Da Silva Lining

It's been quite a week.

Arsenal have now made our third signing of the summer by securing the signature of Eduardo from Dinamo Zagreg for an undisclosed fee.

The announcement was coyly placed upon the Arsenal.com website yesterday and remained without further detail for at least an hour as the football world gasped a collective "who"?

And then the collective penny within the media began to drop. This was the chap who scored that wondergoal header in the embarrassing 2-0 England defeat to Croatia (against Paul Robinson, Ashley Cole and John Terry no less). Gooners began to also realise that Eduardo was in fact the first footballer to score a competitive goal at the Emirates. Some (ME!) even realised that they had attended this match and remembered (vaguely, admittedly) a zippy forward who preoccupied Kolo Toure and scored the first goal in the match (and ground).

But who is he?

Well, Eduardo Da Silva is a Brazilian forward who plays his football with Croatia, Eduardo is a poacher in the mould of Romario who scored 34 goals in 32 matches (!!!?!) last season for his club as well as 7 in 12 for his adapted country in mostly Euro Qualifiers. Impressive stats. And while I understand the concern that Eduardo has not yet played top standard club football I trust Arsene Wenger's judgement. Moreso given his comments today about his new signing.

He has great qualities and will integrate very well into our style of football. Da Silva is a pacy, intelligent player. Also, he is hardworking and has a very good team ethic to his game.

Unveiled at Emirates this morning, Eduardo is to be our new number 9. He said all of the right things in his press conference also.

Arsenal play with the ball on the floor. It is all about passing the ball rather than playing long balls forward. That is why I should fit in well.

Things are looking up. With a few more signings to go.

The Show Must Go On

The best part of our run to the Champions League final last year were those gleeful mornings finding the sports pages filled will everything Arsenal. And only Arsenal. That we were the last English club left in the biggest club competition in the world, gave us the fullest stage and spotlight with which to win fans and fanfare across Europe with our football. Coffee in hand, I pored over countless articles praising the philosophy and application of Wengerball with special mention of the majesty of Henry, the vision of Fabregas, the poise of Gilberto and the stature of Lehmann.

So how galling is it now to have slipped at the first proper hurdle, finding the club on the outside amidst the media's hysterics of three English clubs in the (gasp) Quarter Finals. But my morning coffee is not now bereft of Arsenal commentary. Quite the opposite. In spite of now not playing a realistic role in any football competition, Arsenal Football Club are being written about and discussed as much as ever.

Everyone rubbernecks at a car crash.

And so it is that all and sundry have felt obliged to discuss death of Arsenal's 2006-2007 season before rigor mortis has truly set in. This has mostly included the currently relevant assertion that our problem is our lack of composure in the final third. Yes, we have had a crucial difficulty in front of goal. Scoring a single goal in matches is only enough for victory if combined by a clean sheet. This has been the simple story of our season. I read through my blog this afternoon sadly noting the frequency of the phrases like a message must be sent to the players that inefficiency in front of goal will not be tolerated . This has been a season long issue from beginning (1-1 Villa) to end (2-1 Chelsea, 1-0 Blackburn, 1-0 and 1-1 PSV).

The fashionable school of thought seems to be that a combination of our style of play and our youthful squad is to blame of this poverty of goals. And dont forget that Arsenal miss _______ this season (fill in the blank with Bergkamp, Pires, Vieira, Reyes and Cole).

We must hold our nerve through the darkness of the brooding media clouds that currently rain upon the club. The slingshots casting outrage at the supposed impotence of our attacking play (6 goals at Anfield??!) or the arrows thrown openly wondering about our apparently Plan B must be met by the shield of belief in the philosophy of our football. With the youth collected within the club we will certainly improve. There is an inevitability of the emergence of yet more young stars for the club (step forward Merida, Van Den Berg, Simpson, G Hoyte, Vela, Connolly) to combine with those already present.

