Wednesday Fun Times - Walcott, Gibbs & Attack Stats

Good Wednesday my friends!

Little round up of the Gooner business for you today.

Theo Walcott has been talking about what he would swap for a trophy. I would probably swap him for a trophy. Hes stats have been good so far this season, still inconsistent but no more so than the whole team so I think he’s been doing alright.

Wenger’s been biging up his man Kieron Gibbs. He has gone so far as to describe him as one of the top 3 left backs in the country. I think you could say that. Arsenal are probably one of the top three teams in England and he plays left back for us so it all fits together quite nicely. Hes played 100 games for us. Well played Gibbo!

Where that puts Nacho in the scale of best left backs in the country is up for debate, probably a little bit too early to tell. Signs are looking promising though.

The other thing I stumbled across while tireless looking for information to enrich your lives dear reader was from here

Check out the stat ‘passes in the opposition half’. We have the top 4. Good work.

Have a good Wednesday and if he see a smurs fan, lend him a scarf or a cough sweat. They’re just about to get a little bit choky.

Until tomorrow.

I hope they dont win the league at ours!!

A good weekend for Arsenal, 3 points in the bag and we keep the pressure on the teams above us. Spurs beat Swansea in the premier league and Chavski beat man u in the FA cup. This leaves us two points behind Chelsea and 4 behind spurs with a game in hand. Although spurs won I still think they will have a slip up or two. They have to play Chelsea and man city so there are some tough matches for them and Chelsea still have to play man u… but so do we.

At the match on Saturday G and I were chatting and came onto the forthcoming match against man u. There was a bit of fear in our conversation when we came onto the subject of ‘might man u win the league at ours. I was dreading the match enough any way, I like big matches but they can also emotionally drain you for the weeks surrounding it. If I found out that it looked probable that they would / could win the league at ours I would go into a period of mourning that might last longer than the ice age. 

I have done the sums and you will be pleased to know it doesn’t look like they will. I think they will win the league at West Ham or villa in two or three weeks time. It is still possible for them to win it at ours but I think it is unlikely now. They are 15 points clear of man city and with eight matches left it looks the most likely they will win it at the hammers.

Phew!!

There is little going on other than that. The press don’t like teams doing well. Good results mean slow news days / weeks.

I mentioned last week that I would be competing in a pram race. It was yesterday, it was a lot of fun, there was a lot of: beer, dressing up, pushing prams and drinking beer. About 25 teams competed and my team ‘Six pints under’ with our vehicle ‘The Death Trap’ finished ninth. I’m quite proud of our achievement and will chuck a few picks up on the twitter page later.

It is too far away to speak about the match next weekend so I’ll leave it there.

Have a good one

Pumpkiii

Arsenal 4 - 1 Reading - Royals Rumbled By Gerv-could have been more-inho

Good Evening Chums!

This blog is brouht to you via Mr. Lateton on Late Town Tennessee purveyors of anti-ageing cream.

So yesterday Arsenal played Reading at the Home Of Football and ran out 4-1 winners!! Hooray!!

The game was a good comfortable victory for the gunners and carried on our good run of form in the Premiere League. Reading were out played and out manoeuvred in what ended up being a good comfortable victory for the super gunners.

Before the game we all met up in the pub and the banter was of a confident manner. Chatting about the night before activities and how many we could win by. So often this season that sort of confidence has been the back drop to a misfiring gunners and points lost to underlings of opposition. Today wasn't go to be one of those days.

The game kick off and almost immediately from the start arsenal began to play with confidence and desire. Keeping the ball well and winning in back with good organisation and control.

Rocky Rocastle was remembered after seven minutes with a chorus of his song and his picture up on the big tv screens around the ground. A great tribute to a fantastic footballer who was sadly taken from us.

Ooooh Rocky Rocky, Rocky Rocky Rocky Rocky Rocastle!!

After eleven minutes gerviniho scored his first and so became gerv-one-inho. He connected with a fast low carzola cross from the left. Darting between the centre backs he smashed it in from 5 yards. 1-0 to the arsenal and the traditional song rung out around the stadium.

