No To Carlton Cole

I'm hearing many rumours and people wanting Carlton Cole.....what planet are you on? What do we need Carlton Cole for?

Arsenal need a player who can score first and foremost, now look at Cole's stats and tell me is a goal machine? We need a player who Arsene Wenger called 'a killer' after Man Utd laid the smack down in their 3-1 win last year. Carlton Cole is not a killer, so we don't need or want him.

Arsenal are supposed to be fighting for titles on 4 fronts, Carlton Cole isn't a player for titles, look at the strikers amassed at our competitors, Torres-Drogba-Rooney-Anelka-Barbatov, and we want to buy Carlton Cole? Are you serious? This guy has never scored more than 10 goals in a season?

He may be English, but the English player of high profile in our squad Walcott hasn't improved as we had hoped, so that shows don't just buy a player because he is English. Carlton Cole should go to Aston Villa and join Heskey, there is no place for him at Arsenal.

Wenger needs to get real, he needs to spend big cash, and if that means finding it by not renewing Rosicky's contract, so be it. To get the best, you need to pay for it,you sold Adebayor for peanuts in my view, £25m when other players were going for more like Gomez and Benzema, and you never spent that money, so you should have enough for Dzeko, or a double swoop of Oscar Cardozo and Andre-Pierre Gignac.

Arsenal 2 - Stoke City 0: Eureka, Arshavin can play centrally!!

What a welcome result, and lets be honest, a wholly expected one, 2-0 win at home in the midst of the worst run this season where the team had had 3 losses on the trot domestically. Without the star striker Robin Van Persie, and the injury of Bendtner, two strikers were used before today, Eduardo and Vela. In those three games, both never looked like they knew what central striking was about, not able to make runs, not able to hold time and create space, they both played stinkers against Sunderland, Chelsea and Man City where the team scored a mighty 0 goals.

So, it seems Wenger has had his eureka moment, and tried the Russian dwarf Arshavin as the point man. Against giant defenders of Stoke, Arshavin who this week complained the team lacked anyone to hold the ball, walked the walk and showed Vela and Eduardo what can be done when you use your intelligence and try find solutions inside a game.

Whilst Vela and Eduardo kept doing the same things and had the same results, Arshavin would see what would work and keep doing it. The Stoke defenders sat deep and close to each other, so Arshavin dropped deep and looked for when they split their lines. He scored one goal with a combination with Fabregas, and had he had his shooting boots on, he would have scored another 2 certain goals.

Fabregas also found time to miss a penalty and let his head drop for the rest of the game. Ramsey made certain of the points with a late goal.

Still there are weaknesses, Sagna is still crossing to nobody, and the team always looks to attack, even when the opposition are regimented and showing no sign of breaking their ranks, so why attack and hope you get through? Be patient and draw the opposition out, especially if you have the goal, why press for more if the opposition are sitting deep and playing on the counter, let them come try get the ball, we have the players who can keep it, so they should keep it.

Player Ratings

Almunia 3: Suspect on crosses, sort it out.

Sagna 4: Crosses are useless, stop it please.

Gallas 5: Not much action, decent, although no need to keep charging up field.

Vermaelen 5: Same as Gallas on all fronts.

Traore 5: Decent attacking play, but needs work on defending, which is his primary duty.

Denilson 4: Not awful, but never helped in ball retention.

Fabregas 4: Many bad passes, although set up Arshavin.

Rosicky 2: Poor performance,looks tired, and is now injured for a month.

Nasri 5: So so, not able to do what he does best in finding killer passes.

Eboue 4: Not an attacker, shouldn't be playing there, no end product.

Arshavin 6: Showed the strikers how to play centrally, now show the same attitude in every game please, no time for sulking.


Trainer Rating

Wenger 5: Made the most of the players at his disposal, although why keep playing Eboue anywhere other than right back is a mistake, he has no end product. Also why use Rosicky who looked bad for the 45mins he played? Also he needs to be the voice of the team, tell them to retain the ball better and not over exert themselves, conservation of energy will be key, so many games are coming up and the players need as much energy as they can get.

Man City 3 - Arsenal 0. No One Takes Us Seriously Anymore.

As expected, the Carling Cup has been thrown away, in meek fashion I must add. Not only did the team lose, they played awfully as well. In 3 games, we have conceded 7 goals and scored 0, so much for spanking teams like Everton 6-1.....


The first goal, a catalogue of errors. Tevez took the ball from midfield, found a pass in-between Song-Billong and Eboue for Bellamay to exploit, Bellamy's cross was intercepted by Song-Billong who then passed out to Rosicky. Tevez was still hungry to chase Rosicky down, hustled the ball, played a one-two with Bellamy, then in 7 seconds, was able to waltz past Eboue-Song Billong-Silvestre before firing into the top corner. Wehere was the pressure, where was the tackle? There was none.


