Arsenal (The Gunners) | Special Thread

Michelle said:

Yataka moyo....poleni fans wenzangu....!!!

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Peasant said:

Really bad weekend! Chelsea lost title to Mancs, Nadal lost Madrid final to Djokovic, Lewis Hamilton came fourth in Turkey....what's next?!..Lakers getting swept?!....Oooh, sports can be so cruel at times.

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Eqlypz said:

20 now!!

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Peasant said:

I don't remember the Lakers or Phil Jackson getting the sweep in their history!

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Peasant said:

Really bad weekend! Chelsea lost title to Mancs, Nadal lost Madrid final to Djokovic, Lewis Hamilton came fourth in Turkey....what's next?!..Lakers getting swept?!....Oooh, sports can be so cruel at times.

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Mtaalam said:

dah kama ulisema vileee, na mwisho lakers kapigwa

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Wacha1 said:

<b><font size="4"><font color="darkred">Mnakuja kuwanga kwenye majukwaa ya wenzenu baba zenu wanawatafuta watoto mliopotea mtakosa chakula cha jioni, khe khe kheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee haya rudini kwenu sasa.</font></font></b>

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Mtaalam said:

<br />
<br />

sie twaja wafarijini mlio majonzini mwatufukuza ??kweli mna experience bab k ya kuzoea kufungwa!

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• Comments (309)

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• Crouch 30

• Kevin McCarra at City of Manchester Stadium
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 10 May 2011 21.52 BST <li class="history">Article history Tottenham Hotspur's Peter Crouch contemplates his own goal, which gave Manchester City the three points. Photograph: Tim Hales/AP
  
  Manchester City ground their way to glamour. The Champions League lies before them although they will have to negotiate a qualifying round unless they can overtake Arsenal and come third on the domestic front. This is a landmark for the club but City did not have the sheen of an elite side, regardless of the fortunes spent on assembling the squad.
  The fixture will be remembered for an agonising coincidence as Peter Crouch settled the outcome with an own goal. A year ago the forward had notched a conventional winner for Spurs that sent the club towards the Champions League at City's expense.
  It is as well that there was such an irony to consider because this match was dreary. The Eastlands crowd were understandably indifferent to the low quality of a contest that had delivered such a reward, but a moment should be found to appreciate a Tottenham side so full of endeavour.
  There is still no avoiding the truth that there are inadequacies in attack that will continue to hinder them unless Harry Redknapp discovers an adept and affordable striker. City's means in that area were expanded when Carlos Tevez came on in the 83rd minute, suggesting he is over his hamstring trouble and will have a part of some kind in Saturday's FA Cup final with Stoke City.
  Roberto Mancini is delivering an impact of sorts at Eastlands and the audience had no interest in nit-picking. Even so, there will come a day when a more expansive style is demanded not just for aesthetic reasons but also because a club will not make their mark at Champions League level unless they have the slickness presently missing at City.
  he club will not necessarily have to be content with fourth spot in the Premier League. Should Arsenal waver, as is their habit,, Mancini's men could yet overtake them and so advance directly to the Champions League proper. The mereexistence of such issues does show that the Italian's methods are working. He ought, at least, to have an opportunity to show City can eventuallybe allowed to develop a more stylish approach. For the time being, their goals total in the league is barely superior to that of Tottenham despite all the outlay.
  City might have given the score a more emphatic tone towards the end when Tevez set up a fellow substitute but Patrick Vieira's shot was cleared by William Gallas. Mancini's line-up had not looked masters of their own fate and shortly before they took the lead Luka Modric ought to have put the visitors ahead after a run and pass from Aaron Lennon, but instead shot wide.
  Spurs were lax in a different fashion almost immediately. James Milner not only played a short corner to Adam Johnson in the 30th minute, but was able to receive the return pass well inside the penalty area. The midfielder drilled the ball across the six-yard line and Crouch could not avoid turning it into his own net.
  There is little gleam to City despite all the outlay. That, indeed, seems to be the purpose of the exercise for Mancini. While the expenditure points towards lush football, the manager's constant aim might as well be to eradicate any self-indulgence. His attitude is understandable up to a point, considering how decadent the whole operation could become if it became saturated solely with affluence.
  There is, however, a problem. Owners of such means as Sheikh Mansour surely do not commit remarkable sums simply to create a team known for little more than competence. It is, after all, 35 years since they collected their last major honour, the League Cup. The notion of the present line-up taking English football by storm is absurd and the bid to increase firepower faltered since the £27m January signing Edin Dzeko has one league goal to his name.
  In the absence of Tevez, he can at least be fielded in the middle of the attack but that means there are no mitigating factors when he still falters while in his preferred role. Everything has been put in place to make conditions ideal for the City squad. The club has even had its employee Lee Jackson declared Premier League groundsman of the Year. In this fixture City did not put the surface to the accomplished use it deserves.
  Spurs are to be praised for that. There was nothing desultory about them even though Wilson Palacios had be taken off with an injury in the 32nd minute. The visitors could easily have been on level terms at the beginning of the second half. In the 47th minute, the City goalkeeper, Joe Hart, showed extraordinary reactions when moving to his left and blocking the header from the substitute Steven Pienaar that followed a cross from Lennon. City endured as much as thrived to clinch the win.
  
