Hat Trick Central

This is a blog about English Premier League football, primarily focusing on Arsenal FC, and is written by an Arsenal fan’s perspective.

First Post: The Beginning of a New Era

It’s a beginning of a new era for the club with youngsters Abou Diaby, Denilson, Song, Wilshere, Ramsey, Walcott, and more coming through as we are slowly building a young second coming of the Invincibles. But not only is it so that we are recreating our title-winning team, but there is a new blog in town. Its name is Hat Trick Central dedicated to the Arsenal fans of today and tomorrow.

The purpose of the blog is simple: To blog about the English Premier League. What else?

This blog is set to have everything the Arsenal fan would want: from trivia to match reports to youth reports to classic features and so on…You’ll see.

Just hang in there with me and you’ll be able to share your comments on Arsenal quite easily just by writing something in the box below the blog and simply clicking submit comment. Your support would be appreciated, as it is vital to keep the blog going.

Until next time, in Arsene we trust.

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Do note at the moment it’s still a work in progress, however.

Robin van Persie grabbed three assists to make sure that Arsenal’s battle against Hull was not the same as it was last time the two sides played.  Van Persie almost scored in the first half from a splendid free kick but it was saved and rattled the bar.  However, Emmanuel Adebayor shortly gave Arsenal the lead with his 9th league goal of the season.  Later in the second half, Hull looked to be heading level when they should have received a penalty.  But instead the referee blew for an Arsenal free kick.  However, Daniel Cousin soon headed in to make amends for Hull and level it at 1-1.

But in the 83rd minute, van Persie found Nasri with lots of space and the former Marseille winger calmly slotted it in with his left foot, taking a lucky touch off the post.  Sub Nicklas Bendtner then added to Arsenal’s tally and then later hit the post in Arsenal’s first away win since the result at Stamford Bridge.

PLAYER RATINGS

Almunia 7 Looked confident in goal

CLICHY 5.5 Allowed Hull to thrive on his flank and drifting into and out of the game

DJOUROU 5 Should have given away a penalty and was nervy and poor throughout

TOURE 6 Didn’t have too much to do but defended well enough, although it could have been better

SAGNA 7.5 If all Arsenal players were as consistently excellent as him, we would have won this season’s title already!

NASRI 7.5 Took his goal well and was a threat throughout

DENILSON 5.5 Anonymous for most of the game except for the occasional glimpses of talent–and stupidity as he needlessly gave the ball away several times

DIABY 6.5 Injected more life into the game than Denilson but, well, we really are missing Fabregas

EBOUE 5.5 And we’re missing Walcott, too. Eboue showed some good touches but his end product on crosses and shots was very poor

ADEBAYOR 6.5 Scored a goal to put us into the lead but was poor and sluggish for a lot of the game

VAN PERSIE 9 Excellently set up three goals and continued his astonishing form

SUB: BENDTNER 8 Scored a goal and hit the post. Super sub

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MAN OF THE MATCH

A late Nicklas Bendtner goal was all Arsenal needed to win against Bolton and have a life-line in their season attempt for Champions League qualification and, possibly, the title.

PLAYER RATINGS

ALMUNIA 7 Didn’t have much to do

CLICHY 7 Bombed down the left and looked assured in defense

DJOUROU 7 Did well, not much to do though

TOURE 8 Was good in defense besides some minor errors but was influential helping our team try to win and bombing forward John Terry-like

SAGNA 7 Has for sure regained his form from last season

NASRI 6 Ineffective

DIABY 7 A threat but no Fabregas

DENILSON 6 Not very good or very bad, just couldn’t penetrate the Bolton defense like Fabregas does

EBOUE 6.5 Did okay, I guess, but nothing special

VAN PERSIE 7.5 Came close several times and set up our goal

ADEBAYOR 5 Should have scored at least once but was really sluggish

subs

VELA 7 Did not change the game to a massive effect like he did against Portsmouth but still changed the game

RAMSEY 5 Didn’t do anything but get a yellow

BENDTNER 7 Came off the bench and scored.  But he did give away possession and miss another good chance or two.  We need him to be consistently better

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MAN OF THE MATCH

Kolo Toure

Yeah, it’s not fun being a fan of a team if you’re negative and say something like this:

