20 May 2013

May the fourth be with you

Well, we’ve done it ; again.

Unlucky Spurs. Ha! How many seasons is it now? 18 in a row I think. We have had some great teams in that time, and some pretty average ones too. Spurs apparently have their best team in ages, but here we are again looking down on them. That never gets old.

BUT, and it is a rather big but, fourth place is not really something we should be celebrating. 3rd loser is essentially what it is, and we finished miles behind the Champions, and could never say at any point that we were in the title race. Must do better. Plenty of talk about how we are gonna finally spend big this summer, but it is Season Ticket renewal time though eh? Talk is cheap, just get it done. And I don’t even wanna hear any talk of safely negotiating the Qualifying round before we make any big signings ; If we are scabbling around for last minute bargains on 30th August, I may just burst into flames with the frustrations of it all.

Anyway, enough negative talk, there is plenty of time for that over the summer. Some irony in the fact that it was Koscielny who scored the all important goal, as our season was resurrected after the Munich game when the manager finally took the big decision to drop Vermaelen and replace him with Koscielny. Since the defensive horror show at White Hart Lane, the defence has been excellent and Kos played a massive part in that. The stats were quite remarkable, in fact even when you look at the season as a whole the goals conceded compared well with our rivals. Still, we all know there is massive room for improvement.

More reflections on the season’s end next week.

Mind the gap!

15 May 2013

one aaron ramsey

Morning Clockenders,

 

So cast your minds back just over two months ago and we’d just gone seven points behind Spu*s. Since then we’ve managed seven wins and two draws and remarkably we enter the final game of the season needing one final win to secure top four and Champions League football for yet another season. Considering Newcastle have absolutely nothing to play for we should be going up north and collecting three points. If we don’t then all the hard work would be for nothing and it would be a cruel way to end what has been a brilliant transformation in the final third of the season.

 

There were a lot of nervous Gooners before the game last night, something that I was rather surprised about. Yes the game meant a lot to both teams but it seemed as though many people had completely forgotten that we were at home against a team who were 18th in the table. FA Cup or no FA Cup they are 18th for a reason. Yes at one point in the game it was very much edge of your seat stuff and we had to rely on Wojech to pull off a great save at 1-1 but we were still playing the 18th worst team in the division. Come the end of 90 minutes it showed, and a brilliant nine minute spell which conjured up three goals was just the way to settle the nerves of the players and relax for the remaining 25 minutes. It was very much reminiscent of the West Ham game earlier in the year when we scored four goals in a similar time frame. So it’s job done and we can focus on Newcastle on Sunday. It’s in our hands and that’s all that we could have hoped for in the middle of March.

 

There have been some big performances from everyone in the final third and none more so that Aaron Ramsey. He’s been brilliant and although he might not have had a great game yesterday his goal and player of the month has been well deserved and he’s shown what a valuable player he is to the squad. He might not be a world beater but at the start of the season and even in January there was a lot of talk about Aaron leaving or going on loan. Now I’m sure there won’t be anyone wanted to see him in another shirt other than the red and white of The Arsenal.

 

Enjoy the next few days because before you know it the nerves will start kicking in and it’ll be Sunday.