Weekend fallout …Michael Thomas monent…Win a free tee…

I’m going to have to keep it short Gooner’s as I have a lot on and time is my enemy at the moment. Allgoonerdup.com’s posts might be a bit sporadic over the next week or so, so I apologies in advance to all you good people who like your daily dose of football and humour. OK so first up, we lost. Yep so we did, anyone REALLY that surprised? I think even the ardent Arsene Wenger fan (I’m on about the AKB’s) must admit we were fecking awful against Fulham and the blame has to rest at the feet of Wenger who hasn’t strengthened our midfield. OK it’s quite easy to say “I told you so” but come on even with our injuries, you can’t expect to beat a Premier League team with the likes of Eboué and Denilson in the central midfield berth. Alright I wont knock Denilson too much, the boy has got talent he just happened to have his worst game in an Arsenal shirt when he needed to step up. 

I know Emmanuel Eboué is the new ‘Pascal Cygan’ the player all fans love to hate, but admittedly he isn’t doing himself any favours. He was fecking awful against Fulham. I can’t believe we are serious title contenders with a player like Emmanuel Eboué supposedly doing the defensive midfield work. If Eboué was brought in to do a ‘Flamini’ job it desperately failed. Mathieu Flamini was all work rate, jumping into tackles with full gusto, running up and down the pitch like a maniac and just pure energy, Emmanuel Eboué on the other hand was none of those – he wasn’t even close to one of those. If we are to play like we did last season we need a Mathieu Flamini type player, simple as that. We haven’t got one of those amongst our ranks so will Le Gaffer buy one? Who knows? Wenger still reckons he’s no closer to signing anyone. Well if that’s the case this season will be a fecking long one Gooner’s and we’ll know how it feels to be a spud supporter, what with losing against teams you should be caning and generally being a laughing stock. 

I haven’t got the answers to improve us, that’s down to the manager and his cheque book and the players he’s identified. We do need to buy, our squad is paper thin. After losing the experience of Alex Hleb, Mathieu Flamini and Gilberto Silva, Le Gaffer still hasn’t addressed getting the quality players in with the added bonus of ‘experience’, in my opinion. But we do need it and need it quick. I’m just glad we lost against a team like Fulham and it was so early in the season. At least Le Gaffer can see early doors what he needs to do and hopefully he will. Cross those fingers someone decent with experience is signed up Gooners.

St Michael Thomas t-shirt…

The winner of the St Michael Thomas t-shirt is Darren Taylor, a Gooner from Bristol. So well done Gooner – hope you enjoy your prize. The answer to the question was Michael Thomas wore the number four shirt when we beat Liverpool at Anfield in 1989 to grab the title. Which is nice. 

‘Thomas – it’s up for grabs now’ – Where was you?

As part of this season and trying to tie in with all the 20th anniversary shenanigans of that famous last minute championship win, allgoonerdup.com is doing a ‘JFK ‘where was you’ moment’. But obviously the moment we’re doing is -’Thomas – it’s up for grabs now’ moment. Every Gooner knows where they were when that goal went in and we’re going to publish your emails. There will be one a day, so get amongst it and send your emails in via the contacts page and mark the subject line ‘Thomas – it’s up for grabs moment’. I’ll be doing some sort of fancy graphic and that just to give the piece some ‘air play’. But get your emails in and I’ll post where you were and that.

Girl in a shirt

Allgoonerdup is looking to give the Goonerbabe page a bit of a boost and we’re going for a ‘Girl in the Shirt’ approach. Do you have any pictures of your girl in the shirt or girls get yourself seen on the Goonerbabe wall and send in your own pictures. Lets get this party started right. Send your pictures in and tell us your name, favourite player, favourite all time player, favourite drink and if you have anything else to declare to babe@allgoonerdup.com

Wenger boys get fans salivating… Is Benitez a mentalist.. New t-shirt competition..

Easy Gooner’s and good day to you all. 

