Quick Team News

It looks as if WG10 may well play against Charlton tomorrow, which would be excellent if it happens. If it's not him then JD20 will play, says AW.

Thank You

It's Arsene Wenger's tenth anniversary with Arsenal today. From all of us, a truly heart-felt "Thank You".

My favourite Wenger moment? Has to be seeing him holding up the Football365 "Comical Wenger" TShirt at Highbury when we really had gone through the season unbeaten.

My favourite Wenger thing? He's shown us all that you can achieve success whilst still being an honest, decent human being. If that were to be his legacy then it's one of which he could be utterly proud, IMHO.

Passing The Porto

Another win last night, and a good one too if style's your thing (and it should be, IMHO). The team's starting to gel nicely now and they're playing with smiles on their faces - they really look like they're enjoying themselves and that's great to see. TR7 really does look the business ATM.

The only downside from last night's action was an injury to the once-again very impressive WG10 (can anyone now doubt we got the better out of the Cashley C**t fiasco?) who looks to have pulled a hamstring. Thankfully the next three games he could have featured in are a premiership game against Charlton and two Euro qualifiers for France, so things could have been far worse, at least for us, timing-wise.

Chelski and the Pool on the box tonight. Probably a good night to clean the drains, but I imagine I'll end up watching anyway.

UPDATE: WG10 is reported today (Thursday) as saying he's hoping to be fit for France's Euro qualifiers, so it looks like his injury - now being described as a thigh strain rather than a hamstring pull - isn't as bad as at first feared. Excellent news.

I Wonder If He Has Marmite Soldiers?

Whilst it appears North Korea are going all out to detonate a nuclear device, the UK press this morning is rather more concerned with claims that Robin Hood was in fact Welsh and with what Prince Charles does (or doesn't do) with boiled eggs. I can see that these two stories are probably more interesting than the Labour Party conference but I find the lack of concern for more world-affecting issues rather troublesome. Nothing new there, then.

Champions league again this week. We're playing Porto tomorrow night. Come on you Gunners...

Bid Laden Possibly Not As Dead As Recently Reported

Goldstein, sorry, Bin Laden may not be dead after all. Well he will be one day, death and taxes being the only certainties, as they say. Mind you, if Gordon Brown becomes PM there's a fair chance the former will be outlawed to ensure an increased pool to pay the latter. It's all going horribly wrong as Bob would have said.

Well not *all*, we got three points at home for the first time this season. Excellent, we just need to keep it up and let the others play amongst themselves for a while. Newcastle vs Everton on the box this afternoon - I'll be rooting for the Magpies as Al's made the trek up there and I can't face the idea of him looking miserable all week if the scousers win.

Not That I'm Counting

But it's only 50 minutes until beer time according to the Beer-O-Clock plugin on my browser. Given that beer time only comes once a week by this widget (it needs some tweaking, I feel) this is certainly an event forward to which one should look. I might even pop into the Charlton on the way home.

Tomorrow's game against the Blades is far more of a must-win game than last weekend's, IMHO, so I'm approaching it with some trepidation. TH14 and RVP11 should both be available for selection, apparently. Come on you Gunners...

BTW, there's been no further update on the War On Spinach, which is worrying as Dubya, desparately needing some sort of success, is now likely to escalate...

Posting Comments

The Duffmeister pointed out earlier today that there are problems posting comments to this site. This appears to occur, as far as I can tell, if you've got your own Blogger account that isn't using the Beta version of Blogger. No doubt it will be fixed in due course.

In the meantime, this site does accept anonymous comments (though they are moderated to help avoid blog-spam) so just use that option. I think we'll all be able to guess your indentities...

War On Spinach: Latest News

CNN reports: "Federal and state investigators on Wednesday focused their hunt to nine farms in California's greater Salinas Valley, said Dr. Mark Horton, the state public health officer. They also were checking processing plants, said Horton, who called the bag of tainted Dole baby spinach the "smoking gun" in the case."

Looks like here may be one war the US can actually win...

Not a lot of news on the football front, once again. The general opinion of those who saw the Panorama bung edition seems to be that the whole thing was unsubstantiated conjecture, but time will tell.

Welcome To The War On Spinach

Apparently spinach is the latest threat to the good ol' US of A. When on earth will it all end?

One of the joys of having satellite TV is that I rarely watch it. There's way too much on and pretty much none of it is anything any rational being would want to watch. Thus it was that I missed last night's Panorama programme in which Big Sam, to the likely surprise of no one, was revealed as a serial bung-taker. Cool. Chelski caught tapping-up again, on tape, too. Sounds of urgent carpet-lifting and sweeping at the FA, no doubt.

No real Arsenews today and the weather down here is dreadful. There's a hurricane on the way, apparently. Yipee.

Tuesday Comes Around Again

Excellent weekend, not least the very welcome - and deserved - result at Old Trafford. Now, perhaps, we can start to build some momentum.

Not a lot going on today, though the sun's decided to put in an appearance, which is nice. I'm bloody hungry, as it happens, so it could well be tacos for tea. Yummy.

UPDATE: Not such a quiet day after all: it would appear that a Coup D'Etat is taking place in Thailand ATM. News is a little thin on this right now, but it would appear to be bloodless. To my shame I know sod-all about Thai politics, but the hints in the reports suggest the Coup may be no bad thing. Check out CNN and the Beeb (unless you're in Thailand, where apparently these are currently blocked)...

