Six-One, Part Two

One has been hoping for Olivier Giroud to score in the 6-1 Premier League defeat of Southampton a little more than a week ago but last season Ligue Un topscorer did not oblige.

This morning the same scoreline was repeated and much to my delights, the Frenchman found the net with a sublime finish after a through ball.

Given it was only against Coventry City in the COC but for me a goal is still a goal and to a striker getting your name on the scoresheet for your new club for the first time will ease the pressure.

The optimist in me will say it will be the first of many for Giroud and together with Andrey Arshavin who also found the net in his first outing for The Gunners this season, it gave positive vibes to everyone connected to the team.

With The Ox also netting a wonderful goal, Ignasi Miquel finding the net again and a brace for Theo Walcott, Arsene Wenger could be forgiven for grinning from from one end to another in his sleep later.

Never mind that Giroud saw his penalty saved by Joe Murphy earlier in the second half. It will serve as a reminder to him that despite scoring it does not mean his work will be easy from now own.

Still, I believe he will be very influential this season for us.


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A Deserved Point

Arsenal came away from The City of Manchester Stadium with their heads held high after forcing a draw against the cash-laden Manchester City.

Central defender Laurent Koscielny netting eight minutes from time in his first start of the season, capitalising on an error by Joleon Lescott who had given the home side the lead five minutes before the interval.

Just like their match against Montpellier in the Champions League on Wednesday morning, The Gunners rode their luck at times but their dominance in the first half should have borne fruits.

However, Gervinho failed to continue his good form recently. The most glaring error being his heavy touch that gave the chance to City goalkeeper Joe Hart to gather at his feet after Aaron Ramsey had put him through.

After a five star performance at Liverpool, Abou Diaby returned to his old frustrating self with a performance that could be described generously as average.

However it was the defence, especially the BFG Per Mertersacker who deserved the praise as they continued to work together well to thwart the home side's attacks.

Despite playing for the first time with Koscielny this season, the pair combined well. Vito Mannone who could be faulted for his positioning when Lescott headed home, also performed well keeping Edin Dzeko and Sergio Aguero from getting on the scoresheet.

The quick passing by The Gunners gave them the edge but their failure to finish the little openings that came their way put them under pressure after the break as City opted to sit deep and launch quick counter attacks.

But a point is as good as three given the fact that the gulf between the two sides in terms of spending power certainly backed the home side to come away with all the points.


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Six Against The Saints

History repeated itself, at least score-wise as Arsenal hit Southampton for six again at The Grove last night.

A dominant performance by the home side saw two own goals from Joos Hooiveld and Nathaniel Clyne conceded as Kieran Gibbs dominated the left flank.

A wonderful free-kick by Lukas Podolski and a brace from Gervinho gave the home fans the feel good feeling. A late strike by Theo Walcott against his former club put the icing on the cake.

Only the howler by Wos Szczesny in his first match of the season that gifted The Saints their consolation goal spoiled the evening a little as it was the first one Arsenal conceded this season.


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Clean Sheets Galore!

It took three matches for mad redo1 to start writing about The Gunners this season. But it was worth the wait, after two win-less starts against Sunderland and Stoke City but with two clean sheets, the trip to Liverpool was always going to be a big test.

With Brendan Rodgers undergoing his baptism of fire in his first season in charge of the red half of Merseyside, his counterpart Arsene Wenger is facing another challenge to keep the trust of the majority of Gooners worldwide especially with the loss of a certain Dutchman to a major rival earlier and the subsequent inactivity as the transfer window drew to a close.

But at the final whistle blown by Howard Webb, it was the Frenchman who looked like a manager who had won more than just a game of football.

His two signings, Lukas Poldoski and Santi Cazorla had just opened their goal accounts with The Gunners and the third, Olivier Giroud who despite missing another glorious chance for the third consecutive match, looked lively throughout.

But the biggest talk from the match was a certain Abou Diaby who struggled against Sunderland and Stoke but gave an almost perfect display in the middle of the park as he outshone the home side recent acquisition, Nurin Sahin.

Many Gooners would feel he should not be in the first XI at Anfield but Wenger's decision to stick with the former Auxerre player paid dividends as he put himself almost on every blade of the Anfield turf.

With the combination of Poldoski and Cazorla looks like beginning to click with each complementing one another. It was the Spaniard who slided the ball to Poldoski for the opening goal while the German returned the favour to put Cazorla in the clear for him to unleash his fierce left foot shot which Pepe Reina turned into his own goal.

Three clean sheets in the first three opening matches which is a new Premier League record is most welcomed as we look to the future with an almost new attacking unit and at the same time a stronger back-line, a testimony of Steve Bould's influence who looked good beside Arsene in the dug-out.

With the Premier League taking a break due to internationals, it is hoped that all Arsenal players involved will come back unscathed from their national teams commitments.

Ironically the next league fixture coming from the break is against Southampton, who fell victim to a certain Dutchman's clinical finish as they lost 3-2 to Manchester United.

If you ever had been dumped by a girl, and despite your best effort from time to time again you saw her with her new boyfriend, enjoying her life then it was a similar feeling seeing the no.20 scoring a hat-trick for his new team.

There was nothing much you can do, except hoping history will repeat itself for the Dutchman after turning out for the Dutch national side a few seasons ago.

I think many Gooners would say 'Ameen' to that.


