence and managed to equalize because of our lackluster defending after the first two goals. Robin van Persie’s and his powerful left foot is the savior again.

How about Senderos, only he could score a goal like that. Body going one way, keeper some other way, and ball some other direction. What an ugly un-Arsenal goal, I almost wanted to give that one back but turned out we really needed it. Is it just me or does Sagna play better with the longer hair? I think it adds a little intangible toughness to the man, something that says, “Son, I’m gonna eat you after the game”. Grow that shit back man. So what’s this we’re back at the top of the table two points ahead of Man U with that ever-present game in-hand. I love the game in-hand, we always seem to have played one less than anyone else, it’s almost therapeutic.

Will RVP score 25 goals in the Premiership this year? I think so, he’s in top notch form and will score at least twice of what Adebayor will. Will Senderos ever score again in his life? Probably not. Can Diaby do anything with his left foot? Now I think he’ll be great for Arsenal for years to come but right now it’s almost painful to see him on the left side trying to desperately bring the ball over to his right so he could shoot it. It’s like he’s trying to draw a circle in the air with his right hand while moving his right foot counter-clockwise. Try it, see if you can do it? Didn’t think so.

Arsenal fan, I have some news. The Toronto Raptors season is starting soon which means another team to cover so the Arsenal posts might be shorter in length/content. Fear not though, the Toronto FC season is coming to a very slow and pathetic end so it means one less team to cover.

This was a 7AM start in Toronto so one must now sleep. BTW, Sopcast and MyP2P are being total bitches these days so I have to thank Arsenal Clips for the highlights. Grab the feed.

Check out all the goals in one video or download all the goal in one big rar file. 22.5MB. Or you could download the 89MB MOTD BBC highlights.

Here’s the Arsenal.com Match Report and something from the BBC with post-match interviews.

RVP 1-0 ’7 Download

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Senderos 2-0 ’14 Download

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Wallace 2-1 ’25 Download

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Jones 2-2 ’48 Download

RVP 3-2 Download

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Following the Sevilla demolition this had to be considered a bit of a letdown but even so it was a deserved victory. Fabregas amazingly missed a complete sitter early in the game and after that I was thinking that those chances might come pretty often. But Steaua was resilient and tightened their defense until it was unlocked by Adebayor’s centering pass, which after being whiffed by Fabregas, was slotted home professionally by RVP. We dominated the game for the most part and deserved a result although we were lucky when Almunia was caught way out of his line and had his hide saved by Toure’s clearing header late in the game.

As the match report points out half the seats in the stadium were empty which is shocking considering what a rarity Champions League football is here. But that didn’t stop Steaua from mounting a strong challenge forcing Arsenal into using all the grit we had. As Wenger says, Arsenal have shown maturity, last year this easily could’ve ended up 1-0 against us (as it did in Moscow):

“Steaua defended very well and we couldn’t find the openings, so we had to show patience. Patience is linked with maturity and we were conscious of that at half-time. I’m pleased because we kept going, we were intelligent and in the end scored the goal which gave us a deserved win.”

The Mail’s gone as far as calling this a “historic win” given our failings in Eastern Europe over the last decade but I just call it some really bad luck. All in all it’s a good win where we once again fought through some adversity and came out with a result. Everyone’s favorite whipping boy, Adebayor deserved to score a goal, he was a real presence in the box and had a big role in creating almost all our chances. He’s starting to have an impact on games without even scoring which says a lot about his development as a center forward.

Almunia looked a little shaky today, he had the “Deer Caught-in-Headlights” at least twice, once when Toure was forced to clear the ball and then again when Constantin Iacob wasted a chance on a 2 on 1 with Almunia being the 1. But then again when you have a clean sheet things like these get lost in the shuffle. We should all thank Robin van Persie for having the best finishing touch on the team, when a shot needs to be taken that requires both accuracy and power, he is the best we’ve got. On the defensive side of things Sagna is becoming what we thought Senderos might be, a strong physical no-nonsense presence. A great summer signing which perfectly complements the forward-thinking Eboue and the stay-at-home Toure. I think it’s fair to say that after Toure, he is our best back.