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Hello and welcome to my blog.  Have you had  a good Christmas?  Because I’ve had a ******* one and it’s worse than ******** ****.  I want to ********* kill Wenger, man, we’re going to lose in the FA Cup to ******** Plymouth 2-0 with our terrible squad then lose some more in the Premier League, lose 4-0 and 3-0 to Roma (7-0 on aggregate–******* disgrace we are), and then we’ll say “well, we’ll do better next season.”  Then we’ll sell Cesc, van Persie, Sagna, and Nasri, and replace them with Damien Plessis and Chris Eagles, and promote Paul Rodgers and Barazite and give them **** starting roles.  Then they’ll play like **** every game but ******** Wenger will continue to lose them and we’ll be ******* relegated with less points than Derby County, who are ******* terrible.  And we’ll get knocked out of the FA Cup to Boreham Wood 2-1.  Our goal will be a consolation goal from Vito Mannone, our ******** new young goalkeeper promoted from the ******* Reserves.  I hope you enjoyed this preview of 2009 and beyond.  Ten years from now, we’ll be the Conference Premier relegation zone at Christmas.  We might escape it but the impending doom will click in the next season at least and then we’ll be destroyed, no more Arsenal, Wenger retires to a mansion in France, becomes the French Prime-Minister, and makes the whole ********* French Parliment a bunch of 19-year-olds in his theory that the nation should “be run by youth.”  People in France then retire at the age of 25 and it gets attacked by the Democratic Republic of Congo and then there would be no more France if the Pink Panther guy didn’t come save the day.  But then a certain Sir named Sir Alex comes to Paris to have a conversation with Mr. Wenger.  “Who is dis?”  “It’s me, you ******** stupid bloke.”  “No, no, I saw you in my dream last night…don’t hurt me…”  “Calm down, you idiot.  I’m not here to hurt you.  I need to speak to you.”  “About what?  Not about what I did last night?  Oh no!”  “Shut up, you idiot!”  “Why?  I’m annoying you, muahahahaha I’m annoying you.”  “I’m gonna kill you!!!”  “No, no, please.  Let me finish my ‘projects’ first!  They shall end up in Scotland if they don’t have a ‘father’ like me!”  “**** you, fool.  What do you know about Scotland?”  “Well, back in 1941…” “I don’t care about its **** history!”  “But you asked me?  Are you asking me about where I was last night?  Oh, no, please god no!”  “Oh, shut up!  I’m here to save the day.  You’ve been hiding like a coward in this palace, fool, for ages!  A war’s been going on!  And you’ve lost!  There is no more France!  Now there is only the Communist Non-Republic of Congo!”  “No,” said a sulking Wenger.  “I don’t believe you!  We will win the title–errm, war!  We are about 1 or 2 percent off from being an invincible force and dominating the league–errm, world!”  “Oh, and Mr. Wenger, Manchester United won the league again for the 41st time last year.”  “No, no!  I know where I saw you from!  You’re, oh my god no, it’s ******** Sir Alex ****uson!”  “Yeah, yeah, ****.  Great.  Well, I thought I should come here and tell you that your projects have failed!  France is no more!  And now there is only the Communist Non-Republic of Congo!”  “Not true!  I’ve got a battalion of 14-year-olds I just signed into my army right behind this table.  Army, shoot this ****er.”  Then Commander Evans came out from behind the table to say “Sorry, Mr. Wenger, but after all these **** years your youth policy just ain’t working.  We must force you to resign.”  “No, no!  You can’t do this to me!”  “Yes, we can.  And it’s the end of your tunnel.”  Commander Evans was about to shoot Mr. Wenger but then Mr. Wenger leapt out the window and ran away screaming, “I’ll show you!  Next season I’ll promote some more players, sell all the good ones, and then I’ll have my revenge!  Hahahahahaha!”

1 year later…

The newly promoted youngsters were beaten in the battle.  They lost again.  “Oh, **** no,” said Mr. Wenger.  “This just can’t be ******* happening.  Maybe, just maybe, after all these years I’ve been doing something wrong.  I need a leader, I need experience, someone strong to fight in wars.”  So, he brought in Adolf Hitler on his 111th birthday (eleventy-one, I believe hobbits refer to it as) and Hitler became captain.  In a news conference before the battle he said “I’m getting in a fight with one of the young ‘uns.  There is disharmony around Wenger’s youngsters camp.  I would sort this out peacefully but it’s a **** of a lot more fun shooting ‘em.”

