Team News: Barcelona v. Arsenal

OH SHI-

Ouch. Dont fold thats all. Please.

Just 20 minutes to go. I think I'm going to throw up. Seriously.

Thanks SFC, we'll need it. We are sending out the most patched-up Arsenal side you are ever likely to see. Hail Mary full of Grace...

mismatch between silvestre and Messi,

Living on a prayer. Can not recall the odds stacked up against us more than tonight. Just hope the lads give their all.

Okay..now im bricking it

Arsenal have won all 3 of their CL games with Wolfgang Stark as referee, including their famous 5-1 win at Inter Milan in 2003. Barcelona have never won a European game refereed by Stark.

YEES NIKKY B YEEEEEEES

MEEEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!

As soon as I stopped my ecstatic jumping around, I thought "Well it's good to get going, cos they WILL score", then they did. Argh what was Samir thinking, giving a short pass to Silvestre of all people in our box like that?!??!??!! And I'm surprised Silvestre just gave the ball back to Messi like that, not!! Well it was fun while it lasted. Let's score again now.

Is Silvestre going to be your Archilles Heel ? Still, Barca's defence looks none too confident either.

No this is ok, honestly. We'll get more.

We can gift them for every goal we get as long as it ends in a high-score draw. Come on!!!

Everytime they fall, they need to roll over twice .... believe that's the rule in Spain .

Ya know, I watch Barca every week, I love watching them, I'm a huge fan, I know they do simulate but I don't recall a first half in which they've dived this much. Maybe it's my Arsenal-colored glasses, but I really am a big fan of this Barca team, I don't look to criticize them.

Needless to say the english pundits will be saying it,s because Arsenal are a dirty team and only play long ball and try to kick the opposition off the park...........

I absolutely despise Barcelona. Not only for their off-field tapping-up antics but for all this cheating. I finally get the ire of Chelsea fans.

julieloveshenryforever spot on about the high scoring draw thing Barca need to score two for every one Arsenal score, and that's a big advantage.

What I love is how all of a sudden there's all these Barca-loving fans in England who say we were outclassed, praising Barca to the skies, and trash us all the time for cheating and diving we supposedly do -- totally ignoring that the team they're gushing over do plenty of cheating.

er scrub that...Arsenal are *****ed.

Why did this have to be against Arsenal? I fear this could be 6 or 7.

Well that's it then.

Tony - you said "Barca need to score two for every one Arsenal score, and that's a big advantage" - thats incorrect - they just need to score 1-more than you (get a victory) & they are through.

And yet...you were two behind at the Emirates and got back and it was much later in the game...it actually isn't over yet.

zeenut I do believe they learned that watching the Arse

IT'S NOT OVER!!!!!

I wish I could say that this kind of battering can finally make Arsene understand that focusing on our defense would be a nice priority to take up instead of collecting loads of attacking midfielders, and that bringing in someone like Silvestre is seriously taking the mickey but...

Did I mention anything about excuses? It was a wrong call, that's all I'm saying. It's a 90-min game but we do need the defence to be better, tough ask with Silvestre in there and no Song in front of them. They just need to take that short break at half time and stop panicking. In midfield we need the same composure in our passing to keep the ball better and create some more clear-cut chances.

Well we've done well with 10 of them. One of them (I won't reveal which) is just a bit too good. We did leave him a bit much space for the 3rd though. I don't see us winning from here, but we could well give them something to worry about in the 2nd half.

Excluding implosion, I will be immensely proud of these lads no matter what happens in the 2nd half. Bendtner's goal was unbelievable. I wanted to get up and punch the air, but I couldn't. I just sat there, hands on my mouth, shivering with disbelief. Incredible.

Well Rob, the second one also made me wonder a bit 'Where's Clichy?' too. It's the best player in the world we're talking about though. I said I only wanted to see the team to give their all and do us justice. We're putting up a fight at least.

not over til the final whistle boys. i have a feeling ur gonna score early second half and then again late on. come on arsenal. snapp messi's leg and u can do it

Do one TRH. I have seen your crappy posts on Vital Spuds enough to know that you are one heck of a piece of work. Do one.

At least tonite we are playing just a little better than at the emirates. Its a difficult game without Fab, RVP, Song, Gallas and Arshavin. It really is a tough fight back.

Yeah you won't get any better here Lou ... especially with Richard W*nkStain Keys. "If you're not an Arsenal fan you'll be loving this" C***.

LOL, Stoke v. Barca, that would be very interesting to watch. Assuming of course some idiot like Coward Webb or Mike Riley was assigned to ref the game.

