1^st Post. Saturday January 7^th 2011

I have been following  Arsenal for many years now and after contentedly ranting to myself, family and friends and I have decided to take my frustrations and joys of Arsenal Football Club and post them for all you “True Gooners”  to follow and comment on.

FA Cup 3^rd round Arsenal V Leeds

After the frustrations of Wednesday night I was excited and confident that we would turn Leeds Utd over in confident fashion.

How wrong can I be...? Where is the Passion from the players I have grown up watching?....does the FA Cup not mean anything anymore?

To me this afternoon was a total joke and sums up our second string players totally. I was hoping to see a team that would play quick confident football and tear Leeds Utd to shreds - Instead I sat there watching 4/5 different Arsenal players who couldn’t string 2 passes together and lacked passion and creativity.

Let me start with Andre Ashervin – Now I have stuck up for AA for many months now saying he needs fitness or needs his confidence back, unfortunately I am starting to hate him, he is constantly 2 yards off the pace, he makes wrong decisions and it seems he has only one move “run at the defender and cut inside” this is so easy if any half decent defender has done his homework would know and it showed today as Championship centre half Alex Bruce clearly had his number.

His head is down for 75 mins and then Wenger plucks up the courage and subs him; it surprises me how looking at the stats he is TOP in the assists chart this season – in my honest opinion I would give him a few games in the carling cup; he is a good sub for us at best and let’s make some money on him in the summer!!! He doesn’t have the passion that you need to play in the Prem.

My next target is Denilson and I have been saying this for a long time now “He is not good enough to wear the Arsenal shirt” - as a holding midfielder I feel you need players with Size, Strength and a great football brain, now Denilson has none of this – occasionally he scores a wonder goal but 80% of his games he makes stupid mistakes, gets pulled out of position and just generally doesn’t create anything.

I have heard reports that Barcelona were keen on him and would offer €10million!!! I say bite their arm off Wenger, he is just not needed - why start him along side Song? I was so upset to see Ramsey sitting there on the bench for 90mins.

Moving on to players that today really upset me and the next target is Nicholas Bentner  - coming back from fitness he has been given enough opportunities if you ask me and he simply is not the world class striker we need at Arsenal – He broke free from the defensive with 2 mins left in Injury time and produced a finish that any Sunday League player still pissed from the night before would be proud off!

He headed about 4 crosses over the bar and possibly had 1 shot on target in 90mins; he created nothing and quite frankly needs letting go, we keep saying we have money to spend lets off load at least 4 players in the summer and spend the money on a world class striker who would bring the ball down and slot it past the keeper with ease.

Now it makes me very nervous when I see Squillaci has been picked to start – What a mistake Wenger has made by signing this over the hill French International flop!  I would rather see Pascal Cygan return to the 1^st 11, Sir Wenger needs to realise that he has made a mistake, offload him and sign a big lump at the back like Gary Cahill or Chris Samba – now Samba may be a bit slow but he is a mountain of a man and will score a few goals and he will be able to defend set pieces!

I could write page after page on a few more of today’s players including Theo and Eboue but I would like to finish my 1^st post with some positives!

A great performance from Scezney in goal, he made a world class save from Becchio and I think he is coming back strong after breaking both his arms lifting heavy weights in the gym! (How much was he trying to lift lol) I thought Rosicky had a good game, he ran his heart out for the time he was on the pitch and created a few chances for the off form strikers to fluff.

Must comment that it’s good to see Gibbs back to full fitness and I love Cesc’s passion he shows for the game and I can honestly see him staying with us for a few more seasons.

Well guys thanks for reading and please feel free to comment (Bottom of this page) if you think I have stepped out of line anywhere; be good to hear your thoughts on the team that have scored 1 goal in the last 180mins.