Nine Jimmy Rimmers – Arsenal and Football

Looks pretty dark out there now.  I had to work today so I was spared watching it live.  Nipped in and out the of building to get a signal.  First half – fine.  Second half – just painful.  Just spoke to a friend who went.  Well, we didn’t really speak to honest, what can you say.

Ahead of the Swansea game I looked back at old stuff to remember who’d played for Arsenal back when we’d played them before.  Too be honest it all feels a bit early eighties right now.  Dying days of Terry Neill.  Pointless holding action of Don Howe.

Too depressed to watch MoTD.  I’ll take a look on Arsenal Player in the morning, searching for some crumbs of comfort.  There will be no crumbs for the club or Arsene Wenger.  Any kind of win would have been another small step along the path.  This puts us right back on the ropes.

This may be a bit of a over-reaction, I don’t know.  Doesn’t feel like it right now. 

Enough waffle.  Enough beer, going to bed.  Feel free to waffle on below if you feel like it, but let’s at least keep clean, huh.

*Leiber, Stoller, King

This is a revelation that might have passed you by this morning –

Arsenal Won Yesterday!

It’s worth saying because you wouldn’t think so from all the crap in the media today. You get the feeling that most of it was written before yesterday afternoon and they were not going to let the inconvenience of Arsenal picking up three points to stop their fun.

The game wasn’t fun, of course it wasn’t, but it moved our record from DLL to DLLW. It was our first league win since I can’t remember when.

Peter Storey has a right old go in the Mirror today. Wenger has ‘lost the plot’. What Peter Storey knows about losing the plot in life goodness knows

The interview was obviously bought and paid for prior to yesterday’s game so the Mirror weren’t going to throw it away. And to be fair, yesterday only counts as the first step towards possible recovery, but even so it’s a load of old rubbish.

Peter Storey was an absolute Arsenal hero when I became a fan of the club, zealously breaking down attacks and winning back possession. But the idea that the solution to Arsenal’s woes involves bringing back 70 year-old Don Howe…..

The Terry Neill/Don Howe years were a grim interlude that we endured between Bertie Mee and George Graham.

As I said last night, Arsenal are hauling themselves out of a hole right know and hanging in there for three points when you haven’t won a league game in months and you’ve just been tonked 8:2 is the way you get started.

So, all the best to Peter, hope you got a decent fee, but I suspect you might have dropped off the invite list for ‘those dinners’.

Koscielny will apparently be an Arsenal player by the end of the week.  I think that this is good news, though he’s not a player that most English fans no much about.

But he is a central defender and he isn’t a teenager so I think he fits the bill for the more pragmatic transfer window policy I think Arsenal need this summer.   If we sort out the defence and goalkeeping situation with quality players then I for one wouldn’t complain if we didn’t buy another midfielder or forward.

But Koscielny isn’t enough on his own.  We are losing three central defenders.  We need to get two in. When Arsenal had it’s most solid defence of recent years the manager could reliably choose any two from Adams, Bould and Keown. Or even play all three at once to win two nil at Anfield and clinch the title! And we had Andy Linighan as well.  This isn’t a plea to return to the Arsenal of Don Howe but we won’t win a title conceding the number of goals that we do.

So we need another central defender. Subotic would be good and Vertonghen also sounds promising.  I’m not so sure about Mertesacker.  I’ve only seen him on the telly during the World and European Cups and I don’t think he’s been that convincing.  He looks indecisive and not a particularly great tackler.  I still think that some team is going to take Germany’s central defenders apart in South Africa.

Goalkeeping gossip all seems to be about Schwarzer.  I think he is better than what we have, but I hope for someone even better.  Chamakh came on a free, so would the rumoured Joe Cole.  Koscielny is rumoured to be coming for between eight and ten million.  Surely we can afford more than four million for a keeper?

There is gossip now that more surplus Man City players are linked with Arsenal.  The Emirates seems to be Rumour Central this summer!

Not sure how much worth commenting on the Wright-Phillips and de Jong stories are but hey, it’s summer England are out of the World Cup and this is a blog right?  A player like de Jong would be a sensible buy.  Arsenal need more depth and Eastmond isn’t ready yet.  Denilson and Diaby are only good enough as defensive midfielders against weak opposition, they are better going forwards (where we are over-run with players, but that’s a different issue).  Song will play in the African Nations Cup every two years and needs some cover/competition.  And sometimes Arsenal could do with two holding players to see out wins against the best opposition.

Not sure what the point of Wright-Phillips would be. At the moment he seems to be defined as ‘speedy right-winger who doesn’t get enough crosses in’.  Think we’ve got that role covered as deep as we need at the moment.