Entries Tagged 'Arsenal FC' ↓

After months of speculation, and a few false alarms, Arsenal today officially announced the signing of French-U21 star Samir Nasri from Marseille for an undisclosed fee.

The midfielder has been touted as the “next Zidane” in some circles, and the few YouTube clips I’ve seen do demonstrate some great skill. It seems that Samir will be given the number 8 jersey, abandoned by Freddie Ljungberg last season, and that he will slot into the midfield straight away, replacing Aleksander Hleb who, by all accounts, seems to be off to Barcelona this weekend.

There’s still the possible departure of 30-goal scorer Emmanuel Adebayor, who is threatening to leave unless he get paid “Henry money” (his quote, not mine). Not sure if he deserves $240K a week after only one good season, but I’m sure there’s some club out there willing to pay it. Training starts in earnest towards next weekend, so my guess is that we’ll see some more news next week before the team heads to Austria.

First up though is the friendly against Barnet on Saturday the 19th, which has become a bit of an annual tradition. This typically is a chance for some of the younger players to prove their worth, so I expect to see new signing Aaron Ramsey, and the returning from loan Carlos Vela on the pitch for at least part of the time. It’ll be nice to have football/soccer back. Sure, with the Euro2008 tournament it’s made for a shorter summer, but nothing compares to weekly stress and relief of club football.

The picture above started appearing on message boards and Arsenal blogs this morning. Looks fairly legit, and I have to say, I like what I see. My understanding is that the new shirts are going to serve as an homage to the 1989 Championship winning side, so there’s going to be a yellow and blue away kit that looks similar to this as well. With pre-orders starting next week, my guess is we’ll start to see a few more images in the coming days.

Despite taking a lead on an Adebayor goal that I actually captured with my camera, Arsenal lost 2-1 away to ManUre at Old Trafford today, and so doing, gave up any chance of winning the title this season.

An incredible night at Anfield ends on a sour note, as a shock decision sends Liverpool through to the Champions League semis.

Two under-strength sides were on display at the Emirates yesterday for the first match I’ve attended in person in nearly two years. With both sets of managers and players looking ahead to the second leg of their Champions League quarterfinal at Anfield on Tuesday night, it’s no wonder that it was a less than stellar performance from both sides.

Peter Crouch opened the scoring just before the end of the first half, as Arsenal looked quite poor. However, the second half was all Arsenal.  Nick Bendtner started things off just five minutes into the half with a good header to level the score. There were no more goals in either team, and at full time, the skies opened and the rain came pouring down, as if to comment on the football that’d just been played. Here’s hoping Tuesday’s the cracker everyone expects it to be.

The Gunners are left frustrated as Benitez’s game-plan worked to perfection. The Scousers nicked an away goal at the Grove and then soaked up the Arsenal onslaught to earn a 1-1 draw in the first leg of the Champions League Quarter-Final.

After an relatively uneventful first twenty minutes, Arsenal began to exert themselves on the match. That pressure resulted in the first goal coming in the 24th minute, a smashed header off the head of Emmanuel Adebayor.

The joy was short-lived however, as it took only two minutes for Liverpool to reply. Steven Gerrard’s whipped in cross tapped in by Dirk Kuyt to make it 1-1 after 26 minutes.

The score remained tied at halftime, and when the teams took the pitch after the interval, Robin van Persie had been replaced by Theo Walcott. It turns out that the Dutchman suffered a thigh injury. It’s been an absolute nightmare of season for Robin. Let’s hope it’s more of a precautionary measure by Wenger than an actual injury. While Walcott did provide a bit of a spark (He had an excellent shot skip past the post), he was not alone in his profligacy in front of goal.

Chance after chance came to the Gunners, and nothing was done with them. It was like watching last year’s side at points. Meanwhile, Liverpool defended in numbers, knowing that they’d done their job.

The match was not without controversy. Around the hour mark, Alex Hleb was brought down in the Liverpool penalty area, but the ref decided against the Gunners. Replays showed that it was a clear penalty, but you can’t pit your hopes on a penalty. You need to score when the chances are presented, and on the night, the Gunners managed to only convert one of those chances.

So, it’s on to Anfield, and a match I’ll be attending in person. I’ve never seen the Arsenal lose in person, so I’m feeling quite confident. All we have to do is score once and keep a clean sheet, or match Liverpool goal for goal, and we’re through.

Before that though, there’s a league match at home against these same Scousers. I’ll be at that game too, and it’ll be interesting to see how it plays out. Kickoff is at 7:45 AM ET, and the match will be broadcast live here in the US on Setanta USA.