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The Great Cescape

This was supposed to be a post that was supposed to be posted post Wenger's conference where he was supposed to finally announce the bloody transfer of Cesc Fabregas to Barcelona. Life is full of suppositions that never come true. We say stuff like all cats are dogs even though they clearly aren't. It is like one of those things. I am not going to let Wenger's anti climactic conference make the rather clever title of my post go to waste. If you find the rest of the post unrelated to the title and find this wee bit of logical disconnectedness toppling your sensible world may I suggest you pause and go read Rubin Khazana. Done? You are not complaining about my post now, are you? Thought so.

I am going to skip what Wenger said in that conference. It was just ludicrous nonsense designed to taunt the press who had gathered to listen to Wenger reveal something about the transfers but instead had to hear him say stuff like "I expect no one to leave the club" - which the whole world and his dog knows is false. The reporters were pissed and it showed in their questioning which got more and more impatient and belligerent as the press conference progressed. It was if they had been told some dogs are flowers.

Let's start with the football. Firstly, football is back! Proper, actual, live football on the field which is a huge improvement from repeated viewings of the invincibles season or the second half of Arsenal-Barcelona. I decided to watch the first game of the season at a pub in central London with a bunch of friends. It turned out to be as fail as Wenger playing the lead role in Brewster's Millions.

We expected a rowdy gang of fellow gooners cheering every tackle and booing every appearance of the face of Joey Barton. Instead we found a bunch of elderly gentleman applauding politely at halftime and tut-tutting tackles. On of my friends even got admonished for cheering a foul. I think one of the elderly patrons of the pub as I believe they are called said "kids these days". It was in these library-within-a-pub setting that we watched yesterday's match.

Arsenal lined up without Cesc-not-expected-to-leave-Fabregas and Samir-not-expected-to-leave-Nasri. Szcz in goal, Sagna Kos Verm Gibbs the back four. Song Rosicky and Ramsey formed the midfield trio as Wilshere was out injured. New boy Gervinho and Arshavin started on the wings. RVP started up front. We started brightly and some quick passing led to the ball being set up for Rosicky early on who shot wide of the goal. Gervinho and Arshavin often switched flanks causing confusion for the Newcastle defenders. Both Gervinho and Arshavin had decent games. They were all over the place, working hard and beating defenders with their pace and skill. With an apparent lack of creativity in midfield much of the clever work fell to Arshavin who I thought did rather well. His clipped ball to RVP was Cescesque but since it was only esque and not the real thing it was not as perfectly timed as RVP would have wanted it to be and Van Persie could only bundle it towards the keeper. 

RVP had an okay time upfront and had to often drop back to pick up the ball from just front of the midfield area which meant there was no one upfront, which was kind of fail. There were many occasions when RVP had the ball and the Newcastle back four where in front of him and no Arsenal shirts cutting in behind the Newcastle defence. Gervinho was quick and tricksy enough to beat the fullbacks but had a very poor final ball to actually trouble the goalkeeper or create any solid chances. Ditto for Gibbs. He controlled the left flank for most parts of the game and played his part in going forward. Apart from one over the top ball which he misjudged and let Ameiobi get behind him, he did well overall and chipped in with some well timed interceptions. The over the top ball was his weakness during pre season and continues to be his achilles heel apart from his actual achilles heel from which he only recently recovered. Whether he can improve and battle against the top teams remains to be seen. 

The Verm Kos pairing worked yesterday as reflected in our clean sheet. Vermaelen showed what we missed last season with some crunching tackles and general steel in the defense. I cannot remember Newcastle having a proper chance at goal. That doesn't excuse us from buying a defender though. One injury as is prone to happen and we are looking at a Djourou Kos centreback pair which instills as much confidence as Barcelona's balance sheet (heh, football accounting joke). We were again all nice play no goal. It is the same ghost of season past - opponents defending their socks off and we lacking any sort of intelligence or killer ball to find that one goal. With Cesc and Nasri (who are not leaving by the way) leaving I don't see how the situation is going to improve. 0-0 at full time. We applauded politely and left the pub.