The second, Silvestre came forward with the ball, fed Merida who missed his pass to Rosicky, Richards fed Wright Phillips who ran on the outside of Silvestre, came inside, Silvestre simply backing off him and Wright Phillips smashed a shot into the far corner, Fabianski beaten again, 2-0.


The third, Ireland fed Bellamy who fired straight at Fabianski, Arsenal broke away with Rosicky who fed Merida. Merida lost the ball on the edge of the City box, Toure fed Ireland, Ireland swept it right to Bellamy who sped past a first Wilshere challenge, then sped past Billong-Song and Wilshere who bumped into each other, got into the box, squared right for Weiss to nip in ahead of Traore and make it 3-0.

Horror show when analysed like that, then again some said we were unlucky, rubbish. This team has no mentality or desire and can't tackle. This isn't Pro Evo where the button X works as a tackle, you need to take the ball or the man, period, not let them go past you.

Also, Fabianski sucks, two of the goals are his fault, the first, he got his angles all wrong. He covered the near post which had a very small angle and Troare had it covered anyway, leaving over 85% of the goal to be aimed at for Tevez, easy stuff for Tevez.




The second goal, again he got his angle wrong, the direction that Wright Phillips was coming from, there was no way he could hit the near post as the anglewas too acute, instead Fabianski closed that post down leaving Wright Phillips over 85% of the goal to aim at, that is easy to do. Fabianski needs to go on loan, and maybe for 3 years to learn how to keep goal, these are elementary mistakes.



Player Ratings

Fabianski 3: One good save, hard to criticise the third goal, poor technique and intelligence for the first two goals.

Eboue 2: A senior player, lacked energy, lacked desire, and never defended. Unacceptable.

Song-Billong 3: What kind of a tackle was that for the first goal? And for the third, he bumped into his own player, and picked up a cheap yellow card so is banned for Stoke.

Silvestre 2: He was ASDA for Man City, every little helps. Gave them loads of chances, he MUST NOT play in the first team.

Traore 2: You see Weiss is bombing in and you relax, what did you expect him to do, pass the ball, he was coming to score, wake up please.

Eastmond 1: Out of his depth today, simple as that.

Rosicky 1: A senior player, and he was lethargic, never led the midfield, and cost the first goal. You are a hero of mine, but this was awful 'Dumpling'.

Ramsey 2: Invisible, no combination play, no leading, awful.

Merida 2: Cracked the bar, but gave the ball away twice and it was costly, created nothing either.

Wilshere 1: Created nothing, and for the third goal, let Bellamy run for 45m and never once put in a tackle, just jogged with him, what is that?

Vela 2: Never came to get the ball, never had any shots, another bad game.


Trainer Rating:

Wenger 2: I don't care about the hand shake, if he doesn't want to he doesn't have to, at least he won't be a hypocrite. What I have a problem with is his fielded a team of kids against a top team, he is paid to win games, and this team was never going to win. The formation was inept, the midfield was over run and he never changed it. His selection also ensured if we went behind, we never had the players to change the result with out of form players like Nasri-Walcott-Eduardo kept at home, why? What do we do in training if we don't work on where we are weak? We don't know how to defend, and if you can't defend, which is the easiest thing in the game, it makes it harder to score, and scoring is the hardest thing to do in the game.

Man City vs Arsenal, Carling Cup, Wenger and his 18.

Seeing the squad nomination list today for the away game at Man City reminds me of Leonidas and his 300. Leonidas was a man of honour, a man of glory, and he went down a path thinking it was right whilst knowing it would be his ultimate fall. How did he expect to contain a legion of continents with only 300 of his finest soldiers in the final stand at Thermopylae? The Persians had more weapons, more soldiers, and even if they were less skilled, the sheer numbers alone would make them win through intimidation.

Our squad today are lambs to the slaughter. We only have Rosicky, Song-Billong, Silvestre, Eboue who are players with experience and ready to take on the expensively assembled hoard of Man City. Where is Senderos? If he has been dropped, Wenger is playing a very dangerous game, we are 1 injury away from calling him to be on the bench, especially with Song-Billong going away at the end of the month, he needs as much match preparation as possible, this is bad management if he isn't injured or has a family problem.

Also, where are Nasri and Walcott? They need practice as they haven't played much and are regarded as first team players. Eduardo could do with a game too, to find his shooting boots.

One thing for certain, we will concede a goal, and when you know that, you know you may not win the game, I don't expect us to, and this is a trophy simply thrown away. What a shame for us Arsenal fans who pay top dollar, and for the travelling support too.