oh henry!

i don't know how many times this season i have sat there and watched the arsenal fart around the box, passing and passing and passing. 3000 kms away, in my basement, in my crappy brown recliner, early on a saturday morning and i am yelling "SHOOOOOOOT! Shoot the fucking ball!"

and that's what they were saying in emirates this weekend.

henry responded by saying:

"The fans have the right to speak. I keep on hearing them shout 'shoot'. I don't know what they're trying to say or do. [they are saying you should shoot, theirry.] But I think they're getting sucked in by what some people are saying.

"We scored some amazing goals at Reading and nobody said 'shoot!' then [because you were shooting, theirry]. Against Everton we created the same chances but the finishing wasn't what you expect. That's just the way it is.

"Fans are fans and like to express the way they feel. [we sure do. and its our prerogative.]"

now i didn't see this particular game, but i did see the ass whooping of reading and i saw arsenal's defeat to man citeh, and i saw them shoot a lot in the former and not at all in the latter. it seems to me that if the emirates fans were screaming "shoot, " even with the high shot total that arsenal did registe , the gunners could have and should have shot more. fans are in a good position to see the flow of play. fans are also predisposed to be on the side of their team (especially home fans), and they are unlikely to attack their team if they are shooting enough. on this i come down on the side of my fellow fans (although i might feel differently if i could see the fucking game): as a general rule arsenal does need to shoot more.

and as for everton playing negative football...good on 'em. that is the classic "arsenal" way (ten years of tottenham ball can't erase the memory of "boring, boring, arsenal"). we were famous for it. it gets results. and if that's what it takes to get points off of a beautiful team that's what it takes. if i were moyes and i were facing the gunners i'd do the same.

so quit making excuses, thierry. quit going for perfection and just shoot.