I'm Sorry, I'll Say That Again
Jan 29th, 2008 by 'holic
Arsenal 3 Newcastle United 0. It’s the scoreline of the week. Another slow start, another performance lifted out of the ordinary by Matty Flamini, and we have set out our stall at the head of affairs again, if only for twenty-four hours.
For a long time it looked as though the first-half would be memorable only for Alex Hleb earning a rare yellow card for a scything challenge on the time bandit that is Michael Owen. Five minutes before the break, however, the on-fire Flamini decided enough was enough, and burst forward to land his inch-perfect cross on the head of the Premiership’s most prolific centre-forward. Emmanuel Adebayor provided the finish the move deserved.
The introduction of Joey Barton early in the second-half failed to arrest the home side’s march towards an inevitable three points, although it was perhaps surprising that he had been detained on the bench for so long.
Into the final twenty minutes and the French midfield maestro decided to liven everybody up again. Diaby prevented a Carr clearance from going out and fed Fabregas on the touchline. The Spaniard tapped it infield to Flamini, who from thirty yards launched a right-footer into the far top corner of the net. Truly brilliant.
Fabregas himself had the last word, cleverly set up by substitute Bendtner. I think it was at this point that somebody helped Newcastle’s new director of football, Dennis Wise, down from his seat, and Peter Hill-Wood took him into hospitality for a consoling cream soda.
There really is not much else to add. The opponents clearly arrived with little belief in their ability to upset the odds. Arsenal beat them without really stretching themselves. Hopefully no further injuries have been sustained ahead of Saturday’s trip to the City of Manchester Stadium. All in all a satisfactory evening.
Arsenal TV in Australia
The Premier League came back to me today. Nothing new to report for you in Oz I’m afraid, just confirmation of what you already knew.
“Thank you for your email and we do apologise for the delay in
responding.
There are a number of restrictions around club programming, if Setanta
only have one channel in Australia (which they do) then they are only
entitled to carry two club programming blocks in this case Liverpool and
Chelsea.
We do apologise for any inconvenience this has caused but thank you for
your support of the Premier League.”
Now that is very polite, and explains that Setanta in Australia is indeed hamstrung by Premier League regulations. It doesn’t answer why! What can be gained by preventing potential fans of your product from watching what you should be able to offer? Is this insane rule also preventing Gooners in the USA and Far East from getting the new channel for the same reason?
It seems to me they need some lessons in marketing basics, but what do I know ? I’ll try again for those of you who continue to contact me from the four corners of the globe.
I am also indebted to Google search for a response that Setanta UK would surely have sent me if they gave a monkeys about their customers.
“The channel will also be launching on the Virgin Media platform later in 2008.”
To say they have been the least enthusiastic of the three parties since this launch is a massive under-statement. I’ll be chasing them up for something a bit more positive. They must understand that people have subscribed to a service they still cannot receive as a result of highly misleading pre-launch publicity.
16 Responses to “I'm Sorry, I'll Say That Again”
First drink!
god i hate you gunners
Yep! I don’t like them either. But if theres 1 team in the premiership who i hope win it, its Arsenal.
Purely because Man Utd, and Chelsea… I dont need to explain.
Newcastle supporter BTW.
Good Performance tonight, especially by Flamini.
Cesc, Sagna and Senderos, too.
Fabregas getting back on form.
Best chant of the night:
“Cheryl Tweedie is our mate, is our mate, is our mate,
SHE HATES ASHLEY!!”
From where on earth did Mathieu learn to strike the ball like that.
His previous attempts havent been exactly distinguished – but that one was unstoppable.
awesome goal from the flamster,
dubs, great chant!!
Great chant indeed!
Steve and Darryl, thanks for dropping by. Understand this is an Arsenal blog intended to amuse, if only mildly, Arsenal supporters. I’m not here specifically to piss you off. I thought you bare chested Geordies had a thicker skin than that.
Thanks for the good wishes, and I’ll reciprocate. You will not fall any further down the league with the sides that are currently below you. I would love you to climb a couple of places at this precise moment and put our neighbours, who are thirty points behind us in January, firmly in the bottom half of the table.
Fair play man. We’ll be rooting for you. You don’t throw money at the title like the Mancs and Chavs, and you play the game the right way.
Good luck.
the geordie fans who commented are DEFINITELY more polite than the usual bollocks from spuds and scums. thanks for the well wishes eh?
‘holic, to make matters worse, the cable operator here failed to explain why they did not show last night’s game at all. not very impressed. i fail to see when they will bring in ArsenalTV for us Singapore Gooners.
I really hope you get the ArsenalTV on your cable soon, so i can do the usual “HEY, if this guy got it, WHY CAN’T WE?” argument on my local cable operator. although the whole “but sir, your friend is in the UK” will fuck it all up. whatever i just want to have a chance to yell at them.
holic to answer the question about usa gooners – it’s the same here. only instead of liverpool/manu, we get a double dose of manure (when a single dose is enough to make u sick). what’s maddening is we have a channel called sentanta extra that NEVER FUCKIN SHOWS ANYTHING!! WHAT THE SHIT IS IT FOR?
[…] was hit again by the same tune by Arsenal in an EPL tie. 3-0 to Arsenal and once again, Emmanuel Adebayor was involved in scoring the first […]
holic, thanks for the work you’re doing on the Arsenal TV issue. I’m a NY gooner so I assume the same ridiculous rule applies here as in Australia. Only here we get Chelsea AND MU!! At least the Aussies get the comparatively less obnoxious scousers. (We don’t have LFC TV). But as you point out, WHAT THE HELL IS THE POINT OF THIS RULE??? Also, the reply you got says that the rule applies when there is only one Setanta channel. Well I guess I’m confused because here in the US there is more than one Setanta channel, so I don’t get it. I really hate the English FA.
As to last night’s game….ok, sorry to get all gushy, but what a f–king team we have!! Yeah, I know all about the problems we have with various underperforming players yadayadayada but when they play like that! To think that our brilliant f–king genius manager put together these players whom most had never even heard of and created THAT thing of beauty we saw last night. And they weren’t even at their very best. Sheesh! It’s really extraordinary what Arsene has created.
oh thats right marcus , i forgot we get chav tv because setanata loves showing all the man u they can get their filthy mitts on. as to the other setanta channel – i never have anything on it, do you?
You should know ‘holic, that having you drop a comment on my blog made my week! LOL
Man, our lads are fantabulous…
Flamini had a great game (and what a goal). Great to see Cesc back on the score sheet. Hopefully he will get another on against City on Saturday as we will probably need it.
[…] award goes his way after some excellent tracking of the Setanta Sports and Arsenal TV debacle, after the channel stumbled over a major botch up in Premier League television rights. Many Gooners […]