alan shearer must die!

and while i'm at it, let's add ref dermot gallagher (this moron to the left).

i have been going through all the match reports of today's nil - one loss to newcastle and i keep seeing things like arsenal's "poor away form continues" and their "terrible away form continues." what?! i saw a team play like champs today. they simply got fucked in the ass by a shithead who enjoys carte blanche, and a ref who doesn't know his testicles from a plate of swedish meatballs.

should we have scored in the first half? yes. should we have had more chances at net? yes. should van persie have scored on the brilliant pass by freddie? yes. but let's be serious here. we had newcastle running scared, and because of that souness sent shearer out to head hunt: "At half-time I said get in Arsenal's face. With the players we had we couldn't take them on at their passing game." fair enough. when you can't win clean send someone out to head hunt, and in all fairness to souness, he picked the right guy. he knows shearer gets away with murder and so does shearer. but what the hell was gallagher's excuse? there were at least two straight red card offenses committed by shearer. TWO! and all he got was a piddly yellow card well after the fact. oh yeah, and lauren got a called for a foul and newcastle had a free kick in the a danger zone after shearer deliberately threw him to the ground. out-fucking-rageous. and i was sitting with a liverpool fan and a chelsea fan, both of whom were equally disgusted (but of course they would be. so long as you're not a blind magpie you know shearer enjoys the divine right of kings).

and if that wasn't bad enough gallagher gives silva the boot on a soft challenge that certainly deserved no more than a warning...immediately following shearer's attack on lauren.

the gunners played bravely today, and they can hold their heads up high. henry had a goal if not for given's great save. lehmann put in another solid day in net, and solano's goal was unsavable...in fact, it was the only breakdown in defense, but that was only because wenger had us going forward with suicidal abandon. lauren was excellent at left back (please stay hurt cygan), and did incredibly well to maintain his composure and not retaliate. toure and campbell (the other man hacked by king alan) were solid and it was great to see senderos back in the fold. cesc was excellent, hleb was excellent, gilberto was doing everything he could to make up for last week's disastrous performance -- until his red card -- and freddie was everywhere. henry and van persie may not have been in top form but they both worked hard and we can't ask for more than that. all in all it was a good solid performance.

and i am proud of the way our guys handled themselves. true pros. good work to day arsenal.

and just a word for king alan. if i see you in a bar in newcastle i am going to lay the boots to your royal ass.

p.s. scott parker was magnificent for newcastle. well done scotty.

man utd are out of the champs league: 2-1 @ benfica

i was going to mock the man utd fans, but i think they've been through enough lately (and so have arsenal fans, so i know they can give as good as they'll get). so i thought, instead, i would offer a quote from Keano, who saw this coming, said something about it, and was crucified for speaking the truth. here's what the eminently honest Keane had to say about just such an occurence way back in the days when Beckham, Scholes and Giggs were just pups:

On this occasion, as with so many before and since, it wasn't so much spite felt for the opposition as anger at myself and my team-mates that caused me to lose my head. [Our 3-6 loss at] Southhampton was a good example of our team going through the motions, thinking our ability gave us a divine right to win the game. These lapses into the comfort zone drove me crazy. So with a rash challenge or a crunching tackle I'd try to inject some angry urgency into the contest. I could take defeat, but not surrender. If we lost at Southampton [or Boro], what fucking chance did we have against Juventus [or Benfica]....Knowing that you couldn't switch form on and off like a light bulb caused me intense frustration in League games like the one at the Dell. The result was sometimes an early bath, sometimes a row with my team-mates.