Latest : The Cardiff game has been postponed till Monday Feb 16.
The 50th league game at the Emirates was a boring 0-0 draw.
Afterwards, David Dein, who goes to every home game, did an interview with BBC Radio 5Live. He was quite diplomatic, saying that Wenger preferred to polish his own rough gems, rather than buy diamonds polished by someone else.
He said the team needs Arshavin and Arsenal should pay whatever it takes to secure his services. All the headlines said : David Dein : This proves I was right.
Wenger was asked : Are you now struggling to make the top four?
“We made a profit this year,” replied the manager.
What?
An extraordinary remark. When did a manager ever reply to a question like that with an answer like that?
Some months ago Michel Platini said Arsene Wenger these days is more of a businessman than a coach. There was a minor uproar. I think Platini later said he had been misquoted.
In his programme notes for the West Ham game, new CEO Ivan Gazidis assured fans that they would reap the benefit of club’s prudence in three years time.
Arsenal 0 West Ham 0 was more boring that the lively goalless game between Wigan and Aston Villa. If Arsenal didn’t win, it was important that Villa didn’t.
On that performance, Adebayor is the worst centre forward in the EPL, apart from Anelka. Kevin Davies is better than him. Clint Dempsey at Fulham is better than him. Even Jay Simpson, now on loan at West Brom, looks better than him.
After the 4-4 draw against Spurs on October 29, I said : There is no season, there is only the next match. Two months later a lot of Gooners have stopped caring whether the next match is a win or a loss or a draw. They are demoralised. Fans in Club Level are dropping out of the expensive seats and going back to their cheaper season tickets next year, having rented them out for the last three years. So AFC will find out how real their 40,000 waiting list is.
The Arshavin saga is ongoing and more will be revealed today.
The deal looks stalled over his agent’s cut. So it looks a bit like the way Arsenal lost Ashley Cole. Except that Cole was not coming from Russia. He’d been at Arsenal since he was nine years old.
Emmanuel Petit has said he would welcome the arrival of Andre Arshavin but noted that Arsenal need Flamini and other experienced players. “The club needs to spend a little bit of money to bring some experienced players who can hold the dressing room and be a leader on the pitch. When I see Arsenal ready to spend £15m on Arshavin, I don’t mind, but I would rather spend that kind of money on bringing back Flamini. I would rather spend money buying some defenders and one more goalkeeper. But you need experienced players to win games at the end.”
Right now, Arsenal are the second team in London, the fifth in the league, and the eighth team to be screened by Match of the Day on Saturday nights.
Arsenal’s season is now the FA Cup. Leaving out Robin van Persie from the starting line-up proves that Wenger realises that. He needs to beat Cardiff tomorrow night and he needs RVP to score a goal or make a goal, so he rested him and brought him on late in the game
LIVERPOOL beat Chelsea 2-0.
They were lucky that Mike Riley sent off Lampard for a challenge that wasn’t even a foul. And lucky that he ignored violent conduct by Gerrard on Bosingwa after 2 minutes. Not to mention a wild studs-up lunge on Kalou that missed the ball. Kalou saw him coming and hopped up to avoid a broken leg.
I haven’t seen Stevie G perpetrate such a wild tackle for about three years. Looks like that court case is affecting him. He has been charged with assaulting a disc-jockey in a night club in Southport. He is one of the good guys of football, so I hope he did not punch anybody that night. I hope it was one of his mates.
Lampard’s red card will be rescinded. It was a loose ball, he got there first, Alonso kicked Lampard’s leg and tumbled over. How is that a red card? Riley was right behind Lampard and did not see it properly. He has to look at it again and own up.
Then Mike Riley should be relegated to the Championship for the rest of the season.
Clearly, I would prefer to see an open game with exciting football. But Liverpool-Chelsea was a game of marking and pressing, where both sets of players closed each other down efficiently. I like the work ethic of that, the seriousness of that, even though it’s not easy on the eye.
Fernando Torres is the most complete European striker to come into English football since Jurgen Klinsmann. He is not yet fully match-sharp and while I thought Liverpool would shade it, and backed them to win, I was beginning to give up, even after Benayoun came on.
It was as if Rafa was scared to lose the game with owners Hicks and Gillett there.
Still, I thought Torres was looking sharp enough to score in their next game. Then he scored in 89 and 94 and Liverpool won 2-0.
Torres’s movement for the header was superb, nicking in from of Alex to glance past Cech, whose starting position was very bad.Ashley Cole’s mistake allowed Benayoun to run into the box and go straight at goal. But Benayoun dithered and allowed a terrific recovery tackle by Cole, whose left foot jabbed the ball square. But it went to Torres, who slotted for 2-0.
Fernando Torres is a very special talent and a very strong character. He is the kind of player you can support, that you can believe in, that you can forgive. He is a star and the right kind of star. He’s not flaky, like Adebayor, or a bottler, like Anelka, or moody, like Drogba. Anelka and Malouda are two of the most spineless, gutless tossers ever to play for a major club in England. No wonder Roman doesn’t watch Chelsea any more.
Why did I back Liverpool? Home advantage? No. Gerrard’s form? No. Because Torres is getting sharper? No. I backed Liverpool because I know how useless Anelka and Malouda are. They are phonies, pretenders, fakes.
This 2-0 defeat means Scolari will concentrate on the Champions League. Chelsea have no strikers, so winning the Champions League is impossible.
Manchester United have been handed the league title. And they deserve it. Michael Carrick on his own is better than Song, Eboue, Nasri and Denilson put together. They beat Everton 1-0 at Old Trafford.
It’s still snowing in northwest London. It’s very picturesque and the most snow in London for 18 years. But I don’t know how people will get to work today. All the buses are out, tubes are severely disrupted. Don’t know exactly what’s happening with commuter trains but imagine it’s a nightmare.