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Eggs at The Bird Nest

Arsenal lost 2-0 to the cash injected club from Manchester at the Bird Nest Stadium last night. I was not really bothered with the result even though getting a win over them would be good for morale of the young players donning the red and white shirts.

Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain hit the post but vulnerability from counter-attacks have been our undoing against this team in the past, and it was on display again last night.

There are still time to tighten the screw on the defence while not having Robin van Persi, Lukas Podolski and Oliver Giroud (or Nicklas Bendtner for that matter) in the front-line robbed The Gunners of any cutting edge.

Alas, I am still looking forward to the new season with great enthusiasm.


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Good to See The Arse Again

The trip to the capital to watch Arsenal this year has the same theme as the one I made last year. Just like last July, there were uncertainties regarding our players, skipper Cesc Fabregas and playmaker, Samir Nasri.

Both of them eventually left.

While Fabregas departure was tolerable it was the Frenchman's departure that left a bitter taste to the mouth. Though Nasri justified his leaving as to win titles when the cash rich Manchester City won the Premier League, many Gooners felt it was more to fatten his wallet rather than for honours.

This time it was the future of our skipper, Robin van Persie and Theo Walcott. Both of them will be in the final year of their contracts. While the Dutchman already stated that he won't be extending his, the Englishman remains tightlipped over his future.

Together with the announcement of the touring party by manager, Arsene Wenger bereft of many big names such as Lukas Podolski, Per Mertesacker and Oliver Giroud the feeling was quite bland but the chance of seeing The Gunners in action 'live' once again finally pushed me to make the journey on the day of the match itself.

Arriving at 4pm in Kuala Lumpur, I decided to go straight to Bukit Jalil to avoid the rush hour traffic. Upon arrival at the LRT station there were some celebration going on with the Deputy Sports Minister in attendance. He turned out to be an Arsenal fan himself.

The official Arsenal fan club in Malaysia, the AFCSM opened a booth for the duration of the Arsenal visit to Malaysia and I managed to renew my acquantance with a few of the guys. This including a guy who stated he has quit playing football just because he already played on the turf of The Arsenal Stadium in Ashburton.

It made no sense to me, it was like stopping having sex after a night with the woman of your dreams that you will only meet for that one night in your life. But that was his point of view and I will respect that (by not asking him to play football anymore, but then again I never ask him to play football before, so why bother).

The crowd had begun trickling to the stadium compound where quite a number stalls had been opened up selling imitation of Arsenal new jerseys, which cost between RM30-RM70 depending on the quality of the imitation.

Apart from the jerseys there were other merchandises such as muffler, key chains, hats and other stuffs which will cost a bomb if they were to be bought from Arsenal.com themselves. Of course for me it is the sense of satisfaction that I usually buy the oroginal version.

Eventually I made my way to the media entrance to hook up with 'Deto', my cohort in Dunia Sukan Online. With a few other fellow photographers we had iftar at the car-park, a new experience in itself for mad redo1.

We took our time as the match would only start at 9.45pm before making our way to the media tribune. It was at a new section which was built during the renovation to replace the old one which was located on the lower tier.

The general view was the turnout won't be as many as last year with many were thinking there would only be around just 25k at the 90k capacity National Stadium. But as the kick off time approached the seats began to be filled with many donning the red and white strips of the Gunners.

Andre Santos is feeling gay with the 'gays'

My estimation it was around 40-45 thousands spectators who attended the match, the majority would have left feeling very satisfied with the display on the pitch by the two sides.

Unlike last year when the Malaysian XI was completely outplayed, this time the Malayan Tigers showed their stripes and even managed to take a shock lead during stoppage time at the end of the first half when Azmi Muslim's shot flew past Vito Mannone, becoming the first Malaysian to score against The Gunners since Allahyarham Mokhtar Dahari's brace in 1975.

Personally, I would have preferred to see Wos Szczesny or Lukasz Fabianski between the sticks tonight but it was not to be as the Italian played the whole match. The former was clearly seen annoyed at not being able to play.

King Raja's men managed to hold on to the lead and were five minutes away from recording a surprise victory when German teenager, Thomas Einsfeld stole into the box unmarked to slot the ball past the impressive Farizal Marlias in the Malaysian goal.

Farizal whose performance earned the praise from Wenger was clearly frustrated at not being able to keep a clean sheet. He was to be further disappointed a few minutes later when a cruel deflection off his defender saw Chuk Aneke scoring the winner for the visitors.

Chuks Aneke and Arsenal first goalscorer, Thomas Einsfeld
watch the former's deflected shot going into 
the net for The Gunners winner

As a Malaysian Gooner, the result was very much welcomed with a win for Arsenal but a strong performance by the Malaysian XI filled me with much pride at the same time.

Now as I made my way back to kT, the feeling was all good. Whether Arsenal will come to Malaysia again next year is remain to be seen but one thing for sure is I will be looking forward to it if they do.


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Out of Our Hands

Arsenal 3 Norwich 3

The Canaries have the habit of making life difficult for us Gooners and last night they did just that.

The plus side of the match was Robin Van Persie equalling Thierry Henry's record of 30 Premier League goals in a season with a brace

It was a case of two points dropped and we could be staring at Friday morning football in the Europa League rather than the usual Wednesday and Thursday mornings in the Champions League.

It is hard to say it but I am really hoping for favours from Samir Nasri and his friends in blue tonight while it is the same wish from Shay Given between the posts for Aston Villa.

Here praying for the wish to come true.


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