Back Rosicky & Fabregas in Hamburg

– by

THIS WEEK will be fun.Don’t you just love the Champions League?

For Arsenal, it’s : hello Hamburg, hello Juan Pablo Sorin.

The long-haired, busy Argentinian joined them from Villarreal on deadline day.

I’m banking on Rosicky and Fabregas taking Hamburg apart, as I said yesterday, so I’m looking forward to Wednesday night.

And I’m looking forward to Old Trafford as well, since I don’t think Man United are playing as well as their four wins would suggest.

Yes, this is a period where people have mixed feelings about Arsenal’s prospects.They have reservations. They have worries.Some are paranoid, some are cheerful, some stoical.

Let’s face it,neurotic Gooners go through this anxiety most seasons at this time.

A year ago I said : If Arsene Wenger can finish second with this squad, he knows something we don’t.

In the end, he finished fourth by the skin of his teeth, thanks to a dodgy lasagne which Spurs ate before they played West Ham on the last day.

Some fans now say,” I don’t know where our next goal is coming from.We’ve got guys out there who don’t know how to win a game of football.If we finish seventh the corporate clients won’t want to know and we’ll be in big trouble.”

Other fans say,”We are very close to having a fantastic team.We deserved to win all three games but we gave away three goals with three individual mistakes, three howlers by Lehmann, by Hoyte, by Djourou.”

Others say,”Wenger says it will take ten games to get used to the new stadium but I reckon it will take a year.”

What do I think today?

Well, the phrase that comes to mind about this season is : mixed reservations.At the moment, today, Arsenal’s prospects for 2006-2007 remind me of the Kilburn State.

Decades ago, when I was a rock critic, I took Mrs Palmer to a gig at the Kilburn State.She was a stewardess with British Airways, so she missed a lot of good gigs.

I took her to a show at a cinema quite near where we live.It was Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood, Willie Weeks on bass, Andy Newmark on drums, a fabulous rhythm section.

Weeks and Newmark were top Americans, Newmark played on Fresh and other Sly Stone albums.On paper it was a great band but Keith and Woody were coked out and played far too loud.

It was stupid because the guitars were deafening.And it was annoying. It was very annoying. I couldn’t hear the rhythm section at all.

I wanted to bang Keith and Woody’s heads together.I wanted to kick them, I wanted to hit them with a pick-axe handle.

It was a cocaine gig and it was terrible and after two songs Jan tried to say,”I’ve got mixed feelings about this.”

But she actually said, “I’ve got mixed reservations about this.”

THE BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN that gig and this season is that I knew Keith and Woody could only improve by 15% after two songs, while Arsenal can improve by 80% after five songs.

JENS LEHMAN will love Hamburg.He was in Monaco when the draw was made, collecting his best Champions League Goalkeeper trophy, so when Arsenal drew a German club the TV guys naturally grabbed him. He said Hamburg score a lot from set-pieces.

I think Lehmann will love the game.He is a better goalkeeper now than he was the last time he played in Hamburg.

If the crowd are shouting insults he will be able to understand them.That will not bother Jens or Hleb, or Rosicky, who both played for four years in the German league.Hleb was excellent against Middlesbrough.

Personally, I think Arsenal would gain more than they lose by playing Gallas at centreback and Flamini at left back.

Flamini will not get many games in central midfield because Arsenal have Baptista, Fabregas, Gilberto, Hleb,Ljungberg and Rosicky, SIX PLAYERS who are better central midfielders than he is.

So Flamini should tell AW : I’ll do a job for you, I’m grateful to be here, I’m proud to play for this team, and I’m happy to earn great money playing anywhere you want to pick me.

CHELSEA will beat Bremen tonight and Shevchenko will score.

BARCELONA are hot enough to pulverise Levski Sofia of Bulgaria.

Deco is playing out of his skin and Samuel Eto’o was just unbelievable, just incredible, on Saturday, a fireball, a razor-sharp predator with a huge appetite, a scary appetite.

He missed the World Cup and he has come back on fire.

He scored two against Osasuna, then chased a lost cause, won the ball and gave it to Messi, who cut into the box toward the keeper, saw a defender covering the far half of the goal, and cutely slid his shot between the keeper’s legs. What precision, what skill !

It was 3-0 at half-time and 3-0 at full-time.

Skipper Puyol looked slow in the Super Cup against Seville but Thuram, replacing him on Saturday in La Liga, looked awesome.

Well done Steve Coppell!

Last night Reading beat Man City 1-0, having beaten Middlesbrough in their previous home game.

Steve Coppell is one of the good guys of football, a really decent man.Thrilled for him.Hope they stay up.

