Re: Goal - 18th minute You are giving bramble too much credit! He basically flicked on the low cross for Henry at the far post. Pathetic.
Newcastle are on their heels. Time for Arsenal to release the hounds. This game can be effectively killed off in the next 25 minutes with some consistent pressure.
21st minute Lehmann claims a long cross from Robert, and Shearer gives him a little "welcome to the EPL" bump.
22nd minute O'Brien chops Wiltord's legs out from under him, and Riley just gives a free kick. Tyler points out that Riley's handed out 6 red cards in his last 4 games at Highbury.
26th minute - Goal Arsenal 1, Newcastle 1 Laurent Robert with the goal after a good pass from Kieron Dyer. One of the Newcastle players made a nice run down the right, laid off a poor pass that bounced to Dyer, who beat Keown to the ball for the easy tap-in to Robert. His 4th goal against Arsenal in his last 6 games.
28th minute A clash between Bellamy and Edu or Gilberto results in yet another talking to from Riley. No cards yet, but the potential's there.
32nd minute Dyer again on the right, this time he forces Cole to clear the ball out for a corner. Robert's inswinger goes directly over the end line for an Arsenal goal kick.
35th minute Another Newcastle corner, as Lauren heads one out. It's whipped in but cleared out by Edu. Newcastle have really settled over the past 10 minutes after barely seeing the ball in the first 25 minutes of the game.
36th minute Olivier Bernard cracks a shot from about 16 yards out that Lehmann has to get down quickly to stop. At the other end, Arsenal give away possession again. No doubt who has the momentum right now.
42nd minute Lauren had a ton of space on the right, but his cross was too high for a charging Ljungberg. Seconds later, Gilberto with a cross from the left the Wiltord mistimes, and it bobbles over the end line for a goal kick.
Halftime Henry controls in traffic, quick turn and does well to get a shot off from about 22 yards out. Shot is high and wide, but it draws oohs from the crowd. After only one minute of stoppage time, the whistle blows for halftime.
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FSW is freeze-framing and tiling here in Rockland. Ugh! Anyone else having problems with the screen image on cable?
Thigh strain for Paddy, might miss the CL game. George Graham says that Newcastle should get the ball out to Dyer on the right to exploit Ashley Cole as much as possible. Nigel Winterburn agrees with Richard Keys that there hasn't been much shown from Freddie Ljungberg, either today or this season. Nutty says he probably is still trying to recover from his injury.
Yeah, I'm getting a bit of the freeze-framing here in Dallas on DISH. It's an FSW problem that seems to crop up when they take the direct Sky feed. OK, PVR is on, getting ready to go get my brother at the airport, but real quick assesment: has anyone else noticed a disturbing trend of other teams laying off Gilberto when he has possession from 20 yards on out? It's as if they're laying back knowing full well he'll give up possession any moment. VERY disturbing, especially since his defense doesn't show up all that often, either. Methinks that we should run Edu out there in the future. He doesn't flat out give up the ball at every turn, and the other team definetely KNOWS that he's been in the game as he is just as physical as Viera for the most part. Do we need to send Wenger a tape of the Arsenal - manUre match from 2002 at OT? Edu and PV4 shut down manUre's midfield all day long, and Arsenal still scored a pair (Thank you, Sylvain Wiltord). BTW, early second half prediction: Wiltord will score the game winner, as he does nothing but score huge goals, and then he will go several games (which Arsenal will win) without scoring, just long enough to bring out the "anti-Wiltord" faction. he will then go on to score a zillion goals the rest of the way and everyone will worship him. And they will also worship Edu, because I say it is so. To paraphrase the German National Anthem (Nazi version): "Edu und Wiltord, uber alles, uber alles in der weld"
Underway Geez, our midfield isn't producing anything and, come to think of it, hasn't really done squat this season. That's one reason I think, no matter what he prefers, Wiltord should play wide right instead of up front. He does it for France, so why not for us?
Is Pires carrying an injury that we don't know about? Put him in Arsene!! We need that spark, I understand not using him against Man Utd but we aren't going for the draw here, put Pires in!
Capital Gold keeps stuttering... "Down the right hand side..down the right hand side..down the right hand side" They should see a speech therapist.
50th minute Freddie chips one off the post, as Wiltord sprung him thanks to pressure from Ashley Cole. Freddie really should have done better - the pass was fine, and he had time.
I think Arsene knows that SuperBob is somewhat of a defensive liability, and he's got more than enough of those on the pitch right now.