  

• Ewan Murray
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 10 May 2011 21.04 BST <li class="history">Article history Sir Alex Ferguson, right, with Walter Smith when the Rangers manager was his assistant at Manchester United in 2004. The Scottish duo might have gone to Arsenal in 1986. Photograph: Stuart Crump/Action Images
  
  Sir Alex Ferguson has revealed how the course of English football could have been changed &#8211; had he accepted an offer to manage Arsenal.
  Ferguson, then at Aberdeen, was approached by the north London club as the potential successor to Don Howe in the summer of 1986. Ferguson was coaching Scotland at the World Cup in Mexico at that point and regards only a delay in his decision as putting an end to the move.
  The Manchester United manager has spoken for the first time about the affair in Rangers' match programme for their Tuesday night meeting with Dundee United. The game marks Walter Smith's last at Ibrox as the Rangers manager; Ferguson wanted Smith to assist him had he accepted Arsenal's advances.
  "I was offered the Arsenal job and I wanted to take Walter with me," Ferguson said. "I had got to know Walter well by that stage and when I took over the Scotland job in 1985 when Jock Stein sadly passed away I made Walter my assistant with the national team.
  "I thought I would sound him out when we were on Scotland duty together. We were going to play in Israel and I didn't know that Walter was going to Rangers at that time. So while we were in Tel Aviv I told him that I had been offered the chance to go to Arsenal and I asked what he thought."
  As it transpired, Smith was to move to Ibrox, initially as the assistant to Graeme Souness. Ferguson said: "He [Smith] was positive about it [Arsenal], saying they were a big club and that kind of thing.
  "So I said to him: 'Do you fancy coming with me?' Then he dropped the bombshell that he was going to Rangers. I said: 'When did this happen?' and he told me it was a long story but he would fill me in later.
  "Of course I later learned that Graeme Souness had been lined up to take over and Walter was going to Ibrox with him.
  "The thing about the Arsenal offer was that they wanted an answer right away but I couldn't give them one because I was going to the World Cup in Mexico with Scotland. So the Arsenal thing fell by the wayside. Walter went to Rangers and then later that year I went to Manchester United."
  Ferguson explained that he had aspirations of moving south at the time of Arsenal's approach, after a highly successful time in Aberdeen.
  "I had started to get itchy feet," he said. "I felt I had achieved everything I could with Aberdeen. I was a young man and I felt the challenge of England would be good for me.
  "Of course I was offered the Rangers job in 1983 but I just felt having done so well with Aberdeen and having such a great relationship with the chairman, Dick Donald, and vice-chairman, Chris Anderson, it would have been a kick in the teeth to them to go to Rangers.
  "So I felt the best thing would be to go to England and I always remember Dick Donald telling me that the only club that would satisfy me was Manchester United. Amazingly I was there five or six months later and I had no inkling about it."
  Ferguson and Smith were to be united in 2004, when the latter assisted the former for a spell at Old Trafford. At that time Carlos Queiroz had left United for Real Madrid but was to return for the start of the following season.
  "I knew I was going to be bringing Carlos back because he was having a hard time at [Real] Madrid," Ferguson said. "I explained this to Walter in the January but I felt I needed someone in that run-in, someone I could depend on.
  "I went to Glasgow to see him and he was delighted because he wanted to work. He did a smashing job and the players loved him and, of course, we won the FA Cup that year."
  
