Courtesy Arsenal.com

Tomorrow The Arsenal travel to sunderland to try and keep momentum going in the league with another victory. It is important for the team to use last weeks big win over blackburn as a springboard to go on another run like we saw in November and December. The team will probably have to take most of the remaining points to try and nick a spot in the top four so tomorrow is the start of a very, very important run in.

In terms of team news, everyone that was available last match is still available. No new injuries is always a big positive. Gibbs and Chamakh should be available having gotten back to full fitness, but the manager will check on them tomorrow morning. They will both likely be on the bench with the Chamakh not being in the best of form (to say the least) and with Gibbs being referred to by the manager as “getting closer” to full fitness. Gervinho should be back from the African Cup of Nations this week and should be available for the sunderland cup tie next weekend. Jenkinson is apparently a couple of weeks out from full training and is running as well. Finally (why are the injury sections always the biggest….), Emannuel Frimpong has apparently had surgery on the cruciate he tore while on loan with Wolves and won’t be back until next season which is sad news for him.

Sunderland is always a tough test as was shown in the home fixture earlier this year. We also seem to have some trouble with them away from home in the last couple of years only coming away with draws. This fixture should not be taken lightly and a win is very necessary, especially with liverpool taking on united, sp*rs taking on newcastle and chelsea taking on everton who they tend to have a little bit of a hard time with (come on Landon!).

As always, come on down to Beulahland (7:00 am sharp tomorrow) to grab some breakfast and cheer on the mighty Gunners.

See you there.

It's a little known fact that some of the back four's defensive problems stem from Per Mertesacker's representing of the west side and Johan Djourou's of the east...pure gangsta.

I may be wrong but I think it might be a good time to stop dropping points. Let’s start with these queens park rangers fellows…might as well. Tomorrow morning (afternoon for persons not eight time zones away) Arsenal take on qpr at the emirates. After missing out on two points last week (especially shitty, considering chelsea and liverpool both drew) it will be expected to have the team get all three this week.

qpr have shown themselves to be a bit of a handful this year already by beating chelsea (albeit with some lucky calls) so they should definitely be taken seriously. They do, however, have a few injuries and don’t have a win in their last five matches. I’m interested to see if they actually come and have a go, with players such as the dangerous taraabt, or just put 10-11 behind the ball. I wouldn’t be surprised if they did the latter as that seems to work well against us, as shown in both the wolves and fulham matches. We shall see. Here is the scouting report, in case you are interested.

In terms of team news, everyone (not injured long term, or dead) is available. Theo is back from his flu/stomach bug/hangover thing and nobody has left for the African Cup yet. Side note: apparently Arsene is trying to hold on to Gerve and Chamakh for an extra match (leeds in the FA cup). Supposedly, Gibbs and Bac have a chance to be back by the end of next month which means Arsene will probably not sign a fullback. We’ve been doing ok defensively without them, but do definitely lack the attacking options that those two could provide, so hopefully they take care of themselves.

As always, mosey on down to Beulahland tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. for the match to cheer on The Arsenal and hopefully see them take all three points, while chelsea, united, city, sp*rs and liverpool all lose….or spontaneously combust…or both.

Cheers and Come On You Gunners!

"You don't fuck with the Kos!" (courtesy arsenal.com)

Sunday, The Arsenal take on the oil money. To state the obvious, this is a big, big match. city are coming off a loss in the league to the team formally known as “the money team” as well as being knocked out of the champion’s league. I don’t think this means they should be taken lightly though. They will definitely want to get back to winning ways and will probably come into the match to focused, especially with it being at home for them and all.

In terms of team news: everyone who was available last weekend is still available, which is good. However, this also means we are without any fullbacks still and will likely see Vermaelen and Djourou fill in again, unless the manager decides to switch Verm with Koscielny in the middle. Gibbs is apparently back in training and is only a week or so out from coming back (a fullback! a fullback! it’s a miracle!). He will miss out on the trip to city but could be back for Villa or Wolves at the latest. Jenkinson had worse news and it looks like he will have to wait a further four weeks for another scan.The boss has also given somewhat of a timeline for Jack’s return. He says Jack should be looking to come back around mid-february barring any delays (knock on fucking wood).

Should be a decent match and as always, come on down to Beulahland and watch the match, score some food/drinks and cheer on The Mighty Arsenal.

Cheers and Come On You Gunners!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnddddddd……..it’s milan.

The Arsenal have drawn ac milan in the champion’s league for the round of 16. Could be a tough draw, milan are doing fairly decently this year on the backs of kevin prince boateng and ibrahimovich (and his weird moustache), although they did finish second in their group (albeit behind barcelona) and sit third in serie A (only a couple of points off the top). You have to face the big guns at some point, it might as well be now and I seem to recall we didn’t do so terribly against them the last time around.

The match days have been confirmed and will be:

milan v. Arsenal February 15th, 2012

and

Arsenal v. milan March 6th, 2012

This should be an exciting couple of matches.

Photo: Stuart McFarlande/Arsenal FC

The Arsenal take on everton tomorrow as we get back to league action and the match that the club is using to officially celebrate it’s 125th anniversary.

In terms of team news: we don’t have any healthy fullbacks and our keeper injuries have given us the return of the one and only…..Manuel………on the bench of course but still, yikes. Other than that we’re peachy though. Everyone else who was available for the midweek match is ok. We face an everton team who have given us trouble in the past but are struggling a tad. Likely because we knicked one of their best players off of them, but such is life. Should be a good match none the less.

The club will be celebrating it’s 125th anniversary during the match, with many old players in attendance and some special in-match stuff. The celebrations actually began yesterday with the unveiling of three statues around the stadium. They include: Herbert Chapman (revolutionary manager from the 30′s), Tony Adams (modeled on him celebrating his goal against everton in 1998, in last league game, during that title winning season), and my personal favorite, the Thierry Henry statue (modeled on him celebrating his box to box goal on his knees in front of sp*rs fans). The transformation of the stadium to include more of the clubs history continues with these newest additions, and nice ones they are.