Official Gooners Thread - A New Hope

[Norf Tyrone]

Wouldn't have minded him 2-3 years ago.

Oh er missus.

[spiritof91and94]

Anybody tuned into Arsenal TV on Setanta yet?
Seen a few re-runs of past years and even Highbury seems dated from 04-05 season compared to the Emirates.
Is this channel going to be ppv when it gets up and running like manure and chelski tv?
Still it is progress...
Any predictions for tonight? I have a fear we could be done in central defence with Kolo gone but we have enough attacking options available with rvp coming back and  Eduardo showing great quality, i am backing a 2.1 win....

[ildanach]

Arsène Wenger has announced his 16-man squad for tonight's Carling Cup Semi-Final first leg against Tottenham at Emirates Stadium.

As revealed by Arsenal.com yesterday, Robin van Persie returns to action after a muscle strain. Theo Walcott is also fit to play while Bacary Sagna and Gilberto have both been named in the squad.

Arsenal squad to face Tottenham:

2 Abou DIABY
3 Bacary SAGNA
6 Philippe SENDEROS
9 EDUARDO
11 Robin VAN PERSIE
15 DENILSON
19 GILBERTO
20 Johan DJOUROU
21 Lukasz FABIANSKI (GK)
26 Nicklas BENDTNER
30 Armand TRAORE
31 Justin HOYTE
32 Theo WALCOTT
36 Mark RANDALL
40 Vito MANNONE (GK)
41 Gavin HOYTE

Diarra must be on the way out when he didn't even make the squad. It is a pity, i thought he had the making of a great player and he was very versatile. but he just did not seem to have patience to wait. I can unerstand though as he is trying to hold a place down in the french team. i would have rated him above diaby, flamini and gilberto though.

prediction for tonight 2 v 1 ( they are bound to get 1 with that tool senderos playing!)

[Dinny Breen]

Diarra is named in the squad on the BBC website 

[ildanach]

 I took that from arsenal.com

[Dinny Breen]

Bloody BBC are useless....

That was a dire performance last night, Aresnal played well in patches with perhaps only Hoyte, Walcott, Traore and Bendtner coming out with any credit however Sagna must be the best right back in the Premiership and his attitude and committment is fantastic, definitely one of the signings of the season........

Sadly Senderos has to go, he is the new Gus Ceasar...........

Oh and I can't see Spurs ever beating Arsenal, that was there best chance in a long time and they just choked....

Anyway else notice Ray Wilkins drooling over Berbatov when he made a decent pass but staying strangely quiet when he gave away the ball which was pretty often, definitely a very over-rated player...

[the Deel Rover]

Another annoying thing with Wilkins last night was he kept saying the average age of these boys was 22 and the expereince they were getting, well if they are not playing by 22 they might as well forget it. Just wondering at what age does a boy become a man with ray wilkins

[ildanach]

thought we were brutal, very lucky  to get the draw. Gilberto was shit with o hara totally out shinning him in midfield. Hopefully arsene will not sell diarra now as we are limited in this position. Diaby is very one footed and does not seem to use his left at all even when in trouble. I know he is a centre mid field but he is like tits on a bull out on the wing!! On the plus for someone who doesn't like playing in the centre hoyte was very composed in the second half. I fancy us to get through though in the second leg. 20 games with out a spurs win!! ,11 times to take the lead and not finish the job

[Norf Tyrone]

Yer young lad O'Hara looks a great player.

All this talk of always beating Spurs...a few years back in 2001 or something, Chelsea had a similar record- if not better- against Spurs, and went in the league cup 2nd leg in a very similar state. Again the pysche was 'Chelsea always beat Spurs.'

Final score: Spurs 5 Chelsea 1!!!!!!!

[ONeill]

A very disappointing performance last night at home. Gilberto's gone/done/surplus to requirements. When once he was a useless CB cover, he's now a liability. Get £1m and farm him out. Senderos started badly but looked more composed second half. Again, though, he does not generate confidence for any period of the 90. Diaby is definitely no Vieira but I still feel he has shown enough to be a regular in the near future. He needs a Flamini or Fabregas beside him. Eduardo is starting to show what he's made of and his general play outside of the box is mightily impressive - even reminiscent of DB10, almost more a Bergkamp than Van Persie who was oddly subdued - almost as if he couldn't give a toss about the Carling.

I'm sure AW will stick with this squad for the second leg. Spurs should win it.

[Dinny Breen]

Van Persie who was oddly subdued

He was injured..

[ildanach]

Van Persie who was oddly subdued

He was injured..

i see it is the flu he has, not a re occurance of the injury fingers crossed!

[Broken_Cross]

Anybody tuned into Arsenal TV on Setanta yet?
Seen a few re-runs of past years and even Highbury seems dated from 04-05 season compared to the Emirates.
Is this channel going to be ppv when it gets up and running like manure and chelski tv?
Still it is progress...
Any predictions for tonight? I have a fear we could be done in central defence with Kolo gone but we have enough attacking options available with rvp coming back and  Eduardo showing great quality, i am backing a 2.1 win....

Changed yesterday from Setanta on Freeview to Sky. I had got a free digibox and two months subscription as a TalkTalk customer but would not have paid £9.99 a month for 1 channel on Freeview. They changed me from Fv to Sky and I am paying £5 a month for the first 3 months (£9.99 thereafter) and I get all 12 Setanta channels including Arsenal TV, official launch tonight I think.

[AZOffaly]

See Lassana Diarra has signed for Pompey.

[Dinny Breen]

See Lassana Diarra has signed for Pompey.

Pity, he's a good prospect but he's obviously hungry to play. He could have stayed at either Chelsea or Arsenal and taking the easy life so you'd have to respect his desire...

Arsenal TV.....was that Lofty from Eastenders doing the punditry...it was surreal watching it....