Back Rosicky & Fabregas in Hamburg

– by



By Myles Palmer

THIS WEEK will be fun.Don’t you just love the Champions League?

For Arsenal, it’s : hello Hamburg, hello Juan Pablo Sorin.

The long-haired, busy Argentinian joined them from Villarreal on deadline day.

I’m banking on Rosicky and Fabregas taking Hamburg apart, as I said yesterday, so I’m looking forward to Wednesday night.

And I’m looking forward to Old Trafford as well, since I don’t think Man United are playing as well as their four wins would suggest.

Yes, this is a period where people have mixed feelings about Arsenal’s prospects.They have reservations. They have worries.Some are paranoid, some are cheerful, some stoical.

Let’s face it,neurotic Gooners go through this anxiety most seasons at this time.

A year ago I said : If Arsene Wenger can finish second with this squad, he knows something we don’t.

In the end, he finished fourth by the skin of his teeth, thanks to a dodgy lasagne which Spurs ate before they played West Ham on the last day.

Some fans now say,” I don’t know where our next goal is coming from.We’ve got guys out there who don’t know how to win a game of football.If we finish seventh the corporate clients won’t want to know and we’ll be in big trouble.”

Other fans say,”We are very close to having a fantastic team.We deserved to win all three games but we gave away three goals with three individual mistakes, three howlers by Lehmann, by Hoyte, by Djourou.”

Others say,”Wenger says it will take ten games to get used to the new stadium but I reckon it will take a year.”

What do I think today?

Well, the phrase that comes to mind about this season is : mixed reservations.At the moment, today, Arsenal’s prospects for 2006-2007 remind me of the Kilburn State.

Decades ago, when I was a rock critic, I took Mrs Palmer to a gig at the Kilburn State.She was a stewardess with British Airways, so she missed a lot of good gigs.

I took her to a show at a cinema quite near where we live.It was Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood, Willie Weeks on bass, Andy Newmark on drums, a fabulous rhythm section.

Weeks and Newmark were top Americans, Newmark played on Fresh and other Sly Stone albums.On paper it was a great band but Keith and Woody were coked out and played far too loud.

It was stupid because the guitars were deafening.And it was annoying. It was very annoying. I couldn’t hear the rhythm section at all.

I wanted to bang Keith and Woody’s heads together.I wanted to kick them, I wanted to hit them with a pick-axe handle.

It was a cocaine gig and it was terrible and after two songs Jan tried to say,”I’ve got mixed feelings about this.”

But she actually said, “I’ve got mixed reservations about this.”

THE BIG DIFFERENCE BETWEEN that gig and this season is that I knew Keith and Woody could only improve by 15% after two songs, while Arsenal can improve by 80% after five songs.

JENS LEHMAN will love Hamburg.He was in Monaco when the draw was made, collecting his best Champions League Goalkeeper trophy, so when Arsenal drew a German club the TV guys naturally grabbed him. He said Hamburg score a lot from set-pieces.

I think Lehmann will love the game.He is a better goalkeeper now than he was the last time he played in Hamburg.

If the crowd are shouting insults he will be able to understand them.That will not bother Jens or Hleb, or Rosicky, who both played for four years in the German league.Hleb was excellent against Middlesbrough.

Personally, I think Arsenal would gain more than they lose by playing Gallas at centreback and Flamini at left back.

Flamini will not get many games in central midfield because Arsenal have Baptista, Fabregas, Gilberto, Hleb,Ljungberg and Rosicky, SIX PLAYERS who are better central midfielders than he is.

So Flamini should tell AW : I’ll do a job for you, I’m grateful to be here, I’m proud to play for this team, and I’m happy to earn great money playing anywhere you want to pick me.

CHELSEA will beat Bremen tonight and Shevchenko will score.

BARCELONA are hot enough to pulverise Levski Sofia of Bulgaria.

Deco is playing out of his skin and Samuel Eto’o was just unbelievable, just incredible, on Saturday, a fireball, a razor-sharp predator with a huge appetite, a scary appetite.

He missed the World Cup and he has come back on fire.

He scored two against Osasuna, then chased a lost cause, won the ball and gave it to Messi, who cut into the box toward the keeper, saw a defender covering the far half of the goal, and cutely slid his shot between the keeper’s legs. What precision, what skill !

It was 3-0 at half-time and 3-0 at full-time.

Skipper Puyol looked slow in the Super Cup against Seville but Thuram, replacing him on Saturday in La Liga, looked awesome.

Well done Steve Coppell!

Last night Reading beat Man City 1-0, having beaten Middlesbrough in their previous home game.

Steve Coppell is one of the good guys of football, a really decent man.Thrilled for him.Hope they stay up.