Hopefully you didn’t get so outraged you broke your computer, and are still here. The FA is reportedly investigating what Adebayor did in the match, and if there’s any justice, he will face a substantial suspension. Because the bottom line is this–on three separate occasions during the match, Adebayor did something which could have very well resulted in a red card. That he got away with just a yellow is an absolute joke.

As you can see from the gif, Adebayor at the very least went over the ball to dangerously kick Cesc in the shins. That tackle could have easily caused an injury, and we should count our lucky stars Cesc was able to shake it off more or less unscathed.

Then, of course, there was the stomp on Robin van Persie’s face. When I first saw it, my initial reaction was that it wasn’t intentional–even Adebayor, I thought, wouldn’t be so mean-spirited as to do something like that. But after reviewing it, it seems clear that he did, in fact, intentionally stamp his foot down on Robbie. His entire body and momentum is going to his left, but as he’s in the air, he sticks his right leg to his right up in the air, and stomps down and to the right. The ball was already yards away at that point, so I just don’t see any other explanation. He may not have meant to get his face, but it was clearly a cynical, malicious move. While it’s hard to say that Robbie was “lucky” given that his face was bleeding pretty profusely, he is lucky in the sense that if it had been a couple more inches to the side, he could have caught a stud to the eye and been permanently damaged. A broken nose or broken facial bone could have also happened quite easily, and he is lucky in the sense that the damage appears to be pretty superficial.

And then, of course, there was the baiting of the Arsenal fans. Adebayor has said he was emotional, but there’s really no excuse for it. Yes, fans were on him all game, but the bottom line is that there is a certain minimal standard of professionalism that comes with being paid vast sums of money to kick a ball around, and not actively trying to incite fans to riot goes along with that. Football has come a long way since the days of Hillsborough, but as the recent West Ham-Millwall brouhaha showed us, football violence is still quite a real thing, and we need to discourage it. The least we can expect is for the players themselves not to try and incite opposing clubs’ fans.

All in all, it was a thoroughly dick-ish performance from Ade. Reading the comments, commenters seem to fall into two general camps: (1) he showed us what a huge d-bag he is, I’m so glad we sold him; and (2) he showed us what a talented striker he is, we should have kept him. Readers of this blog know that I fall firmly into camp (1), so I won’t microwave those arguments for now.

But I will say this to those in camp (2). I think your argument rests upon the assumption that the Adebayor we’re seeing for Manchester City would have been the Adebayor who suited up for Arsenal. And I just don’t think that’s true at all. The problem with Adebayor was always his attitude and motivation–when motivated, I’d say he was one of the five or so best strikers in the world, but when he wasn’t, he was run of the mill at best. Last season for us, he seemed unhappy and unmotivated all season long–to watch a player jog around and go through the motions in a Champions League semifinal against Manchester United was truly, truly maddening. His goal-scoring ration last season was almost identical to Bendtner’s–why in the world would he expect him to be any more motivated to come play for Arsenal this season?

Now he’s playing great, because he is motivated. And why is he motivated? As his antics on Saturday clearly showed, his motivation isn’t to either (a) help Manchester City win trophies; or (b) please Manchester City fans. If it was, he would have kissed the badge and celebrated in front of City’s fans, whom he apparently loves so much now. But that’s not what he did. What he did was go out of his way to harm Arsenal’s players and taunt Arsenal’s supporters. Which shows quite clearly, I think, that he’s motivated at the moment to play hard in order to prove Arsenal wrong.

Let’s put aside the issue of exactly why he bears such a grudge against the club that: (a) rescued him from obscurity at Metz; (b) trained him and developed him from a skinny, ungainly giraffe of a player into a world-class stiker; and (c) paid him gobs and gobs of money. The real issue here is that you can’t use anger and the desire to “prove someone wrong” as a motivator for very long.

It won’t be too long before his vengeance-wish against Arsenal fades a bit. And then what will his motivation be? A desire to win trophies? That didn’t work at Arsenal, why would it work anywhere else? The mounds of money he’s making? Ditto. The bottom line is before long he’ll stop being so motivated to prove us wrong, and then Manchester City will be left with the same player we had to watch last season–a guy with a world of talent who isn’t willing to work hard, has a prickly relationship with teammates and fans, and needs constant adulation if you don’t want him to start complaining and sulking. And as far as I’m concerned, they’re welcome to him.

