Sports Round-Up Of My Teamses

Rangers lost 5-3 to Atlanta Thursday night. Looked really sketchy until late when they scored a couple of garbage time goals. All 3 goals came via the powerplay in the 3rd period by Girardi, Shanahan & Gomez, respectively.

Rangers lost in a shootout to the Bruins on saturday after a 0-0 game. Does King Henrik get a shutout for a 1-0 shutout loss?? B/c the shootout goal is not an offical goal scored I believe that is a shutout... shutout with a "loss." Strange days indeed! Most peculiar, momma.

Next up for the Rangers, Sindey Crosby, the Prince of Wails, & his Pirates of Pittsburgh on Tuesday. With Bettman's princess on display bet on pro-Penguin refereeing! Waaaaaaaaaaaah!!!

* * * * * * * * * *

Arsenal shutout Bolton 2-0 on saturday. Goals came from Kolo Toure & substitute Tomas Rosicky. Didn't see the game only heard bits & pieces of the last 20 minutes or so but it sounded like Arsenal dominated after the hour mark.

Arsenal's next match is their home Champions' League match against Slavia Prague of the Czech Republic. With Arsenal being at home they'll no doubt be expected to bag all 3 pts.

Other Sports Quick Update

New York Rangers' new season starts on Thursday evening against the Florida Panthers. The Rangers have finalized their opening roster & I'm glad that both Marc Staal & Ryan Callahan made the 1st roster for the opening season!

No surprises in net as King Henrik & Valiquette make the team as netminders. Montoya probably would've made it except for the cap hit he'd entail for the Rangers if he made the roster.

Hopefully the Rangers can build on their late season success & go beyond their 2nd round exit to Buffalo last year.

It's almost GO time!

* * * * *

Arsenal have already played 7 EPL matches & somewhat surprisingly have 6 wins & a draw to head the EPL heading into October.

Without Thierry Henry who was sold off to Barca in August too. A case of addition by subtraction perhaps? No doubting Thierry Henry was obviously one of the best strikers in the world during his time at Arsenal but the Gunners also had a propensity to rely too much on his goalscoring perhaps. So now with him not in the side maybe it's a case of the younger Gunners stepping up & assuming more of the leadership & goalscoring roles, especially Cesc Fabregas.

They've also made a great start in the Champions' League by beating other favorite in their group to advance, Sevilla, 3-0 & face Romanian side Steaua Bucharest tonight.

All goalz are belonging to Cesc Fabregas

Sundry Sport Tidbit Type Things

The Mets rested several players last night & got dropped 7-zip by the Reds. John Maine picked up the loss & drops to 14-9.

With the Braves & Phillies beating up on each other, the Mets lead is back to 5 games in the East & their magic number is 19. Fucking magic!

Arsenal has started brightly in their EPL campaign with 3 wins & a draw in their 1st 4 matches. The only points dropped so far was to Blackburn on Jens Lehmann's goalkeeping gaffe gifting Blackburn the tying goal.

The young Arsenal side so far are showing much more determination on the pitch in their initial games than they have in previous seasons especially against the like of physical sides such as Blackburn. They're also getting more goals from midfield which is definitely a good thing. Bodes well for them this season as they seek to better their 2 consecutive "disappointing" 4th place EPL finishes.

Emirates Cup This Weekend

Arsenal play their 1st Emirates Cup match today. The Emirates Cup for those that don't know is a pre-season tournament held over a weekend at Arsenal's home ground, Emirates Stadium. This year's participants include: Paris- St. Germain (Arsenal's opponents today), Inter-Milan (Arsenal's opponents tomorrow) & Valencia.

Emmanuel Adebayor, Tomas Rosicky & Theo Walcott will all miss this weekend's tournament with minor injuries picked up in Arsenal's training camp in Austria. According to Arsenal.com, the injuries are not serious & the players are being held out of the tournament as a precaution.

Too Late News!: Freddie Ljungberg was sold to West Ham United during the week, so that means there is no one left at Arsenal from the 2002 double winning side & that Arsene Wenger has for all intents & purposes has completely rebirthed the Arsenal side.

Krikey Poo Deux!

Now Ussoccer.com's MatchTracker & site is down... WTF?! Stupid techmology.