First up, I wont bang on about The Arsenal’s performance in our one nil win over Real Madrid in yesterdays match up in The Emirates Cup. I’ve only been on the interweb less than an hour and read plenty of reports and opinions so there’s pretty much no need for me to repeat what’s all ready on offer and no I’m not being a lazy bastard! What I will say about the game in a very concise manner is that Jack Wilshere, frigging hell. Is he really only 16? He will be some player but we have to remember not to pile the pressure of expectations on his very young shoulders. Did you see how he rode the GBH assault charge from Garcia when the Spanish thug tried to do a open theatre amputation on the young lad? Jack roasted him and made a £24m rated defender look like a spurs player. 

Now Emmanuel Adebayor with his badge kissing shenanigans, WTF? It’s going to take more than scoring a penalty to win the fans over fella. Did anyone else throw up in their mouths a bit when he kissed the badge? It was interesting to see the reactions of the fans in the stand in front of him when he started doing all that crap. The fans aren’t silly Ade, you have much work to do and kissing off The Arsenal badge isn’t going to be the way forward to make the fans love you again. I said last week the only way for The Togonator™ to get the fans back on side is to works his nackers off, score a bag full of goals and perhaps get a dose of humbleness wont go amiss either. Lastly on our players, Denilson looks like he’s getting better, Diaby when he fancies it does like the business, although as we know he can get a bit sloppy, Sagna is the nuts, Robin van Persie we need to keep the sicknote waving Dutch Master fit as he’s vital and Theo Walcott looks like this season could be the one he blows up, he should glimpses of what we’re all hoping for. But I must admit as a team we looked proper. I know it’s only pre-season but I bet Real Madrid didn’t expect to come away with a loss against us. 

Lastly, many a report has The Arsenal linked to the hubcap nicking, shell suit wearing, giro getting Liverpool Scallies USA’s play maker Xabi Alonso. The Mail on Sunday that staple diet of all things that’s wrong with England even reckon a deal has been struck. Now everyone knows The Gunners needs an ‘experienced’ midfield man and Alonso would tick all the boxes including the one which says ‘Premier League experience’ which with our new look midfield will be very important. Now I wouldn’t mind either Gareth Barry or Alonso they would both fit the bill however Barry can play at the back as well, fitting in perfectly with Le Gaffer’s rhetoric jack of all trades of a player having about five jobs.

However what cracks me up with this proposed move for Xabi Alonso is that Raphael Benitez has priced him up at £18m. This guy is truly a mentalist. Benitez even as Stevie Wonder could see is going hell for leather in his pursuit of Barry and nothing it seems will stop him. What with having Argentine Javier Mascherano in midfield Alonso will be surplus to requirements. So you would think Benitez would put a realistic price on him, seeing that he wants to shift him. It’s been reported that ‘allegedly’ Le Gaffer has asked to lower the price of the wanted away player, so we’ll see what happens. Benitez who you would think would take the money and run said:

“Xabi is very good player and will not be easy to sell because his market value is really high (£18m). We are pleased because we don’t want Alonso to go unless we get a very good price.

Remember this is the same manger who thought Peter Crouch was worth £15m! What makes me laugh is the way Benitez tries to conduct the price, he was told by Aston Villa originally that Barry would cost £18m and he said ‘Nah, we’ll pay you £12m and throw in a player.’ Er, sorry mate, the player is under contract, it’s you that wants to buy him – so stomp up the cash fella and that was after he tried to make an illegal approach for Barry, some people, the nerve. He’s either trying to be very crafty or he has a big set of cojones on him. Same with Crouch, the beanpole striker who couldn’t get in the team. Crouch only got a run out when Liverpool played in the Makita Cup or pre-season friendlies, any ‘proper’ games and old Robot dancing boy was consigned to getting splinters up his jacksey. But as soon as it came to selling, Crouch was the best player in the world, Liverpool’s most important player, found the cure for cancer and his worth had rocketed to £15m. WTF? Anyway this is an Arsenal site so I shouldn’t be banging on about other teams, but Benitez is mental. But to draw a conclusion I would definitely take Alonso but seeing that Liverpool will need to sell in order to buy Barry you would think that Benitez would meet in the middle somewhere. Wenger has said he’s going to bring in one more – it might turn out it’s not even anyone we’ve thought of, fecking hell Le Gaffer might be lining up a move for Joey Barton!