Here we find ourselves, just over a quarter of the way through the season and the usual four-horse race seems to have already become a three-horse race. For the last few years, if a team had dropped behind this early it was usually Liverpool, but this time its Arsene's Arsenal. Now, at a hugely pivotal [. Click to continue reading...

Van Persie - Opened the scoring, set up nicely by Adebayor who broke the offside trap, collecting a pass from Cesc. Van Persie added a 2nd (Arsenal's 3rd) early in the 2nd half. Great finishing (8).

Adebayor - Had the assist for the winner. Scored a header from a corner, heading it into the ground, the ball bouncing off the underside of the crossbar and in. Click to continue reading...

Well, it's top of the league for Arsenal with a 3-1 win over Bolton.

Games up there are rarely dull and yesterday was no exception. We started brightly but found ourselves a goal behind early on as our central defensive weakness was exposed again. From a corner William Gallas stood watching as Kevin Davies ran off him, leaving Kolo Toure with two men to mark, and the Bolton man got to the ball first to head his side in the lead.

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Nicklas Bendtner and Emmanuel Eboue have been handed starts by Arsene Wenger as the Gunners' take on Bolton later this evening. Dutch forward Robin van Persie has been dropped to the bench, while Theo Walcott is also replaced despite putting in a energetic performance against Dynamo Kiev during midweek. Click to continue reading...

Morning all. It's a fine day for football. My Under 8's are 2-0 to start the season with a +14 goal difference so far, so that's going well. And on top of that, since the disaster at Fulham, Arsenal have looked good too. We need that to continue tonight in Ukraine against Dynamo Kiev.

Injury news for Arsenal is as follows: Mikael Silvestre is out, along with Samir Nasri. Click to continue reading...

Arsenal, and especially Arsene Wenger, continue with their quest to win the UEFA Champions League and prove themselves as being one of the best teams in Europe. They qualified with ease against Twente, winning 6-0 on aggregate, and they will feel confident they can come out of this group and earn a place in the [. Click to continue reading...

Arsenal depart for Kiev today and we're still somewhat in the dark regarding injuries. Some reports say Nasri will be fit, others say he won't.

There's no news about Eboue but it's believed Gael Clichy has declared himself 'A-OK, Hunky Dory' and 'Right as rain' for tomorrow's match. Which is good news but I suppose we have to wait until a bit later until the squad is announced before we get too overjoyed.

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Being in the North-West, where as Match of the Day so often points out 'we struggle' (really, we didn't last season?), we delivered an absolute tonking to Blackburn, and a humbling lesson to new Prem manager Paul Ince.

Theo, after his and England's incredible performance in Zagreb, was bursting with confidence. Click to continue reading...

Blackburn 0-4 Arsenal

Is there a better way to warm up for an arduous trip to the Ukraine than to thump Blackburn 4-0?

It's funny, because you could argue 4-0 was generous to Arsenal; the last two goals were classic late game-killers and Blackburn caused our defence a fair amount of problems all day.

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Well that was a nice way to get things going again, eh?

Blackburn away is never easy, it wasn't easy yesterday, but we spanked home 4 goals meaning in the last 3 games we've scored 10 and conceded none. It's good preparation for the midweek trip to the Ukraine and we didn't suffer any kind of Interlull hangover which we are prone to now and again.

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Arsenal made the return up north to face a team that has posed so many problems in the past. But this was an Arsenal team that had an ascendant Theo Walcott brimming with confidence and newly found decision making skills. You could see it in the way he asserted himself in the match.

Blackburn was at the receiving end with Walcott laying down a crisp pass to the flying Dutchman who had the honour of notching up Arsenal's first strike.

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Gael Clichy and Emmanuel Eboue could miss Wednesday's Champions League group stage match at Dinamo Kiev after sustaining seperate injuries during this afternoons 4-0 rout against Blackburn. Both players were victim to kicks from Rovers' players with the latter winning a penalty after being brought down in the box by Stephen Warnock. Click to continue reading...

The London Times ran this article asking who was more responsible for England's victory against Croatia - Fabio Capello or Theo Walcott. Its a bit like the old question of which came first, the chicken or the egg. To me the answer is pretty simple and it doesn't take a Jenas or a genius to figure out that the answer is Walcott. Click to continue reading...

As could be expected, lots of Gunners in action over the weekend in World Cup Qualifiers, mostly in the UEFA region. As promised, a brief look at each player and his role (if any):

Alexandre Song Billong
Started and played 90 minutes for Cameroon in their 2-1 win over Cape Verde Islands.

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There's a host of Arsenal players to keep your eyes on today. While Aaron Ramsey didn't get on the pitch for Wales, backup keeper Lukasz Fabianski got the start in goal for Poland with Artur Boruc suspended? Or out of action. Regardless, they'll be much more later on today/tomorrow. Here's to a great (and boring) day of internationals, plus hoping for no injuries.

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Well, it was quite a deadline day, wasn't it?

I think the activities that went on regarding other clubs - United's shameful flouting of almost all transfer rules and conventions to steal Berbatov, Abu Dhabi suddenly owning Citeh, and turning them into a major player in one fowl swoop - need to be discussed elsewhere, and in depth. Click to continue reading...

At some point yesterday morning, just as hopes of a last-minute midfield reinforcement were fading, an article with the title 'Wenger - Eboue is becoming a pass master' appeared on the official site. In it, Wenger explained how "Since the start of the season, Eboue has played well".

Slick timing: our last-minute bid for Alonso fails so it's time to big up one of our new central midfielders - Emmanuel Eboue.