I think Wenger's wingerfest gives us an idea of things to come. We have more lightning fast, tricksy wingers now in the club than you can shake a stick at. Gervinho, Walcott, Arshavin, Alex-Oxlade, Miyaichi and possibly Joel Campbell. This seems to hint at some quick forward play and a departure from mind numbing sideways passing that we could pass off as tiki taka lite or the poor homeless destitute man's poorer friend's impecunious son's Barcelona. This new strategy should help us going forward (heh!). It bodes well as without someone like Cesc who can pull the strings from midfield and provide defence splitting throughballs on a consistent basis we would be better off having a trick up our sleeve in the form of some aggressive attacking play using our wide men.

Nil nil at Newcastle away is not a bad result entirely. But the other events that happened yesterday (about which I make no mention as they don't interest me much) make the forthcoming weeks dreadful. Gervinho got sent off for slapping Joey Barton. Alex Song faces a retroactive ban for standing on Barton's legs. This means we could potentially face Manu and Liverpool without the two. There is no cover for Song in the def-mid area. Bloody hell. I have no clue what Wenger meant when he said we have too big a squad! If Song gets a ban we are looking at a certain Emmanuel Frimpong who played the first 10 mins of his competitive career yesterday. Breath bating has begun about the Arsenal Liverpool game next weekend that I am going to watch at the stadium*.

I have a bad feeling about this season. Damn, not all cats are flowers.

*Author has red membership.

Born Free - Bielsa the Lioness

Bielsa returned to Liga last month much to the unanimous hail-mary sof all liga (and hence “football”) fans. What’s bigger news though, is I’ve finally read a thoroughly enjoyable and intelligent football article. Of course, I still turned my nose at some parts, called it stupid, unresearched and media-slutty at other parts (hey I didn’t say it was “THE article”...and haha I just got the pun. Damn I’m good!) ... But overall, an excellent article more than worthy of selling out this blog by posting external links! http://www.zonalmarking.net/2011/08/08/marcelo-bielsa-tactics-athletic-bilbao/

Now of course my 2 cents / thoughts/ random musings/ wonderings – I saw all of just 5 Bilbao matches last year. 2 they got raped by Barca. 1 they dominated Madrid and lost. The last 2 I couldn’t glean much from...buffering 10%...because I mostly...buffering 20%....saw them in still shots...buffering 30%...as I illegally streamed their...buffering 50%...matches against Valencia (although I gleaned enough from the still shots to know Valencia was F*****g AMAZING and blew them out of the sky). Not everyone can be a red-card holder after all. However good Muniain, Gabilondo and Javi Martinez were last year, I wasn’t the biggest fan of Bilbao’s largely “direct” style.

While in England, this is a euphemism for Van der Sar – Rooney – goal seeking to mitigate its own meaninglessness, the Spanish version (no its not the same..despite the way the ZM article bastardized it) is more like Roma, mid-2000s Ajax and the distantly dreamt ideal that Arsenal fans believe they are playing towards – fast movement and 1-touch play that leads from goalkeeper to other goalkeeper in a flash (Arsenal fans please note : in Liga, this style is as opposed to tiki-taka. The sheer magnitude of ignorance when fans claim Arsenal play Barca-football used to be hilarious, but now I wonder if brain cell death caused by continued exposure to such lack of distinction between the most basic set of opposites, might just make me also gradually dumb enough to claim ManU can win the Bundesliga.)

So I didn’t like it since the wingers cut in less, Llorente’s tremendous touch and passing ability was used less (sites and media seem to be under the annoying impression he’s a Zigic or something...), and wingers’ inside link from skewed central midfielders (like the mega-awesome Etxeberria – Yeste, Ezquerro link of 2003-5) was sacrificed for a front 3. The San Mames, on-field ferocity to match Osasuna, youth players (u-21,20,19 teams have 2^nd most no. from Bilbao, after Barca obviously) and my hate for Nihat-Kovacevic era Sociedad have meant a traditional soft spot for Bilbao, but now my biggest hope remains their 3-4-3, ok my biggest hope for football is 3-4-3 so that’s a little too obvious, with wingbacks on the overlap and hence wide players of front 3 tucking in closer with LLorente. The part in ZM about a wingback problem was crap, apart from Bilbao I can think of only present Inter and 2005-6 Sevilla who have/had the squad to pull off a middle 4 of the 3-4-3.

