In other good stuff on the internet, a supporter of League 2 Grimsby Town FC, currently second from bottom and thus in very real danger of being relegated out of League football all together, wrote a rant against his club’s players which is truly epic and very entertaining. My frustration with Diaby is a drop in a very, very deep and hateful bucket compared to this guy’s feelings about Grimsby Town’s players. The whole thing is worth reading, but here is an excerpt:

You are a total disgrace, not only to your profession, not only to the human race, but to nature itself. This may sound like an exaggeration, but believe me when I say that I have passed kidney stones which have brought me a greater level of pleasure and entertainment than watching each of you worthless excuses for professional footballers attempt to play a game you are clearly incapable of playing, week-in, week-out.

Ouch. Also–Tottenham 9-Wigan 1? Holy &%!$.

Our 11 players could be configured into a lineup:

Fabianski

Traore-Djourou-Clichy

Denilson

Walcott-Wilshere-Diaby-Vela

Bendtner-van Persie

An unconventional formation, sure. But Denilson could play a pretty conservative holding mid type of role, protecting the backline and trying to win the ball. Then we’d still have 4 very capable attacking midfielders to hold the ball, move it upfield, and make runs towards the goal. And then one world-class striker and one…well, the jury’s still out on Bendtner at this point, but he did score 14 goals last season as a 21-year old.

That would seem to be a solid team–vulnerable at the back, certainly, but they would be very dangerous going forward. So my question to you is this: If, miraculously, this 11-man team could stay healthy, where would they finish in the table?

(UPDATE: Frak. Kieran Gibbs left injured in the 21st minute of England’s U-21’s match against Liechtenstein. Which means he could play on the backline of our all-injured team, either bumping Traore or Vela out of the starting 11. Ummm…it also means that we don’t have a left-back at the moment, which means we could be seeing Silvestre at fullback, or Gallas sliding over and Senderos playing center half on Saturday. Neither of those options are anywhere remotely close to acceptable. I know some of you get mad at me for criticizing meaningless international matches and talk about how important it is, the glory of playing for your country, etc. I hope all the glory of playing in international friendlies was worth it when you’re watching Silvestre stumble around like a drunken Frankenstein on Saturday.)

Where Would Arsenal’s Injured List Finish in the Table?(polls)

The Arsenal Offside (TAO): Darren, first off, thanks for joining us here.

Darren Fletcher (DF): No problem, I’m glad for the opportunity to clarify my comments.

TAO: Sure. Now, you said that you were only called for the foul which led to Chelsea’s winning goal because of comments Arsene Wenger made in the press two months ago.

DF: Correct. You say that like it’s an outlandish claim.

TAO: Well, I just think that most people would say blaming a loss on a manager who was not involved in the game because he made vague comments about how third-place Manchester United played “anti-football” and didn’t even mention you by name two months ago is taking the blame game to new and unforeseen levels, even for third-place Manchester United.

DF: Well, how would you explain it? What do you think, that we somehow just lost because, like, what, the other team was better than us? NOW who’s being ridiculous?

TAO: It just doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. For one thing, if the referees were influenced by anything Arsene Wenger said, it seems like referees would crack down on clubs which play anti-football against Arsenal, which certainly hasn’t been the case. Secondly, if they wanted to crack down on malicious fouls, it seems unbelievable that they wouldn’t crack down on Chelsea. Finally, um…if they were after you because of your reputation, you probably would have been called for any of the half-dozen or so bookable offenses you committed before you got called for Ashley Cole.

DF: See, you’re just wrong. I also wanted to address that last bit you said, about me committing all those fouls. That just didn’t happen. I saw the replays, but I can tell you now that all of that was doctored to make it look like I was committing those easily-bookable fouls. They used CGI and trick photography in a deliberate attempt to make Chelsea look good and [ed: third-place] us look bad. It’s the same technology they used in “Jurassic Park” and “Lord of the Rings.”

TAO: Wait—let me understand this correctly. You’re claiming that the live video feed of the game was doctored by someone in a deliberate attempt to make Chelsea look better than third-place Manchester United? That’s quite a claim—who are “they?”

DF: (chuckles) Come on, Martin, you’re so naïve. It’s the Russian mafia, man! They’re in league with Roman Abramovich and the FA to form a Premiership shadow government that makes sure Chelsea wins the league.

TAO: Why would the FA want Chelsea to win?

