Good morning readers! I hope all is well there. Everything here is fantastic. In fact, things have rarely been better. It feels like the world is brighter and happier every single day. My routine is to wake up, turn on my phone, check the news feeds and have a good chuckle at the kind-heartedness and compassion of my fellow Americans.
For example, the other day I noticed that American border patrol agents are detaining American citizens who were born in certain countries. This is done for their safety of course. There is no safer place than in custody!
This is not a “muslim ban” (yet) because as you know we aren’t detaining any citizens from Saudi Arabia, which is where 15 of the 19, 9/11 hijackers came from. But don’t you worry, we will eventually get around to detaining all people from all countries which contain muslims. This is just the trial balloon.
This also isn’t a terrorist ban because last I checked we aren’t detaining people like Dylann Roof or Alexandre Bissonnette, two guys who went into churches and shot innocent people while they were in the middle of prayer. These were two white men who committed acts of terror against minorities. But as you know, we don’t think all muslims are terrorists, nor do we think that all white Christian men are terrorists, so we can’t detain all white Christian males, check their browser history on their phone, and make sure that we are safe from that threat.
Like I said it’s a non-stop chuckle-fest over here! Compassion, intelligence, and reason run amok.
That stuff is all boring, I know. The important thing is that Arsenal played a game yesterday and gosh darnit if they weren’t just unlucky.
I tuned in exactly at the 10 minute mark, just in time to see Younes Kaboul fire in a direct free kick off Aaron Ramsey’s ass. The Watford players erupted into joyous celebration and I couldn’t help but be swept up by the emotion. What a great moment for their club, to have a former Tottenham star, who was once described as “part time footballer, full time stiff”, score his third career goal against Arsenal. Did you know that Arsenal are Kaboul’s favorite team to score on? Yep, three times.
Kaboul plays alongside a guy who has an actual pony tail. Prodl is his name and he’s Austrian. If I was in charge of detaining people at the American border I would move “men with top knots, ponytails, and rat tails” straight to the top of the list. Never trust a man with a pony tail (sub in “rat tail”, man bun, or top knot depending on the situation).
Understandably, Arsenal’s level of concentration dropped after conceding the first goal. If I was out there on a cold Tuesday in London and had just conceded an ass-goal, I’d probably switch off too. So, when Gabriel, who has to be the worst player in professional football at throw-ins, took a throw-in and kind of threw the ball in Ramsey’s direction it was understandable that Ramsey didn’t really challenge for the ball. And then when Capoue casually collected the ball and dribbled at the defense, I can understand why a tiny little shake of the shoulder would fake Coquelin out of his boots, and how Mustafi wouldn’t be aware of the threat of Capoue and just let him walk right past him. Capoue casually took a shot and Cech parried into the waiting feet of Troy Deeney. Unlucky all the way around. Shucks and darn.
After the game Wenger was stumped as to why Arsenal struggle at the start of some games.
We have first to analyse well why we didn’t start well. We have some situations in our team that at the start of the game, we are not completely clear. And we have to analyse that well.
I sense a full-bore investigation impending and I’m as excited for that inquiry as I am Trump’s look at how 3 million people supposedly illegally voted, which is going to be headed up by Steve Bannon and Mike Pence – two men registered to vote in at least two states.
Arsenal will look at tape from this match against Watford, the one against Bournemouth, the one against Liverpool, PSG, Ludogorets, Tottenham, Man U, and Southampton (in the EFL Cup). After that, maybe Wenger could also pop on his sleuthing hat, use a mirror to get it on straight Mr. Wenger, and take a look at why Arsenal also switch off after scoring early goals like they did against Everton and Man City. I suspect that the answer will be “sometimes we play a little with the handbrake on” and then Arsenal.com will play one of those videos with Theo Walcott hilariously recalling how the Boss was super steamy hot angry at half time against Watford. I bet Steve Bould stood there and handed Arsene Wenger water bottles to throw.
Arsenal did play better once Wenger made some changes at half-time. He took Giroud off, who only had 13 touches in that first half – 5 of which were turnovers, and put Alexis back up front with Theo Walcott next to him. Alexis didn’t fare much better than Giroud and was dispossessed 8 times with a further 3 turnovers due to bad touch in this match. Yes, you read that right, Alexis lost possession 11 times – expect the spate of articles about him “losing his head” or “looking tired”.
Even Coquelin, who was taken off at the 67th minute had 4 turnovers in this match, three from bad touch. Arsenal wasted so much possession because Watford just out-hustled Arsenal from start to stop. They won more dribbles, tackles, and interceptions or as Wenger put it;
It was not good in the first half. Especially, I felt, in the first 20 minutes. We were beaten in the duels, they were sharper than us. We didn’t start the way we wanted. In the second half it was all us. We are unlucky, let’s be fair as well, to lose this game, we didn’t deserve to lose this game.
Outplayed in the first 20 minutes, yes. But even more important, and I have to be fair because Wenger told me to, Arsenal were unlucky. Arsenal did take 20 shots to Watford’s 10 and Lucas rattled the bar with a shot that was unlucky not to go in. “Unlucky Theo” also had three wide open chances and shot them either right at the keeper or out of play. Yep, unlucky and undeserved. Arsenal should always be able to take an entire half of football off and still get a result. Anyone who thinks otherwise is a loon and should be stopped by Homeland Security.
Arsenal were also unlucky that Chelsea, Tottenham, and Liverpool all dropped points yesterday and Arsenal couldn’t capitalize. League leaders Chelsea played Liverpool to a 1-1 draw and Tottenham were held scoreless against Sunderland, the worst team I’ve seen since Derby. Those teams were all unlucky too, but also lucky because Arsenal could have made ground up on all of them but didn’t.
Instead of Arsenal being six points behind Chelsea, Chelsea extended their lead by a point and are now 9 points ahead. That means for Arsenal to win the League, the Gunners have to win every remaining game and Chelsea have to lose three and draw one.
But hey, like I said, I’m super cheery over here and I expect Arsenal to win the League after a total collapse by Chelsea. And by total collapse, I mean, that the stadium sinks back into Thames (no one in it of course), Roman Abramovich is arrested and all of his assets are frozen, Antonio Conte is found guilty of match fixing, and it’s revealed that Diego Costa eats babies.
If any of that happens, I’ll be the first to report on it.
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