Tag Archives: She Wore A Yellow Ribbon

Arsenal players enter new relationship

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When Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang handed the ball to Alexandre Lacazette when on a hat trick against Stoke City, the Gambion got some grief from some attention seekers.

Here was a striker, who should be hungry for goals, already with 2 (including 1 penalty) handing the ball over to a team mate. One fan, who must have had some good betting information,  had stuck a fiver on him getting a hat trick was especially angry.

But what it showed was Aubameyang’s awareness of a fellow striker who was going through a bad patch.

Before he joined the club, Aubameyang had been highly criticised in the press. Egotistical. Self-interested. Flashy. A big time Charlie. A poor team mate.

The majority of these comments were by people who did not know him. Had not followed his career. Had probably never had dealings with him. They saw the flash cars, the jewellery, and his skin colour and judged him. Like they do with Raheem Sterling.

That day against Stoke City, Aubameyang showed exactly who he is.

He saw Lacazette through his own eyes as a striker. His team mate had scored 1 goal in 13 games. Had an injury. Had not really settled at his new club. Every striker will recognise another striker struggling. The simple chances get skied or put wide. The confidence is not their for one on ones. The offside flag gets raised more often than not.

Aubameyang’s two goals against Stoke City had made it 5 goals in his first 7 games for Arsenal. He could have easily made it 6 in 7 and walked off with the match ball. Other strikers (Harry Kane) would have done. They would have been greedy. Even if it was at the detriment of their team mates.

By giving the ball to Lacazette, he hoped that a goal would spark him in to life. Would shake the cobwebs. With himself being cup-tied in the Europa League, he knew that it was more important for the team for Lacazette to score than himself.

Lacazette slotted in the penalty.

And Aubameyang got it right. It did spark Lacazette into life. The Frenchman is now 5 in 6. Against West Ham, Lacazette scored twice. One of which was set up by Aubameyang.

What stuck in my mind re-watching the game last night was the celebration of the Arsenal players.

A huge fuss was made when the side looked split after Alexis Sanchez scored against Crystal Palace. It was back page news. Against West Ham, the team celebrated as one. And it was the final embrace that inspired this.

The last two to celebrate together were Lacazette and Aubameyang. A warm embrace. One which showed genuine friendship. Lacazette was delighted to have been scored, and Aubameyang looked equally as delighted for him.

It highlighted the togetherness of Arsenal’s record signings.

For Arsenal, top strikers have been like busses. We have waited a decade for a pacey, direct striker, then end up with two at once. And there has been plenty of talk about how they would fit together.

Can they play together? Will they be happy rotating? Might one end up leaving?

They might not be suitable to play together every game. With Henrik Mkhitaryan and Mesut Ozil to be added to the team, it will give the new manager plenty of food for thought on how to line up. What is for certain is with all 4, we have options. Different formations. Different tactics.

It should be remembered that for Dortmund. Aubameyang played a season alongside Robert Lewandowski. He was out wide with the Pole up top. It is a roll the he can perform.

The budding relationship between Aubameyang and Lacazette is one of the few positives from this season. And one that we can begin to get excited about next years.

Keenos

The George joins a long list of Holloway pubs by closing down

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So it is official, The George is shutting down. Its last home match day will be the Burnley fixture.

For a few years now, The George has been my match day pub. It was, in my eyes, the best match day pub – although saying that makes me think of the Arsene Wenger quote of “everyone thinks they have the prettiest wife at home”.

It had it all. Decent beer, quick service, quality staff, TV screens and a jukebox.

Post game in The George was always an event. Once the one pinters had drunk up and left, the atmosphere in their was cracking.

Get the right tunes on the jukebox and it would go off.  I remember a game recently we stuck on Gold followed by Sweet Caroline. It was electric.

Going back a few years, the late night Chinese delivery was always a bonus.

Over the years, The George have supported this site. Whether that be through Peter giving GC help and advice with the She Wore Shop or being the place where Keenos wrote many of the post-game blogs. We owe a huge thank you to them.

 

There is no debate, Arsenal is losing one of its best pubs. And it continues a worrying trend of Holloway Road losing its decent boozers.

A few years back now, we lost the Herbet Chapman. I remember when that pub went down hill. It was taken over by new management. Some youngster student-types. They clearly had it in their mind what they wanted a pub to be. And that did not include football fans. Unfortunately they had bought the wrong pub in the wrong area.

They did not want fans to be there. Not even on a game day. And made it clear to us we were not wanted. I remember one game, it would have been a 3 o’clock kick off, and they decided to bleach the floors clean at about 6pm. It was their way of saying “we are shutting, please leave”. The pub died not too long after.

Then you had the Phibbers and Metro Bar.

We lost the Metro to the housing developers. The student accommodation is nearly build. The Phibbers has recently reopened as the Victoria Tavern. It advertises itself as “craft beer and awesome pizza”. It has a table football table and neon mini-golf course. It does not look like a proper football pub.

Most recently the Wig and Gown shut down and was then rebranded.

It shut down due to noise complaints. The neighbours who moved in above complained about the live music and bands that used to play. This was a big part of its Monday – Friday business. No longer being able to play live music drove away the clientele.

