Sublime Arsenal Are From Another Planet
Dec 28th, 2009 by 'holic
“What’s that then, Sky Sports on the computer?”
“No, Canal Plus, in French as well. Prepare to be entertained, the Arsenal are on.”
The stepson’s brother-in-law is unfamiliar with the dark deed that is the internet stream, and asks if we can get the game from Hull at four. I have to say yes, although I am wary of letting grandson number one watch us struggle while United brush aside a poor side.
I needn’t have worried, but distractions are aplenty. Nieces arrive in the room wanting to watch Wall-E, which is on the hosts laptop, so the option of putting an excellent stream on their humungous flatscreen tv is lost. The hdmi lead carries Pixar’s finest while the boys huddle in the corner around my MacBook.
Volume is set to zero so the girls can hear the film, but that actually isn’t a bad thing. It lets us concentrate on the football without ill-informed comment, and that I suspect is a blessing. The game flows from end to end and it is no surprise that Villa are being enterprising when allowed. It seems to us that both teams are playing well.
“Wall-E”
“Eva”
Every now and then there is an interruption in play, and the plot developing on the big screen momentarily catches the attention, but not often. A gripping opening half comes to a close and we are all agreed that the only surprise is the goal-less scoreline. 2-2 would be a fairer reflection.
Half-time is the perfect interval to fill a plate full of cold turkey, beef, salmon, roast potatoes, and pickles. As the robots land on the Axiom and we get our first sight of the obese inhabitants, the massive tv screen could be a mirror!
The second-half begins with Arsenal very much taking the initiative, and the arrival of Cesc Fabregas for the unfortunate Denilson lifts a smitten eight year old. Not for the last time today we hope a departing midfielder will not suffer an extended absence as Alex Song jets off to the African Cup of Nations.
The Spaniard’s impact is explosive. When hauled down by lumbering Richard Dunne, the skipper gets up and from the moment the free-kick leaves his boot you just know it is a goal. As a horde of malfunctioning robots roam the spaceship, so a trio of Arsenal midfielders rip the heart out of Villa, ably assisted by the growing influence of Arshavin.
A second goal is inevitable, and a bowl of sherry trifle is launched into orbit as the Gunners roll back the years, switching the ball from one end to the other in two passes and Cesc, at full hamstring-straining pelt, doubles the advantage. Traore and Walcott deserve congratulations for their contribution. The performance is now drawing envious comments from United fans. I am smug, full-up, and follow the lunchtime wine with the first Guinness of what is turning into an unhealthy session.
It isn’t over yet, although it seems that way when Fabregas hobbles from the fray just twenty-eight minutes after joining it. It puts a damper on a marvellous performance for sure, but hopefully he will not be missing for long. His partners in midfield, the imperious Song, and the improving Diaby continued to keep Villa in a headlock, and the latter dances from the halfway-line unchallenged to score a sublime third.
The final whistle blows as the occupants of the Axiom rediscover the highs of living on Earth. Arsenal, by comparison, have rediscovered the joys of what now has to be seen as a genuine title challenge. One though that will depend on activity in the days ahead.
What sort of midfield will we have available at Portsmouth on Wednesday? Will we be able to quickly add to the squad as the January window opens? Will the builders complete the extension to the treatment complex at the Grove, now allegedly spreading to incorporate much of the lower ground floor.
I don’t know the the answers. I only know we took another giant step towards securing the support of a wide-eyed lad as his grandad danced a jig of delight at the final whistle. It helped that United struggled against a poor Hull side and when the home team equalised in that game they lost a potential supporter to the alternative delights of Guitar Hero. (What a great game that is!)
Parting this morning was as difficult as ever, but made better when a moist-eyed nipper said “Grandad, can I still come to see Wolves at Arsenal in April?“.
Oh yes, yes indeed. We will make that happen somehow.
38 Responses to “Sublime Arsenal Are From Another Planet”
First drink.
Pint of cider please, ‘holic.
Great performance yesterday. Need it to continue over the next month to prove how much of a challenge we can mount.
But for now, very happy.
The joy of Cesc! So many of us take him for granted and too many idiots at the Grove get on his back when he’s not his best. Wouldn’t trade him for anyone.
I have to rant about the media this weekend: what the hell is this hysterical media gushing over Rooney and Utd’s defeat of HULL as if it was an achievement equal to beating the 4th place team? We beat Hull last week and got no media attention for it at all, despite 3 great goals. You’d think Utd and Rooney beat the European champions, ffs! Skysports profiled Rooney and Cesc as the two men of the weekend — they talked about Rooney as if he’d slayed a dragon. Well sorry there’s NO comparison between what Rooney did v. Hull and what Cesc did v. Villa.
Skysports did provide some interesting statistical comparisons between the 2 players.
Cesc v. Villa – played 27 mins, scored 2 goals, 0 assists, 3 key passes and 92% pass completion.