TRH a small number of fans of all teams can not understand how many fans of other clubs want to see Arse win because they are an "English" team but we still want to take the pi5s at the same time

Going well then sweethearts ;-)..... Could have been a nice polite discussion about a bloody good football showpiece BUT deltaforce had to go and get all aggressive. WHY??.. TRH was right, there IS still time for you to get this back. Remember, if you get the 2 late goals you got last time out, you'll win. Simples... Why can't that happen?.

Coopsie - Because they're *****ing all over us ... lol ... I'm as opotmistic as the next man and will always get behind the boys, but the chances of us pulling this off are slim to f*** all.

Krist, the place is being overrun by spuds...

We're really being shown that our brand of beautiful football isn't really that effective when it comes to the very top teams. Message to Arshavin: take note of Messi, that's how you play, with desire and not carelessness.

Argh Richard Keys! >_< Here the Chinese commentator said after Messi scored the third goal, 'Job done then. If I were Maradona, I would be calling Guardiola to take Messi off right now.' And just now, 'Well looking for positives about Arsenal? There's almost none' with a 'hehe' added at the end. Don't you just want to punch them?! Almost on Keys' level eh!

TRH you are a spud fan who has registered himself on VA. And you are asking me to sort my act out? Get a braincell.

Not listening to or watching the game. Is Eboue on yet?

Good sub Arsene

Looks like I was not following the match myself. Eboue is indeed on!

Can't eff-ing believe it! Eboue was just running with his arms raised, ok yeah hit Sergio's face, but did he have to drop dead and roll around?!?!?! Yellow eff-ing card for that?!??!

I heard Eboue's on to poo on Messi

Why is Rosicky still on?

I have officially joined the ABB Club.

Are acting lessons part of the training regimen at Barca ?

So can I ask a question? Why is it that this Barca side works so hard when they don't have the ball and other sides, like us, don't? Is it coz we can't or won't?

I do watch Barca quite a bit but it seems to me that they're diving a LOT more than they do in La Liga. Just like Jaelle, maybe it's me being a Gooner. But I do feel they're play-acting is worse than usual.

Delta,I made a mistake in registering on VA? A common or garden F.U.C.K up. That's why i announced my prescence by saying 'hello, Spurs fan here, i was wondering what you made of our game against Fulham last night?' Trawl back and find that post. By christ, i bet you've got a face only a mother could love: you've manifestly got the intellect to match it.

Feck it Rocky, I'm going to throw this one in anyway: is there any good news yet? :)

They work so hard off the ball that they must tire at some point right? Now is the time to score one and we're back in it...!

Never thought I'd say this but I actually hope Inter eliminates Barca, and I detest Mourinho. My stream's back on and what I've seen is a Barca that is way beyond their normal simulation/gamesmanship routine.

Oh well, at least we can concentrate on the league now lol

Lol - Thanks CY, but we've become quite acustomed to dealing with disapointment ourselves this last four/five years. Such is the life of a football fan. That said I really can't be too disapointed, given our depleated line up and facing the best team in the world, it was always a long shot anyway.

Exceeding your intellect requires only a single brain cell TRH. Jog on.

Once again, a mix of genius and luck, ***** it, I'm off to bed.

jaelle, I hear you loud and clear fella. But it's not fair to generalise and paint us all with the same brush. It is the Premier League that they are representing, just as Milan represent Serie A, Barca represent La Liga etc etc. So as long as there is a team from the Premier League still in the competition, I will wish for them to go as far as possible BUT as stated earlier, I'd prefer for your lot not to actually win it. You've already got the Premier League title "Top 4" trump card to throw in our faces, I couldn't bloody handle the Champions League thing aswell ;-)

I ******** hate Messi.

I'm with you Jaelle. I kinda hope Inter do them. Now that will be a real contest coz Mourinho will know how to stifle them, not like Arsene.

Yeah, that's it for me. If any of you spuds were here GENUINELY trying to "support" us in your own way, it was much appreciated. At least it made for an interesting thread. :-) Not too gutted--much as I hate Barca's performance, I'd rather go out to them than Utd or Chelsea or Liverpool.

Oh well at least we gave it a go. We seriously need to look at the injury situation and find out why this happens season after season. I think with a full strength team we would not have beaten barca tho, they are such a fantastic team.