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Why won't Wenger spend any cash? The last day of the transfer window is a very dull day if you're an Arsenal fan. 5 hours and not a single player mentioned. Click to continue reading...

Phrases like "taking candy from a baby" come to mind when Clichy repeatedly takes the ball away from a hapless opponent and darts upfield. He took a swerving shot on target today. If he starts adding goals to his game, we'll have to break out the 10s (9).

Nasri - Settling in nicely. Click to continue reading...

If Arsene Wenger is responding to the request from Wicked Deflection to bring back Arsenal Legend Patrick Vieira, he's doing it in his typically clandestine style.

With three days to go until the transfer window closes at midnight on Monday, September 1st, Arsenal supporters are stepping up their concern about lack of depth in central midfield. Click to continue reading...

The reaction to the defeat on Saturday has been, undoubtedly, overblown. But due to the stratification of the Premier League into the Champions League teams, the UEFA Cup sides, and, well, the rest, defeats can no longer be treated in the 'c'est la vie' fashion they once were. People talk about the Premier League like it's a marathon and, in many ways, it is. Click to continue reading...

Fulham defender John Paintsil may regret his horror challenge on Arsenal midfielder Emmanuel Eboue if the FA view television footage of the tackle which occured during the Gunners' surprise 1-0 loss at Craven Cottage. Several television pundits pointed out that Referee Martin Atkinson was in a good position to witness the hack-down, despite that, Atkinson failed to [. Click to continue reading...

This result could be seen coming from May this year, if not January.

Sell Diarra, don't give Flamini what he wants, let Gilberto go, throw in a rare injury to Cesc and a completely predictable one to Diaby and you have, da da dah! NO CENTRAL MIDFIELD!

Anyone who saw how we laboured last week with Eboue and Denilson as the CM partnership could tell they were only millimetres from disaster in that game. Click to continue reading...

As usual with Arsene's signings, the arrival of Mikael Silvestre has brought more questions than answers.

Am I happy about the signing? Hmm. Ask me on Septemeber 2.

Will Silvestre be part of our first XI? No, I don't think so. Unless Kolo is put in midfield, and he starts at CB next to Gallas, I think Silvestre will be our first choice back-up to the defence. Click to continue reading...

Eboue has turned into a figure of ridicule at Arsenal, he has fallen from grace in a dramatic fashion.  He has lost his rightback position to Sagna, laboured at right wing last season, and now is threatening to make the central midfield position his own.  Wenger has a mild form of myopia when it comes [. Click to continue reading...

Ah, the Premier League season is upon us - I can't type that without smiling.

Arsenal just about collected 3 points to start the campaign against West Bromwich Albion (I don't think Albion supporters like it when people call their team West Brom - another tidbit I learned listening to 606: "It's not West Brom. Click to continue reading...

So here it is. At least. The new season. Are you excited? Chomping at the bit? Psyched? Pumped?

Yeah, all of those things. As usual on the eve of a big game we hear a lot from Arsene Wenger at his pre-match press conference. Sometimes on a Saturday morning I look at the glut of stories and it's amost intimidating thinking about how to sort them and present them.

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(Sorry, I couldn't resist.)

Despite playing a midfield of toddlers and Eboue (who has the maturity of one), and by all accounts playing, um, not at our standard, let's say, we're still leaving Enschede with two away goals and a win.

Unfortunately, I can't say for myself how they played, since Champions League games are not scheduled for Seattle's viewing times.

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The Guardian's soft-spoken Scot, and chief football correspondent, Kevin McCarra, after siting that Arsenal's most expensive signing was Sylvain Wiltord for around £11m, eight years ago, described Arsene Wenger as having a magnificent arrogance for trying to compete for top honors on a shoe-string budget. Click to continue reading...

We spoke during the week about how an injury to either Cesc or Denilson would leave us very stretched in central midfield and sadly that's the situation we're faced with as the former has a hamstring strain that will rule him out for the next two weeks or so.

Not only that, going into tonight's game against FC Twente we're missing also missing Kolo Toure and Philippe Senderos as well as the other names we weren't expecting to play anyway.

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It looks increasingly likely that AW is going to back Denilson to partner Cesc in midfield against FC Twente on Wednesday. With Diaby out injured and Song at the Olympics, the only other choices for the central role would seem to be Eboue or Ramsey, judging by AW's pre-season selections. The consensus is that the Cesc/Denilson pairing is not likely to work as they are too similar in their Click to continue reading...

Arsenal took the lead against Sevilla from a Carlos Vela goal. He should also be credited with an assist for doing all the work in the buildup. It was a great goal, one of several he's scored in pre-season, so he and his supporters might have taken it hard when Arsene Wenger said after the game:

"He is an exciting player. Click to continue reading...

Morning.

A 3-2 win over Ajax last night. That's good, eh? Oh wait. It's not good. Or something. I must confess I've only seen highlights but from what I've read it seems Adebayor missed 76 chances in the first half, we still can't defend, our midfield is light and we're all going to die.

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The beautiful game was tainted a bit today, I gathered from the audio commentary and highlights, by some shoddy defending, but that was overshadowed by 3 second-half goals: 2 from Adebayor and 1 from Bendtner, as Arsenal defeated Ajax 3-2 in Amsterdam.

Eboue put in a really nice cross for the opener, Adebayor set up the second for Bendtner, and Denilson did really well to set up the winner. Click to continue reading...

Morning all,

happy Sunday to you all. A 1-0 defeat to Juventus yesterday in the Emirates Cup made it unlikely that we'll retain this most prestigious pieces of silverware, unless we spank Real Madrid today.

The Trezeguet goal was miles offside, even a blind man who didn't know the offside rule would have given it.

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