So hopefully he’ll face a lengthy suspension from the FA, which if imposed will keep him out of domestic competition for a while. But at least he’ll be able to play in European matches…oh, oops, forgot–he went to a club which couldn’t even qualify for the Europa League out of “ambition.” Guess he’ll just be sitting at home counting his money while City relies on its only fit striker, Craig Bellamy, for a little while, then.

He also pops off at his old partner/nemesis St. Nick, saying that Bendtner “had it easy” and wasn’t willing to work hard to make himself a better player, and will never be a good player because of his attitude. Considering that Nicklas scored one fewer goal than Ade last year, this would also seem to be an implicit admission that he himself is not very good. Most humorously, he claims of his and Bendtner’s bust-up during the Tottenham game last season, “Nicklas showed me the finger. I am sorry, you cannot show your partner the finger.” Heh.

Anyway, onto the actual game. Lineups are in:

Arsenal: Almunia, Sagna, Gallas, Vermaelen, Clichy, Song, Denilson, Fabregas, Diaby, Bendtner, and van Persie.

Manchester City: Given, Richards, Toure, Lescott, Bridge, Wright-Phillips, de Jong, Barry, Ireland, Bellamy and Adebayor.

Bit of a surprise to see Diaby in there ahead of Eduardo–we basically have four center midfielders in there, so we’ll see who plays out “wide”–my guess would be Denilson on the right and Diaby on the left.

As always, feel free to leave your comments and thoughts on the game in the section below.

Come on Arsenal.

Spring time at the Emirates meant a warm sun beaming onto the pitch, and fans were soon given a reason to cheer. Bakary Sagna drew a foul against Robinho — who had a stinker of a day — on the right hand side near the touchline. Captain Cesc stepped up to take the free kick, sending in a beautiful ball that Adebayor headed in. It was an easy finish, as no one in a sky blue jersey decided Ade was worth covering. Watch the highlights and you’ll notice the lanky striker didn’t even have to jump.

Things were still a bit precarious at the back, though Almunia was always up to the task when called upon. He made a great save against a low blistering shot off the foot of Micah Richards, and got a lucky break when Gelson Fernandes, left unmarked in the penalty box only managed to hit his shot off the outside of the bar. While another goal in the first half would have rounded things off nicely, the lead looked fairly safe.

The second half kicked off much like the first — a quick goal. This time it was just two minutes in, with a lovely pass from Cesc going over the head of Richard Dunne by inches, falling to the feet of Adebayor who rounded Shay Given and slotted home into an empty net. The 2-0 lead, while sometimes a precarious position, was enough. City looked flat in the second half, much more so in the first. Robinho was out of sorts for most of the match, and while Arsenal’s performance was far from flawless, it was a fourth win in a row in the league. That, combined with another Villa meltdown today — albeit against Man United — has fourth place looking pretty safe at the moment.

Although a Champions League berth looks assured, seeing more ambition from this club to close out the season would do wonders, not just for a slightly disheartened fanbase, but for players, both potential signees and current stars. With Fabregas rumors once again swirling and Robin Van Persie speaking about his contract extension again and again, success will relieve any stress about the big names taking off.

Other news around the squad — Tomas Rosicky may be making a return in a reserve match this week. Although it’s News of the World so don’t read into it too much. Shareholder Stan Kroenke, who recently bought more control of Arsenal, reveals that Fabregas may be in line for a new deal, making an obscene amount of money.

On that note, there’s just two days until Villareal in the first leg of the Champions League quarterfinals. Bad news on their side with Santi Carzola missing out for the rest of the season with a broken leg. That aside, it’ll still be a difficult match nevertheless.

Arsenal: Almunia, Sagna, Toure, Gallas, Clichy, Fabregas, Song Billong, Denilson, Walcott, Adebayor, Arshavin.
Subs: Fabianski, Ramsey, Silvestre, Djourou, Bendtner, Eboue, Gibbs.
Man City: Given, Richards, Onuoha, Dunne, Bridge, Wright-Phillips, Zabaleta, De Jong, Kompany, Robinho, Bellamy.
Subs: Hart, Bojinov, Elano, Garrido, Fernandes, Mwaruwari, Sturridge.

Three points would be great, as Villa plays United tomorrow. Cesc is back too! He’ll team with Arshavin for the first time since the Russian was signed. In game and post game thoughts go here. Here’s to three points.

