Replays Ahoy! Plus RvP Wants Only To Win With Arsenal & Vela Finally Scores an Important Goal

By: Sairax | February 21st, 2011

SOCCER-ENGLAND/CUP

Yesterday’s cup match was fun wasn’t it? That is, if your idea of fun is watching the footballing equivalent of paint dry. We were up 1-0 but didn’t finish off the game and Orient’s Jonathan Tehoue got an equalizer in the 89th minute. Turns out that Wenger’s never even heard of Tehoue. Who would have thought? A French player that Wenger’s never heard of. That’s about as rare as Thomas Rosicky scoring us a header from a Bendtner cross. In the end, we got a draw and now have a replay on March 2 at the Emirates. Most people seem to be ok with this result. Wenger acknowledged that the O’s never gave up and did well to get the draw, but is a bit frustrated that we have to play yet another game in our ever-growing fixture list. I feel the same. It will be fun to have Orient at the Emirates for a cup game and it will bring them some extra revenue as well. It’s just annoying to have to play another match when we could have put ourselves through already if we had just put away one of our many chances yesterday. Such is life.

The draw for the quarterfinals was made yesterday as well. We already know that whoever wins the match at the Emirates will meet Manchester United at Old Trafford. The other ties will be: Manchester City or Aston Villa v Everton or Reading; Birmingham v Bolton; and Stoke v West Ham or Burnley. There are some good teams in there and a couple who could cause an upset. Should be an interesting round. There are still a couple of replays before the quarterfinals, so lots of football to be played still. Wenger is fine with the replay system in the FA Cup. You can see what he says about it here and more of his thoughts about yesterday’s game here.

In other news, Robin van Persie is still awesome sauce. Here’s what he has to say about the glorious Arsenal:

“I don’t have the inclination to go anywhere. This is the best team for me to be in. The bottom line is that I want to win trophies with Arsenal, not with anybody else. I know you can win trophies in many countries and in many ways, but I want to do that in our way and in an Arsenal shirt.
“I’m sure I could win things at another team in another country, but would it feel like our trophy, my trophy? I’m not sure it would. Anything we win here will come from the heart and that’s what I want. It’s my dream and I see no point in speaking about other teams when I have these dreams. I think other people know that about me; I’m just hungry to win with Arsenal and that’s it.”

Isn’t that beautiful? It just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside as a fan. It’s like a beautiful spring day with the sun shining and the birds singing in the trees, lightly sprinkled with fresh morning dew. Seriously though, I think van Persie is very grateful to Le Boss for sticking with him all this time and during all of those injury spells. You could see it in his celebration after his goal against Barca. It’s wonderful to see and hopefully he can keep scoring for the rest of the season and bag us a couple of those lovely trophies he was talking about.

Britain Soccer Champions League

Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola has said he is not in for Jack Wilshere and anyway, Wenger is not one to sell his best players. Honestly, I think this is just the press trying to goad Guardiola into saying something controversial. Journos are always trying to do that with Wenger and twist his words, so I wouldn’t make much of this statement. In the build up to the game at Camp Nou we’ll probably hear more stories involving Barcelona and Cesc and all of that, but I would just ignore it. No sense in getting riled up over gossipmongers, I say.

Lastly, you may have heard that Carlos Vela scored a goal yesterday for West Brom. He came off the bench and got the equalizer. Yes, the equalizer. Not the 5th goal in a one-sided drubbing, but an important goal. It wasn’t even a chip, but one off the rebound. He talked after the game about how he is enjoying his loan spell and how he hopes to be able to contribute to the team who are currently in a relegation battle. Good stuff from the Mexican. Hopefully Hodgson will start him in some games now and he can get the playing time he so desperately needs.

That’s about it. If you’re like me, you’ve already forgotten the cup game on the weekend and are looking towards the very important league game midweek versus Stoke. God, I hate Stoke. Not particularly looking forward to this one. Martin will give you a preview into the awfulness tomorrow. I’m off to enjoy a government-sanctioned statutory holiday. Cheers!

