Ever the ground-breakers, it took Arsenal just two weeks of the new season to have me longing for an end to this campaign. What an absolute puddle of piss. After a pre-season riddled with silly, thoroughly avoidable defensive mistakes, followed by an opening fixture against Leicester punctuated with the same idiocy, Arsenal proved once again…
Battle under the high ball will be key as Arsenal travel to Mordor to take on Stoke
When we took on Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium amid the dying embers of last season, we thrashed a team that was already on the beach. In fact, Mark Hughes’s side were so lacklustre that the may as well have rolled out the deckchairs and called for the sangria, such was their general apathy…
From agony to ecstacy as Arsenal pull victory out of the fire against Leicester
It was messy, it was chaotic, it was shambolic, but, above all, it was absolutely mind-blowingly exhilarating. I can’t stress enough how playing the way we did against the Foxes is almost certainly going to cost us a lot of points this season, but dear lord did it make for sensational watching. Never content with…
Perfect end to imperfect pre-season as Arsenal beat Chelsea to lift Community Shield
Arsenal launched their season in fine style by taking victory over Chelsea in the Community Shield on Sunday, stretching the Gunners superb run at Wembley to nine consecutive victories. Though there was a whiff of good fortune about parts of it, Arsene Wenger’s men showed more than enough in 90 minutes, and especially in the…
Community Shield offers Arsenal chance to pull it all together ahead of Premier League campaign
After something of a topsy-turvy pre-season campaign in which Arsenal have shown flashes of both brilliance and ineptitude, the summer’s preparations are set to come to a close at Wembley on Sunday in the Community Shield. And while I always crave artistic mastery from the Gunners, it would perhaps be nice just to see them…
It’s time for Arsenal to bring some order to a pre-season campaign of chaos
A lot of Arsenal fans seem remarkably relaxed about how things have panned out during this pre-season campaign for the Gunners. How I envy those people, those rational, level-headed souls who are capable of looking beyond inconsequential, one-off friendly fixtures and taking in the wider picture. That’s not to say that I’ve worked myself into…
Arsenal have too much for flimsy Benfica but they must cut out the mistakes if they hope to win Premier League
Arsenal were much improved as they brushed past a workmanlike Benfica side in their opening match of the Emirates Cup on Saturday. Their performance against Chelsea in Shanghai a week previously was sluggish, insipid and short of ideas, so it was good to see a response from the Gunners that appeared to address some of…
Big trouble in China as under-cooked Arsenal toil against Chelsea
Pre-season friendly or not, I don’t think anyone who watched Saturday’s clash with Chelsea can be anything but underwhelmed by Arsenal’s general performance. There were plenty of signs in the Bayern Munich match, which preceded the fixture against Chelsea, that we were a little disorganised, leggy, and generally underwhelming as a team. Against the Germans,…
Plague-striken Arsenal hang tough to snatch win from devious scoundrels Bayern Munich
As far as stern pre-season tests go, it doesn’t get much more rigorous than taking on the Bundesliga’s sneakiest cheat merchants. Bayern Munich were not just a step up in class from the opponents we faced in Australia, they were a relative leap into the stratosphere, and it was a welcome chance to step up…
A good workout for Arsenal as they go 12 rounds with the Australian Stoke City
Arsenal slipped through the gears on Saturday as they eased past the Australian League’s very own Stoke City subsidiary, otherwise known as West Sydney Wanderers. In some ways, it was good for the players to face up to something a little more physical than the rather genteel outing against Sydney FC a few days previously,…
Young Gunners to the fore as Arsenal ease past Sydney FC in pre-season opener
Arsenal kicked-off their pre-season campaign with a comfortable, if somewhat profligate, victory over Australian champions Sydney FC on Thursday. To be fair to the Gunners, as profligate as they were, it was a very eye-catching performance going forward, with plenty of movement, invention and incisive running from those given playing time. A few missed chances…
New signings are a good start but will they be enough to make Arsenal title contenders again?
Official confirmation of Alexandre Lacazette’s arrival at Arsenal brings our summer signing tally to two, but how far does that move us forward us a squad and do we still need new faces before we can realistically call ourselves title contenders again? Even the most blinkered of Arsenal fans will concede that we were miles…