All these spud ********s are not here to support us but to take the *****. Just ***** off.

hold ur heads high gooners. nothing u can do when there is a player of that quality getting the rubb of the green. he truly is out of this world. maybe a full strength arsenal would have made more of a game of it but as it is barca will win again this year

Jaelle, Arse are an English team after all you have 1 English player on he field LOL

OH, unlucky tonight aswell. I didn't watch the game but from listening to the guys on SSN and reading what you've all been saying on here, Barca deserved to win?. And as Gooner_Vin said, you can concentrate on the league now!!

Wyn, that's what I've been saying for at least 2 seasons, I'm so tired of going on about it and watching us consistently fail to close opponents down.

lose

Now brace ourselves for those who look back and ask why Arsene didn't bring in a better CB than Silvestre, etc etc. No matter how awesome Messi is, we just have to put up our hand and admit our defence indeed needs work when you see your manager sends on a RB for a CB when he can't play the other backup CB on the bench for his age or fitness or whatever.

We need real battlers in midfield Jaelle. We have to learn the dark arts as well as the pretty football or we'll always always fall short.

Theres a few more reasons aswell Wyn Mills dont lie to yourself. Having said that i thought with a makeshift side that was a great, great attempt against the best team in the world and you should be proud of your team

Deltaforce they desrve to go on to win this??? like coz they beat you easily ?? Wyn Mills ...thats quite a few differences!!!

Villa Fan here, Must admit im gutted you lost tonight :( I wonted u to win and then win the cup. If it wernt for Messi i think you could of wraped it up, Abit harsh on the diving doe didnt think they needid to cheat like that, Anyways goodluck in the league!

jaelle, THANKYOU. And thanks to the other Gooners who have been more 'accepting' of me. Good luck for the rest of the season (not next Wednesday obviously). Heads high guys and gals. No shame in going out to the best team in the world, with the best player in the world, and in the QF of the Champions League.. All the best.

The best team won. That has to be what you judge any football match on irrespective of your allegiances. In under 12 months they have bettered us Chelsea and ManU. Whatever regrets we might have about the team we were able to put out it would still have been tough even with a full complement of first choices. We will get the chance to test ourselves against them again.

Spot on coopsieyid.

Yep Coopsie you and all reasonable football fans like you will be welcome. Hopefully we'll also be in a better mood after the NLD hehe. ;)

Lou, well maybe as much as the players will learn from Barca, maybe Arsene will learn something from Guardiola and how to combine the beautiful game with winning.

Coopsieyid, i take stick off aresnal fans nearly every day and there are some real****s, im simply just givin out what they give to me, i over stepped the mark on some comments tonight i apoligise to who i offended i normally only stick to the football banter and wind fans up but i went abit too far tonight.

Honestly aside from Leo Messi - nothing you can do about the best player in the world, by far in my opinion - we can indeed match them player for player, even including Xavi and Iniesta. But three persistent issues remain as the biggest obstacles to us winning the two major trophies: (1) Injuries - this happens season after season, we really have to do something about the injury problem. (2) Pressing off the ball - we did it brilliant against Milan for example, but when we face the top top teams like Barca, ManU and Chelsea, we fall short in this area. (3) Defensive organisation - especially when this 4-3-3 we're playing, we especially need the DM and full-backs to be more solid than before. Otherwise this formation enables us to try and score more but also get more exposed defensively. I dare say we only lost to Messi but games like these do highlight these problems we have.

as much as i hate you gooners i would still rather have you guys succeed over spain

When is the club Releasing the last 20 minutes of the 1st leg and 1st 20 minutes of the 2nd leg on DVD :) The galaticos did this to Manchester United a few years ago with Fat Ronaldo (before he was really fat) scoring a hat trick at old trafford and united got battered in the Bernabeau. After playing Real any other team United played seemed to be a relief for them and they duly went on to win the league, we wont face that again all season so if we show the same application we will take the title race to the final day minimum.

We were totally MESSI..ED! He's such a Wonderful Player, unbelieveable, amazing! Good luck to Barcelona in the Semi, and hopefully in the Final! I hope our players are not too down beat, as we had a huge Mountain to climb! Thanks to Super Nik for giving us some hope even if it just so short-liven! Oh, well we now have nearly a week to patch up our players ready for the NLD! Come on Arsenal!!!

Iceman - yes, I remember that well, I was thinking it was similar to our experience here with Barca. That was the Real of Zidane, Ronaldo, Raul and Roberto Carlos, and they did pretty much the same to Man Utd.

