I’m starting this blog so that I can write about Arsenal and
so that I can write about football. Blog
is sort of a dirty word to me, has a shitty connotation, pretentious maybe,
even though I read a bunch of them and I have written blogs before. So not only will this hopefully be a dazzling
study in complex, nonlinear football meta theory and the wonderful spectacle of
all action sports drama encased within, but a show of personal growth to quell
the doubts I see mounting in my new wife’s head, as well. With this new outlet for all things football
and Arsenal, no longer will she have to suffer the ages long back stories about
the fan’s sentiment towards a former player who now plays at a different club
but he’s not very good anymore and he should’ve never left the Arsenal for
bigger wages and it serves him right the son of a bitch and that’s why when
that song played in the shop and the girl who worked there dropped the box it
was so funny, because that’s the song we used to sing for Freddy Ljunberg and
when Petit fell over when we played Chelsea it was hilarious.
We all have it, that absurd, Walter Sobchak mechanism that
triggers an army of thoughts that lurk around every corner of your brain, just
waiting to jump out and latch onto something, their only purpose to spread the
Arsenal supporting virus as far and wide as possible. “That’s like when Wenger said ‘we played a
little bit with the handbrake on’” or “Typical, I knew he wouldn’t show up,
he’s just like Nelson Vivas against Leeds, thought that from the second I met
him”. I now have a lounge bar style,
free passed appetizers, drinks on the house mixer convention where all of the
Arsenal and football thoughts and ideas can mingle. I doubt anybody will read this, not many
people will be privy to the synergy and behind the scenes deals being done
among all these observations, but I don’t think they care too much. They’re pretty happy in their insular world,
perpetually in motion in one place, always now and never later and there’s no
over there. And as long as they have a
place to go, whether or not anyone sees, they won’t take up so much space in my
brain and will hopefully be kept away from my great sport of a wife.
So, there it is, a reason to start writing. Why you would start reading, god only knows. And now, here we are, no segue to the
football so we’re just going to do the football. It’s the day before we play Ludogorets and a
few days after we played Swansea. I
don’t know anything about Ludogorets, other than they’re a small club from eastern
Europe somewhere and I’m not gonna bother with the research. I think we might rotate the team but then
again, we’re on a good run, 6 bouncing wins, a very good run, and Wenger likes
to keeps his bands together when we’re winning like this, so who knows. I’m not gonna speculate.
The Swansea game was sort of crazy, great fun to watch at
times and so unnecessarily stressful at others.
During the game I thought that we were obviously the far better side,
but Swansea have a few capable players and are probably a pretty decent
team. I hadn’t seen the table or their
form, which makes this game a lot messier in retrospect. Theo’s goals were basically gifted to us,
which was kind and preemptive of Swansea in anticipation of our gifting them a
couple of goals back. It was like a
Korean business meeting with a group of executives politely exchanging gifts over
a conference table. We tried to give
them more goals but they weren’t all that polite back and did not accept. Maybe because Granit Xhaka had been very
impolite not long before, tripping up poor old, speedy Barrow on half way.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy with the win. We looked really good at times and we were
pretty strong with 10 men, we really should’ve got a couple more goals. But blam, there it is, why didn’t we get
those goals. And why did they get so
many clear chances after we had been so dominant. Hopefully the momentum we perpetuate from
this outweighs the negatives we can gather and we do start finishing more
chances, putting games to bed, not letting teams back in when we’ve been so
dominant and not getting men sent off when we should be cruising, harsh as that
Xhaka red was. Anyway, I’m liking this top of the table proximity and the
league will really begin to take shape over the course of the next 5 or 6
games, so let’s hope for a win tomorrow in Europe and that our momentum
continues into the weekend.
Bye for now.
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