Ja, aber mein Beutelmaus hat verstopfung

Here is an excerpt from a previous blog on the topic of not topping ourselves:

Step Back From The Ledge, Gooners

Fellow Gooners, throw away the nooses, flush the pills down the toilet and take your heads out of the gas ovens. Things are rarely as bad as they seem when they’re awful. And things are rarely as good as they seem when they’re wonderful. We all know that, right?

Another Gooner Blogger must be talked off the ledge

On Synergy

syn·er·gy [sin-er-jee] ; noun, plural syn·er·gies.

On Width

It’s all about width. Width gives penetration. Narrow and long is no substitute. Sure you can smack it from side to side to try to get the same effect, but you can’t fake it. But without real width, it’s just some hapless flailing about. It’s all fumbling. Real width is where it’s at. That’s what real penetration feels like. Especially against a determined, tight , resistant, holding firm, determined not to yield…sorry, where was I?

Oh yeah, sorry. Let’s change topics to football.

I know very little German, but here is one phrase I do know: “Ja, aber mein Beutelmaus hat verstopfung.” Yes, but, my wombat is constipated. This phrase is much more useful than you might imagine. Trust me, I use it pretty much every time I talk to a German. (PS: I work for a German company.) Try this: If 2 Germans are chatting in German: walk up and just start nodding like you know what they’re talking about. Then when they pause for their next sentence, lob in a quick “Ja, aber mein Beutelmaus hat verstopfung.” And, do one of those “ Cuhh. Wouldn’t you bloody know it. Wombats Eh?!” type facial expressions. You will never be disappointed with the results. Either the Germans will have a sense of humour (happens more than you Brits think,) or they won’t, and total confusion will ensue. I personally prefer the second response. I am like Keith Ledger‘s Joker in The Dark Knight. I thrive on the chaos. That is my medium as an artist.

My point, as weak as it may be…constipation. Oh. And lack of width. Neither is good in the field of love-making. Neither is good in football.

Déjà Vu – Fullback Crisis

I’m getting that Déjà Vu all over again feeling that I had last year. No not that one. Nor that one. Nor that one. Yes, that one. The one that relates to shit defending, and a lack of attacking width. Yes…the good old Fullback crisis.

2011/12 was the year of the fullback crisis…through injury.

Bit of a twist this year in that we currently have 3 fit Fullbacks, a marked improvement over more than 1/2 of last year.

There were a plethora of problems at Old Trafford. There is no panacea for our ills. But if I had to pick one, it would be de-constipating our Fullbacks. Here is the short version of my thesis.:

• Santos/Poldi is not working. Among other reasons, neither makes runs like a winger. No width
• Gibbs/Poldi or indeed Gibbs/anybody works great
• Sagna/Ramsey isn’t working. Ramsey is not a winger. The RW channel is now gummed up. For me the Ramsey experiment has been about as well conceived as the Tuskegee Experiment.

So, now, all we have is two gummed up, constipated wings. No width, no getting in behind, no “reach around” as we gay Republican politicians like to call it.

Recent Lukas Podolski photoshoot

The Solution:

• Sagna/Walcott would give Giroud the kind of service vP got last year. Giroud has very vP-type movement, not as good, of course, but good enough (though I’m not sure Giroud is anywhere near as good off his right foot as old fuck-face, but it would be nice to find out at some stage.)
• Gibbs. Well, I don’t really need to say much about Gibbs. We all now know what he brings, I think. He’s the effing Messiah,or so it feels to me right now 😉

What would Gibbs and Walcott have done for us at Old Trafford. A lot. It probably would have meant the first goal wouldn’t have happened after 3 minutes, which would have changed the complexion of the game, just for starters. It would have given us teeth. 2 of them? Incisors maybe? To attack from both sides.

It would have given our Spanish midfield of Mikel Arteta, Santi Cazorla and Jacamo Wilshere, our Tiki Taka aficionados, an outlet for their possession, allowing them to speed up their play, and to create and to weave, and to start to run rings around Carrick and Cleverly. But on Saturday, they never got to take off speed until it was too late in the match. No outlet, you see. Constipated. No width.

Would all of this have given us a win? Or a draw. Who the fuck knows. Would it have given us a chance at a creditable performance? I believe it would.

I believe, until we fix the wings and therefore the fullback problem, we won’t be able to work out what else is broken.

Of course, there are a couple of flies in my ointment here. Firstly, Gibbs IS injured, but will hopefully be back soon. In the meantime we should not go with the Santos/Poldi combo. Secondly, Arsene and Theo seem to be at some kind of impasse. May I suggest to Arsene that beggars can’t be chooser. Play Theo. Or play Ox. Or change formations. We’re all in the mood for a bit of 4-4-2. But don’t play Ramsey as your default winger, as it stands.