Just got in from watching us get mullered. Ouch! Read through the comments and fair play to the spud boys - good banter all round chaps. We got owned big time tonight and deep down it ended the way we thought it would pan out. Proud of the lads and shame we couldn't of taken them on with a couple more of first teamers. Still checking out the humour of coops, keef et al I gotta say the vital network was the winner. F**kin' luv u Arsenal, no change on that front!

I am feckin w@nnkerred! raspberry voddy is the bollix!! RED ARRRRMY!!!!!!!

Like you said God's a gooner.Can someone please file a missimg persons report,Walcott was nowhere to be found.

Err..it was Walcott who set up Bendtner's goal. Admittedly Barcelona then made sure at least 3 players were closing him down after that, and he wasn't exactly helped by lacklustre performances from Diaby, Bendtner and Rosicky. All three seemed to be taking great delight in losing possession and offering precious few options to Walcott.

Wasn't the best pass....admitted. But he was there to beat the defence and Bendtner was in a better position IMHO. Bendtner also doesn't have the quickest feet, although credit to him for getting up quickly to poke it home.

Arsenal didn't plat too badly against barca but they failed to capitalize on the errors which u guys forced by pressing. That was a very ingenious tatic but everytime u got the ball by this method, in the final third, u failed miserably to make the most of it. Gael clitchy and bedtner were two of those main culprits. Had they done better with those opportunities u cud have easily levelled the game. Poor guys i wish u the best of luck for what remains of this season and hope u guys maintain the challenge for next season. Good luck coming from a chelsea fan, a fair one at that. :)

apologies for the silly comments by a poster from Villa last night. Have removed them this morning and the replies (so they replies don't look a bit mad talking to something not there!) I should have my vitalfootballadmin login for this doo dah but it is early and I'm being lazy! Banter etc is ok on Vital but we do like to rise about the petty stuff. GoonerLou, you'd have been more than welcome to remove the comments and replies so as not to have the thread decend into playground stuff. Will also email rocky today as it is much better for you all to nip these things in the bud rather than have the slanging match! Don't for a minute think those views reflect on all us Villans, just the one who was posting. Sometimes users get carried away but usually we manage to get them to settle into the idea of Vital Football. Banter and proper football talk is most welcome, abuse or pettiness is very much not! Onward and upward, as per post in the other thread, think your guys did you proud, you were just 'done' by the best in the world, Messi. Not much difference to when Fabregas came on for you folks against Villa and transformed the game and result! Bloody Fabregas!!!!!!!!!!! Plenty to hold your heads high about and the league isn't over yet either!

Chelsea fan here......you guys did your best despite handicaped and im glad you saw for yourselfs how girly they are......you can barely touch them and they fall screaming in agony and the refs fall for it everytime......maybe now Chelsea will get some credit for what they did to a stronger Barca last year.

Fair enough Atomis..Barca take a fall too easily and are adept at the dark arts of the game. But they play some great attacking football and watching them win is more a celebration of the game than some of the other clogger teams in the competition. Inter Milan are like a high level Bolton or Blackburn in the way they play their football. Man U without Tevez and Ronaldo are not the counter attacking masters they were and are quite dull to watch. Lyon and Bordeaux are good footballing sides and deserve the current spotlight they are getting.

There were 300 arse fans in the pub last night calling for wenger's head. You lost to the best team in the world for **** sake not Dagenham and Redbridge! Talk about fickle!

Arsenal fans are no more fickle (or less I suppose) than anyone else's. A look at the comments section of most Vital sites - VS in particular will confirm that. Most gooners accept that we were beaten by the better side on the day. We get another go at the CL next season.

guyz can I just add u played very well,it was only te brilliance of messi tht did u in...nothing to be ashamed of if ur beaten by a gr8 player...as a chelsea fan i think if u guyz buy wisely in the summer u will be the team to beast next season as both us and manu will be in a sort of transitional phase..lot of our players are coming to an end of their career and it will take time for the new arrivals to settle in ..say like maouda...he has took his game to a different level this season

Match Report?

Paul and Wyn, re our pressing game earlier in the season: I've been asking WHERE THE HELL IT WENT TO for months now. However, much as I've been ranting about our off the ball movement and need to consistently close down the opposition, we should remember that it takes an awful lot of energy to do it all the time. Even Barca don't do it all the time. Against very poor teams in La Liga they don't need to do it as much. Against stronger teams they pace themselves so as not to tire. Notice how they did tire against us and started to slack off after about an hour, it is a very exhausting tactic, not even the best teams can do it for 90+ mins. in every game. PLUS - Arsenal play in a league with no Xmas break and in a faster, more physical league than La Liga. Our players would be even more exhausted and injured than they already are if we kept it up all the time. Still, your general pts are spot-on: we need more discipline, workrate, sharpness, precision and consistency in our off the ball movement. But we also need to work harder at KEEPING THE BALL against top class teams like Utd, Chelsea and Barca. It's not very difficult for them to take the ball away from us - even mid-level teams can sometimes do it fairly easily without kicking us.

jaelle, I agree with all your points with one observation. Against the Mancs and the Chavs we kept the ball quite well in atleast 3 out of the 4 annual games, the reason we lost was because of massive individual errors and being absolute s*it when facing a counter attack.