Di Marcos and Iraola’s careers and style have pretty much mirrored the early years of Sorin and Zanetti, who will always be my favorite memory of the greatest formation and fluid game play ever seen (not Barca.. Not Valencia.. Not Roma) and along with Javi Martinez will form the bottom 3 of a midfield diamond that makes or breaks the 3-4-3. Gabi, Muniain and Llorente are sealed as the front 3 leaving the only question mark at the top of the diamond midfield. Last season, I didn’t see of the Herrera ZM marks there, and instead saw Javi saddled with too much of creative burden (and last week he was pushed into Central defence for the Tottenham friendly!!) For all my drooling over Sorin, Samuel, Ayala and Lucho, it was that god of gods Riquelme at the top of the diamond who made that team what it was, which is why I fear Bilbao’s 3-4-3 might ultimately end up being FAIL!!! Haha and here you thought the length of the post had to mean I would predict Champions League spot for this team. No squad depth, annoying keeper = bottom 10 finish. But Bielsa man! Most entertaining bottom 10 team in Europe this year!

Haters just wanna Hate...

The better part of this transfer season has been spent waking up each morning and savagely consuming fingernails while reading whether Mata and Banega have been scavenged, or casting a laconic yet sadistically greedy eye on whether Cesc gets mind raped into leaving his first team place at Arsenal. All in all, quite strange that an entire transfer season, traditionally a time of excitement, conjecture and fantasy, instead revolved around three transfers that I DIDN'T want to see... What's stranger (i.e more strange, not guy I've never seen before in my life and shouldn't take biscuit from coz it'll be drugged to kidnap me, break my legs and make me a beggar in Bihar...so i took ONE biscuit and they traumatize me with horror stories...parents!) , the usual fare of transfers I don't want to see, viz. nice players sucked into Madrid and running the risk of no longer being nice players, slipped completely under the radar and ended up explaining said phenomenon by being revealed as unradarable specks of dust to begin with.

While Malaga was busy dipping into Santa's pocket (and I don't mean in the dirty way Arsene Wenger would...assuming Santa was played by a 10 yr old) for various trinkets, RM has been too ominously silent this year. I've been waiting for the grand revelation of a brand new striker with brand new boots to kick Higuain's useless rump out the door, the lack of news is both pleasantly surprising yet coldly deadly in its promise... With less than 2 weeks to go before La Liga 2011-12 starts, there is noooo way Madrid are going to allow themselves to start the season with Higuain, Ronaldo, Benzema and the (admittedly awesome) recalled Jose Callejon (whom I watched and loved in Espanyol all these years having nooo friggin clue he was a madrid spy...) as the only forwards...

For someone who started hating Madrid when they attacked with Zidane, Ronaldo (the real one), and Raul... it seems embarrassing and unfair to hate them now with their pitifully and all too obviously hateable line up... I miss those days when they were good enough to EARN your hate... when Ronaldo dribbled past everybody and fatly scored... I had to think hard to insult him, had to work at the hate... when Zidane controlled, swiveled and baldly spun away... I had to dance precariously on the edge of unreasonable vendetta... when Raul danced around in the box and chipped the keeper before doing my favorite goal celebration of all time, and the one I will use when (if) I score my first goal... It was a kind of venom that needed to draw from, and hence strengthened, my love for Valencia and Barca. It was an exciting, difficult, and rewarding hate. Now there's a cocky homo ballet dancer, a useless toy that even Gepetto would be ashamed of, and incredible EPLness in gameplay and the hate I feel....its just... too easy... I miss the fat Ronaldo.

Rubin Khazana

Blaugrana Vitriol Test

Remember the part in DeadHouse Gates where Kalam stands with his knife over Laseen and has to deal with a chilling realization that after all those vendetta-filled years, it might just so happen that he actually hates someone else more than Laseen....OK so maybe you don't since its only a vaguely important chapter of the relatively less weighty 2nd book out of 10 from a series that the 5 odd people know about, out of whom 4 know about it only from the computer game... still, I think its quite relevant to mention here if only to point out that its the greatest thing existing in print. Although I read the e-book so i wouldn't really know about the print part... Right..so I was saying, I'm considering the cold cold possibility that, after all these vendetta-filled years, perhaps ManU ISN'T my most hated team in the whole galaxy. Of course, I still want someone to do things to them that you wouldn't find even in the lyrics of "Exhumed" albums (you need to actually read them to understand why I say "someone" and not "me"...), and of course I also still want someone to do things to their fans that you wouldn't find even in the news report of what someone did to the team, that wasn't on Exhumed lyrics... But like a piece of snot that insistently sticks to the inside of the nostril despite repeated blowing, Arsenal and its fans have somehow replaced ManU, ManU indian fans, various bodily necessities, jungle insects (by jungle I mean Siliguri), and Hindi songs, as top most annoying objects invented.