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Category: Arsenal News, Arsene Wenger, Carlos Vela, FA Cup, Jack Wilshere, Robin van Persie

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Homey_Mills

I guess some of y'all probably read the remarks from the Orient chairman that Wenger was too complacent with his lineup selection. Ha. I wish he'd mind his own business. I'm terribly sorry that we're more worried about beating Barca in the CL knockout rounds, and catching Man Utd in the EPL, than we are in playing a lower division team in the FA Cup. Sheesh. I really wonder what lineup he'd have put out if he were in AW's shoes.
Ok, not really venting or anything... just a slow news day, I guess. =)
JG

If I were the chairman, I would be grateful that Wenger put out the 'complacent' lineup; the draw singlehandedly saved Orient's financial troubles in one fell swoop.
brenton

Curse you Ontarians and your government-sanctioned statutory holiday.
Sairax

I was just pondering how many games we could end up playing this year. You know, just for a lark. I remember Fulham playing a crazy number of games last season so I thought I'd compare

Fulham 09/10:
38 Premier League games
5 FA Cup games
1 Carling Cup game
19 Europa League games
Total: 63 games

Arsenal 10/11:
We will play 38 Premier League games
We've played 4 FA Cup matches and have 1 more scheduled (replay Orient)= 5
We've played 5 Carling Cup games and still have the final= 6
We've played 7 Champions League games and still have the Barca return leg= 8
=57 games

And that doesn't include if we make it further in the FA Cup and CL
Sairax

Barcelona 08/09 Treble-winning season:
38 games La Liga
15 CL games
9 Copa del Rey games
= 62 games
(Also, Spanish Super Cup & UEFA Super Cup 2 legged finals in summer plus 3 games in FIFA Club World Cup later that year)

Inter 09/10 Treble-winning season:
38 Serie A games
13 CL games
5 Coppa Italia games
= 56 games
(Plus Italian Super Cup and UEFA Super Cup 2 legged ties and 3 games in FIFA Club World Cup later that year)

Manchester United 98/99 Treble-winning season:
38 Premier League games
8 FA Cup games
3 League Cup games
13 CL games
= 62 games
(Also, Charity shield match, UEFA Super Cup match, and 3 games in FIFA Club World Cup)
Sairax

Now that I think about it, teams that have won the treble would have played a crazy number of games right? I'll go have a look-see
Martin

Yeah, I would be interested to see how many games United played a couple of years ago when they won the Carling Cup and lost in the CL final to Barcelona.
Sairax

Manchester United 08/09 season:
38 Premier League games
5 FA Cup games
6 Carling Cup games
13 CL games
= 62 games

[Edit] Plus Charity Shield after winning league that season
JG

More games than the last few seasons, and magically, few of that dreaded "I" word.
I put part of that down to luck finally swinging our way this time around, and also swapping some injury prone players for sturdier players this season (Ex: Gallas and Eduardo out, Kos and Chamakh in)
Gigi_man

I just read somehwre else RvPs words and they put a smile on me!
If its possible to love him more, I do now.
He is an example: he gives us fans plenty of reasons to appalude him and like him, and at the same time he is clever (how many went away looking for trophies they won but they couldnt actually claim as theirs, or worse, they went looking for trophies and ended up trophyless the same.
Martin

This might be kind of a stupid question, but here goes. I've read a lot about how this replay is a huge deal for Orient because they will make a ton of money, but how does that work? I believe in Premiership fixtures, the home team keeps the matchday income, but apparently it does not work the same way in the FA Cup, then? If so, does the away team get the money from matches, or just from replays, or do the teams somehow split the money?
GoonerBen

As far as I understand in FA cup ties each team recieves half of the ticket revenues, regardless of size of stadium. So there is always a big incentive for smaller teams to get replays especially if its against a big club like arsenal who make an absolute bomb on matchdays. Weirdly though and kind of unfairly/fairly it works both ways and the system operates regardless of league position, so Arsenal got half of what Orient made on the gates the other day. If you consider that an average ticket is £80 at Arsenal, multiply that by 60,000 and divide it by two and you have a figure that can really change Orients season.
Martin

Thanks -- that makes a lot of sense, then. Cheers for the info.
brenton

And they're in the middle of a promotion battle. That replay could do a lot to get them promoted, which means an even bigger paycheck.
Jonathan

Was wondering the same thing but don't know the answer. Best guess is that the moneys split and orient would get a bucket load of money relatively speaking from the gate receipts at the emirates.
Andylowe14

i doubt it will be a full 60,000 for that game though.. at this time of the season fans will start prioritising cos the tickets aren't cheap. having said that, I'd expect 50,000 +
GoonerBen

You're probably right but an on-going, never-fail bit of humour that Arsenal provides me is the attendance figures for the games. Even when there are empty seats everywhere the announcer always confidently says that there are just over 60,000 there. Think he's only said it's been below 60,000 once or twice this season!
Zito_v2

Ahem, I told you about Vela!
Gigi_man

yyeeeyy they hired you back! hehehe
Sairax

Fired my arse!
Gigi_man

hahaha u r like RvP, you want only to win in the offside!