A couple of days has passed since I last blogged, but in the football world you’d barely have thought time had moved at all, such has some of the recent lamentable matches that have been played, most notably from Eng-ger-land.

I’ll be honest with you; I watched the game and hoped England would win. After all, the Ox was starting, but despite a few good touches was relatively quiet. But what else do you expect from a team content more with the concept of Chelski-esque boring defensive set up rather than a cat and mouse attempt at hurting France by attacking them using the obvious pace of the front three. You can’t set a championship alight if you aren’t given the ball.

It’s watching England that makes me happy to be a gooner and watching under the Wenger era. Yes we have our gripes, yes we get frustrated, and yes we’ve questioned the managers ability to deliver at times, but we have not seen an Arsenal team set up as negatively as England under Hodgson, barring that one FA Cup final in 2005.

I actually have no real problem with Hodgson. I don’t think there are many managers that could polish the turd that is England and make it look like the sweetest rose on the planet. But that doesn’t mean I have to pretend they are anything other than dismal, or look for positives in his tactical decision making that gave England their first points of the tournament.

The fact that Samir Nasri also scored left a sour taste in the mouth too.

Anyway, onwards to all things Arsenal. Still not much in the way of news I’m afraid. There was some bumf about Giroud, which began at the weekend and has intensified somewhat yesterday with GoonerTalk announcing that the Montpellier boss had admitted Arsenal were in talks. Of course we’d never hear anything from Arsenal on that matter, but it’s the clearest indication yet that the Frenchman is on his way to The Emirates. This would be a good move for us and, as I’ve said previously on here, would also be handy if we could shift Chamakh as a result. Giroud will be a good player for us that would offer something slightly different than Robin.

There are lots of people speculating that it will signal the end of our association with RvP, and whilst there is part of me that can see that, I prefer blind faith that the man himself will sign a new deal and that Giroud will be a Chamakh/Park shaped replacement. But I’m not naive enough to think that it doesn’t mean that Gazidis’ comments at the recent supporters club meetings about ‘announcements’ happening soon with regards to Robin are only positive.

If Robin is to be leaving the club then a)I hope they sell him abroad, and b) I am somewhat comforted that they have moved quickly to bring in another striker. I only hope that if it does happen, it doesn’t take him a year to acclimatise to the Premier League, because we are not able to afford an Arsenal team minus van Persie to be profligate in front of goal. The also question remains however, whether or not a player like Giroud would be coming to Arsenal unless he was given some assurances over the number of playing opportunities he’d be given – furthering the argument that Robin will ply his trade elsewhere next season.

Tonight’s footballing entertainment will be in the form of Group A, as the second round of matches get underway. We’ll get to see if Arshavin can string together two impressive performances in a row and at the same time wonder why we haven’t been able to extract that footballing gold from the little Russian at Arsenal over the last couple of seasons. For some extra reading material on that, I’d recommend an article written by Ryan Rocastle on one nil down, two one up on the Arshavin debate.

Tomas Rosicky will also be in action for the Czech’s who I hope smash Greece in the games earlier kick off. I’m really not a fan of the Greeks as a footballing nation. The people maybe welcome and hospitable, but the football is dull as dishwater. They have basically relied on a footballing model that requires you to show no real attacking intent and hope that their opposition are wasteful in front of goal as well. A good smashing of Greece will do me just nicely.

Have a good one peeps.