  

• Ewan Murray
• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 10 May 2011 21.04 BST <li class="history">Article history Sir Alex Ferguson, right, with Walter Smith when the Rangers manager was his assistant at Manchester United in 2004. The Scottish duo might have gone to Arsenal in 1986. Photograph: Stuart Crump/Action Images
  
  Sir Alex Ferguson has revealed how the course of English football could have been changed – had he accepted an offer to manage Arsenal.
  Ferguson, then at Aberdeen, was approached by the north London club as the potential successor to Don Howe in the summer of 1986. Ferguson was coaching Scotland at the World Cup in Mexico at that point and regards only a delay in his decision as putting an end to the move.
  The Manchester United manager has spoken for the first time about the affair in Rangers' match programme for their Tuesday night meeting with Dundee United. The game marks Walter Smith's last at Ibrox as the Rangers manager; Ferguson wanted Smith to assist him had he accepted Arsenal's advances.
  "I was offered the Arsenal job and I wanted to take Walter with me," Ferguson said. "I had got to know Walter well by that stage and when I took over the Scotland job in 1985 when Jock Stein sadly passed away I made Walter my assistant with the national team.
  "I thought I would sound him out when we were on Scotland duty together. We were going to play in Israel and I didn't know that Walter was going to Rangers at that time. So while we were in Tel Aviv I told him that I had been offered the chance to go to Arsenal and I asked what he thought."
  As it transpired, Smith was to move to Ibrox, initially as the assistant to Graeme Souness. Ferguson said: "He [Smith] was positive about it [Arsenal], saying they were a big club and that kind of thing.
  "So I said to him: 'Do you fancy coming with me?' Then he dropped the bombshell that he was going to Rangers. I said: 'When did this happen?' and he told me it was a long story but he would fill me in later.
  "Of course I later learned that Graeme Souness had been lined up to take over and Walter was going to Ibrox with him.
  "The thing about the Arsenal offer was that they wanted an answer right away but I couldn't give them one because I was going to the World Cup in Mexico with Scotland. So the Arsenal thing fell by the wayside. Walter went to Rangers and then later that year I went to Manchester United."
  Ferguson explained that he had aspirations of moving south at the time of Arsenal's approach, after a highly successful time in Aberdeen.
  "I had started to get itchy feet," he said. "I felt I had achieved everything I could with Aberdeen. I was a young man and I felt the challenge of England would be good for me.
  "Of course I was offered the Rangers job in 1983 but I just felt having done so well with Aberdeen and having such a great relationship with the chairman, Dick Donald, and vice-chairman, Chris Anderson, it would have been a kick in the teeth to them to go to Rangers.
  "So I felt the best thing would be to go to England and I always remember Dick Donald telling me that the only club that would satisfy me was Manchester United. Amazingly I was there five or six months later and I had no inkling about it."
  Ferguson and Smith were to be united in 2004, when the latter assisted the former for a spell at Old Trafford. At that time Carlos Queiroz had left United for Real Madrid but was to return for the start of the following season.
  "I knew I was going to be bringing Carlos back because he was having a hard time at [Real] Madrid," Ferguson said. "I explained this to Walter in the January but I felt I needed someone in that run-in, someone I could depend on.
  "I went to Glasgow to see him and he was delighted because he wanted to work. He did a smashing job and the players loved him and, of course, we won the FA Cup that year."

Wacha1 said:

Rutashubanyuma

With all due respect I don't think fans of Arsenal would like to see newspaper articles blanket the thread, it will be wise to do that on Manure thread or Chelsick for that matter if they prefer the type of hype and clandestine. As Arsenal fans usually peruse the papers and come here to digest what’s happening and comment their opinions.

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Mbu said:

The Following User Mbu (Today) Says Thank You to Wacha1 For This Useful Post:

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Mbu said:

The Following User Mbu (Today) Says Thank You to Wacha1 For This Useful Post:

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