Sunderland host Arsenal at the Stadium of Light in today's 3:00 kick-off looking to follow the example set by Hull City last weekend. The newly-promoted Tigers ripped up the formbook and made a mockery of the bookmakers who made them distant outsiders to take anything away from the Emirates Stadium as they left north London with [. Click to continue reading...

Sunderland host Arsenal at the Stadium of Light in today's 3:00 kick-off looking to follow the example set by Hull City last weekend. The newly-promoted Tigers ripped up the formbook and made a mockery of the bookmakers who made them distant outsiders to take anything away from the Emirates Stadium as they left north London with [. 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...

Arsenal kicked-off match day two of their Champions League campaign with a tie against FC Porto of Portugal. The Gooners inside Ashburton Grove anticipated a much improved encounter than the poor performance and 3 points dropped against Premier League newcomers Hull City last weekend. Arsene Wenger's 'sweeping changes' involved replacing Emmanuel Eboue with Samir Nasri, other than [. Click to continue reading...

Morning all. We've got the Champions League again tonight and I'm pretty excited about it. Not only is European competition great to watch but it gives us another chance to rebound from the defeat to Hull before we play in the league again. It's FC Port tonight, a Portuguese team known for producing great young talents such as Deco, Paulo Ferreira, Ricardo Carvalho, Maniche, Costinha, Benni McCarthy, Jose Bosingwa and Ricardo Quaresma, and won't be an easy match to say the least. Click to continue reading...

A few blades will certainly be sharpened should we not respond to the Hull defeat in convincing fashion, making an important game against Porto even more crucial. Nasri is expected to return, while a hip niggle keeps the impressive Alex Song out of the action. Wenger has some interesting decisions to make. Click to continue reading...

After Saturday's disappointment, the plus points are that Wenger has promised changes and we do not have to wait long to see what the team's reaction will be.   Samir Nasri is back in the squad and hopefully he will start on the left.  It will be great to see Nasri and Walcott tearing defences apart. Click to continue reading...

Morning all,

a very quick one this morning as I have a load of stuff to do really early. Well, one thing to do really early but it might as well be loads of stuff. Which it isn't. But there you are.

Cesc has been praising the young guns, amazing to think that a 21 year old is considered one of the most experienced and senior players at the club, calling their display against Sheffield United 'sensational'.

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One has to wonder what goes on at shooting practice behind the sacred doors at London Colney.  Despite racking up a more than healthy number of goals in the club's last handful of games, I have become more and more frustrated at the amount of simple chances that appear to evade the team all too [. Click to continue reading...

One has to wonder what goes on at shooting practice behind the sacred doors at London Colney.  Despite racking up a more than healthy number of goals in the club's last handful of games, I have become more and more frustrated at the amount of simple chances that appear to evade the team all too [. Click to continue reading...

Good morning folks. Another important fixture on the road at the Reebok against Bolton. Not going to be easy, this one, as the squad is probably a bit tired from its trek down and back to Kiev. That'll be no excuse, says the boss in part of the match preview. Bolton has given us difficulties in the past, especially at the Reebok.

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Arsenal will be looking to shoot down the white's in a tough looking clash at the Reebok tomorrow afternoon. Gary Megson's side don't have a very good record against Arsene Wenger's boys, and pundits are already writing them off despite Arsenal's draw against Kiev in midweek. Games between the two sides usually create plenty of goals, and [. Click to continue reading...

Another weekend saw another good result. Hard to find a lot of things to complain about after taking down Blackburn, thanks to Theo, Adebayor, and RvP - among others. Nice to see Walcott remain fairly grounded after his hat trick against Croatia. His mazy run set up van Persie's goal, while Adebayor netted a treble.

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Samir Nasri has been ommitted from Arsene Wenger's 18-man squad for the trip to Dynamo Kiev tomorrow night through injury. The French star has failed to recover from his knee injury in time and has been left at home. Youngster Jack Wilshere, who made his debut for the club in the Gunners' 4-0 win over Blackburn on [. Click to continue reading...

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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Emmanuel Adebayor scored a hat-trick as Arsenal strolled to a comfortable victory over Blackburn at Ewood Park. It was always going to be a test for Arsenal seeing as how the last performance away from home was a dire 1-0 loss to Fulham. After a stunning double win over Twente and Newcastle at the Emirates. Click to continue reading...

I wish you all a happy and *boilk* free Saturday in the vain hope that the universe will reward my good wises and thoughts and render me free of the *boilk* which is *boilking* the shite out of me. Not literally though. Well, not yet, at least.

Still, at least there's football today to help me through.