Barca are a fantastic team but I don't think Man U and Chelsea are that far behind. Perhaps they don't have the flair and technical ability of Barca but they can certainly compete with them. We've played all 3 clubs twice this season and the only game we did well in was the away match against Man U. This was the one game where we nearly had our full strength team (think Cesc was the only one missing). It shows we've got a good first eleven but if we get injuries we struggle for replacements. Man U, Chelsea, and Barca can cope when 3 or 4 first choice players are missing but we can't. They have much greater spending power than us so there isn't lot we can do about that at the moment.

I've watched the games again and while Barcelona is obviously a team operating as near to perfect as I've seen the Arsenal players looked star struck. If they had little cartoon thought bubbles over their heads they would say, "WTF? They're passing! Is that allowed?" I love Arsenal and I believe in the long term project that Wenger is obviously not finished with but until we have players who genuinely believe they belong among the best and understand what it takes to beat the best I think we'll continue crossing the finish line second or third best. Cesc is by far my favorite current player but if he remains our uncontested "best player" it won't be good for the team or him. I look at our squad and while I believe almost all of them are good enough to hold their position in the squad the problem is we have a whole team full of "good enough to hold a position" players. Rosicky, Diaby, Denilson, Theo, and a few others are excellent players but they would obviously not be first choice at the clubs we are looking to catch up to and surpass. I'm not looking to splash the cash, but it would be nice if some of the fans were a bit more realistic with their expectations. This squad was never good enough to take a full strength Barcelona without a super heavy dose of luck. It didn't work that way. Maybe next year.

I agree with almost everything you say smithdj74, but with one modification. It's not that we're better than Bacelona, because we're clearly not, but I honestly think we would have had a great chance of beating them if we truely believed that we belonged at that level (most our players clearly don't believe that) and if we had had at least some of our injured players back. I accept that we should expect injuries at this stage of the season given our record, but the level at which they have hit us in the last few weeks in particular this season is just extraordinary. Of course, to beat a side as good as Barca we would've needed a dose of luck anyway, but I honestly believe with a close-to-full-strength team that dose wouldn't have had to have been as large as you may imagine. We're not as far behind them as we think. As for reinforcements, I think it's just fine-tuning this summer. Renew Gallas' contract, add one more CB to compete with him, get rid of Silvestre and get Djourou feeling sharp. I personally think Eduardo isn't really capable in this 4-3-3 formation, but with his recent return to fitness and contract extension it would be harsh to let him go, and that means Chamack probably won't be coming either. I'd rather make that swap, though. But the main focus in the summer has to be getting the likes of Rosicky, Eduardo, Djourou, RvP, Gibbs back to their best, really pushing the likes of Vela and Wilshere to compete for places and drilling it into all the players' heads that they ARE at least on par with Europe's finest and that they need to be competing in every competition as though they are expected to win. I'm not the kind of sp*d-like supporter who blindly believes in 'next year' - this pre-season I would very gladly have settled for the season we've had this year - but I genuinely think we're right on the brink now. Next season we have to play like we're champions, whether we officially are by then or not, because I honestly think we have the best collection of players in the country, this season we have seen them become close to the best team in the country, and next season I expect to see us close that particular gap.

That's a fair assessment AR. The issue with that then is injuries. I know every team gets injuries, but look at our record. I often wonder if we're seeing the effect of Wenger's diet restrictions being pushed too far. Our current crop of players would be the first ones that have had the heavy restrictions placed on them while they are still developing in their teens. Is it possible that a lack of dairy among other things at that stage in development leads our players to be more injury prone? I remember a few years back one of the NBA players who was a strict vegetarian had multiple breakdowns the docs attributed to lack of meat and dairy. Eh, maybe there is nothing to it but it's a thought.

ye play the same football as if ye are winning or loosing by 2 goals, just need belief an consistant 123spurs - Perfectly summed up there 123spu*s.