Let us not forget that our current absense of silverware was at least made more exciting by Cup finals in both years as well as an impressive collection of victories against the likes of Liverpool, Juventus, Real Madrid, and this year's rather easy double of possible league champions Manchester United.

Our football has much to develop as Diaby, Fabregas, Walcott and Denilson mature. Let us put our faith in their talent as well as in Wenger's ability to polish their talent. We must not turn our backs to our style of football because of a fortnight of disappointment, no matter how gutting that disappointment may be.

Next season the show must go on. Our football must flow and enrapture. And score.

Beauty and the Baptista

There is lots of talk today about whether or not Thierry Henry will be fit for PSV on Wednesday. I'll admit that I do hope TH14 is fit for the match but caution that in spite of the Captain's immense talent, a less than fit Henry can often be a passenger in matches. I hope Arsene Wenger makes the right decision with Thierry.

Whatever that decision turns out to be.

That said, one player we can almost certainly expect to see play a part in the biggest match of the season is one Julio Baptista. After his goal against Reading on the weekend and with the Arsenal artillery largely crocked, Baptista will surely play a part either from the start or the bench.

Watching Baptista play for the Arsenal this year has been a rather strange experience. A like for like replacement in terms of his direct loan exchange for want-a-away Spaniard Jose Antonio Reyes, Baptista was slow to adapt to English football. Even in his best matches he can frustrate with a very heavy touch and some rather loose passing. Worse still, I often see Baptista commit the anti-Arsenal sin of looking for the sideways or backwards pass. He can drive you nuts with his ponderous possession and shock at the pace of the Premiership.

But then he does this.

And you can help but get excited.

He finds space, gets chances and does things we havent EVER seen at the club. His unique combination of pace, power, guile and technique leaves Baptista without peer in world football, however frustrating some of his other qualities may be. I have a sneaky feeling that he may have needed a Robert Pires style settling in period with English football before making his mark with the Arsenal. Some might say that his 8 goals in very very limited appearances means that he already has begun to show his talent but I feel there is much more to come from the player.

With Reyes now injured, Julio Baptista's full transfer to the Arsenal may be in jeopardy. But I want Baptista to stay. I absolutely love Reyes as a player but he is someone who can be replaced (Lennon, Babel, Walcott, Van Den Berg). Baptista is a one-off. And has the potential to be an absolute legend for the club. So when Arsene Wenger hints that he might be leaning one way or the other in buying Baptista... lets home he leans the right way.

Whatever that decision turns our to be.

"We Will Beat sp*rs"... Ta Arsene

Arsenal and sp*rs share a patch of North London but actually little else given a decade of results. Yet one by one the likes of Paul Robinson and Pascal Cygan Chimbonda popped up in the media this week to talk up their chances of beating the Arsenal. That's fine. The faces change over the years but the North London derby talk does not.

That said, I found the robustness of the Tottenham banter this week to be more humorous than usual. Apparently a few *workmen at Emirates buried some sp*rs trinkets under the pitch. It was hilarious then that Arsene Wenger buried sp*rs on the pitch.

Once the banter died down, Emmanuel Adebayor went about quieting his critics (many of these Gooners lost for a scapegoat since Cygan took his horror show to Spain). This was most enjoyable but not really surprising. I've long hailed his attributes and believe that he's a better partner with both Van Persie and Henry than they are with each other. His performance against sp*rs was a masterpiece of leading the line. But again, this is only a surprise for those who don't understand football or limit their Arsenal match exposure to match reports in the Times.

What was actually surprising for me about yesterday was the performance of Gael Clichy in marking Aaron Lennon out of the match. Clichy also got forward and admirably offered Arsenal width as Rosicky drifted into Bergkampesque space just behind Van Persie and Adebayor.

Clichy also forced Lennon to move to the left (and into Eboue's pocket) in what was Clichy's best performance for the club. While I expected him to offer width and pace on the left of defence this season, I certainly didn't think that he had the ability to effortlessly deal with the pace and direct attacking of the young England star.