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Samir Nasri was forced to withdraw from the France squad that took on Serbia today after suffering a knee injury. It is not yet known the extent of the injury which sidelined Nasri from France's World Cup Qualifying match, though it is expected that the 21 year old will start on the bench for Arsenal's [. Click to continue reading...

Morning all, just one day until we get a real game of football again. How splendid.

There's vague team news ahead of the Blackburn game at this stage. Carlos Vela will miss out because of his lengthy travels while there are doubts over Samir Nasri who has some kind of knee problem. Mikael Silvestre's eagerly awaited debut will have to wait as well.

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Theodorus Walcottus Awesomus

Arsenal meets Blackburn this weekend, another team that believes in Josip Simunic style of tackling. Here is hoping that Walcott gets the start after his barnstorming performance against Croatia which should have boosted his confidence to stratospheric levels.

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Some Arse related Interlull action last night and what a way for Theo Walcott (OleOle link) to make his mark on the international stage.

A hat-trick against Croatia as England won 4-1. Despite it being rather unsightly seeing him pawed and mauled and kissed by the likes of Lampard, Ferdinand, PenalTerry and others, it was absolutely great for the young man and great for us as well.

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France turned in a woeful performance to open their World Cup qualifying campaign, one they will want to forget. Austria opened the scoring with two very similar free kicks, with France looking like they didn't know what they were doing.

It was a collective failure to defend set pieces, but Mexes, on the first goal was horribly exposed. Click to continue reading...

Arsenal's International stars were in action for their respective countries tonight and it was the World Cup Qualifiers that became the main talking point of the week. Here at Gooner Talk, we look to bring you the latest updates and results on how the Arsenal players are doing for their countries with a brief summary of [. Click to continue reading...

Denmark striker Nicklas Bendtner has shaken off an ankle injury to start for his country in their World Cup Qualifier against Hungary tonight. Speedy winger Theo Walcott claims a surprising start in England's WCQ versus Andorra at the Olympic Stadium. Johan Djourou continues in defence for Switzerland v Israel while Arsenal's French trio Bacary Sagna, William Gallas [. Click to continue reading...

L'équipe has the probable first 11 for France's opening world cup qualifier on Saturday :

Mandanda
Sagna, Mexès, Gallas, Evra
Govou, L. Diarra, Toulalan, Nasri
Benzema, Henry

In North America, Setanta will be showing both of France's upcoming world cup qualifiers on same-day tape delay:

Setanta broadcast at 4:00 p. Click to continue reading...

This headline, Saha becomes a Toffee after passing Everton medical, struck me as curious: how did Saha pass a medical?

I, for one, really hope his injuries are behind him for good - can you imagine? When he's in form he is a cracking striker, and I'd love to see him hit the heights for France.

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Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger has hailed the performance of new boy Samir Nasri and described his performance against Newcastle as complete. The young midfield maestro was outstanding on Saturday and followed up goals against West Brom on the opening day and FC Twente in the midweek Champions League qualifier with an influential performance against The Magpies. Click to continue reading...

Morning, or should I say afternoon, fellow gooners.

Apologies for no blog over the weekend. I was in the process of moving house, something i will have to do again by the end of the month. What joy.

As such, I only caught the second half of the Newcastle performance, but what I did see was rather lovely. Click to continue reading...

Midfield maestro Samir Nasri has claimed the first of Gooner Talk's Player of the Month award's after a magnificent debut month in an Arsenal shirt. The 21-year-old, who made two appearances as a substitute for France during Euro 2008, signed a "long-term" contract with the Gunners two months ago for a reported fee of £13. Click to continue reading...

The transfer of Aliaksandr Hleb discussed earlier this summer eventually became inevitable. Arsenal, after all, have a reputation as a selling club and had just finished another season trophyless. The planned £20 million switch to Inter that had previously opened the door for Hleb's exit served to ease his path to Barcelona. Click to continue reading...

Let me start by saying that I admire Kevin Keegan because he likes his football teams to play decent football. He gets them to play attacking attractive stuff and he is a great guy.

I like the Geordie public, they are great people and are starved of success in a football sense. This is not a direct pop at them. Click to continue reading...

Arsenal's post-Fulham rehabilitation continued yesterday with a comfortable 3-0 win over Newcastle. Since that black day last week we've won two games, scored seven goals and kept two clean sheets. Not bad.

Of course you have to take the quality of the opposition into account, and both Twente and Newcastle are poor teams, but you can only beat what's in front of you.

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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...

In one of the more intriguing contests of the weekend, Arsenal are looking to rebound from a lackluster start to the season. The Gunners struggled to defeat West Brom by a single goal in their opening match and then lost to Fulham at Craven Cottage last week.

Newcastle, meanwhile, are enjoying a fine start to the 2008-09 campaign.

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