Best Arsenal Christmas Presents for 2019

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Looking for a Christmas present to buy your Arsenal supporting other half? Need to send someone hints as to what to get you? Got an Arsenal fan in your work Secret Santa?  These are the best Arsenal Christmas presents available for 2019.

Secret Santa for an Arsenal fan – £10 or less

HIGHBURY PINS – NORTHBANK, CLOCKEND + EAST STAND – £2.50

WOODEN COASTERS – CLOCK – £6

ADAMS CUFFLINKS AND BADGEPINS – £10

1886 CUFFLINKS AND BADGEPINS – £10

Arsenal stocking fillers – £10 – £20

STONE PHOTO SLATES (HIGHBURY, NORTH, CLOCK, EAST + WEST STANDS) – £17

Red (or Black) Real Leather Card Holder – £15

Arsenal Christmas Presents £20 – £50

POSTERS – HIGHBURY + 89, 98, INVINCIBLES SUBBUTEO – £30

FLIP DE FLOPS – £27

JVC LONG SLEEVE T-SHIRTS (RED or Navy)

Premium Arsenal gifts – £50+

THE CLOCK WALLCLOCK (ACRYLIC) – £57

Arsenal youngsters give hope to London kids

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Good morning Arsenal fans.

Last night was fun wasn’t it? No just the victory, but the enjoyment of seeing young English lads on the pitch, in Arsenal shirts, and performing.

Yes, it was against a bunch of Ukrainian farmers, playing 200 miles from home who have lost 8 league games this season, but if you used this as a reason to not enjoy the game, well I feel sorry for you.

https://twitter.com/KeenosAFC/status/1068224733454495745

We ended up with 6 London born players (although Croydon is in Surrey and Goodmayes in Essex) play some part in yesterdays game. add in rob Holding, Carl Jenksinon and Charlie Gilmour and it was 9 English born players. Aaron Ramsey made it 10 British born. It is exciting.

A couple have commented that it does not matter that players are from London or England. Well for a lot of local fans, from London, it does matter. you want to see local boys do good. Fans of the club pulling on that shirt. as long as they are good enough.

Think have the side that came through in the 1980s. The likes of David O’Leary, Tony Adams, Rocky Rocastle, Paul Davis, Michael Thomas, Paul Merson and Martin Hayes. All Londoners, all coming through Arsenal’s academy. People go on about the Class of 92, but these lads were as good, if not better.

What would they have achieved if Liverpool had not got English clubs banned from Europe?

Having players like these. Boys from the estates and streets we grew up in, increases the affinity towards the club.

Look at Ian Wright speak during the 89 film. The estate he grew up on was the same as the one Rocky did. In a poverty stricken, deprived area of London, Rocky starring for Arsenal made it a better place to live. Success for Rocky meant success for every single person living there. This is what football can do.

The group of lads now, the likes of Eddie Nketiah, Ainsley Maitland-Niles, Emile Smith Rowe and Joe Willock are the best group of London born lads to come through at Arsenal since that team of the 1980s. Add Alex Iwobi and Reiss Nelson to the mix and it is likely that 25% of the squad next season will be made up of Londoners (and before you start about Iwobi, he came to London when he was 3. He is a Londoner.)

I have been bashing the drum of the Arsenal academy recently.

It was poor for a few years, but that was in the past. Some fans need to realise it is now 2018, not 2012, and that we have a fantastic crop of youngsters coming through.

Yesterday we saw the 4 academy graduates start. Maitland-Niles, Nketiah, Smith Rowe and Willock. Alongside Iwobi and Nelson these boys will be in the first team squad next season. But on the bench yesterday there was also plenty to get excited about; showing that the Arsenal academy is in good health.

Charlie Gilmour, Zech Medley, Jordi Osei-Tutu, Tyreece John-Jules & Bukayo Saka were all on the bench. That made it 9 academy players in 18 man squad. 12 of the 20 man travelling squad were Arsenal boys.

Of the 11 players to finish the game, 6 were still just teenagers.

Of course, there is still a long way to go for these lads. Some will make it, some won’t. But the 7 who go on the pitch will always be able to say that they played for The Arsenal.

A few people have commented about the failure of Arsenal’s academy “over the last 20 years” and it is a semi-valid argument. However there is a bigger debate to be had. all top sides in England have struggled to produce academy players in the last 20 years.

It is so much easier to buy off the shelf rather than give a kid a go. Manchester City signed Leroy Sane instead of giving a run out to Jadon Sancho. They repeated it this summer; signing Riyad Mahrez instead of showing faith in Phil Foden. It is so hard as an academy player to get a chance. Title chasing sides just won’t give you the chance.

Like with Ashley Cole (passport issues) and Trent Alexander-Arnold (injuries); you need luck to break through at a top side. To get that run in the team.

Have a look at the England team that made it through to the semi-final of the World Cup. Sunderland (2), Sheffield United (2), Leeds United (2) MK Dons, Ipswich Town, Barnsley, QPR, Sheffield Wednesday, Birmingham City, Aston Villa, Blackburn Rovers, Watford and Sporting were the academies that the vast majority of the squad came from.

Whilst Manchester City and Chelsea have dominated youth football over the last decade, they provided just two players to the England squad. Ruben Loftus Cheeck and Kieran Tripper (who Man City let go after he failed to play a single game).

Playing in the Europa League can bu hugely beneficial for young players.

