The Brooklyn Gooner

Long-form post later, when I've calmed down.

Short-form: Dogbag was offside, and he didn't know a bloody thing about his goal. Congratu-fucking-lations, you lucky, lucky fucks.

Last season, the Red Scum beat us twice and still finished below us. We're not out of this thing yet.

There will, of course, be a detailed report here tomorrow outling out big win over the Chavs.

But, that said, I thought I'd take a minute to state that the White Scum just may have to be taken seriously as rivals again. I watched most of their match against Boro today, and I grudingly admit that they aren't your older brother's S***s. They attacked well, they defended better than they have in the past (although Boro's crap finishing this time around was very likely the difference in the game), and they seem pretty well-drilled. Martin Jol has done wonders with these guys (and Davids was an inspired signing, too...he held everything together for them today).

I'm looking forward to our derbies with them again...while being able to kick the shit out of them twice a year was nice in terms of having six points in the bank, I actually prefer having them be a little stronger and able to make a game out of it with us (a trend that really started last season).

Rivalries aren't any fun unless they're actually a rival. And, while it's still early days, I think the White Scum are getting closer all the time to being our actual rivals again, like the Blue Scum and the Red Scum.

Arsenal 2-0 Newcastle United

Thierry Henry (pen 81)
Robin van Persie (87)

The Gunners: Jens Lehmann - Ashley Cole, Philippe Senderos, Kolo Abib Toure, Lauren Bisane-Etane - Robert Pires (Mathieu Flamini 84), Francesc Fabregas (Aleksandr Hleb 72), Gilberto Silva, Fredrik Ljungberg - Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp (Robin van Persie 72)

The Magpies: Shay Given - Steven Taylor, Celestine Babayaro, Jean-Alain Boumsong, Steve Carr - Belozoglu Emre, Scott Parker (Amdy Faye 82), Jermaine Jenas (sent off 32), Kieron Dyer (Charles N'Zogbia 69) - Lee Bowyer - Alan Shearer (James Milner 72)


Some corners of the press will take their lips off of Chelsea's ass long enough to cry foul about this game, and basically say everything short of "Steven Bennett 2, Newcastle United 0." Not only is that unfair to the referee (who didn't have a bad game, really), but it's also unfair to an Arsenal team that was good enough to win this match anyway. Sure, the boys in...err...whatever the fuck you call that color sputtered at times, and it does bear mentioning that Newcastle looks exponentially improved from the ragtag outfit of last season. Still, in terms of possession and quality of chances, Arsenal were always going to win this game.

Anyway, the match started out brightly, with both sides up for it. In particular, Arsenal were passing the ball very well...much better than the display shown against Chelsea a week ago. Within the first 15 minutes, Arsenal threatened twice...although the outcomes of both essentially summarized most of the match. On the first attempt, Bergkamp's beautifully-weighted ball over the top went for naught, as Henry found himself offside. To Newcastle's credit, they did a fantastic job of alternately shadowing him and then playing the trap perfectly to catch him offside. For most of the match, he wasn't close to being a factor. On the second, Bergkamp was again the architect, but Parker bravely flung his body in front of the ball to block. Still, Arsenal pressed the advantage, trying to find a chink in the barcoded armor somewhere. Carr gave the ball away to Bergkamp, but Given (my choice for Man of the Match) was there to easily scoop up the shot. Minutes later, Bergkamp's free kick was put in exactly the right spot, but Senderos just barely missed getting a head on it.

Newcastle survived all of that, though, and eventually started to get traffic going the other way. Shearer just dragged an angled shot wide, and then Cesc had to make a nice sliding block to clear the danger from Babayaro (after a tremendous run by Carr). That said, they didn't threaten anywhere near as much as the Arsenal, even though the incisiveness completely went out of the Gunners' passing by the 20th minute or so. There wasn't much going on, but I did notice that Emre is going to do just fine in the Premiership. He's quick, he's got good skill on the ball and he can thread passes through packed areas. Also, Parker did very well. I never have thought of him as much more than a nice offensive midfielder, but he was immense for them defensively today. If they do go manage to sign Michael Owen before the transfer window ends, then I think that they can start packing their bags for Europe next season.