The end of Chapter 1 of the Wenger Chronicles.

And the transfer gossip from IM Scouting can be seen right here: http://www.imscouting.com/global_news_item.aspx?id=961.  Yeah, just a link (not linked though!) but it tells information about the players we’re being linked to, which is better than what I could say. And for the no-link there, well, I’m not 100% sure how to make links in WordPress.

Here’s my Youtube video “Football in 2008.”  Enjoy!

I think we already have two good goalkeepers but if we seriously need another we need to think about 22-year-old Piet Velthuizen.  He’s only 22, about 190 cm, and he’s the best Dutch-league goalkeeper (he’s won the award).  He’s still not first-choice for his national side however but I think that he would be a great signing. Edwin Van Der Sar has tipped him to be a future Holland #1.

Also, if we need height in defense as many people say, Dmytro Chyhrynskyi would be a great signing.  He’s 22, about 190 cm tall (on par with Djourou’s size), and nicknamed the “Ukranian Beckenbauer.”  He surely has a lot of potential and if our blossoming Djourou/Gallas partnership doesn’t work out, I’m sure this one would work very nicely.

And here’s one you may have heard of, Miguel Veloso. Personally, I’d MUCH rather prefer Alonso or Yaya Toure over him but those transfers look unlikely (the latter does now as he has stated that he has no intention of joining Arsenal).  Miguel Veloso is a 180 cm tall defensive midfielder and he can also provide cover for us at center half.  He’s not a starter for Portugal but has been capped several times.  He’s 22-years-old and would be a good signing–better than Song.  P.S. He’s attributes in Football Manager are phenominal!

I’d welcome Arshavin or Arteta but these three players are lesser known but could make a greater impact on our club than those two combined.

NOTE: If you are not a regular reader, know that this is not a normal Arsenal4thewin.wordpress.com post, it’s just a VERY, VERY, VERY frustrated one.

ALSO NOTE that Denilson got the assist not Nasri, sorry.  Nasri was still excellent though.

Right when it looks like this is heading for a boring, snoring 0-0 draw like the result this month last year, Gallas showed that despite not being captain he can still be a leader by scoring a priceless goal from Nasri’s free kick.  It was a header in the 81st minute.  So, we actually time wasted (maybe we’re just stupid, not really stupid) and got a win.  Portsmouth goalkeeper David James had a poor night missing crosses and missing Nasri’s free kick for the goal.  And also, before we go to player ratings, let me say that Bendtner played instead of van Persie (unused substitute).  Can we really afford rotations like that when wer’e trailing Liverpool by 10 points?!!  And what are we resting him for, the game against Plymouth???  Heck, we might as well put our Carling Cup team out there.

NOTE THAT WITH THE PLAYER RATINGS, I MISSED THE FIRST HALF OF THE GAME SO I APOLOGIZE.

PLAYER RATINGS:

ALMUNIA 7 Didn’t have much to do

CLICHY 7 From what I saw, didn’t do much either

GALLAS 7 Scored a goal but was rarely tested at the back

SILVESTRE 7 See Almunia, Clichy, Gallas, ect.

SAGNA 7 See Almunia, Clichy, Gallas, Silvestre, ect.

EBOUE 6 Didn’t make too big of an impact

NASRI 8 Grabbed an assist and looked like our only good attacking player

DENILSON 6.5 See Eboue

DIABY 6 See Denilson and Eboue

BENDTNER 5 See Eboue and Denilson

ADEBAYOR 4 Missed several good chances and otherwise see Denilson, Eboue, and Bendtner

sub VELA 7.5 Made an instant impact and brought some life into the game

RAMSEY 6 See Denilson, Eboue, Bendtner, Adebayor…oh, we were pretty poor!!!!  I never have had to do write “See basically the rest of the team before!!!!” but we were that poor at times.  No Fabregas, no inspiration, no creativity, no goals..well, except for the late one by Gallas.

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MAN OF THE MATCH

Samir Nasri

Image problems sorry, so no image here.