On a completely different note I was made very happy when I learned that the new Champions League intro has the Alessandro Mancini’s insane stepover against Lyon in it, check it out.

Grab the feed, highlights below.

Robin van Persie ’76: Download

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French Highlight Pack Download 14.5 MB

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Check Arsenal Goals Clips and Arsenal Clips for more.

This was supposed be where we might’ve dropped some points in September but an un-Arsenal goal courtesy of Hleb’s pinpoint pass to RVP’s head put us up 1-0 in the 13th and that was enough. I was also following this game on the Arses of Arseblog and CruEL had this to say about Adebayor which made me laugh:

“Adebayors 3rd sitter. Another 7 more and he’ll score. Wait for it Gooners! Wait for it!”

Not to rip too much on Ade but he does miss some chances where you just know Thierry Henry would’ve just buried. Freddie Ljunberg thought he had scored and looked to celebrate but it was called offside. It was almost like the goal went in and the football Gods saw that he was about to celebrate against us and said, “Naaaah, We’re taking this one back.” Bendtner was brought into the game for Adebayor (the magic spray didn’t do it’s job) and looked like the Energizer bunny on crack (please tell me you get this reference) and was chasing everything but to little avail, I think he’s just pumped about getting some first team minutes, I say give him a start and if he stutters take him out at the half-hour mark.

Mark Noble’s assault on Hleb (download here) caused Hleb’s knee to bend in ways knees shouldn’t bend, according to Wenger (interview) nothing’s broken but he’ll be missing a couple games. Noble needs to get suspended at the very least, this was a red card tackle. The announcer for Star Sports hated Arsenal, he played down every bad call against Arsenal including the Noble attack and was ripping on Bendtner, Adebayor, RVP and anyone he could find any fault with, the man looked like he grew up a West Ham supporter, he debated every single offside call against West Ham.

What are we going to do about Senderos? Ashton was giving him serious problems all game long and this isn’t the first time Senderos has been made to twist around opposing center forwards. If there is one person that makes me very nervous every time he touches the ball, it’s him. He’s definitely a component that stands to be upgraded.

Anyways, 1-0 to the Gunners. Here’s match report. Grab the feed. Links and video below:

Robin van Persie 1-0 ’13 Download

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Match of The Day Highlights Download

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Star Sports Analysis/Highlights Download

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Arsene Wenger and Alan Curbishley Interviews from BBC

2-0 to The Arsenal, Bendtner (’83) and Denilson (’89) the scorers.

Match Report

BBC has Arsene Wenger’s post-match interview

Arsenal Starting XI

Sky Sports Report

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10-minute Highlight Pack + Wenger Interview Download

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Thanks, Arsenal Clips

Grab the feed.

First up, this game was on Canadian TV via Setanta Sports, first time I’ve seen Arsenal on TV since April so it was already a victory before the match even started. I’m not much for indepth analysis and by nature I’m a pessimist so I have to get some shit off my chest. Adebayor really frustrates me, he hasn’t improved an iota since two years in terms of making the correct decision when the ball is played to him in a threatening position. When he has a chance to make a cross it’s usually crappy in quality and leaves so much to be desired. Why he chose to switch to his right foot when Sylvain Distin was on HIS RIGHT after a beautiful pass by RVP had him alone on the flank is mindboggingly inexplicable. Eduardo came into the game and looked rusty, and how do you fix rust? You give him playing time, and at whose expense? Adebayor.

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It’s nice to see the Arse score 3 goals but you almost needed medication to get through some parts of this one. It was a meaningless game and it was clear that the two goals we scored away were going to be enough but you can’t avoid formalities. 3-0 the final score with everybody on the squad taking their turns at being everything from brilliant to lazy. Eduardo finally got his first real goal with Arsenal and lay there like he had just won the Champions League – it’s just the group stages pal! He’s never been there before so his excitement is justified.

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Missed the game, Sopcast never got going. I hate Canadian TV for not showing this. Moving to England.

• Sky Sports Report.
• Arsenal.com Match Report.
• BBC Sports Match Report – Wenger post-game interview
• ESPN Soccernet Match Report

Here are the goals:

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