So, we crawled along until the 32nd minute, where the match changed completely in one stupid rush of blood. Gilberto Silva had the ball, and Jenas came flying in with a horrific two-footed lunge. I certainly don't think there was an attempt to injure...but, "he was going for the ball" is not something that could or should protect the tackler from being penalized (and, if the dickhead announcers would try reading the fucking Laws of Association Football sometime, maybe they'd know that). Steven Bennett rightly showed Jenas the red...also, keep in mind that the referees have been specifically ordered to show red in these situations. To further the stupid quotient, the color commentator was whining that the red card hurt the quality of the match. Oh, for fuck's fucking sake. You can't selectively apply rules for aesthetic reasons alone, you fucking dipshit. No, 11-on-10 does not make for the most exciting football. But, if luck wasn't on Gilberto's side, legs broken in two places don't make for very exciting football either. Fucktard.

Anyway, if Newcastle were spirited and committed before Jenas' dismissal, they were three times as much so afterwards. While Arsenal had the lion's share of possession off the rest of the match, you'd be surprised how few clear-cut chances they had. And, when they did have them, Given was equal to the task -- take his reaction save on Toure's close-in shot, for example. That said, they had two chances to sneak in a goal right before halftime, and they blew both. A nice longball sent Bowyer in behind the defense, but he took all day to cross the ball. That allowed Toure to run the length of the field to get a block in. Several minutes later, the Toon won a dangerous freekick, which Emre promptly wasted. Back the other way, Lauren produced a magnificent cross, but Henry couldn't direct his header.

So, Newcastle made it to the interval scoreless, which only stiffened their resolve. Given cleared out a freekick from the sideline, then was forced to dive at the feet of the wide-open Ljungberg (after Gilberto and Bergkamp did well to unlock the Newcastle defense). For their part, they blew another good chance to take a shock lead when Boumsong was all alone on the far post...but, no one could get a cross over to him. Back the other way, Given came to the barcodes' rescue again when a long cross found Henry open in the penalty area. Several minutes later, Given again timed his approach perfectly to deny Ljungberg on a similar play.

After that wave of chances, the match slowed down yet again. Arsenal would probe along the edge of the Newcastle area, but the worker drones continued to valiantly protect the net. Finally, Wenger took off Fabregas (who was pushed around quite a bit in this game) and Bergkamp (who was running out of gas), and put on Hleb and van Persie. It brightened things up a bit, but I still would have bet money on a 0-0 result at that point.

But, van Persie signalled what was to come with a decent long-range effort, easily saved by Given. A minute later, though, a lucky break for us spelled the end of Newcastle's brave resistance. Ljungberg got himself into the penalty area, and N'Zogbia caught him with the slightest contact you can imagine. Now, anyone who reads me regularly knows that I think Bennett is one of the best 2 or 3 refs in England, and I agree with him the vast majority of the time. But, as he pointed to the spot, I have to say that I think he fucked this one up badly. Henry stepped up, and there could only have been one result. Given guessed correctly, and even got a hand on it. But, there was just too much pace on it, and it was placed perfectly in the corner. One-nil to the Arsenal, and with Newcastle's attack non-existent (though Milner did cause a problem or two after coming on for the ineffectual Shearer), that was pretty much that.

No smart club, though, ever takes a lead lightly until the final whistle. And, a few minutes later, Arsenal added the insurance goal that made us breathe a little bit easier. Newcastle had made their way down to our area, but Hleb broke up their attack. He passed to Ljungberg, who combined with Lauren to get up the field with lightning speed. Freddie cut it back to van Persie, who had the tiniest of spaces to aim for in between the near post and Given's body. Somehow, his shot found the way through, and the match was well and truly sealed.

Credit again to Newcastle though...their fans should have a good season to look forward to if they can keep this up. For our part, it wasn't the best game we'll play all season, but this is what champions do...win matches like this. At times, the old Arsenal made an appearance, using scalpel-like passes to cut open a resolute, spirited defense. The question, of course, is if we can ever do it for 90 minutes at a time. The defense wasn't tested often, but they did well every time that they were. Lehmann had barely anything to do, which is a testament to how well the defense played (especially Toure, who had a storming match in central defense).

Next week is the big one...away at Stamford Bridge. With our nearest and dearest friends from the West End barely scraping a 1-0 win over just-promoted Wigan Athletic, I envision us having a very good chance at 3 points, let alone 1. Can't wait...see you then!