Err, our team played pretty poorly for most of today.  The first forty minutes were an Aston Villa onslaught; they hit the crossbar or post maybe three, four, or even five times.   Then Denilson got the ball and gave Arsenal an undeserved lead.  Diaby then made it 2-0 early in the second half.  Then former captain William Gallas gave away a penalty, Gareth Barry scored, and oh, we basically fell apart there.  The clock was ticking and it was only a matter of time before…Oh, look!  Just a moment left in injury time and Arsenal have bloody well blown in!  Zat Knight gets a rare start and scores to equalize!

Terrible, isn’t it?  I’d like to stay optimistic like Wenger but in truth, it would have to take something very special to let us win the title, a 19-game-winning streak is what we need but that prospect looks highly improbable.

Knight’s late equalizer has effectively kept Arsenal out of the title race and at the moment, top four.  If only that had not of happened, then maybe the whole Gunner world wouldn’t be so gloomy at the moment.  We must look at the pros and cons of the game:

Pros:

• Uh, we got a point.  One’s better than none, right?
• Martin O’Neill truly valued a point; he reacted to the equalizer as if he had won the lottery, surely something worth watching
• Denilson is getting better
• Maybe Silvestre still has some time left
• Diaby may not totally be rubbish

Cons:

• Aww, who am I kidding?  We deserved to lose and we couldn’t have done it by several goals to nil if we weren’t so lucky.  Our title bid may be over and our chances of Champions League qualification has now taken a massive leap backwards

To add to all that, in half as many games, we have already conceded more goals than Man Yoo did all of last season!  Isn’t that a pleasing statistic?

NOW TO PLAYER RATINGS

ALMUNIA 8 Did well to deny Aston Villa a huge victory, and was blameless with the goals.  Catching was fine except he missed one and Villa almost scored from his mistake

SILVESTRE 7 Strange to see him starting in a big game instead of the pacy Clichy against the fastest team in the league.  But he did better than I expected

GALLAS 7 Had a brilliant game until the penalty incident when everything went down-hill

TOURE 6 Looked rusty and not good enough

SAGNA 8.5 Was everywhere in defense including a truly magnificent air clearance off the line

NASRI 6 Didn’t do too much

DENILSON 7.5 Scored and did well

DIABY 8 Could he be the new Patrick Viera? Probably not but performances like this certainly help the belief that he can be

SONG 6 Got subbed off before half time due to an injury

EBOUE 7 Did well when he assisted but not too much else of note

VAN PERSIE 7 Would have played much better with a target man partner

Sub–RAMSEY 6 Showed poor decision making and gave the ball away too many times while he was on the pitch

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ARSENAL MAN OF THE MATCH

Without a doubt in my mind, it must be Sagna.  See you Sunday when Arsenal host Tony Adams’ struggling side, Portsmouth.

Hi, I got FIFA 09 today for Christmas on the Nintendo DS.  One thing that makes me mad however is the fact that the makers of that game didn’t entirely do all the summer transfers when making the game–for example, Flamini is gone to AC Milan, while Hleb stays behind in the game for Arsenal.  Pretty strange, huh?  And I was looking at the Arsenal team in the game meant for the 2008-2009 season and well, the supposedly 2008-2009 season team in the game is much better than the 2008-2009 season team in reality.

The starting midfield consists of Rosicky (who’s probably not going to start for the first team at all this season), Cesc Fabregas (injured until April, boo hoo, come back Captain Fab), Gilberto Silva (Past it but I’d take him over Song or Denilson anyday—speaking of Song, I can’t even find him in the game!), and Hleb.  Brings back good times, doesn’t it?  If we had kept our midfield in tact instead of Nasri, Denilson, Song, and Diaby, we might–actually, we would have a world-class team capable of winning the Premier League and Champions League.  And who knows how much things could be different, Denilson and Song could be struggling for a Carling Cup place instead of having at the moment an almost guarenteed Premier League starting spot.  Looking at the midfield in that game, I wondered what could and should have been.

However, we should be thankful that the fixture list has given us a chance to redeem ourselves.  Listen to my master plan.  It is better that we’re playing Aston Villa sooner than later.  If we win tomorrow at Villa, and jet-lagged Manchester United stumble like us and Liverpool did against Stoke City (a draw or a loss would do), we’d be back in 3rd and we’d be ahead of Manchester United.  Even though Manchester United do have two games in hand, going to third ahead of the reigning champions could bring back a lot of missed confidence for Arsenal, and it could give us the belief to go even further and leap frog Chelsea and Liverpool.  This is our chance. We better take it.

