Yesterday night, I received the scare of my life when my trusty ol’ laptop wanted to play a fast one on me by not coming on, but it also handed me the chance to strengthen my friendship with Bobby Agulanna, or @dKingpin as he’s known in the Twitterverse.
I’m also pleased to announce that dKingpin has been granted writing privileges to this blog, so he’ll hold the fort any time I’m not around due to official duty or when I’m not available for reasons best known to that strand of hair trying to grow on Howard Webb’s head.
If you have any ideas, suggestions, questions or guest posts as the case may be, feel free to contact yours truly or dKingpin, and we will respond to you faster than the time it took Gilberto Silva to score that goal against PSV Eindhoven.
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On Saturday, I, dKingpin and many Gooners out there witnessed deja vu in the making when the Gunners ran riot past Tottenham in the 151st North London Derby. Like last season, Emmanuel Greedybayor was in the score sheet from that scum from White Shite Lane but receiving his marching orders for a careless lounge at Santi Cazorla paved the way for a truly scintillating performance from the home team.
Theo Walcott’s brilliance on the right allowed Per Mertesacker to score his maiden Arsenal goal and this was followed by a somewhat fortunate finish from Lukas Podolski. Olivier Giroud’s low drive definitely made Arsene Wenger’s team talk change during the interval. Further strikes from Santi Cazorla and Walcott put the game beyond Tottenham’s reach and once again, North London remained
red.
Arsene Wenger was barraged with questions from those media Vultures and he gracefully decided to provide feedback for almost all the questions they asked. Wenger spoke about the team’s overall performance, Adebayor’s red card, performances of individual players and similarities to last season’s North London derby at the Emirates.
Wenger also declared that his biggest desire is to make the fans happy and despite the shortcomings of the season so far, a resounding win over Tottenham has filled the fans with fond memories of the derby once again. He also declared that his target isn’t just to finish above 5PUR2,
“Our main target is not to finish above Tottenham. Our main target is to finish at least in the top four.
“There’s not only Tottenham but other teams who can be in front of us.
“To be in the top four it is important to beat Tottenham and it also has an emotional impact. But the target of the season is not to finish above Tottenham, it is to finish in the top four [at least].”
This season has shown that teams can be punished if complacency creeps into their game. So much has been made about Arsenal’s poor start to the Premier League campaign but last weekend’s fixtures has shown that no team is invincible in the best league in the world.
Manchester United has been flying high in recent weeks but it took an Anthony Pilkington strike in Carrow Road to prove to everyone that Norwich’s victory over Arsenal wasn’t a fluke. They defended superbly against a surprisingly poor Arsenal side, got a break and made they best use of it. Sir Chewie Ferguson and his Manures got a first-hand demonstration of Norwich’s stubbornness and they have been usurped by their “noisy neighbors” that were extremely ruthless against Aston Villa.
Chelsea on the other hand, fell on the roadside when they visited the home ground of this season’s surprise package, West Brom. The self-acclaimed holy attacking trio of Juan Mata, Oscar and the BioHazard of Eden couldn’t do enough to get any points from Birmingham, even though the Hazardous one got on the score sheet. For those that don’t know, if the season ends right now, West Brom will be playing Champions League qualifiers.
Arsenal’s win over their neighbors has propelled them to sixth place, just four points behind West Brom in fourth. The Gunners aren’t exactly cruising because they still need to pick up more maximum points in their upcoming fixtures and these games are winnable on paper. After facing off Montpellier on Champions League Matchday 5 on Wednesday, the Gunners will visit Villa Park and Goodison Park before hosting Swansea and West Brom.
Like Wenger, some Gunners have revelled in the derby victory as well and Bacary Sagna has stated that the victory was very important,
“It’s very important because we want to stick to the top. From now on, we just need to keep focused, look forward and win game by game.
“It was amazing to play. It’s always a great pleasure to play [in] a derby, especially when you win. It’s just great. We managed to score many goals.”
Sagna was thrilled by the display and like every Gooner out there, he believes that the victory could have real significance on the rest of the season.
Putting it in my terms, you can say that the victory was the spark Arsenal’s season needed.
Sayonara.
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