Wednesday, October 04, 2006

International week means boredom, and managing is a 24 hour job.

Little of note floating around at the moment, as the nation holds its breath in preperation for the match on Saturday. I, for one, will remember where I was the day England played Macedonia. Sarcasm aside, the last time Macedonia were successful in international competitions was probably around 330 BBC when Alexander beat Darius's Persians in an away game. Sorry, I've wanted to make that joke since they were drawn in Englands group.

Goonerboy has also entered the world of 9-6 employment [boo!!] so updates could become slightly less frequent. I will endeavour to continue my posts; if only for my continued sanity.

News relating to Arsenal has been rather thin on the ground. A nice little story I saw was that Jens is auctioning a note he had stuffed down his sock in the Argentina Germany game, in which he had attempted to predict the Argentinian penalties. The Times derided this measure as rather pointless, which, considering England's record on penalties is a bit rich. If the cost was not likely to be astronomically high, I would definitely consider a bid. There also seems to be some news floating around at the moment that Jens is on the verge of staying for another year. Yay!, as long as he maintains his form.

Elsewhere, Thierry won Sky's best ever foreign player. Quite rightly too. Cantona was bloody good, but quit before the going got tough. Dennis and Paddy were also in the top ten. I can't really comment further as I didn't see the programme.

Double D, David Dein, has been elected chairman of the G14. Some poetry for you there. This confirms his position as one of the most powerful men in football. No doubt we'll be accused of having too much clout in the game, which might be justified, but the way G14 is going, its good for the club to have him in that position.

Finally, Arsene gave a pretty decent interview to Arsenal.com which, nicely, they put up a transcript for. My favourite part is this:

Can you describe a typical matchday?

Usually, I get up at 6.30am and go for a run, after that I come back and have breakfast and then prepare the team meeting. At 10.30 we meet with the players, have a walk, a stretch, and then a meeting where we sometimes watch what was good or bad in the last game. At 11 we have lunch, then most of the time we go back to our [hotel] rooms again. At 12.45 we go to the stadium... Afterwards I watch all kinds of matches, through the night until three or four o'clock I watch European football. I go to bed when I am dead tired, for managers it takes time to recover from a game and sometimes you don't sleep at all.

So Arsene works 24 hours a day. Well, on at least some days. That's a pretty decent level of commitment.

He also went on to admit that selling Paddy and Edu simultaneously was probably as mistake, that he missed out on Cech, Makelele and Eto'o, and that making Bobby play the day he broke his leg is the decision he wishs he could reverse the most. I know he's our manager and its easy to say it, but I've really begun to realise how much I admire Arsene recently - not just as a manager, but as a person. Few people in life, let alone football, admit their mistakes.

Finally, do read anti's post on Arsenal, WTF today. 'Twas the highlight of an otherwise day.

Right, thats all for now. Will post more when I can.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pires never broke a leg. It was cruciate ligaments

Anonymous said...

Hi all,

Im an arsenal fan from singapore and im making a trip to london between 30 Oct and 6 Nov. I would love to catch a match at the Emirates for the Arsenal V Cska Moscow on the November 1 Wed. I would be there for only a week and its my only chance to watch Arsenal live in action

If any one is a silver/red member of the Arsenal FC ( I think members get a chance to buy first? im not sure how it works) and is unable to make it for that match, would it be possible to buy a pair for 2? (for me cousin and I)

Feel free to contact me at keeming@gmail.com to work out any arrangement. Any help is much appreciated. I have no idea where to go about getting cheaper tickets. most sites are selling tickets at 150 to 200 pounds which im afraid is completely out of my budget.

- keeming-