Gunners Glory

Poochies.....ahhh...the sports madness comes back to possess me! Watch out for the rants again....

What an amazing week for the Gunners (fyi: Those that don't follow soccer, it's the alias for Arsenal Football Club). Big wins followed by another big win. First, it was the glorifying steps of advancing in the Champions League stages. Experience is the mother of improvement and certainly an improvement they have made. The young generation has grown in confidence and stature as of late, and their unity and teamwork made it possible for the blatant results they're carving out of recent matches. Take a look....against Juventus, a club I very much supported, is played around by the younger boys. No spares of big name footballer in Juve's squad boasting Gigi Buffon, Cannavaro, Thuram, Zambrotta, Emerson, Vieira(ex-Arsenal captain), Camoranesi, Trezeguet, Ibrahimovic. Any clubs would have loved to get even one of these players. Yet, they're outshined by the likes of Fabregas (18 years), Eboue (19 years), Flamini (17 years), Reyes (21 years), Senderos (20 years). Of course, Arsenal have Thierry Henry to depend on. This one man alone can tear defences and whizz past any defender. Skills, technique, pace, intelligence, all embeded into 1 man, El Maqnifique.

Hahaha....okay, so the score read 2-0 to Arsenal's favor. Brilliant goals from Fabregas and Henry, and a superb passing and flowing football from Arsenal. Also, I have to credit the young defensive backs who have upgraded their shaky performances in the beginning of the season. Kolo Toure, being the most senior of the four, lead the way with timely and perfect tackles to deny Trezeguet and Ibrahimovic of any clear shooting chances. And so in one-week time, Juventus could be very well out of the running for the Champions League dream. Even though I am a Juventus fan first before adding Arsenal to one of my favorites, I was very much cheering for Arsenal and loving it when they won the match. Maybe winning the Cup will convince Henry to stay and lead the team as captain to the new Emirates stadium, which is a masterpiece to say the least.


New Emirates Stadium - Home of Arsenal FC starting 2006/2007 season

They followed the orchestra with another encore, a drubbing of Aston Villa to the score of 5-0. Two beautiful goals from Henry- One, latching onto a long lob, he caught the ball high with his foot, and flicked it high against the on-rushing and leaping goalkeeper, and managed to stay afloat to make it into the goal. A goal that surely contends for the goal of the year, and the second, receiving a back flick from Adebayor, he collected the ball outside the penalty box, and curled to the top right corner of the flying keeper. The score then already read 3-0. He could've scored a hat-trick for if his lob from the right penalty box near the corner flag had gone in. It was later converted into goal by Adebayor after being cleared off the line by the Aston Villa defender. My support craze was exaggerated when I was pinning hopes that Bolton loses to MU(for sure!), Tottenham loses to Newcastle (50-50), and Blackburn drawing or losing. True enough all my prayers were answered and Arsenal are more than capable of securing the fourth-place finish in the Premiership. It's for their own to miss out on the fourth place finish since the only challenging fixtures are against MU, and Tottenham, which could definitely decide the fourth-place finish being that Tottenham still leads by 2 points.

So, next will be the second leg for the Champions League Q-Final and followed by a Sunday clash with Manchester United. (Yes, INoe, MU will lose! hahaha...but I hope they win the Premiership instead of Chelsea. I'll cheer for MU when they play against Chelsea =P). So, in all, I can sense that they'll secure a fourth-place finish and move on to the next year's qualification for Champions League, hopefully contending as champions too!