Take this Cesc drama. I really couldn't care less about what he does, although Gijon B team might be slightly stronger if he did leave Arsenal and join "Barcelona", but the number of people venting opinions on this has stunned me into caring, if only to marvel at how bigoted people can get. Arsenal players are divided between "He's too true blue gunner to leave" and "He aint no real man, we don't need him". Barca players are quite undividedly and diabolically in love with him (diabolically because its quite obvious their statements about how "he'll fit in perfectly here" refer to the amount of cubic centimeters left on the bench, just enough for a small-framed individual like Cesc...and by bench I mean B team bench) but I'm more annoyed with reporters interviewing a different Barca player a day and popping the same question and then printing the same answer, it's not like Xavi would say "I want sex with Cesc, Cexc" on Tuesday and then "eww gross, Cesc sucks, Cusc" on Wednesday...

I've been quite impressed with Barca fans on various forums, their comments are almost unequivocally that Cesc isn't needed one bit (obviously with a few fanatics harping about how he was Barca property in the first place, and that his "requirement" is irrelevant...). Arsenal fans have been at their glorious best though, the stench of moral high ground still overpowering my senses, and considering my current hotel is right next to Gangtok's open sewage system, it's saying a lot. I'm not one to be happy with the Barca players' shameless seduction of their lil princess, but I find it an activity all too common in football to be classified "moral low ground", now seducing the princess and then making her sweep floors, THAT would be low ground although it's altogether too hilarious to get past the ROFL and care about morals.After 2 years of fuming though, a) I'm quite impressed Arsenal fans still haven't got tired of it, b) I'm quite impressed the media still hasn't got tired of it, and c) JACKASS WILSHERE STARTS PURRING ABOUT HOW MATA SHOULD JOIN A "BIG" CLUB LIKE ARSENAL AND THAT HE WOULD FIT IN THERE PERFECTLY!!!!!

His hypocrisy is testament to the Arsenal blood as he is the ONLY unpoached youngster to develop from the Arsenal youth teams in god knows how many years. Really wish someone would poach him quick, and I mean the set vicious bear trap, remove teeth for medicine, skin for mattress, and organs for soup kind of poaching (it strikes me now that the crack into two, roast slowly on dry pan and then consume with toast kind of poaching might also be acceptable, for people without taste buds at least). For all their "youth system" philosophy, they have poached more youngsters than any EPL (and I assume hence any League.. although Portugal's rape and plunder of S.American youth systems would come close) team. Spanish youngsters can't sign contracts till 18, a rule Arsenal (and Sivakasi-England) have taken advantage of (and frankly, why not...shameless but effective).In the past few years, besides Cesc, Arsenal have kidnapped Jon Toral, Ignasi Miguel, Fran merida and Hector Bellerin from the Barcelona La Masia alone, what's worse they're still at it, currently courting the "two next big stars" of Barcelona (and of course consequently of Spain) Gerard Deulofeu and Xavi Quintilla.

ManU seem a lot more dignified in their child abduction, with Pique being let go by Barca intentionally (like Jeffren to Lisbon a few days back), and Parma, Lazio doing the same for Rossi and Macheda back in the day. I'm not surprised then that the most decibels for Cecs's return come from La Masia graduates like Xavi, Iniesta, Puyol and Pique who must view this as big scary pimp tempting poor girl on streets bereft of income with shiny cash and dresses, and then prostituting her in front of millions. (you'll notice I'm going to quickly sign off before addressing how "poor girl" and "streets" were used as metaphors for La Masia kids and the academy - the brightest talents in ALL of Spain sitting pretty in a house basking in the knowledge that everyone knows them to be the brightest talents in ALL of Spain...)