DF: I have never told anyone this, but for the past several years, I have on multiple occasions been visited in dreams by a giant, grotesque creature who identifies himself only as “the dark troll.” As a young boy, my dream was to play for [ed: third-place] Manchester United, and one night the dark troll told me to gather up seven live kittens, a pound of cheese, and VHS copies of Rocky III and Rocky IV. I was to place those items in a basket under the bridge near my house that night, and if I did, the dark troll promised that all my dreams would come true. I followed his instructions exactly, and the next day, the basket was gone. That afternoon, I was contacted and offered scholarship terms from [ed: third-place] Manchester United. Ever since, I have done the bidding of the dark troll when asked and not questioned his powers of foresight. The dark troll recently informed me in a dream that FA Chairman Lord Triesman is also under his spell, and has been told in no uncertain terms that if Chelsea fails to win the league this year, Lady GaGa will assassinate Nelson Mandela. So obviously the FA has decided to ensure Chelsea’s triumph to preserve the life of the great South African leader. It’s as plain as day. Besides, something clearly is going on here–I suppose next you’re going to tell me that you think Terry actually headed that ball cleanly into the net?

TAO: You’re saying he didn’t?

DF: Absolutely not! Watch the video closely, broken down frame by frame, and you’ll see that when the ball came off his head, it was headed well wide of the post, but then it suddenly curved—in mid-air, mind you—back into the corner of the goal. It’s done using magnets. Here’s how it works: Russian Mafia/FA operatives plant super-strong uranium-infused negative-polarized magnets around the back of the net Chelsea is attacking, and put super-strong uranium-infused positive-polarized magnets in the goalposts of the goal [ed: third-place] Manchester United is attacking. Then the ball itself is lined externally with positive-polarized magnets, so the ball is magnetically pulled into the back of the net when Chelsea shoots, and is magnetically repelled away from the goal whenever a [ed: third-place] Manchester United player shoots.

TAO: But that doesn’t even make sense, since the teams switch goals at half-time.

DF: (Sighs deeply) I guess I have to spell out everything for you—the magnetic polarization is obviously computer activated and controlled, so Russian mafia operatives switch the polarization of the goal magnets from a satellite-connected Moscow supercomputer at half-time. How else would you explain the fact that we only got two shots on goal the entire match?

TAO: A crap midfield? A complete and utter lack of link-up play, forcing you to just hoof the ball upfield? Rooney being forced to constantly come back deep into his own half just to touch the ball? Poor wing play which didn’t force Chelsea’s diamond formation to stretch out wide at all? Failure to capitalize on your huge advantage in corner kicks? No impact subs? Tendency to…

DF: (Interrupting) Look, if you’re going to talk CRAZY like that, this interview is over. (hangs up phone)

Well, there you have it. We know from listening to Alex Ferguson over the years that third-place Manchester United have never ever been outplayed, they only occasionally lose or draw when the referee or some other outside factor conspires to cheat them out of the game. So the culprits this time, according to Darren Fletcher, are, respectively: Arsene Wenger, the Russian mafia, CGI, the FA, magnets, and the dark troll. Many thanks to Darren for sitting down with us and reminding us what dignified and gracious losers third-place Manchester United are.

And just because I’m a risk-averse attorney: This was, quite obviously, parody, and the interview was completely fabricated. It was a result of boredom at work and preemptive boredom with the international break.

100. Anelka
90. Marc Overmars
75. Kanu
71. Robert Pires
64. Freddie Ljungberg
46. Cesc Fabregas
22. Dennis Bergkamp
18. Patrick Vieira
2. Thierry Henry

9 out of the 100 best players of the decade who played a significant portion of their career at Arsenal–not bad at all. See my personal Top 20 ballot which I sent in, as well as where my Top 20 ended up on the final list, after the jump:

1. Zinedine Zidane (1)
2. Thierry Henry (2)
3. Luis Figo (10)
4. Fat Ronaldo (4)
5. Ronaldinho (3)
6. Rivaldo (23)
7. Kaka (7)
8. Lionel Messi (6)
9. Cristiano Ronaldo (5)
10. Raul (13)
11. Alan Shearer (50)
12. Roberto Baggio (48)
13. Oliver Kahn (29)
14. Samuel Eto’o (25)
15. Roy Keane (34)
16. Paolo Maldini (8)
17. Steven Gerrard (11)
18. Patrick Vieira (18)
19. Frank Lampard (26)
20. Dennis Bergkamp (22)

I think my list matched up relatively well with the overall list. I think Luis Figo deserved to be a little bit higher–he was an absolute force of nature around the turn of the milennium. I think Rivaldo similarly suffered from people forgetting just how good he was in the late 90s and early 2000s. And I thought Alan Shearer was by far the most underrated player on the list–maybe because I mainly follow the Premiership, but how can the Premiership’s all-time leading goalscorer be ranked so low? And I understand that Baggio was past it by the time 2000 came around, but he was incredible in the mid-1990s. Finally, I know Roy Keane never put up big statistics or won a lot of individual honors, but anyone who saw him week in and week out for Manchester United in his prime understands just how much of a difference-maker he was.

