It’s BEHIND you Robbo!

13 years since a tall Frenchman wearing ridiculously large spectacles flew the 8:30 Tokyo – London shuttle to be greeted by a headline in The Evening Standard saying ‘Arsène Who?’ Since then he’s gotten us 3 league titles, 4 F.A Cups, a World Class Training Facility and a World Class Stadium. He’s created a team that went an entire campaign unbeaten and has inspired me to write this and this.

56 goals in 16 games. That’s how many times Fat Paul has been left on his fat behind when he’s played the Arsenal. He’s shipped in so many that he has an exclusive chant dedicated solely to him by the North bank faithful. On Sunday, you could’ve heard the line that’s the title screamed out aloud 6 glorious times. Funny thing is he actually played well. If it was Gomes in goal I reckon we’d have scored 27 times.

24 goals in 7 games. That’s how many goals the Arsenal has already scored this premiership campaign.

15 different people have scored those 24 goals. We now have five times as many scorers as Portsmouth have premiership goals.

4 of them have come from Thomas Vermaelen who is now our leading scorer. Satisfyingly only 2 out of the 4 were ‘Centre Half’ goals (header or bundled in from 3 yards out using crotch/knee/chest). The other two were wonder strikes from 35 yards out which any striker worth his salt would have been proud of. Gael Clichy calls him our new ‘Angry’ Martin Keown. Our number 5’s performances prompt a very pertinent and valid question.

Q: Who is Thomas Vermaelen in fact a replacement for?

A. Kolo Toure                                     B. Emmanuel Adebayor

C. Jude law                                         D. The Terminator

E. All of the above

Yes, as the more astute amongst you might’ve guessed E is indeed the correct answer. I can’t wait to see what else he can do. Bite Drobga’s head off maybe? Or scalp Fat Frank a la an Inglourious Basterd?

It was a carnival at the Grove the day before yesterday. Some special guests and others not so special. Thierry Henry has made clear his intentions. He wants to be Le Boss II someday and Le Boss I has all but given his endorsement. I figure he was misquoted in the papers though. What was construed to be ‘I will be back at Arsenal someday’ was in fact ‘I will be back at Arsenal Sunday’. Oh and El Mundo, it was not a scouting trip to convince Cesc to join him and Xavi and Iniesta and Messi at Barcelona. He clearly misses it here. Paddy at the grove would’ve completed the reunion but his flight was delayed and he was forced to watch the most boring game on earth at the Bridge. I mean honestly, the only difference between an AC Milan 0 – 0 Livorno and a Chelsea Liverpool game is 2 shots on goal.

So Evil Sam and his squad of spitters, divers and fullbacks were the party poopers. Evil Sam of course doesn’t have a very wide repertoire of tactics in his play book. In fact there is only one. Hoof ball downfield, get head to it, 1-0. Ok, they managed to make it 2-1 after we equalized. Big deal. The form that Cesc was in, he could’ve set up a dozen more and scored another 7 if he’d played the full game. He did manage 4 assists and a goal though. The script was pretty much one line. Someone to Cesc, Cesc makes a pin point defense splitting pass to someone else’s left foot, someone else’s left foot scores.

Cesc made two resounding statements on the pitch yesterday. He clearly intends to make the premiership his personal fiefdom this season. The second statement after he scored his sublime left footed volley was to kiss the badge and acknowledge the fans at the Grove. How much more can a man reiterate his commitment to a cause he truly believes in? It was a situation laced with irony though. It was almost like he was saying to Henry,

You jackass, I am Catalan and I’m here at the greatest club in the world. What the hell are you doing in Barcelona?

Now before some wiseass comments saying winning trophies let me cut you off right there and ask you to get back to me in May 2010.

Liverpool’s season is pretty much over whatever Rafa says. United have dropped 5 points to Burnley and Sunderland. Chelsea dropped 3 to Wigan. We dropped 6  yes, but to United and Citeh. We’re in a damn good place right now and I cannot wait for another game where the Red and Whites are a blur.