The rest of the half was dominated by arsenal with reading not really having much of a look in. Arsenal  should have had a penalty when Taylor, the reading keeper, smash into giroud when clean through on goal. The ref gave nothing.

Gerv-superman-inho

At half time the lead seemed slender for our dominance and contol. The nerves weren't prominent but a second goal was definitely desired by the faithful.

It didn't take long and three minutes after the break Santi gave us the presents we wanted, taking the ball down and curling it round the keeper from just outside the box to make it two nil. Gervinho turning into gerv-assist-inho for that one. A much better position and always important to score soon after the break to stop any sort of resurgence from a poor reading team.

The game continued in much the same vein until 67 minutes when gervinho broke from a reading corner ran half the length of the pitch, drew two defenders, he was certainly gerin-taking your time-inho and played it square for giroud to smash it first time across the keeper into the bottom of the corner. 3-0 and arsenal were cruising.

Cruising is always a difficult thing to do and a lapse in concentration gave Reading a way back into the game. A crisp long ball chipped over to the back post with nacho dipping in concentration left a man whom for the purpose of this blog has no name free to score. 3-1 and the a little sigh from the home fans. Unless we cut this sort of stuff from our game i=we'll always find it difficult to be competitive enough. Dropping off at 3-0 up is forgettable but doing the same at 0-0 will cost us as it has this season already. We need to be full alert all the time , whatever the situation.

Nacho crumpled into the post during that attack and left the field with gibbs replacing him. Great to have some proper replacements on the bench now we have a fitter squad.

On 77 minutes the Ox, on as a substitute for gerv-man of the match-inho, won a penalty which Arteta dispatched away.

4-1 to the arsenal. A comfortable win and a god performance from a more solid and in tune arsenal team.

I'm sure pumpkiii will run through any points in might have missed-inho in tomorrow blog so please come back and read his thoughts then.

With Chavski losing and smurs being a one man team (and hes not even a man) I don't think third place is that far away. Lets keep winning and playing the way we can and really push on for the rest of the season.

Have a good one Tony Adams Magic lovers.

Until next time.

Snips

Arsenal V Reading - Show time

We have a very important match today, we are playing Reading and on paper this looks like an easy 3 points. unfortunately nothing in recent Arsenal history has been done the easy way so we must go into this match with full concentration and as fully committed as possible. I believe this match will set the tone for the remainder of the run in, so we need to play on the front foot and mustn't for a second underestimate the opposition.

We have been guilty of overlooking 'lesser' opposition a number of times this season and it has, quite frankly, ruined the prospect of us picking up any silverware.

4th place is not an achievement of any great standing and we shouldn't aim for it as a target, 4th is the bare minimum. This season we are fighting for our bare minimum expectation. We still have to give it everything to get there. What ever the motivation is to get there doesn't really matter, Nacho and Rambo were saying it was because they didn't want to go down in history as the first Wenger team not to be in the CL. I would defiantly be motivated by beating spurs to 4th and then mocking them for being a bunch of chokers! Lets put them in the sleeper hold! What ever the motivation we need it, lots of it!

We have to win this match and fly into the final 8 matches of the season. Put pressure on the chokers and the chavs and see where we end up. That all starts today against a team we have scored 12 against this season.

I'm going for a conservative 2 - 0 Snipster is saying 4 - 0. It will probably be more like132743 - 1843 which would be a fun but confusing match I'm sure.

I'm really looking forward to getting back into the stadium. We will be having a beer or two locally before the match so give us a shout if you are around, it's probably your round ;)

Later on

Pumpkiii 

Posted by Snips

We're on our way - PodCast - Reading

Prior to the Arsenal home match against Reading Snipster and I got together to discuss:

The match
Abu Diaby
Jack & Theo
And a load of other stuff

Give it a listen, we hope you enjoy it! We're on our way - Arsenal v Reading

@Pumpkiii and @Snipster

you can also find us on facebook  http://www.facebook.com/TonyAdamsMagic and twitter @tonyadamsmagic

EXCLUSIVE: Thursday is the new Friday

We have been saying it here on Tony Adams Magic for a long time (a few months) and today, finally, Thursday is the new Friday... And so is tomorrow... And the next day. We have a four day bank holiday with a home Arsenal match smack bang in the middle of it on Saturday (or Friday night number 3), could things get any better?... Oh yeah, it’s only flippin pay day!!!