Anyway, lists like this are always fun, and the disagreements are part of the fun. Feel free to tell me what an idiot I am or how wrong the list is in the comments section.

Arsenal: Starters: Almunia, Eboue, Gallas, Vermaelen, Gibbs, Fabregas, Song, Diaby, Nasri, van Persie, Arshavin. Substitutes: Mannone, Silvestre, Rosicky, Senderos, Eduardo, Sagna, Ramsey.

AZ: Starters: Romero, Jaliens, Moisander, Moreno, Poulsen, Holman, Mendes da Silva, Schaars, Martens, Pelle, Dembele. Substitutes: Swerts, van der Velden, Lens, Wernbloom, Didulica, Ari, Pocognoli.

Eboue starts at right-back and Sagna gets a day off, which shouldn’t hurt us too much. Given Eboue’s flexibility, it wouldn’t be too surprising if Sagna came on as a late sub and Eboue moved further up the pitch, either. The big news is that Nasri gets his first start of the season–it will be very interesting to see where he actually plays, because I think it will tell us whether Wenger sees Nasri’s role being up front in the 4-3-3 or being out on the left in a traditional 4-4-2, which is how he was mainly deployed last year.

I’ll be DVRing the game, so will try to get a recap and ratings up either late tonight or tomorrow. Also, just because I thought it was randomly funny–in addition to all your great legitimate comments, this blog gets a ton of spam comments, generally for erection pills, porn sites, or exciting real estate opportunities. The site has a spam filter, though, so usually about once I day I go through to make sure none of them are legitimate comments that got sorted by mistake before I erase them.

Today, in the comments section of a post I wrote in July about the Felipe Melo speculation, some spambot for some sort of stop smoking remedy wrote the following:

Hi there, I found your blog via Google while searching for first aid for a heart attack and your post looks very interesting for me.

I don’t really know why this was so funny to me, but it must have been for one of three reasons, or some combination: (1) that someone would have a heart attack and immediately turn to google; (2) that someone would google “first aid for a heart attack” and the first hit would be a four-month old blog post about how a soccer player might switch teams; or that (3) said person, having a heart attack and trying to figure out what to do, would then read a blog post, and then leave a comment about how interesting you thought it was.

A++, Spambot–you made my day.

Anyway, this is an important match, let’s get those 3 points so we can go into the international break and beyond secure in the knowledge that we’re already through to the knockout rounds. Come on Arsenal.

What’s he doing to celebrate? Probably having some kind of big, lavish party, with Elton John playing songs while young starlets mill around drinking champagne? How about it, Arsene?:

No, I have nothing to celebrate. It will be very quiet. I have the AGM. We have a big game on Sunday again and Thursday night is the Europa League with the new fifth referee system. They are responsible for my ageing so I have to watch that!

Well, there you go–addressing the shareholders and watching some exciting, exciting Europa League action. What a wild and crazy guy…

UPDATE: Football 365 has compiled their “60 Favorite Arsene Wenger Quotes” in honor of his 60th birthday. It is well worth a read. Some particular favorites of mine:

–[In response to Sir Alex Ferguson's claim that he possessed the best team in the league despite Arsenal winning the title in 2002] “Everyone thinks they have the prettiest wife at home.”
–[On Jose Mourinho after the then Chelsea boss accused him of being a voyeur] “He’s out of order, disconnected with reality and disrespectful. When you give success to stupid people, it makes them more stupid sometimes and not more intelligent.”
–[On Emmanuel Adebayor's stamp on Robin van Persie] “I watched it when I got home and it looked very bad. You ask 100 people, 99 will say it’s very bad and the hundredth will be Mark Hughes.”
–”We do not buy superstars. We make them.”

And, of course…

–”I did not see the incident.”