The Wig and Gown has since reopened as the House of Hammerton. Another craft beer pub.

And finally we have The Bailey.

I am sure many of you will remember when The Bailey ran out of beer. It seemed to happen often. And they went to the Tesco up the road, bought cans of beer and still had the cheek to sell them for a fiver!

The Bailey was a decent boozer, although the landlady certainly had her favourites when it came to serving people. It has now reopened as an upmarket chicken shop that also sells craft beer.

And now we have The George going. The best of the lot. Decent service, decent beer. The memories the stories.

So where does it leave Arsenal fans to drink in on a match day?

Holloway Road is becoming like Upper Street. Filled with craft beer pubs that sell over priced food. There really are not too many options left for the fan who just wants to have a beer and get away from the Barmies.

You still have the likes of the Tollington, Che Guevara, The Eaglet, The Horatio and The Lamb. Add in a few of the cafes and restaurants that have recently become popular with football fans. There are still places to drink, but they are not perfect for the likes of me.

They already have their atmosphere, their clientele. And if the displaced from The George began drinking there, it would be like when two schools merge into one. A recipe for disaster.

So what now? Perhaps a move further into the Cally? Or head back Finsbury Park way. The Twelve Pins, the Blackstock. Of even those old haunts up Blackstock Road. The Gunners, Bank of Friendship, Woodbine, T-Bird.

What is for sure, The George shutting is a sad day for football boozers down Holloway Road.

 

Media defend Spurs failure

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It’s happened again, it’s happened again,
Tottenham Hotspur, it’s happened again.

3712 days since Spurs last won a trophy.

I do not particularly want to “celebrate” Spurs losing against Manchester United at the weekend, because that in itself is a very Spursy thing to do.

For as long as I have known, Spurs fans have celebrated every Arsenal failure as if it was their own success. Every final lost, every time we were knocked out of the Champions League, or finished second in the Premier League, they celebrated.

This is down to them having no success of their own. They had nothing to celebrate themselves, so had to celebrate another clubs failures. They are the kid that laugh at the A* student for getting a B when them themselves got an E.

But then Spurs are the gift that keep giving.

The clubs motto is “The game is about glory”. Well, Saturdays defeat made in no trophies in 10 years. They really should be done for false advertising.

What has been funny about Tottenham’s defeat is the way the media have spun it. They would never let anything negative be written about the club the love, and the fall-out has been hilarious.

So according to Jonathan Wilson of The Guardian, Mauricio Pochettino’s time at Tottenham should not be defined by the trophies they do win.

Pochettino’s reign is that every time he has been set a problem he has responded Wilson says. Yet he has not solved the problem Spurs have win semi-finals. It is now 8.

He go’s on to speak a lot of gibberish, including this nugget: whichever club wins or loses it, this season’s FA Cup will be forgotten by the end of August. I imagine it will not be too hard to find articles from Wilson talking about how the “magic of the cup is being lost” and pointing out the managers who “disrespect” the competition.

But then when it comes to defending Tottenham’s lack of trophies, he is more than happy to disrespect it.

The reality is, most of us can name every single winner of the FA Cup in our memory. From 1987 (I was 2) to the present day, I can name every single winner. I can not, however, name every single side that finished 2nd in the last 10 years – let alone in the last 30 years. And I could not tell you who finished 4th for the last 5 seasons.

It is the winners who are remembered. The game is about the glory, unless it is Spurs.

That Mauricio Pochettino is emulating Arsene Wenger’s early Arsenal years is surely an April Fools Joke? People actually seem to forget that this is now Pochettino’s 4th season with the club. His 4th without a trophy.

In Arsene Wenger’s 2nd season at the club (his first full season) he won the league and the FA Cup. In the 4 years, Arsenal finished 2nd twice, 3rd once. He made a League Cup Semi-Final, an FA Cup Semi-Final and the UEFA Cup Final. Pochettino has led Spurs to just the one final (League Cup), which they lost.

To try and compare the two is just silly. Wenger won trophies, Pochettino has not.

“”He’s got a young English side with a lot of talent and I think they’re going in the right direction. The way they’re playing at the moment, it’s similar to the way Wenger had been playing when he first went to Arsenal.”

This shows that Darren Bent did not have a clue what he was talking about.

Arsenal’s early success under Arsene Wenger was not built on a young English side. It was built on senior English players, like David Seaman, Lee Dixon and Tony Adams, and young foreign players in Patrick Vieira and Nicolas Anelka.

If you want to compare Spurs to Arsenal, compare them to the Arsenal side of 2006-2013. A lot of young, talented players who are failing to win trophies. Players who are underpaid in comparison to other clubs. Players who will leave the club sooner rather than later to seek success and more money elsewhere.

Another comparison is to Newcastle of the late 90s. Winning hearts and minds of neutral fans, but no trophies.

Going back to the comments made by Jonathan Wilson about no one really caring who wins the FA Cup. I pretty much guarantee that Newcastle fans wish they had have won the FA Cup, or any trophy, during that period of success. That just being competitive and showing progression meant nothing when they got relegated in the mid 2000s.

https://twitter.com/chrislaurie89/status/987977111880261632?s=21

And that is the truth.

Keenos