Arsenal 1-2 Chelsea

Didier Drogba - 8'
Didier Drogba - 57'
Francesc Fabregas - 65'

You know, despite the English press tripping over themselves to poetically fellate this Chelsea side (and to anoint them champions of this season already), and despite the at-times humbling nature of this contest, I still come away from this with perhaps more hope and determination then many of my colleagues would. I'll explain why, but first the lineups...

The Gunners: Jens Lehmann - Ashley Cole, Philippe Senderos (Pascal Cygan 72), Kolo Abib Toure, Lauren Bisane-Etane (Justin Hoyte 78) - Robert Pires (Gilberto Silva 45), Francesc Fabregas, Mathieu Flamini (Aleksandr Hleb 45), Fredrik Ljungberg (Jose Antonio Reyes 72) - Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp (Robin van Persie 45)

Funded With Russian Blood Money: Petr Cech - Asier Del Horno, William Gallas, John Terry, Paulo Ferreria - Claude Makelele - Damien Duff (Joe Cole 74), Frank Lampard (Njitap Geremi 90), Arjen Robben (Shaun Wright-Phillips 69) - Didier Drogba (Hernan Jorge Crespo 59), Eidur Gudjohnsen (Cardoso Tiago 58)


Yes, two defensive mistakes from young Phil Senderos (and some poor attacking play in the final third) consigned us to defeat in a game that we otherwise could have won in relatively easy fashion. Seriously, besides the two goals (both preventable when we're on form) and the Lampard thunderbolt (that Lehmann did well to parry away), what exactly did the great Chelsea contribute to the match, otherwise? I can't seem to find anywhere on the net to find actual statistics for the game (seriously, is "stats" a dirty word in Europe?), but the final shots on goal tally was quite in Arsenal's favor, if memory serves. That said, don't get me wrong. I know that Chelsea's game isn't the same as ours...we're the Mike Tyson-type knockout artists, they're a Bernard Hopkins-type counter-puncher. And, it has to be said that they play their style very well -- they deflect and dodge their way out of the worst danger, and then put away most of the counterattacking opportunities that they get. In a sense, it's why they're far more frustrating to play against than anyone else...even Manchester United doesn't have that aura of invincibility any more.

But, if this is the best they got, then they'll be vulernable against us, the aforementioned pricks who also wear red, Liverpool, and maybe even Middlesbrough and Newcastle. As good as Makelele and their back four are, as good as Cech is in goal, they can't get four shots on goal per game (or whatever it was) and expect to coast by the other big clubs in the league. Look, I know that if they play Charlton and Wigan 100 times, they'd probably win 80 and draw 19, even on today's form. That said, despite the media cocksucking for Chelsea and what I'm sure will be the usual from the Arseblog Forum Moan Brigade (we're shit, we should have bought another 20 players, we should sell Senderos for 20 quid and a bag of balls, and other assorted nonsense), at the end of the day, you can't tell that much from a friendly where both teams are emptying their benches by the 75th minute. If Chelsea turns us over again in two weeks' time, then we'll have something to discuss. But, even with that, I think that this year's title race will come down to who loses the least amount of points to the teams that they shouldn't be losing to or drawing with. You know what killed us last season? It wasn't losing twice against the Manchester Buccaneers...it was drawing Southampton, Crystal Palace and West Brom. It was getting 1 point out of 4 from Bolton.

Anyway, the particulars of the match. Despite the fact that the boys in yellow came out a bit flat, we would have been all right if we could have gone 15-20 minutes scoreless. Unfortunately, Senderos misjudged a ridiculously-long pass from Del Horno, allowing Didier "He's Still a Waste of Money" Drogba in behind him. To his credit, Drogba finished well with his chip over Lehmann. Still, 95% of the time, Senderos clears that away with no problem. Worse than going down 0-1 was going down 0-1 just 8 minutes into the fray. That meant that we were forever chasing the game, which is very difficult to do against Chelsea's defensive front. If it were scoreless, they'd have to push more men forward, and that would leave more open spaces for Arsenal's passing attack. That said, if Arsenal were on form in the first half, there would have been more chances. The passing lanes were there to be had, but it seems like every third pass would end up juuuuuuust out of the range of its target. That'll happen from time to time, of course, but this was chronic and consistent. So, once they went up a goal, Chelsea spent much of the first half with 9 men back. To their credit, they did a great job of fending off what little danger the Arsenal could muster.

