Archive for Premier League

Arsenal or Ajax tickets – Is it any better on the continent?

March 28, 2013 Arsenal, Premier League 7 comments

I’ve chatted with a few buddies recently about ticket prices and arguing until I’m blue in the face that Arsenal do not have the most expensive tickets in the EPL. The two chaps I spoke with are not Arsenal fans, one is a Liverpool fan and the other is a Bristol Rovers fan (I live in Bristol these days).

The Liverpool fan hasn’t been to an away game for over 10 years and maybe makes it to Anfield about 4 times a year, once for the Merseyside derby and the other times for what we Gooners know as category C fixtures.

The Rovers fan however goes to every home game and 80% of away games with The Gas. He has never been to the Emirates although he has said he would love to but can’t justify the cost especially when him and a few other mates hop around Europe a few times a year catching games in other leagues in countries like Belgium, Czech Republic, Holland, Portugal, Austria and Denmark or any league where you can name at least one “decent” team for less than the price of day in London. Read more

Why We’ll Score More Without Robin – Looking Forward & Looking Back

August 17, 2012 Arsenal, Premier League 15 comments

The new season is upon us and to celebrate I want to have a look forward and a look back at the same time. Many of you regulars follow me on twitter and those that do know that I am getting married in a few weeks (mid-September) so blogging time is scarce at the moment and I’ll probably be hosting a number of guest posts over the new few weeks so keep an eye out for them and get in touch if you want to write something yourself.

First things first I believe that we are ideally situated to win something this season. I know we say that every year but this year is different as I said in this post last week.

I don’t want to get caught up on Van Persie as I’ve already expressed my feelings on this but I want to say this and I want to make it clear that I have tried my best to allow bias to dictate my views. I believe that despite United going close last year that there squad is completely underwhelming and that even the addition of RvP does not improve them that much (as their midfield is poor IMO) so I think we should be focusing on challenging Man City who haven’t improved much at all.

He was supposed to destroy the dark side not join them

We’ve obviously had a fantastic summer player acquisitions wise but I think that we have improved across a number of areas. I wrote a piece on player wages and “dead wood” about how we have a large wage bill but maybe it was disproportionately dispersed. I believe we have changed this with our new signings and have made efforts to move on high earners who for one reason or another were not contributing much to the first team. Read more

All Time Premier League XI – How many Gunners make the cut?

April 26, 2012 Premier League 2 comments

My post today is a little bit off from my usual style and usual topics but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

20 years of the premier league has almost passed and every man, dog and website with the remotest interest in football will be arguing their all time premier league XI.

Paul Ince & Mark Lawrenson have chosen theirs on the BBC Focus Forum. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/17823283

They included 4 Arsenal players and I am certain there will be Gooners up in arms all over the world screaming that we should have had more. Their screams will probably be drowned out by millions of fans of other clubs who also believe that their ex-players (or current players) deserved a place too.

I can’t choose an all time premier league XI objectively but am going to list 3 players for each position that I think deserve to be considered above all others. To make things a little easier I am only going to choose players that have spent at least 5 years in the premier league.

Please comment on this article with your choice (in a 4-4-2 formation).

Goalkeepers:

The first two names are the easiest to say but probably one of the most contentious football issues ever. Who was better Schmeichel or Seaman?

The third was tough because it was really hard for me to leave out Jens Lehmann, partially because he is an absolute legend, partially because I am a Gooner but mostly because how can you leave out a keeper who went a whole season unbeaten and kept 10 clean sheets in the champions league in a row?

Sadly for me Jens just misses out to Shay Given. I think Shay deserves his place because he has been a consistently good goalkeeper in the premier league for over 15 years.

Goalkeepers that deserve a mention are Flowers, Friedel, James, Keller, Reina, Cech, Cudicini, Schwarzer and of course Van Der Sar.

Right back:

This is easy. Gary Neville, never has a defender been so universally hated by all opposition fans and that speaks volumes for his ability. Not many full backs could deal with players like Henry, Pires, Overmars, Robben, Kewell, Ginola etc but he did more often than not. I’ve softened to Gary Neville since he became a pundit and I think he is a really good pundit and miles away from even being a hint of how United biased I thought he would be. Lee Dixon, 10 years in the premier league as the best right back or at least in the top 2 makes him a total shoe-in. Read more

Ringing the coaching changes

April 16, 2012 Arsenal, Premier League No comments

Okay, here is my second update of the day. My last post got a few comments regarding Drogba but I stand by what I said. He is a top player, would do a great job for a year, would bring on the ability of Afobe and would bring a winners mentality to the club. I probably should have mentioned that his presence could have a similar impact across a season as Henry did for 6 weeks but I thought I’d get slaughtered for comparing the two.

There have been lots of interesting opinions on the coaching staff at Arsenal and who should be Wenger’s new number 2 when Pat Rice retires this summer.

One of my favourite bloggers Dave Seager (@goonerdave66) champions Steve Bould. He also had a guest blogger James Cook (@CookieElGooner) who recently mentioned Bergkamp, Keown, Adams or even Stojkovic.

Dave also wrote a fantastic piece looking at the coaching changes at Old Trafford and how periods of intense success were preceded by a major coaching change at United.  I read something similar before Christmas from a young gooner, whose name I forget, who suggested that our stagnation was directly linking to the deep roots in our backroom staff room. Dave has taken it one better and put his excellent slant on it and served up a real treat. It was a really interesting piece packed full of information that made total sense of the correlation between success at both clubs but the stark difference between backroom stability.

I agree with all of these people that big coaching changes must be made at Arsenal this summer but not just in the no.2 spot. I personally think we should make room for more of our ex-players to work with the team especially players that our 14-20 year old players can actually remember playing and who would be constantly trying to impress and work hard for their boyhood hero’s. I think we could make room for Seaman or Lehmann as GK coach, Keown to work with the defence and Bergkamp to work as our technical coach. Read more

Flair or ware?

April 5, 2012 Arsenal, Premier League One comment

I’m a Gooner, always have been always will be however that doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy watching teams playing entertaining football and I’ll get some right stick for some comments I’m going to make in this article but probably none more so when I say that Barcelona bore me.

Yes, that’s right, the world’s best team featuring the greatest player to ever grace a football pitch bore me. For many reasons Barca bore me but it is mainly the predictability of their play that bores me. Barcelona are very predictable which should in theory make them easier to beat and thus more exciting to watch because there is a chance they will lose  a spectacular game but in practice it doesn’t as Mourinho and Madrid will attest to and almost all of the Barca defeats I have seen over the past few years have been scrappy games that make the musings of fans, journos and pundits alike of “yeah, they’re good but let’s see how they’d cope with Stoke on a cold and wet Tuesday night” seem all the more reasonable. The only time they have been beaten in an exciting game for footballing reasons rather than ice hockey-esque brawls was at the hands of my beloved Arsenal.

30 sideways passes between two or three very good players bumping up their passing and success stats before the ball reaches the final third is like being forced to watch Serie A in slo-mo. It bores the heck out of me. Bar a few moments of predictable unpredictability from the jaw dropping Lionel Messi I wouldn’t watch any Barca games except for El Clasico but that would be more for Madrid.

There are lots of teams that I enjoy watching play but I’ll name the ones in the English Leagues I like the most apart from AFC of course. They are; Reading, Bolton, Blackpool, Swansea and Newcastle. (I’ll even admit to admiring some of Sp*rs play over the past two years but because they are the scum I just can’t enjoy it. If they lost every game 4-3 I’d probably love watching them play well and lose but I don’t). Read more