Clichy looks precisely the sort of player to replace what Ashley Cole offered the club at left back. This has been long expected from Clichy, but the fact that he's never had a long first team run at the club due to Cole and injury made him more a prospect than a certainty to replicate the Chelsea defender.

And he'll need to be on top form this week with first Porto away on Wednesday and then Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on another Super Sunday.

The Porto match is absolutely crucial for the club. We must progress in Europe to avoid the embarrassment of ending up in the Uefa Cup alongside the likes of sp*rs and their excrement coloured kit. There is a media fuelled sense that we've not been strong in Europe, but a disallowed Henry strike aside, Arsenal have been excellent in the CL this year (frighteningly strong if by year, you mean the whole of 2006) and lead our group. The bottom line is... Porto need a point. We need a point. I think common sense will prevail and Wednesday will be a yawn fest of tentative cagey football.

I am intrigued by the Chelsea match. They are very powerful and have not lost at home in the league in 40-something matches. In spite of the crisis talk, Arsenal have actually done quite well in the Big 4 table this year with victories against both United and Liverpool. I expect that Mourinho will set up quite narrow against us, so the battle will be on with Rosicky, Hleb and Cesc mixing with Lampard, Essien and Ballack. And like Chelsea, our width will come from the fullbacks. Without getting too excited by what I'm terming the Arsenal Christmas party at Stamford Bridge, we can win. And win well. Without Henry. Certainly our chances of catching Chelsea for the league this season will die if we can't beat them. The prospect of being only 7 points back of Chelsea with that lot still to come to our place is delicious.

If that happens... we're back in it.

btw... we drew Liverpool at Anfield in the FA Cup.

From Russia With (Wanger) Love

Not sure what to say today.

Arsene Wenger noted that we should have won 7-0. I tried to concoct an elegant way to spin that scoreline into some gag about 007, and CSKA Moscow being shaken, but their goal not stirred.

But such elegance in beyond my frustrated mindset this morning.

Never before have I seen so many missed golden opportunities to score. Not just clear chances, but open goal variety misses not seen in North London since Kanu departed. The result was so little to show from so amazing a display.

Let's be clear. Watching Arsenal over the Wenger years, I have grown accustomed to hyper-kinetic mesmerising football. But last night was a performance apart.

Rosicky was otherworldly in pulling the strings against the Russian Champions. Had the moons not been so negatively aligned for the Arsenal, today we would be lauding a playmaker the calibre of which Im not certain the club nor in fact the Premiership has yet before seen.

But a nil-nil stalemate at the Emirates last night (a score which sadly I predicted) has unfortunately put paid to that variety of plaudits and left the club in a challenging situation in Europe.

At least Wanger Love didnt score late when he turned Gallas after a long sprint for a free ball. Jens Lehmann made a terrific save to preserve a point at home.

A small mercy.

Do they make bananas in Croatia?

Once more Arsenal play to a national and international audience in the Champions League. Like the later rounds of the CL last season, Arsenal have the European stage to themselves, at least from a Premiership perspective this evening.

And while the big risk this evening is of Arsenal hurting their chances of progressing to the groups stage, there is another banana peel that really must be considered.

Last season, Didier Drogba got the better of Senderos for one brieft moment in the Charity Shield "competition" (a competition that Wenger takes so seriously, he plays at least 18 players in it each year). And such is the hunger for football and the absense of football news at the beginning of each season that the media grabbed on to a perceived weakness in Senderos' aerial ability and created a maelstom of criticism for the young defender. Senderos progressed to play in the later stages of the CL (and did not concede a goal at the World Cup) but not before having his talent constantly questioned in the press and even being dropped by Wenger amidst the frenzy.

I worry most that someone like Djourou makes a mistake tonight that becomes blown WAY out of proportion. The match is on ITV1 and as we all know, one passing comment from the pundits about one of our players will be repeated ad nauseum in both the tabloids and from the lips of every armchair footie expert in the country. A banana peel beckons under the bright lights of ITV1.