At least one of the two top teams will definitely win tomorrow (Chelsea play West Brom and Liverpool host Bolton).  So we therefore probably won’t close the gap.  What our chance tomorrow give us the opportunity to do, however, is to add a very, very young talented team to our at-the-moment short victims list this season.  And with other teams yet to play Villa, getting an early 2nd half of the season win over them could be very beneficial indeed.

Then we will (hopefully) crush and burn Tony Adam‘s Portsmouth less than 48 hours later.  After that, there will be no further games left in 2008 and you know what that means–January transfer window!  Our success or failure this season could very well depend on whether we take full advantage of this month-long period (okay, fine month and a day–they changed it) or not.  What’s obvious is that we must bring in a defensive midfielder who is at the moment better than Song, a winger to provide cover for Theo Walcott and injury-prone Nasri, and a defender could be a good idea, although that prospect is looking less and less likely with Djorou’s blossoming partnership with Gallas at center half.

Andrei Arshavin

A player like Arshavin would be great in my opinion.  He’s the best Russian player by some bit, he’s going to leave Zenit anyway in January (possibly to one of our rivals), and he can play several positions including center playmaker (cover for Cesc), winger (could be used in the absense of Walcott or Nasri or even in the main starting XI), or striker (could be good at that role like he was for Russia but I don’t see him playing there for us.  If he does join us, he’ll be either playing on the wing or in Cesc’s position.)  Arshavin seems like just the player we need if we want to have a large squad and a player who could turn our current injury crisis into a positive and helpful thing (we could actually buy quality established players!).

Should we buy a defender?  A couple weeks ago, almost every Gunners fan would probably have said “yes” with our many, many partnerships this season not working.  Gallas/Silvestre, Gallas/Toure, Silvestre/Toure, Silvestre, Djorou, ect.  A debatable question for this transfer window is whether we should keep a partnership with Gallas/Djorou (or Toure/Djorou if need be) or buy another center back.  The Gallas and Djorou partnership is good because tall Djorou heads it while Gallas mops everything up.  If we bring in a tall defender such as Daniel van Buyten (FC Bayern Muchen/Belgium) or Federico Fazio (Sevilla FC/Argentina), would we really be that much better off than having Djorou there?  Yes, the 21-year-old defender is nowhere near his peak yet but would it really make that much of a difference?  Think about it.

Johan Djourou

And should we buy a new goalkeeper?  I say no.  Almunia is not the world’s best but he’s a reliable shotstopper and when he becomes an English citizen, he should be England’s back-up to Chris Kirkland, in my opinion.  Fabianski should also have a few games in the Premier League this winter and spring.  He has had lots of clean sheets this season when he’s played (conceding in only two games this season once he was match-fit, a.k.a. after pre-season).  I think Fabianski is an excellent saver (much better than Almunia at that).  He’s still working on his catching skills but we have two excellent goalkeepers.  I think if we do bring in a goalkeeper, it will be a backup for Fabianski and Almunia instead of having our unreliable reserve goalkeeper Vito Mannone.  Possibly someone like Joe Lewis (Peterborough/England) or Wayne Hennesey (Wolves, Wales) would be good.

And what about defensive midfielder?  I think we need a defensive midfielder who is consistent, experienced, and can play well with the rest of the Arsenal team.  This list could go on forever but some examples of people good for this position are Yaya Toure, Miguel Veloso, and Xabi Alonso.  The last one mentioned will probably not come to Arsenal from a rival, Liverpool, however but it would be ironic if we did have the person who injured our captain in our squad.

We’ll know whether we take our chance to stay with the rest of the big four and show we can be a title challenge tomorrow.  Star winger Ashley Young and on-fire striker Gabby Agblonghor along with midfield maestro Gareth Barry will all likely be key players for Villa.  I also fear that defender Laursen (who is actually a doubt for the game) and goalkeeper Brad Friedel could give us hard times.  This will be a challenge we’ve got to face.  See you tomorrow.