Aston Villa 1-2 Arsenal - Comfort

When all the "title challenge" stuff was being bandied around in November and I was playing everything down (I still am) and just taking it game by game all with the knowledge that I would start to change expectations slightly if we rocked up at Anfield still top. That is 2 home games and a trip to Southampton away. Quite unnerving, as was the last 20 minutes last night....


After Benteke scored was the proper Arsenal I've come to know and love. Palpable relief at the final whistle coupled with the sensation that you're not quite sure how you got through it. We probably dicked around too much and were trying to be too fancy, we also should have had a couple more goals to make the Benteke effort worthless. Cazorla was a bit out of sorts but at the end of the day and I'll say it....That was a performance of champions.

One thing that does get my arse is Giroud. Not the player but the reaction to him, both positive and negative, it's mainly the pro-pro Giroud stuff (With it being January) that's getting on my pips at the minute so I'll try and put this as succinctly as possible....


I DON'T WANT A NEW STRIKER BECAUSE I THINK GIROUD IS POOR, I WANT ONE BECAUSE GOING INTO THE RUN-IN WITH BENDTNER AND PARK IN TOW IS BATSHIT.

We clear? Cool.

I also think it'll be near on impossible to get a striker this January but you live in hope, how much will Sociopath Jose playing silly fuckers with Demba Ba on deadline day actually be worth come May?

I was on the Per Mertesacker bandwagon before it was cool.

On we roll to Fulham on Saturday, a team nearly as bad as Villa so we can be assured of another bum-clencher for the ages, I would give Podolski another start (I haven't touched on the Twitter "Body Language" experts as I really don't care) - Be more pissed if Poldi was happy to sit on his arse and do a Bogarde.

Southampton...Crystal Palace......then who knows.

Half Time

20 games in then, and we're in the unique position of playing everybody but actually we haven't played anyone yet. I am actually surprised to be in this position at this stage of the season and now I'm dreaming of a title run instead of threading the eye of a needle for 4th. The season started in a malaise with all the Villa shenangians, got slightly better with the Fenerbache result and the first of 2 wins over Tottenham.....And then.....OZIL. That kind of changed everything we thought we knew about this club. We had spent £42m on 1 player, not 7, one. And he was world class. I think I'm still basking in the glow of it all happening which is why I'm not fretting so much about January. The ethos seems to have changed. If Wenger decided we need a £32m striker, then it shalt be done. It probably won't but we have the money if the player is available.


My Arsenal player of 2013 and especially this season is de facto captain and nominee for the Nobel Prize of "Best Human" - Per Mertesacker.

I've tried explaining why Per is so great to my father ever since he joined Arsenal, so maybe it'll look better in print than spoken. He knows where to stand. He makes Koscielny a better player because he can play in front of Per and not worry, Per organises, and although Vermaelen is technically a better player, Mertesacker is Lawrenson to Koscielny's Hansen. It just works. He gets the club. He gets this team and his Facebook posts of recent just seem to show how well he thinks of others and the "BFG" nickname. Also there's the small record of Arsenal's defence stats (Which I won't bore you with) with those two in.


Yes, Yes I know about Ramsey and I have a confession to make which will confuse you...I never thought he'd make it back after his injury but I was confident that if he ever proved me wrong, he'd be as good as he is know because he has one quality that is rare in players these days and that is he never goes missing.

I remember a couple of seasons ago losing at QPR 2-1 and Ramsey playing on the right and I think eventually right-back. It was one of the worst performances I'd seen from a player but he never shied away and retreated, he still wanted the ball even though he was terrible. That takes a special kind of player so I'm so glad he's proved me wrong, but I'm not surprised.


The Second Half

Can we win it? Yes! Will We? Probably not but I'm having the most fun finding out. I still think City and Chelsea are the ones to beat for the title and would probably give the nod to Chelsea considering how average they've been correlated to how close they are to the top of the league, City's away form is a concern and they have a lot of the big teams to visit. We also need to strengthen in light of the fact everyone is injured and Giroud has been run into the ground. Two strikers and probably a central defender (Vermaelen can't like being sub in a WC year) and then we can talk. I think I'd be happy with 2nd but the hope is starting to kill me. If we arrive at Anfield top then I think we may be on to something. That's my indicator.


Hope to be writing more in '14. Thanks for reading in '13.

The One Where He Hasn't Blogged For A Long Time And Thinks He Ought To.

 The title of this sums it up. Real life is an annoying distraction from the reality of Twitter and blogging but there you go, there is also approaching the saturation point of Arsenal blogs so maybe the best approach is every now and again, not getting lost in the daily screams to "Enjoy & Share" or @'s on Twitter for a retweet.


Been a funny ol' summer hasn't it? From the highs (Literally!) of the St James' Park away end in May to utter despair of the transfer market, to the quite bizarre Cesc Fabregas situation to the eventual weeping at the news that Mesut Ozil was an Arsenal player. If I were a teacher writing comments on Arsenal's summer it would go something like "Need to try harder, too cautious but saved at the end" - And that maybe is the Arsenal PR dream, the fact you pretty much forgot the utter ballsing we made of much of the summer because you were too busy fist-pumping and shouting at your TV at 10pm on deadline day, or maybe that was just me. Followed Higuain for most of the summer leading to someone very well connected telling me that "Club have found it's striker" - then Madrid get wind of Napoli interest and jack up price - which then Napoli pay, we had the constant umming and aahing over targets, Luis Gustavo-gate and a situation where a lot of people lost a lot of money betting on Cesc Fabregas returning to Arsenal off the back of some "information" - However in this instance I did not enjoy it and I will not be sharing anything else to do with it.


But then came Ozil, who I watched in the flesh for the first time on Sunday and the guy oozes class, whether psychologically you think someone is better because they're more expensive but I found Tomas Rosicky trying to do similar things as Ozil but not pulling them off. There were audible gasps in the home end whenever he broke or pinged one of his inch perfect passes around the pitch. He still doesn't look completely up to speed but that kinda worries me what he'll be capable of.

Seems to be a new vibe around the ground as well, if you eliminate the Villa game. Players look a lot more relaxed and atmosphere has improved, it really is amazing how may areas a big name signing can affect. Very weird vibe of expecting Arsenal to defend properly as well, there was a calmness even at 1-0 down on Sunday where you were never quite worried that they wouldn't equalise, there was a adult nature in how the Napoli game was shut down, Flamini has been inspired.

It all leads to an difficult Novemeber and December but also an exciting one. Thread the eye of the injury needle and if we're still in with a shout, January becomes very interesting and from then on...who knows.


Exciting Times, I don't think this is the end of them, just the start of the next exciting chapter....