Sorry for no paragraph breaks, I lost those para. break marks somewhere, how do you indicate them again?

jaelle I agree re defensive signings needing to be drilled, along with all our players, about collective defending in a way we don't seem to do now, but still the personel behind Gallas and Vermaelen in the pecking order aren't right at the moment, and hopefully if we can sign someone experienced and assertive enough, he will command more of a collective responsibility towards defence throughout each game - the best way to get that done is through the coaches, not signings, but that's clearly not happening. As for Arsene's motivation skills, I think they will drop as long as we go without a trophy. Nomatter how good he tells the players they are, they won't really believe him until they prove it to themselves. Unfortunately their lack of belief is their self-fulfilling prophecy at the moment, and I'm starting to think that if we have to make ourselves believe enough to win something next season, before this talented generation begins to accept mediocracy, or move to pastures new.

Jaelle, to put paragraphs in you have to put < BR >< BR >. Do this without the spaces between the <,> and the BR.

Like this!

Hey guys, only got back today, doesn't really seem worth doing a report with the game in the dim and distant past. But I'm doing a trip report for the Gooner fanzine.

Jaelle, read Colin Lewin's interview and he seemed to believe our injury problems are much the same as other teams with 90% (or so) Internationals, who have to play as many games as the average Arsenal player. It would seem the number of "traumatic injuries" (7) this season has surprised even him. While I agree with the effect of the number of games we have to play, I don't know about our injury woes being at par with our contemporaries. Rooney only had his first injury, all season, against Bayern in Munich and was to be out for 2 to 3 weeks. He returned to play after one week, for crying out loud. I've got to ask: Is that kid human or just suicidal?

Definitely take a moment to read Holic' latest post:
http://goonerholic.com/?p=2328
Get yourself in the St. Totteringham's Day spirit

...the attention seeking Troll.

Looks like little johnny has retreated to nurse his injured johnson.

Explains why he splutters so much gash

Nice comments from Fernando Torres about us: "Liverpool striker Fernando Torres has backed the Gunners to take the title. 'I want Arsenal to be the champions,' he told CANAL+. 'They have the best fixtures of the three. Wenger deserves to win the title and to be imitated for his work he has done in his time there.'" http://www.hamhigh.co.uk/content/camden/hamhigh/sport/story.aspx?brand=NorthLondon24&category=Sportarsenal&tBrand=northlondon24&tCategory=sport&itemid=WeED09+Apr+2010+13%3A15%3A47%3A177

Btw, anyone see SAF celebrating his horse's victory at the races? He seemed happier than when ManU went 3 up against Bayern. Plus he was there with his old pal, fat Sam, whose Blackburn side ManU meet this weekend. With the curious name of the Horse- what a friend (or something like that)-, anyone thinking what I am thinking or am I just paranoid?

Indeed, Delta. Sam's always played the lap dog to Sir Alex and will not stop now, I guess; even with the prospects of Rooney not playing. He's also one of those managers who has something irritating to say post-match (I wouldn't bet he disappoints me tomorrow and pulls a draw).

On another note, just watched Barca do Real Madrid in at te El Classico in the Bernabau. I think Barca will make any team look bad and we really must hold our heads up and get out of this gloom that appears to have pervaded Arsenalfansdom.

Aw, No! Now, I wish I had taken that bet on fat Sam getting a draw. Stuck a knife in his friend's back there, didn't he? What-a-friend, indeed. Lol!

Nikolaijns-have you never seen the ying-yang symbol? Thought not...try googling past page one in future. Did you realise that your name in Cantonese, Mandarin and English is the same? Coincidentally it is Ying-yang: look it up, or up it, there's a clue. By the way, your mother must be so proud, obviously a classical education. Jaelle (Is that a popular name down Upper Street these days among the Vicki Pollard community or do A**E not have, like their players, any indigenous fans any more?) You labour under the illusion that European football began with the misnomer that is The Champions League. And Deltaforce (Deltafrickingforce- Jaysus I'm having the pish ripped out of me by a Gladiator wannabe) the only way I'd retreat to nurse my 'injured johnson' would be after the night I had with three Pedro Almodovar inspired Catalan laydees last Tuesday, who after a night on the swally, continued later in the same vein....geddit.

Hilarious! johnny boy really doesn't know it's "yin" and not "ying"! Absolutely hilarious, you're just showing up your own stupidity, little boy.

If she's happy to do most things, ask her to jab a sharpened pencil in the eye of the verbally diarroeha afflicted pretentious little troll that paid for her sex change.