A few more notes from Saturday, while I’m at it…

ANDRE SANTOS

As embarrassing for all as was Santos asking for vP’s shirt while walking off, apparently it was not nearly as embarrassing as what happened going down the tunnel. He tried to get the socks and the shorts too. “Eeen my country, a Fool Keeet Wankair eez thee highyest form of compleeement, Roebeeen. Pleez geeve mee the socks and the leeetle shorts.”

As vP walked away from him quickly, Santos shouted out “I will see you at practeece on Monday, Roebeen? Why you and Yossee no practeece with me no more? We were the three muchachos. Weren’t we?”

But worse still was to come. After both teams ran out on the field, Santos nipped back towards the dressings rooms and ducked into United’s. He evaded the security guards who were in hot pursuit. When they caught up with him, he was head first into the laundry basket. It took 3 guards to pull him out, such was his super-human determination. They leapt back in horror, as Santos grabbed what he thought were Robin’s undies, and plunged his face deep into them before inhaling rapidly and lapsing into a short blissful swoon. He was only snapped out of it by one of the guards pointing out that the undies had the letters WR embroidered on them. “But they have the same lovely scent,” Santos protested as he was dragged out of the dressing room.

And On a More Serious Note…

RvP Outplayed Us On The Pitch and On The Terraces

So there it was for all to see, van Persie’s class all over the field, like it always is, then embracing Wenger on the way off the pitch, then swapping pleasantries with players, then tastefully refusing to celebrate his dagger-through-the-heart goal, then showing the utmost respect for Arsenal supporters in his interviews. The consummate politician. The faker. The PR campaign.

But we had to go and let our side down with the vile chanting.

It reminds me of how dumb a large portion of the American electorate is. You put Gay Marriage on the ballot over here, and we all turn into morons and forget what the election is really all about.

Knee-jerk reactions. The faculty of thinking and reflection is swamped by visceral emotions, our animal instincts, our reptilian brain.

Well, on Twitter, before the United match there were various away supporters gleefully anticipating the vile chants they would throw at vP. And, not that I gave it any hope, but there was no talking them out of it.

Now, do understand. I’m no choir boy. I’m a Dubliner. Bad language is the punctuation of my sentences. I’m personally quite close to being unshockable.

In fact, I think we are all pretty unshockable these days.

But what do some of our genius supporters, a very audible section of the supporters, do? They embark on vile chants:

From The Guardian:

“What a charming collection it was, too. Van Persie was a “Dutch Jimmy Savile”. Other songs followed about the time, in 2005, he was arrested in the Netherlands after a false accusation of rape. Arsène Wenger‘s request for supporters to applaud their former player always felt like wishful thinking but when the vilification goes to such lengths it does tend to undermine all those complaints, going back many years, about the chants Arsenal’s manager has endured himself at Old Trafford.

Van Persie, one imagines, will console himself with the knowledge that there was nothing from Arsenal to engender even a flicker of regret about no longer being on their payroll. Here, instead, was the hard evidence about why he wanted to leave the club in the first place. Arsenal were a mess in their 2-1 defeat at Old Trafford. Not, admittedly, as bad as the corresponding fixture last season, when Manchester United scored eight and subjected them to their most harrowing result of the Wenger era. Yet Sir Alex Ferguson‘s team could easily have had half that amount, or more. Two-one felt like a deception, a trick of the mind bearing in the mind the way the game had gone.”

Guardian Article

Yeah, yeah, blah, blah. It’s just banter. We’re just standing up for ourselves. They started it. All clubs do it. They’ve been doing it for years. He had it coming. You wouldn’t understand because you’re not an Away Supporter.

True to that last one, but I, like millions of others, do read the newspapers. And I know what hypocrisy smells like. It smells like that.

He left the club. He was a shit about it. Suck it up, you pussies.

So there you have it. We got suckered-punched. Out-classed on the pitch, out-classed on the terraces. One of those battles was under our control. One of those battles we could have won. But we walked straight into a sucker-punch. We’re so predictable.

We could have left with heads held high, as the classiest supporters in the game, taking a defeat on the chin, and letting the strains of “We love you Arsenal, we do” echo around Old Trafford to let them know we would be back to fight another day. Unbowed.

Instead, we decided to show we were no better than the clubs we deride for the Wenger “Paedo” chants. Do me a favour, no more whingeing at the classlessness of other supporters until we snap out of our state of denial.

Be worthy of your club.

Class Is Permanent!

Up The Arsenal!