Current Position: 10th, 11-5-14 (38 points, +9 goal differential)

Away Form: 1-5-9

Recent Form: DLWLW

Last Meeting: Manchester City 3-Arsenal 0 (11/22/08)

Aston Villa Watch: at Manchester United

Everton Watch: Wigan

At long last, the international break is over, and Arsenal kicks off a truly diabolical stretch of 7 games in 23 days that will make or break our season tomorrow against Manche$ter City at the Emirates. As you remember, in our previous meeting, Citeh handed us our worst league defeat of the season in a 3-0 hiding that was the low point of the season for us. We haven’t lost a league game since.

The big news is that from all indications, Cesc Fabregas will be back in a red shirt for the first time since leaving the Liverpool game at half-time in December. The team has played well in his absence, and, lest we forget, he was pretty dreadful for us at the beginning of the year, and didn’t even look like the same player he was last year. Maybe it was the absence of Flamini to partner with him in the midfield, perhaps he was just tired from playing for Spain at Euro 2008, and it’s even possible he’s not quite as good as we thought he was. I really don’t know.

What I do know is that his return is great for Arsenal. The young Spaniard is really the heart and soul of this team on and off the pitch, and getting him back will undoubtedly give the team and the fans an emotional lift going into the most important stretch of our season. The team has also started scoring goals again, and now has a number of players capable of making impressive offensive plays, and, as Arshavin has taught us, adding a playmaker to this mix can raise a team’s level considerably. Replacing Diaby, Song, or Denilson with Cesc, even if he’s not at peak fitness and form, will provide a boost for everyone on the team. I honestly can’t wait to see him play again.

Anyway, this game is a completely different situation from our previous meeting with Manchester City. Our team that day started Gavin Hoyte at right back, Silvestre (remember him?) at centre half, and Diaby starting on the right. Jay Simpson, Jack Wilshere, Aaron Ramsey, and Henri Lansbury were all on the bench. Many first-choice players had been struck down with injuries, and William Gallas had just been stripped of the captaincy for his inappropriate comments about the squad. Robinho ran roughshod over our defense and scored a brilliant second goal to put the game out of reach.

Things have changed dramatically for the better since then. We haven’t given up 3 goals in a league game since, and we’ve only given up 2 goals once in those 16 games. We’re on a 16 game unbeaten streak in the league, we’ve gotten healthier, overtaken Aston Villa for 4th place, and advanced to the Champions League quarterfinals. While it’s not where we want to be and where most of us believe we belong, considering where we were 4 months ago, things are going pretty well in North London.

Things are not quite so idyllic with Citeh. The Abu Dhabi group expected results immediately from their big money splash-out over the summer, which has not yet come to pass. Robinho, who looked so impressive that day in November, has yet to score a goal in any competition in 2009, a span of 15 games, and missed a penalty against Sunderland in the game before the international break. If he’s not scoring regularly, the team has to turn to Elano, Vincent Kompany, Valeri Bojinov, Shaun Wright-Phillips, and January transfer buy Craig Bellamy to score goals.

Given these divergent fortunes, I think Arsenal should win the day tomorrow. While Citeh undoubtedly has some talent, they still have yet to come together as a team for more than a game at a time, and their record away from home (8 points in 15 games) is amongst the Premier League’s worst. Furthermore, it looks as though Citeh may be playing without Robinho, Elano, or Craig Bellamy, meaning their offense is going to be quite anemic indeed.

A win is crucial for us here. Aston Villa has to travel to Old Trafford, and you’d have to say it would be a surprise if they took anything at all away from that match. If we win and they lose, that puts us 6 points up on them with 7 to play, and even though our schedule at the end of the season is pretty brutal, that would be a pretty steep slope for them to climb to overtake us. Everton host Wigan, so you’d have to think they’ll be taking 3 points this week.

Chel$ki is away to Newcastle, which on paper should be a win for them—but St. James Park is not the easiest place to play, and with Toon riding an emotional high since Alan Shearer has taken control of the club, and with Chel$ki already looking ahead to their mid-week Champions League showdown with Liverpool, you can’t say a draw is out of the question. Unlike past years, this year there is a significant difference between finishing 3rd and 4th. Third place gets automatic entry into the Champions League group stages, while 4th place has to qualify.