Rooney v. Hull played 90 mins, scored 1 goal, 1 assist, 2 key passes and 64% pass completion.
In the PL this season, Cesc has played 16 games, scored 9 goals and made 12 assists.
Rooney played 18 games, scored 13 goals and made 2 assists.
Made even funnier, marcus, by the fact that the fat Scouse twat’s assist yesterday was for the Hull goal, surely! Number one was hugely unimpressed by that and went into the other room to play drums. Good lad!
Good stuff Mr ‘holic sir.
Here’s hoping your mission to keep your beloved grandson out of the clutches of the darkside will be successful.
Like you did yesterday, I mostly watch the Arsenal games on a computer screen, via sopcast, and I NEVER have the commentary on, I just can’t bring myself to listen to those eigits and so called experts, I do however watch MOTD later on just to see if I missed or misinterpretated anything during the game. I’m no real fan of the un-dynamic duo Hansen and Lawro, but they are a lot better then most on the other chanels, and it is nice to see Keown and Dixon make regular appearances. Was quite shocked to learn that Keown was rather articulate. π
What to say about yesterdays game?
Well if the lads put in a performance like that every game then we will be serious contenders for the title. The most pleasing thing was that everybody put in a good shift, there were indeed a few stellar individual performances, but all of our lads were up for it, and I can’t really remember any of them putting a foot wrong.
As for the competion, Chelsea seem to have lost their way a bit, and will lose a few players to the ACON and as you said Man U don’t look at all convincing. Is it me or is there something in the air?
Hope you and all your readers had a magical Christmas period.
A double vodka to keep me in the Christmas spirit please barman.
Cheers.
Glad to have you back ‘Holic! Hope Christmas has been good to you, sounds like it!
I also wholeheartedly recommend a back’holic to the comments on the preview piece, where the inimitable BtM has ‘waxed lyrical’ indeed.
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I’ll raise yet another glass ‘holic. 13 points from a possible 15. Not a badreturn and the form we need to carry forward into 2010. I see Motson’s player of the decade is TH14 and his team is the Invicibles squad. Garth Crooks was not prepared to comment. Just proves how lacking in objectivity the fool is. Cheers.
for 25 minutes we witnessed the best player in the premiership. then he went off and we witnessed the next 11 best players in the premiership. wot a day.
keep on blogging they’re great.
Double Chocolate Stout please! that was absolutely fantastic!
not an arsenal fan, not a man u fan
fabregas was good yesterday, but if you have a closer look he wasnt even nearly as good as you lot are making out.
yes the statistics look good, being on 20 odd mins and doing what he did but to be honest what did he really do???
scored a free kick – well denilson done the same thing last week
he’s second was a great run and a great finish but other than that he didnt do a thing.
the young man got lucky thats all, on anyother day that wouldnt happen, the free kick would hit the wall and theo wouldnt find the pass.
my point is, next week you will all be moaning that he aint playing he’s best coz he wont score 2 in 20 mins, but what he will do is control the middfield and spray passes all around the pitch which you lot will not appriciate coz you no nothing about football
Jon sounds like an illiterate pleb!
forgot to say i’m a spuds fan and this time next year, we’ll be champions league coz we r gonna buy messi and bring mabutt back to partner ledders at d back, we will finally win d league in colour you’ll see.
Jon,
Oh clueless jon! Only three words for you…
Jog on son…
Jon, I would never have guessed you were a Spud. Years of living in our shadow have obviously made you a very bitter and twisted little man. champions league! you’re havin’ a bubble mate!
Fantastic read as usual. After a great result what better way to spend the christmas holiday with feet up, drink in hand and the informed opinions of a true fellow gooner. Keep up the good work in 2010 please holic’. Pint of speckled Hen with a Whisky chaser please squire.
Jon,
Obviously you have come along to piss on the party. Don’t think that Fabregas is any good huh ? Shame. Because I think yesterday we witnessed the seminal moment of when Fabregas turned from a star into a superstar. To be mentioned in the same breadth of Ronaldo, Henry, Zidane, Platini, Mattheaus. Forget about Rooney. He is a good player, but he won’t reach the heights of Fabregas. Sure, Rooney is a natural born killer, with football imprinted on his DNA, but he will never have the ability of Fabregas to conduct the team, to set the tempo and pick out a pass blindfolded in the nanosecond available to him. You continue to come on forums like this and piss like a skunk, and we will watch Fabregas. First the footballer of the year, then the ballon d’or, then the world player of the year. Sure, he may not get the last two accolades at Arsenal, but get them he will, and we will all applaud.
The Pixar simulcast is a staple at our place.
Yeah thanks for that clever jon. So good to have you around this neck of the woods, because we [collectively] clearly don’t understand football as do you. Got any more pearls of wisdom to bless us with your superior knowledge?