 

We face Reading and I am expecting us to beat them convincingly. They have caused us a few hairy moments this season though. We went 4-0 down to them before turning it around to win 7-5. It was in the COC and there was a bit of squad rotation in that match, but we should not be conceding 5 goals in any match.

 

In our last prem meeting we beat them 5-2 at their place with Santi bagging his first hat-trick for The Gunners. Let’s hope that having only played one half of two matches on international duty he is well rested and bangs in another few goals.

 

I haven't heard any injury news regarding our players apart from the Theo thing. Let’s hope they all got back unharmed and if they played lots, then the break was as good as a rest.

 

Reading has a new manager, we spoke earlier in the week about the new manager effect and how it might transform them into a team of world beaters. I doubt it, but we have to be wary. They are in a relegation battle, they have a new manager, and they have scored seven goals against us already this season. We will need to keep our defensive focus and build the goals on top of that. We need to be cautious and play with our heads in every game till the end of the season.

 

I read somewhere that Chavski have a million games in three days or something… They are in cups with two legs and have a replay or something… I don’t really remember and I’m not going to look it up but their run of congested fixtures ends with a match against spurs. Where one of them will drop points and that’s a fact.

 

I'm getting excited about Arsenal again and I'm really looking forward to Saturday. Over the last few months it has been a bit gloomy, we have been knocked out of all the cups when we really should have done better and progressed further. The 4th place spot is all we have left and it’s not good enough, we expect more. Saying that, we won our last few matches and that put me in a better mood. Combining our recent wins and the international break being such a fun sponge, I am looking forward to meeting up with the lads for pre match beers and watching The Arsenal continue their recent winning form.

 

In other news, I have been entered into something called the Bolney pram race. It is a charity fancy dress race that you take part in teams of two. Me and a mate will be competing as undertakers with our home made pram being fashioned out of a real coffin, our team name is “six pints under” he he! The race course has 7 check points, each checkpoint is a pub and at each pub we have to down a pint of beer. We can take it in turns to push the pram but one person must always be pushing (no free wheeling) and there must always be someone in the pram / coffin. I’m not telling you this to raise money or ask for sponsorship, I just thought you might like to know why the blog on Tuesday probably won’t make much sense. I will let you know how we get on even if I have broken both of my hands and am nursing a hangover the niagara falls wouldn’t be able to rehydrate. Fingers crossed I don’t end up needing the coffin as a permanent place of residence…

 

Have a great Thurs/Friday day

 

We will be back tomorrow and we should also have a ‘We’re on our way’ podcast Friday afternoon / Saturday morning.

 

Pumpkiii

Wednesday - Proper Football Soon & Sporting Cromwell Are Heros

Today is Wednesday and the international break is basically behind us. We can look forward now to the Arsenal v Reading game this Saturday kick off 3.00 pm.

I can’t wait to get back to the emirates. It seems like a million years since I had the pleasure of the Gooners. I had to miss the Bayern Munich games due to matters of life or death and so I was robbed of the last nourishment many of you have had.

We wait with baited breath to find out who has been savaged on their travels and who will return to Hill-Woods’s wrinkled bosom full of health and vitality. Apart from Walcott who has torn is groin while over stretching I can’t think of anybody else I know about.

I’m sure the exact nature and number of causalities will become more obvious as Arsene gather’s his flock.

England played Serbia last night. 1-1 was the fnal score. England were good in the first half talking the lead ,terrible in the second half conceding the equaliser with 15 to play.

In other news Sporting Cromwell FC were confirmed as runners up in the league today. It was a great team effort by all the lads. Pumpkiii got player of the season for his fantastic displays between the sticks and as a out field player, a fantastic personal achievement.

In his honour I have found this list of goal scoring keepers. Well done Pumpkiii.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_goalscoring_goalkeepers

Have a good day.

Snips