Unfortunately, that meant little entertainment in an environment that, to put it frankly, sucked ass in the first place. For whatever reason, the most vocal of the New York Gooners were not present...combine that with the fact that there were a metric ton of stupid cunts in blue shirts who probably didn't know what Nevada Smith's was two years ago, and it was a little much to take at times. Much like the Arsenal team on the pitch, most of the Arsenal supporters at the pub sat there and took it as the Chelsea "supporters" gleefully took the piss for 45 straight minutes. It wasn't any fun, I'll tell you that much.

By the way, a word about the referee - I thought that Howard Webb allowed "letting them play" to degenerate into "rugby match" far too often during this game, but the one thing you can say for him is that he was consistent. He let the same stuff go for us that he did for them, though I think he made some mistakes for both sides.

On the bright side, Toure forced a tremendous save out of Cech - it's only too bad that it was him who had the time and space instead of Henry or DB10. A better finisher would probably have buried it, but it was nice to see that Kolo can be a threat as well. Also, I thought that Lehmann had a fine outing today...there was nothing he could have done on either goal, but he saved perhaps several more by rushing out at the right times, and he looked very good in his forays out to catch crosses.

So, halftime then, and it wasn't exactly a half to remember. The midfield looked very lightweight in the center with the pairing of Fabregas and Flamini...perhaps in 3 years that will be our first-choice pairing, but for the moment they just can't handle the likes of Chelski together. Flamini was downright invisible, as were Pires and DB10. Wenger astutely subbed all three out at halftime, with the major difference-maker being Gilberto. Hleb had a pretty fine outing himself, and van Persie was decent as well. But, Gilberto immediately added strength and presence to the midfield, and from then on, most of the action was in the Dark Side's end of the field.

Then, the stake in the heart.

Again, another long ball into our area caused confusion, as both Senderos and Toure were caught in no-man's land. Somehow, Drogba beat them both to it, and fended off the attempts of Senderos and Lehmann to slow him down. I hate to admit it, but I wouldn't have complained that much if Webb had called a penalty after Senderos' challenge. That said, while Drogba got past those two, Lauren had a real shot to clear the danger away, and he simply out-and-out missed it. To be honest, it was a shoddy piece of defending, and it's the reason why Drogba scored. So, 2-0 then, and an almost visible pall fell upon the Arsenal supporters in the pub. It's always a major letdown when your side only gives up 2 shots on goal in 60 minutes, and yet you find yourself down two goals. That said, Senderos was quite a bit at fault for both. But, my feeling is that this is the worst game he'll play all season...good thing that he got it out of the way in this competition instead of one of the meaningful ones, eh? After the second goal, Chelsea were almost punchless in attack - it's odd to imagine from a club that brought on Shaun Wright-Phillips and Hernan Crespo and still had Duff and Lampard out there. But, they spent most of the balance of the match defending, and going offside the rare times they got the ball. Again, with nobody actually bothering to include stats in their match reports, I don't have an exact number of how many times they flailed against the offside trap and lost...my guess would be somewhere between 8-10, though.

The chink in Chelsea's armor showed just a little bit about 5-6 minutes later, though. Some nice passing found Freddie alone on the right, and while his cross wasn't the best, it bounced around to Fabregas. He didn't have the best of games besides, but Cesc did very well to turn the loose ball into the net to give us something to cheer about, and to make the rest of the match a lot more interesting. The worst thing that could have happened was a 2-0 loss that the cunts in blue made look easy...it's all we'd hear about for 3 months afterwards.

After that, though, the subs came on in force, and the match lost more than a bit of its bite and spark. Cygan replaced Senderos, and instantly, Chelsea looked that much more threatening. Sure, Senderos had two mistakes that cost us, but forgotten in that was the fact that he also made some great challenges, and generally looked pretty decent otherwise. Cygan, for his part, looked exactly like the shambling automaton that he is, and I'm more than a little shocked that we didn't concede again with a back four of Cole-Cygan-Toure-Hoyte.

All of this said, we'll see what the story is in two weeks. I am more than a little confident that those cunts in blue (both on the pitch and in the pub) won't be singing in quite as fine a voice when we come back around. See you then, bitches.