Cesc put in a match winning performance that directly impacted the end result. End of! Hardly a case for venting your spleen against Gooners. Cheer up son π
Nice one from Jon … pure tongue in cheek … the art of which eludes the majority.
Any space for orange-juice-aholics here?
That Jon needs to go to school, he sounds like idiot.
nice article, enjoyed reading it!
What an excellent post to accompany such an excellent Arsenal performance. What more can we say about Cesc? What a player and what an incredible 28 minutes. He is at the point in his development that he gets better with each game.
Also, thank you for a wonderful insight into your game day experience with your family, and as mentioned before, I too hope that this helps keep your grandson away from the dark side!
Cheers, and best wishes for the new year.
Holic,
Just to let you know that Song will be playing at Portsmouth on wed,as well as available for cup tie against W/Ham.
Apparently Cameroon are joining up with the ANC later than the other teams,so Song doesn’t fly out till Mon the 4th.
Erichero….quite right too. I responded perhaps a bit too quick whilst limited reading on my mobile. The dosage of good humoured banter is of course accepted!
Great report ‘Holic, it was definitively worth the wait!
I’m over the moon, it was well worth getting up before dawn. We played wonderfully for 90 minutes and Villa never looked they could win it. I wish them the best against Liverpool though, if they win it it doesn’t guarantee them 4th spot but it almost enures Liverpool will be out of the top 4 in May.
The best part for me were:
– how well we worked as a unit. That’s the main difference from last year: we now look like a team. Honestly I find it a letdown that we again have to start all over with an entirely new midfield if both Denilson and Fabregas are unavailable in January while Song is off to the ACN. On the other hand Nasri like Diaby will perform much better in the middle as he does on the wings.
– how fast the newcomers/recoverers are improving. I’m happy not to be in AW’s shoes when he will have to decide between Clichy, Giggs and Traore as the latter is making a watertight case for himself. At this rate of improvement, Clichy could end up watching Traore from the bench even after his injury has healed. Walcott and Eduardo also are improving steadily, both one orr two goals away from becoming lethal finishers.
On to Portsmouth now, another must-win game. This could be a very difficult game despite all odds, Pompey are finding their form at home and with an untested midfield we could find ourselves struggling quite a bit to overcome them. But at l(e)ast we have a champion’s attitude!
Thanks for that Clive. Great news. Let’s hope they get knocked out early too!
“The game flows from end to end and it is no surprise that Villa are being enterprising when allowed. It seems to us that both teams are playing well.
βWall-Eβ
βEvaβ
Every now and then there is an interruption in play, and the plot developing on the big screen momentarily catches the attention, but not often.”
Hahaha – anothhr classic bit of writing ‘holic.
Great blog!!
Where’s the best place to get a good stream. I’m supporting the Gunners since 1970 but I’m new to all of the technology!!!
Arseblog comments (the arses) before and during a game, lots of people providing links to streams.
Great performance and a great 3 points. We have all raved about Cesc, and rightly so. But for me, the man of the match was Diaby. All too often for me he has has only shown what he can do in spits and spurts. I though that he and Song were outstanding. If he can carry that form on then perhaps he will become the player we have all hoped he would.
Eduardo desperately needs goal. He looks so short of confidence. If both Cesc and Denilson are out for the pompey trip I would go for a midfield of Arshavin, Diaby, Song, Nasri and Walcott. That leave Eduardo up front. If that is not good enough to beat Pompey then we deserve shooting.
Also want to give special praise to Tommy V. Outstanding yet again. If he is not the buy of the season then I am missing something large.
Keep the faith.
That’s so nice. Bless you ‘holic
@ jon it must be sad being a spud supporter nothing exciting on spud blogs so cant help your self so had to have a look at arsenal blogs well Cesc on today value would be worth more then the hole spud team and to criticize him shows your jealous and admiration for our player
Good stuff ‘holic
‘Holic – only been reading your blog for a short while (since you took over on Arseblog to be fair) but wanted to say that I think it’s excellent and today’s piece really was genius.
Glad I have this to keep me going during the day now as well, just not sure I can fit any work into all this fun…
@29 Dubgun
Download and install Veetle;
http://www.veetle.com/index.php
Or Sopcast by clicking on the Softpedia Mirror (US) [ZIP] link;
http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/SopCast-Download-24855.html
On match days visit this site;
http://www.myp2p.eu/index.php?part=sports
Click on the football link and you will be able to access all the avialable games.
Have fun mate!!
Cheers H2H,
If you were wondering, my spam filter takes out anything with more than one link for approval. Great for keeping junk off the site, but a bit of a bark when a trusted regular posts valuable info…
Thank for that ‘holic, I was wondering why it didn’t come up straight away.
The spam filter is a good idea, got to keep out the riff-raff from your fine establishment π