Don't Bendtner the Bootroom, please.
Welcome to The Bootroom.
It is officially Fall now and it feels like the soccer season is kicking into gear. The standings are starting to shake out in the Premier League, with teams roughly in their expected tiers. (Other leagues that started later still have a week or two until they reach this stage.) Clubs have scrubbed off the rust after five weeks. And, Arsenal continues to boggle the mind.
First, it was Edu-Archer’sbow. Then it was Arsene’s trip into the stands. Now, we have another Gunner admitting to embellishing fouls. Robin Van Persie claims he does not dive, only embellishes contact when he thinks it warrants a call. Cunningly, he is against diving but for embellishing–a nice sleight of linguistic hand. “That’s not really diving. It’s just showing … ‘Come on, he just pushed me, so I can’t score now’” the striker said. That’s positively Clinton-esque.
The political double-speak does not just come from the players, it comes from the Gunner boardroom as well. Arsenal Chairman Peter Hill-Wood has come out to say that Arsenal has always been against the FA quota rule, even though it voted for it. Not quite Clintonian, but certainly Al Gorish.
Hill-Wood continues on showing the strong backbone of the club saying: “We voted in favour of the quotas because it appeared that is what the majority of the clubs wanted and we went along with it. We feel that we should support the majority, rather than rebel against them.” Way to stick to your principles and not just follow the lemmings over the edge.
What will it be this weekend for the spineless, diving, forked-tongue speaking North London boys?
After the jump, select matches from the Saturday slate of games.
Premier League
Saturday
7:45 ET Portsmouth v Everton
10:00 ET Blackburn Rovers v Aston Villa
10:00 ET Tottenham Hotspur v Burnley
10:00 ET Birmingham v Bolton Wanderers
10:00 ET Wigan Athletic v Chelsea
10:00 ET Stoke City v Manchester United
10:00 ET Liverpool v Hull City
12:30 ET Fulham v Arsenal
La Liga
Saturday
12:00 ET Athletic Bilbao VS Sevilla FC
12:00 ET Real Madrid VS Tenerife
14:00 ET Málaga VS Barcelona
16:00 ET Valencia VS Atlético Madrid
Serie A
Saturday
12:00 ET Sampdoria VS Internazionale
14:45 ET Livorno VS Fiorentina
Bundesliga
Saturday
9:30 ET FC Cologne VS Bayer Leverkusen
9:30 ET VfL Wolfsburg VS Hannover 96
9:30 ET Werder Bremen VS Mainz
9:30 ET Eintracht Frankfurt VS VfB Stuttgart
9:30 ET Borussia Dortmund VS Schalke 04
12:30 ET Hamburg SV VS Bayern Munich
Ligue 1
Saturday
13:00 ET AJ Auxerre VS Grenoble
13:00 ET Lorient VS Paris Saint-Germain
13:00 ET Valenciennes VS Marseille
13:00 ET AS Monaco VS St Etienne
13:00 ET Montpellier VS Boulogne
13:00 ET AS Nancy Lorraine VS Sochaux
15:00 ET Lyon VS Toulouse
The Other League One…
10:00 ET Gillingham v. Norwich City
Hangeland’s name is either pronounced “candy land” or “Mengele,” based on this broadcast.
What. A. Save.
This Greening cat is a dead ringer for Brooks Orpik.
Nice pass by the best player in Scotland, how did Eboue f**k that up?
Think I just saw a ginger Phillip Seymour Hoffman on Arsenal’s bench.
Dempsey has money on the under I guess, or he’s just totally lost what he used to have.
@ Georger: Agreed. Deuce hasn’t looked in himself in quite some time now, both for Fulham and USMNT
*looked himself. Gah.
like dempsey just shoving the arsenal player in the middle of his run.
Hard to see where 5 minutes of stoppage came from.
Gera has played very well, which raises the question: why didn’t he and Duff start from the get go?
Gallas spent like two minutes down hurt.
“Oh he’s screws this completely!” Emmanuel Eboue, ladies and gentlemen!
Mannone really saved the gooners’ bacon today.
I’d like to thank Georger for keeping me informed of all the goings on while I was watching FSU make USF look like the ’84 Niners. F**k. Cock.
well played to your rovers, jjf. We never looked like scoring after Gabby.
I’d like to thank BRFC for finally bossing their own pitch for once. Watching it on delay, and I’m getting a little too excited about Franco Di Santo. For a kid with crazy skills, he doesn’t seem to mind listening to BFS at all – he is being a menace in every possible way in the 1st half…and he created a mess that fell at Samba’s feet most productively…
And, yes, I will regret this next year when he reinforces Spartak’s attack…
Didn’t see your note, Keith, as I was typing. Thank you. Watching the 2nd half now, but I like the way we are finally looking. Even knowing that the last resort is Robbo..(bound to cost a game or two)
So far a fairly played game by AV, and your squad looks solid, even if did finally protect Ewood…
*sorry: even “if WE did finally”
Wow, that was ugly by Grella. FUGLY bad…
There was a big, Nigel Reo-Coker sized hole in our midfield.
No disagreement there, Keith. But please just let me enjoy us controlling the midfield at home for once (its been awhile).
Separately, is NRC really that important to AV? I know Delph is a youngster, but he (NRC) and Petrov are really your number 1 and 2 in central MF? Doesn’t that worry you?
and, no, not Petrov I am questioning…
I may end up buying Di Santo and Dunn shirts the way this game has gone…
/pathetic…
So what you’re saying is, you DONT have the depth to replace NRC?
Didn’t say that, but Reo-Coker does add a more steely dimension to the midfield. Kind of like if Liverpool could still play Xabi in their teamsheet.
and also, Delph is not yet ready to play as part of a midfield pairing. If it were a 451 with Petrov, Delph and either NRC or even Craig Gardner in the center of the park, we would have been fine. (Sidwell was out injured)
I keep forgetting you guys have Sidwell. What a tool.
i still of the firm belief dempsey is tired. so tired he cannot even bring himself to shave let alone score