First, Adebayor said he “regrets” stomping on former teammate Robin van Persie’s face last month. Hmmm…I thought he said he couldn’t help himself, because his momentum carried him into Robbie and he had no choice but to step on his face? But this isn’t entirely surprising–the intent was very clear from the replay, and this tacit admission only confirms what we already knew. You’ve probably noticed I haven’t really written much about the Adebayor aftermath since the Manchester City game. The fact is that at this point, everything he does seems to me to be calculated to irritate Arsenal as a club and a fanbase, so paying him any attention is only giving him what he wants. It just doesn’t seem worth our time. He got suspended for 3 games for the stomp, received a “suspended” (as a lawyer, I can translate for you–”suspended”=”imaginary” since he won’t have to serve it unless he does something similar again) 2 game sentence for the celebration, and a hefty fine. I would have liked to see a real suspension for the celebration, but it didn’t happen, and it’s water under the bridge now. Since they’re not even playing in Europe, Adebayor now has a lot of time to sit around with nothing to do but pop off at the mouth about Arsenal–if he wants to do it, fine, but we’ve got more important things to worry about what a bitter, jilted, former player has to say. Time to move on. Still, I have to say I wouldn’t be displeased if Song were to kick Ade up in the air a time or two during the Cameroon-Togo match this break.

In other news, Theo Walcott won’t get a two-week break after all. He was left off the England senior squad, but was then called up to the England U-21s. I would have liked for him to get the rest to make sure his back is all the way healthy, but as long as he doesn’t re-injure himself, he’ll get some game action and regain fitness, which will only be a good thing.

Finally, Sol Campbell apparently wants to train with Arsenal after ditching Notts County ONE GAME into a five year contract. He was a great player for us and a key player on some of our best teams, but he’s not returning to Arsenal as a member of the team, so as long as he doesn’t hurt someone in practice or take time away from coaches, trainers, and physios that could be spent on our “real” players, it’s hard for me to care much one way or the other. He may even have a positive influence on some of the younger players.

Other than a bunch of fabricated transfer rumors that aren’t even worth discussing, that’s about it. Here’s hoping all our players make it through the international break unscathed. With 2 more weeks to heal, Nasri should just about be ready to start training again after the break, which would be a big boost to the side. I’ll drop back in with a post if anything interesting happens over the next couple of days.

This continued today with the unveiling of a special “American” version of the club’s official website . At the moment it seems to be the same old official website with an American flag along the top of it, but apparently it will have exclusive content, although it’s hard for me to really see what would be of interest to an American fan that wouldn’t be of interest to English fan as well. It does look like at the bottom it has some “basics” (a guide to the competitions Arsenal competes in, the club’s history, etc.–it’s probably not useful to us, but getting into football as an American can be quite daunting, so it’s not a bad idea for the club to put what is basically a “football for dummies” section, although it could be viewed as a bit insulting in its insinuation that American fans don’t know anything about the game)

Still, though, I think this is a positive development. The fact is that Arsenal has lagged behind the other big clubs in terms of establishing a global presence. Especially in Asia and South America, my sense is that Arsenal lags badly behind the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea, Liverpool, Milan, Madrid, and Barcelona. Part of this, of course, is success–Arsenal hasn’t won a trophy in five years, and has never won the Champions League. But part of it is deficient marketing, and an unwillingness to play preseason friendlies outside of Europe.

Travis and I were both at the AC Milan-Chelsea match in Baltimore last summer, and remarked how nice it would be for Arsenal to participate in something like that. And it’s important to note what this is not–Arsenal still doesn’t have any American players or coaches, they’re not planning any preseason matches in the United States, they’re not trying to get Cesc Fabregas a role as Pepe, Zac Efron’s foreign exchange student, in “High School Musical 7: Shouldn’t These Damn Kids Have Graduated Several Years Ago?” But I think this website, while possibly clumsy and probably unnecessary, at least shows a recognition on the club’s part that being successful in this day and age requires a global fanbase, and it’s good to see them making strides in that direction.

It’s no substitute for all the outstanding wit and wisdom provided by this site (stop laughing!), of course, but I magnanimously urge you to at least check it out–if nothing else, your hits will ensure that Arsenal HQ realizes that there’s a sizeable American gunner fanbase supporting the club.

(UPDATE: If nothing else, it appears that Arsenal TV is now significantly cheaper for American fans than it was when we had to pay in pounds. Largely because our economy sucks and British people now view the dollar like we view the peso.)

It would also make the absolute perfect gift for that very special Arsenal blogger in your life. Especially one who has an inordinate amount of love for Nicklas Bendtner. And whose birthday was yesterday. I’m just sayin’.

Hang in there–only 4 more days until Arsenal’s back in action…