The likes of Eddie Nketiah, Emile Smith Rowe & Ainsley Maitalnd-Niles have got their chance in the competition over the last 18 months. Chances they would not get if Arsenal were in the Champions League. they would have been reduced to just League Cup appearances.

Whilst it is frustrating for some not to be in the Champions League, every cloud has a silver lining. And seeing so many London lads involved last night certainly makes up for Arsenal not being in the Champions League.

London is a state at the moment. Knife wielding drug gangs, moped thieves, acid attacks. A lot of young (often black) kids growing up on the estates are struggling for recognition. To define themselves. They have little to be proud of except for how many hits their drill music video gets on YouTube.

The likes of Reiss Nelson (Elephant & Castle), Eddie Nketiah (Lewisham), Emile Smith Rowe (Croydon), Joe Willock (Waltham Forest) & Ainsley Maitland (Goodmayes) come from some of the most deprived areas of London.

If they succeed at Arsenal, they can give other boys from similar backgrounds hope. They can give them something to be proud of, something to celebrate, just like Rocky, Davis and Thomas did back in the 80s.

Up The Arsenal.

Keenos

Match Report: Vorskla Poltava 0 – 3 Arsenal

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FC Vorskla Poltava (0) 0 Arsenal (3) 3
UEFA Europa League, Group E, Matchday 5 of 6
Olimpiyskiy Stadium, Kiev, Ukraine
Thursday, 29th November 2018. Kick-off time: 5.55pm
(4-2-3-1) Čech; Lichtsteiner, Jenkinson, Holding, Maitland-Niles; Guendouzi, Elneny; Ramsey, Willock, Nketiah; Smith-Rowe
Substitutes: Mkhitaryan, Martinez, Gilmour, Medley, Osei-Tutu, John-Jules, Saka
Scorers: Smith-Rowe, Ramsey, Willock
Yellow Cards: Holding
Referee: Bartosz Frankowski (Poland)
Attendance: circa 20,000
Tonight we travel to the Ukraine for the fifth match in the six game series of Group E in the Europa League. As we recall, on the last occasion that we met in August, Arsenal ran out 4-2 winners; we hope for a similar successful result tonight. Unfortunately, due to the worsening political situation in the Ukraine, this match cannot be played at the Oleksiy Butovsky Vorskla Stadium in Poltava, so it has been transferred to the 70,000 capacity Olimpiyskiy Stadium in Kiev, (home of Dynamo Kiev) for security reasons; logically, we should not expect a full house here tonight.
Mr. Emery’s choice of players travelling to the ancient city of Kiev tonight gave away his view of the opposition and much more than that, Arsenal’s dominance in the Europa League so far. In minus 12 degree conditions (and below that at times too), it was an inspired choice not only to leave several recognised first-team players back in London, but to give reserve and academy footballers a run-out in this competition, which is so often thought of as a poor relation to the high profile Champions League.
It became fairly obvious to all and sundry that early on in the match, Arsenal were not only playing in second gear, but felt that they were not going to be put under too much pressure overall. And so it was that on the eleventh minute, young Emile Smith-Rowe capitalised on a loose ball just outside the six-yard box (after some superb work by Joe Willock) and slotted the ball home with a coolness that belied his tender years. Although the home side had one or two tepid efforts on Petr Čech’s goal, Arsenal were now in the ascendancy and their grip on the game became absolute when fifteen mimutes after taking the lead, Aaron Ramsey was brought down in the penalty area; the same player who was the recipient of the foul then nonchalantly introduced the ball to the back of the Poltava net for Arsenal’s second of the evening. After this, the rest of the first half became fairly pedestrian with the Londoners hardly breaking into a sweat throughout. However, all was not done with this half. Just four minutes before the break, after a period of quite disturbing fouls on the Arsenal players, some superb pass-and-move play (orchestrated by the excellent Mattéo Guendouzi) was finished off by Joe Willock, in a dare I say it, Thierry Henry-like (remember him?) excellent low shot to make it three-nil to the vistors at the break.
The second half saw FC Vorskla Poltava try to make a decent fist of things (they were the home side after all) with one or two fairly good attempts on the Arsenal goal, but overall, we were not threatened unduly. Sadly Emile Smith-Rowe’s goal was wrongly disallowed for offside after 67 minutes, but it really made no difference. They were comfortable, in command throughout and at no time could you really say that they were pressurised by the home side at all. At one time there were six academy teenagers playing for Arsenal on the pitch tonight, all of them did well, and they gave a great account of themselves too; our future looks bright with these young men who can only surely get better and more confident. Of the more experienced men, Carl Jenkinson looked solid tonight, as did Aaron Ramsey, who set a good example to our “Young Guns”. With only two accredited shots on the Arsenal goal, Petr Čech had little to do, but still showed to be an commanding figure between the sticks. Anyway, we have qualified as champions of Europa League Group E quite comfortably; eighteen matches without defeat across all competitions, who would have thought that of us this time last year?. Top of the group, having a laugh. Exactly that. Remember everyone, keep the faith, get behind the team and the manager, as these early days are going to be crucial for our future success in all competitions. Stick with the winners. Victoria Concordia Crescit.

Steve

Too Dearly Loved To Be Forgotten: Arsenal v Racing Club de Paris 1930-1962 by Steve Ingless (Rangemore Publications, ISBN 978-1-5272-0135-4) is now available on Amazon.

https://twitter.com/shewore/status/1068064719003627520?s=21