Big deal, you say, we’ve done that for several years in a row. Ah, but there’s a catch—unlike in past years, when teams like Arsenal from the bigger leagues were given seeding preference and therefore get to play teams from lesser leagues like FC Twente, Sparta Prague, and Dinamo Zagreb, this year, the qualifying for the group stages will be completely unseeded, which means we could play anyone, including teams from Spain, Italy, Germany, France, or Portugal. To give you an idea, some of the other teams in this year’s final qualifying round were Barcelona, Juve, Atletico, Marseille, Liverpool, and Olympiacos. So missing out on automatic group stage qualification would really put you in danger of having to play a top-level opponent just to get to the group stages. It would be much better if we could somehow overtake Chel$ki for the final automatic spot. The odds are long, with them up 6 points with 8 to play, but remember that we play them in May at the Emirates—if we could pick up a couple of points on them and cut the gap to 2-4 points by that point, you’d have to like our chances of riding the momentum to the win and 3rd place.

As Travis noted yesterday, the revolving door between the trainer’s room and the locker room continues to spin at an alarming pace–the good news is that Cesc, Adebayor, and Walcott rejoin the squad, but the bad news is that van Persie, Eduardo, and Diaby are out with injuries sustained over the international break, and Nasri and Vela are doubtful (although Vela’s is only because he just arrived from Mexico and is dealing with time zone/travel/jetlag issues).

Anyway, I suspect our squad will look something like:

Almunia

Sagna-Gallas-Toure-Clichy

Walcott-Denilson-Fabregas-Arshavin

Adebayor-Bendtner

Also, this is my first post here at The Offside. I’m a huge Arsenal fan, and had previously blogged about them over at BigFourBlog. Travis does a great job with the site, but he has other blogging duties, so I will be filling in from time to time to bring you news and views about all things Gunner. I thank Travis and Daryl for the opportunity.

Before jumping to the bad news, onto the good — Cesc is back. He’s ready to go, and while starting on the weekend may not be a given, he’ll bring a huge boost to this club. A midfield of Cesc, Arshavin, Nasri and Walcott is now close. Although that doesn’t leave much to say about defense, it could lead to an intoxicating rush of goals. Here’s hoping to seeing that quartet on the pitch and playing well.

Andrey Arshavin is the team’s Player of the Month for March. That’s no surprise given the injection of pace and skill that he has been. Considering Arsenal has won all five games he’s appeared in, it’s no surprise that he was picked. Van Persie can’t win them all. If Arshavin can keep this up, things will look better and better as the season progresses. He’s managed to stay healthy through two Russian qualifiers and will be ready to go against Man City.

Speaking of Citeh, there’s talk about Bellamy and Robinho possibly missing out due to injury. Bellamy’s been battling a knee injury and there are reports from Brazil coming in about Robinho. We’ll know more in the next day or so. The loss of those two would mean a much more toothless attack for the Citizens.

Injury news is sketchy for Arsenal as the club has yet to release an official report. Walcott will most likely still be out, Nasri withdrew himself from the French squad due to an illness, Diaby has injured his hip and Adebayor is a question mark. He did feature for Togo over the weekend, scoring a goal and missing a penalty while going the full 90 minutes. I wouldn’t be surprised to see him make the bench and perhaps earn the start, especially if Bendtner is still battling a knock. Eduardo is fit and scored a goal for Croatia, so he’ll likely make an appearance. I’ll dig for more injury news tomorrow or update it when it’s available. Glad to be back, and glad that the international break is almost over.

Update: Looks like I posted too early. Cesc, Adebayor and Walcott all fit. Nasri a question mark, while Eduardo, Vela and Diaby are out. Eduardo picked up another injury in the Croatia game.

‘Nuff said in this picture.

Gunnerblog gives a great read on the appointment of Cesc as captain. More tomorrow.

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger leaves skipper William Gallas out of the squad after the player made derogatory comments about his team-mates this week – and Emmanuel Adebayor is also excluded. Keeper Manuel Almunia is handed the captain’s armband. The exclusion of Gallas is one of four changes (Adebayor was on the bench last time out), with Cesc Fabregas (suspension), Theo Walcott (shoulder) and Bacary Sagna (ankle) out. In come Gavin Hoyte, Johan Djourou, Alex Song and Robin van Persie.

Injuries aplenty, and Gallas has been left out. Finally, the boss stands up to his captain. Has Wenger’s serious misjudgment of his skipper cost Arsenal not only last season but this season as well? Hindsight is 20/20, but they both have to to do better than this.