Afternoon all,

So today our illustrious boss celebrates his 62 birthday. 15 others have been as Arsenal manager. Quite an achievement that needs to be celebrated. So I’ve decided to try and be a bit upbeat in today’s blog. A celebration of the success of le boss if you like.

I wonder what he got for his birthday? I wonder if Mrs Wenger has a party with pass-the-parcel, musical chairs and alike? I like the idea of Arsene playing musical chairs, reflecting after just missing out on winning a lollipop:

I felt I was strong, played the game well and looked like it would be positive, but maybe I dropped a little bit physically on the last Michael Jackson track.

I think if we were to ask Arsene now what he’d like most, apart from a new set of legs for Diaby, he’d say three points is all he’d care about. And that’s something we can all share in and enjoy so let’s hope for that outcome tomorrow.

I think I’ll post some thoughts on how I see the game panning out tomorrow, but for now, some quotes from the man of the day and some thoughts on them from your humble narrator. Regarding something I touched on in previous scripture, AW said of our non-aesthetic performances of late:

I do not want to convince that we play in a fantastically eye-catching way at the moment but I believe as well the critics have gone a bit overboard.

Perhaps. Maybe people are being harsh. After all, when Man Utd went the first half of last season without setting the place alight, we heard no talk of crisis or disappointment, just of a team capable of ‘grinding’ out results. Like I said previously, give me the rest of the season ‘grinding’ out wins and I’d take it.

He also said:

We had to become a bit more stable defensively. After you concede eight goals it’s always a shock for a team.

But we have gone through a stage where we had first to settle down again and be more stable defensively.

Not sure I’m 100% convinced of our defensive stability just yet, but I’m happy to be convinced. Given that we’ve not been able to field an unchanged side too often down the years (I think it’s 3 times in 176 games!) I think it’s always going to be difficult. But I have to admit it was a solid performance on Wednesday night and I was really pleased to see all the fist pumping at the end of the game. It showed how much it meant to the players and what a win would do to the confidence.

Le Boss also spoke in defence of Andrei Arshavin, calling criticism of his work ethic unfair. It’s not really any surprise that he is defending one of his players, but when the fans in my corner tell Arshavin to ‘slow down!’ when he warms up near us, it does show you the general consensus inside the Emirates of the little Russian.

I think the thing that is the most frustrating thing for me is that for a footballer, you can’t learn, teach and train skill and ability, but you can for application and work ethic. Arshavin would only need to put a few shifts in, perhaps be a bit more like Rosicky, and we would see a totally different footballer to the one that occasionally puffs out his cheeks after 20 minutes!!

Anyway, a Saturday without Arsenal means chores and shopping with the management later, so I’ll be offski. More on the limpets from Stoke tomorrow.

Laters all.

follow me at
SuburbanGoonerChris