Anyway, last I saw the US was down 2-1 to Austria in the 109 minute... so who fucking knows, they probably lost... I'll check in short while... fuckers.


Oh & Arsenal started their pre-season shcedule today beating fellow London club, Barnet, 2-0 on goals by Adebayor & youngster Nacer Barazite.

Arsenal Sign Full Back Bakari Sagna

Arsenal FC have signed French-Senegalese fullback Bakary Sagna from AJ Auxerre. This is Arsenal's 2nd signing after signing Croat naturalized Brazilian Eduardo Da Silva. Apparently Arsenal have paid 7 million GBP for Sagna's services.

With Bakary Sagna's arrival this'll no doubt increase the speculation of Justin Hoyte moving to Reading.

Reading boss Steve Coppell is ready to launch a £2.5m bid for Arsenal right-back Justin Hotye. (Daily Mirror)

There's also speculation Freddie Ljungberg could be on his way to either Manchester City or Fiorentina in Italy.

Manchester City are close to landing Arsenal midfielder Freddie Ljungberg in a £6m deal. (The Sun)

21-yr old Caen striker, Yoan Gouffran is also rumored to be on Arsenal's transfer target list.

Arsenal are ready to spend £2m on 21-year-old Caen striker Yoan Gouffran. (The Sun)

The Skills Of Thierry Henry

1st... skills on the field... look at the magic feet! And the deft passing, a skill of his which is underrated, if you ask me!



And now... skills off the field... even here... notice the quick movement!

Thierry Henry Moves To Barcelona

Holy fucking crap balls... It was confirmed this morning by Arsenal.com & Skysports.com that the Thierry Henry is transferring to FC Barcelona as initially reported by BBC Sports last night. I don't know what to say other than I was wrong about this one. I would've thought Henry would've stayed at Arsenal after signing that 4 yr. contract last year. But what are you going to do? Apparently Arsenal felt comfortable with the 16 million pound offer they received from Barca & sold him. I would've hoped we would've gotten at least 20-25 million for him.

One can only wonder what Arsene Wenger has in store as far as bringing someone in now. Certainly this means that Arsenal's 1st pair strikeforce will be Robin Van Persie & Emmanuel Adebayor, unless Wenger is going to go with the en vogue 4-5-1 with Van Persie on the left & Walcott on the right with Adebayor in the center.

The other definite thing is that next season for Arsenal just got a whole fuckload more interesting.

Thierry Henry in his own words on the move.

Thierry you have left Arsenal, can you tell the supporters your reasons for going?

“I have said it so many times. Before Mr Dein left, for whatever reason, I went to the boss and said I don’t want to leave. There had been a lot of speculation about me and I assured him that I did not want to leave. But after Mr Dein left that unsettled the team and the boss. Especially as at the moment he has not committed himself to the club. He said he will see out his contract but you cannot be sure if he is going to go or stay [at the end of next season]. Hopefully he is going to stay but I need to be certain and reassured of that. Everybody knows I am 30. The boss being unsettled, Mr Dein going, it did unsettle me a bit. After that I had thoughts of leaving the club.

“It is a difficult day for me to come here at Emirates Stadium and talk about this. But I want to come here explain why to the fans. I want to be certain of where the club was going and reassured in a way. I wasn’t and I have chosen to go”

Seems fair enough to me. I'm certainly not going to bash him for leaving Arsenal, we all have to do what we feel is right & Henry feels that moving to Barca is the right move for him. I'm disappointed but I certainly won't begrudge the man his power of choice. I also don't think this signals a catastrophic fall for Arsenal or that it even makes us a mid-table club like some supporters feel Henry's departure does.

Anyway, here's to Thierry Henry's service & many wonderful goals he scored for Arsenal. Best to luck to you, Thierry. Merci pour la bon temps et coupes pour L'Arsenal.

Jeremie Aliadiere Leaves Arsenal

French forward, Jeremie Aliadiere transferred from Arsenal to Middlesbrough today according to SkySports.com. I can't really say it's any big loss especially with Niklas Bendtner coming back from on loan at Birmingham.

Aliadiere was an ok striker, obviously with lots of speed but his injury-proneness & lack of finishing in the times he did play for Arsenal don't have me missing him on his departure.

Best of luck to him though at Middlesbrough- except against Arsenal, obviously.