Thursday. Just Thursday.

What an odd day. Good result last night, couldn't see it as I was stuck in a pub with a load of ManUSA types - I didn't even get to see any highlights. Three points in the bag though, which is what matters. Sunday could be interesting, though I for one am not going to regard our season as over if we don't even get a point. A win would be nice, mind.

House-sorting is at last coming along, so I'm not feeling quite so guilty, but I did watch the scum on C5 so I guess I'll have to go and stand in the corner for a while.

Have a good 'un. I'm off to sleep.

Return Of The Gnome

Having dismally failed to get my house organized last night, I may have to dig out the rather bizarre Sky Gnome thing to provide sound coverage for tonight's match whilst I make up for yesterday's laziness (actually having a drink [1] with Mr W before his departure for pastures new).

No team news this early in the day, but good news in that FF4 is set to sign a new *eight-year* contract! In odder, pub-quiz-fact news we will be wearing shirts emblazoned with "Dubai" tonight as Hamburg share our sponsor and apparently it isn't allowed for both teams to wear shirts bearing the same sponsor's logo. Hamburg will return the favour when they come to London. This issue has never come up before, it seems. Quite why it's an issue at all is beyond me, I have to say.

[1] Quite a few, as it happens.

Plenty Of Clouds, Silver Lining Conspicuous By Its Absence

TH14 is out of tomorrow's CL clash with Hamburg with a foot injury, it's being reported. No other unexpected injury news, however, so with any luck we can kick-start our season with a win in the Fatherland.

The Cashley Cole saga rumbles on, with each passing day he's looking more and more of a prat - something that didn't seem possible, but there you go - and now he's calling Jose Moaninho a liar. Nothing like making yourself popular with your new boss, perhaps he's hoping to follow the last year's stint on the Arsenal injury list with a year in Chelsea's reserves. I've really no idea what this guy's agenda is at all.

Weather dank here and some mystery illness - which I suspect is "I'm-getting-pissed-off-with-this-place-itis" has left work looking like the Marie Celeste. We're in for a lot more of this, IMHO.

New Mobile Number

I've got a new mobile number, which you'll find in my GMail sig file. Should be active from tomorrow. Please update your records, etc., etc.

Bollocks, It's Shed Fest Time

Chelski are now after Nicklas Bendtner, it seems. You'd have to say it's really looking like deliberate provocation now. I really, really can't see what their agenda is here - it's not like anyone, even their own fans, thinks their recent behaviour has been reasonable. How much longer this can all go on before the FA *have* to consider charging them with bringing the game into disrepute?

England were dire again last night, I thought, although there is something rather amusing about the very real possibility that Peter Crouch may become England's all-time leading goal scorer. Good on you, Peter, but you're still a fucking giraffe.

BTW: Tender Engine (Ben's band) are appearing tonight in the Battle Of The Bands at The Barn in Wells. Starts around 19.00 and apparently you need to take your passport if you want to get a drink. Don't ask me why, I don't understand Wells.

Just Go, Tone

So. President Blair is going on a six-month tour of Britain to cement and celebrate his "legacy" before standing down next May. What an arrogant, pointless waste of time and money: pretty much Blair through and through though. Just go now and let us get on with the task of fixing our country up again. Pillock.

Not a lot on the footy front once again, it (once again once again) being an "international week", though it's nice to see that Chelski's latest outburst has been greeted with near-univeral opprobrium.

Well Said, William

WG3 on Chelski's latest petulant outburst: "All this is very, very petty on behalf of Chelsea. But at the same time, coming on behalf of the club's new leaders, it does not surprise me. Even if Chelsea have plenty of money, the new leaders lack class." Quite.

SNAFU at work ATM. I'm all for care in the community, but I'm not entirely convinced about putting them in charge of large offices. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Happy Birthday Mr Tuck

It's Kev's birthday today - with any luck he'll have recovered by now from Friday night's celebrations. Kev moves up to the next level on the "please indicate your age" tickboxes on surveys and such, which I'm sure will cheer him up no end.

Not a lot else going on in the world, or at least in Shepton. It's making a half-arsed attempt to rain and is looking generally a bit gloomy. No footie news to speak of, either.

UPDATE: Ooh, some football "news"! Chelski are claiming they had to let WG3 go because: "He went on to threaten that if he was forced to play, or if he was disciplined and financially punished for his breach of the rules, that he could score an own goal or get himself sent off, or make deliberate mistakes." Yeah, right. Chelski are suddently looking more than a little bit vulnerable, they may well - indeed do - have some great players but if the club's internally unstable (cf the Moaninho/Kenyon debacle recently reported) and then this sort of paranoid and needless sh*te then they're in trouble. Good for football in general, I'd have said.

Perhaps Now We Can Just Get On With It

The transfer window's finally shut. JAR9 and AC3 are now finally gone and we've got Gallas and The Beast in exchange. Potentially good business - well, getting rid of C***ley C*** at any price is good business - as long the new fellows' attitudes are OK, Baptista in particular doesn't come across as overly happy at his move.

Time will tell. Bring it on!

UPDATE: Apparently we've also signed Brazilian Under-19 midfielder Denilson and Pascal Cygan has gone to join Bobby Pires at Villarreal.