Bits and Bobs and Jens Back In Goal

I hope that clip of Cesc in the new Spanish film Torrente 4 has you prepared for the randomness that will be today’s blog post.

What better place to start than on Arsenal goalkeepers? Jens Lehmann made his triumphant Arsenal return with the Reserves team who played Wigan today. I’m sorry did I say ‘triumphant’? I meant error-riddled and generally rusty. He started off pretty well doing his usual bellowing at the young backline and glaring at the ref and opposition players. It sounded like a decent enough first half, but the second half sounded pretty bad with Jens making some bad decisions on leaving his line and throwing in some air kicks to boot. I’d say, let’s put any notion of him starting on Saturday on the backburner. We just have to accept that Almunia is our number one for the rest of the season, get behind him, and hope he has a good run of form. Going back to the reserves game, Miquel was sent off after 20 minutes after a bad last-man tackle on a Wigan player through on goal. I worry about Miquel and his ability to step up to the first team, and stuff like this doesn’t make me feel that much better. Also featuring for the reserves was Jérémie Aliadière who is currently training with Arsenal as he currently without a club. Don’t worry, I highly doubt we’ll sign him like we did Sol or Jens. In any case, it didn’t sound like he had one of the best afternoons with the reserves. The match ended 2-1 to Wigan with Arsenal winning a penalty at the last minute to grab our only goal.

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The Premier League has made a few changes to the fixture dates of some upcoming games. Arsenal’s away game to Stoke will now be played on Sunday, May 8 and our home game with Aston Villa will be played on Sunday, May 15. Looking over the remainder of our games, it seems that our match against Blackburn this weekend will be our last match on a Saturday. I hate that we’ll have to wait an extra day to watch our beloved team play every weekend, but what can you do? Maybe with everyone else playing before us it will give players added incentive to go out there and win if the previous day’s results go our way. (Yes, I know that hasn’t worked out well for us, but let me just grasp at straws right now, ok? It’s international week and I’m just trying to write a lot of sentences to fill up this blog. This is me writing more sentences. Doesn’t this paragraph look much longer now? I must be an excellent writer.)

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Arsenal have decided not to appeal Wenger and Nasri’s UEFA bans, which they incurred after the Barcelona game for mouthing off at the referee in the tunnel. Fair enough, I’m sure they did make remarks at the referee, so they might as well just take their lumps so we can all move on. Wenger and Nasri will be suspended for one match each, which will probably end up being our opening group stage match of Champions League next season. Wenger was also fined €10,000.

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In international news, Arshavin has come under fire from his fellow Russian players for his performance against Armenia that ended 0-0. I can’t say if they are accurate in their assessment of Arshavin’s performance as I did not see the game, but they dish out some pretty harsh words for him:

“Arshavin’s first half was just a catastrophe,” former Soviet international Sergei Andreev said. “I feel he doesn’t want to play football anymore. He was not even walking around the pitch, let alone running. He just stood in the middle, pointing his finger to [tell] others where to send the ball.”

Another ex-international, Dmitri Kuznetsov, added: “I can only wonder why his team-mates watch all this but do not say anything. They have to play with only 10 men in the team. Arshavin’s performance on Saturday was a parody of football.”

We know Arshavin has had similar criticism from Arsenal fans, but he’s generally been at least trying to do well in recent games. I am still of the opinion that he might not be up to playing so much physically rather than lack of trying, but like I said, I cannot comment on the game he played for Russia. The Russians will face Qatar today in a friendly at 2:00pm ET. Seeing as it is a friendly, Arshavin may not feature, or he may play a limited number of minutes.

Jack Wilshere will be playing for England in a friendly against Ghana at 3:00pm ET. How nice that he will be playing whilst all of the Chelsea players and Wayne Rooney were all released back to their clubs. And don’t even get me started on the ridiculousness that is Stuart Pearce who still wants Jack to play this summer for the U21s. I have ranted a few times on this in the past, so regular readers will know how I feel about Jack bouncing back and forth between the youth and senior teams as well as my thoughts on Pearce as a manager.

Nasri, Clichy, Kos, and Sagna are all in the squad for France that is facing Croatia (Dudu!!) in a friendly today at 2:30pm ET. Bendtner is with Denmark who are playing Slovakia in an international friendly at 2:15pm ET. Netherlands have a friendly which should see some game time for Robin van Persie against Hungary in a EURO 2012 qualifier at 2:20pm ET. Carlos Vela will be taking a backseat to the phenomenon that is “Chicharito” in Mexico v Venezuela at 10:30pm ET. The only other player on duty today is Tomas Rosicky who is captaining Czech Republic as I type this sentence. He has already got himself an assist on Milan Baros’ goal in the 3rd minute against Liechtenstein.

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In Arsenal Ladies news, Katie Chapman has decided to take a break from international duty with England. She already has 82 caps to her name and her decision is being fully backed by England Women’s manager, Hope Powell. The 28 year old has been very loyal to the national team, but basically, she needs a break, so she will not feature in the Women’s World Cup in Germany this summer.

Arsenal Ladies beat Sunderland by 3 goals to 2 in the FA Cup quarterfinals and will now face Barnet in the semifinals. The FA Cup semi is scheduled for Sunday, April 24. Liverpool will be facing Bristol Academy in the other semifinal match.

In the Women’s Champions League, Arsenal will face Lyon in the semifinals. The Ladies will be playing at home in the second leg, which has now been scheduled for Saturday, April 16. The first leg in France will be played on Saturday, April 9.

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Here’s some stuff you can discuss regarding Cesc and Barcelona, which I refuse to talk about until the summer at the very least. Xavi says some stuff. Torres says some stuff. Go forth and rant if you wish my gooner minions.

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I can’t finish this post without mentioning Thierry Henry’s exclusive interview with SkySports that aired yesterday. We don’t get SkySports here in North America, but thankfully, the lovely @ivyarchive has done us all a favour and uploaded the whole thing for us to watch and salivate over. Here are the links for Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4. Enjoy!

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Category: Andrey Arshavin, Arsenal Ladies, Arsenal News, Arsene Wenger, Bacary Sagna, Carlos Vela, Gael Clichy, Internationals, Jack Wilshere, Laurent Koscielny, Nicklas Bendtner, Randoms, Robin van Persie, Samir Nasri, Tomas Rosicky, Video