Stop the Press!!!!!!

So lots happening with regards to Arsenal news today. First up, and most importantly, we have our stuttering star, William Gallas, admitting how crap his form has been this season. Check it out:

I would close my eyes if I would say I am strong. That would mean I don't recognise I did have a few bad performances - as recently with my club against Hull City. Maybe I feel a little tired.

Do I experience the most difficult period since I joined Arsenal? We could say yes. Above all I miss consistency. One match is good, the other one is not so good. However, I am doing everything to get to my best again.

It gets even better though because not only do we find out that Gallas is a rubbish defender, we also find out that he's not very good at too many other things:

At school he was a right wally – he would sit at the back of the class as far away from the blackboard as possible. One day the maths teacher gave us a test – she knew that William understood nothing about maths, so she allowed him to use the textbook. But even with the book under his nose he still only got four out of 20!

That's according to some half-footballer chump who no ones ever heard of called Rotten or something like that. Rothen also goes on to say how Gallas once stole 1500 francs from another random footballer when he was like 15 or something... wow... fancy that... Captain Criminal... Criminal defending... criminal activity... you get the picture.

On the other hand we have United's Goofy telling the world what a bloody awesome player Theo Walcott is/ will be:

'When you have that pace and an eye for making runs, sometimes it does not matter what you try to do.'It is the same with Cristiano Ronaldo at Manchester United. When players like that see an opening, they are quick enough to get through it and not be caught.'Michael (Owen) was quick, direct and could score a goal. You can see that in Theo too.'

Er...hmmm.... right.... So does that mean that after the age of 25 we may never see Theo Walcott kick a football again? Bloody Hell... that's a freaking catastrophe... well at least Ferdinand is smart enough to see what everyone else saw in Theo...

Three Years Ago...

But i'm sure that Ferdinand was able to pass mathematics...

or at least get a 5/20...

In other news, Robin van Persie is out for the Dutch squad with a hamstring injury. I suspect that means he'll be out for the rest of the season for Arsenal and we can look forward to his annual run of 10 games come August next year.

More Arsenal News tomorrow...

Boring Boring Internaaaaationals

Well the damn international break is well and truly in force when I have to start talking about people like Mikael Silvestre and Amaury Bischoff. The both nailed successful returns to football with a 3-2 reserve team win. Amaury is apparently skinnier than pictures post-signing suggest... Whoopee... Now I'm in no way excited about Bischoff simply because there is nothing to be excited about. I WILL, however, be excited about Silvestre because due to our relative defensive crisis (i.e. Gallas), I think the competition from Silvestre will be excellent in keeping the defenders on their toes. I also feel that he will provide the height that we need to tackle things like corners. The last two weeks have been disasters for Arsenal and I hope that we can get a huge string of Wins peppered with a draw or two (gotta be realistic here) so we can get back on track for the title challenge. We start with Everton on the 18th and gear towards Nightmare November... i'll think about what to blog tomorrow... screw international breaks...

Sunderland 1-1 Arsenal

Okay... another rubbish result...Before the game I was pretty annoyed that Starhub weren't broadcasting the game live but in hindsight, maybe it was a whole lot better. From the highlights that i've seen, we played like snot. Really, really bad. Cesc is not being... Cesc and the 4-5-1 was a pretty useless formation against a Sunderland side who decided to congest the entire midfield. Leadbitter had a cracking goal and we got one back through Cesc in the 92nd minute... this boy has the spirit and i've said it before, he's Mr. Arsenal. There's been alot said over Cesc's relative anonymity this season and his performance on Saturday probably reinforced that belief. I believe it's the midfield problem again... the one that everyone was talking about over the summer... we need a goddamn defensive midfielder... a Flamini. Denilson doesn't cut the DM role. Cesc NEEDS someone for HIM to shine. He had Gilberto and Flamini when he came to prominence and shone brightly but now, without a tackler and a go-getter, Cesc looks lethargic and not ready.

I get a sense that the patience is running thin amongst the Arsenal faithful. To win a title you DON'T drop points against teams like Hull, Fulham and Sunderland. Those are bread-and-butter games that MUST be won in preparation for the dropping of points against the big teams. I don't know how many of you out there have checked out the fixture list but we've got Chelsea, Manchester United, Aston Villa and Manchester City all in the same month for the Prem- November. These are games that will cause us to drop points. There's no denying it. We needed to rack up the points before November's death fixture list. The team needs to get it's act together and start performing like we know they are capable of rather than simply talking the talk.

Look at Liverpool. Even though I dislike them, their game against City last night was class. I only watched the second half but it was the half that mattered. 3 goals in the half won the game for them. Pool want the title. Can Arsenal match them? Will we be able to dig into our reserves to bring out the quality to lift the title? I'm doubtful at this point but time will tell...

I guess the one consolation for the weekend was that Spurs lost :D

Downing a Shot of Port

Despite the criticism, despite the firings of complacency and despite having to face angry fans, the Arsenal team pulled together to rout FC Porto 4-0. The scoreline didn't flatter the Gunners in anyway but it was the right result and showed the determination of the team to come back from a setback (a la Hull City) and get the right result.

The game started a little bit unnervingly with Cristiano Rodriguez's header thumping the bar and Lisandro's shot getting cleared of the line by Clichy (he seems to be the chief clear-the-ball-of-the-liner does'nt he?). After that though, it was Arsen-all. On 31 mins, Adebayor made a great low cross to pick out the oncoming van Persie who smashed it home. Ten minutes later, van Persie's cross turned out the provider for Goal #2 with Adebayor heading home. Fucking amazing header eh? It kept bouncing up down up down before going in. The Porto guys were in shock! Classic!

The restart just made the Gunners gather their confidence and soon enough, a defensive debacle let van Persie toe poke it home from a pretty tight angle. 3-0. The game wasn't done though, with Adebayor smashing in a penalty after Nicklas Bendtner got pulled down in the box... has anyone noticed that Adebayor ALWAYS shoots bottom right for his penalties? My brother is in awe that no one has ever saved a penalty of his...

Misses were aplently though and I think that was of a little concern as the score could have easily been 7-0 or something. Both Nasri and Walcott missed from six yards and though Walcott was mesmerising the whole night, missing from six yards was extremely frustrating for the fans

and reminded us that Walcott is still a kid... never mind... but it would have been nice to cap his performance. Nasri's miss was a little more shocking given the general accuracy of his play but I suppose even Nasri was having an off day and rightfully so after a debacle such as this:

THE SAMIR NASRI SAGA

Enjoy the rest of your day you Amazingly Artistic Amicable Ardent Arsefans!