Chp 199. It's so lonely at the Top!

Latest EPL Standing as of September 22, 2008
Position	Team	GP	W	D	L	Pts	GF	GA	GD
1.	Arsenal	5	4	0	1	12	11	2	9
2.	Chelsea	5	3	2	0	11	10	3	7
3.	Liverpool	5	3	2	0	11	5	2	3
4.	Aston Villa	5	3	1	1	10	10	7	3
5.	West Ham United	5	3	0	2	9	11	9	2
6.	Sunderland	5	2	1	2	7	5	6	-1
7.	Hull City	4	2	1	1	7	5	8	-3
8.	Blackburn	5	2	1	2	7	6	11	-5
9.	Manchester City	4	2	0	2	6	9	7	2
10.	Fulham	4	2	0	2	6	4	4	0
14.	Manchester United	4	1	2	1	5	4	4	0

[This is just the appetizer. Read on for more! ]

Time for a brief football break!

I can’t believe I haven’t written any football post in a loooong time! A new EPL season has already begun and I haven’t written anything about my team Arsenal. Gasp, I am ashamed to call myself an Arsenal fan.

With new work and new commitment, I still find the time to watch ever single Arsenal game on TV here in Mumbai. And even though Mumbai may be divided on the whole marathi manoos incidents and who is supporting who etc, one thing is for sure though – Here in the suburbs of Andheri East, there is a HUGE Arsenal fan base! Lolz.

Lemme explain.

For many of us who don’t have dish TV and Tata Sky etc, we subscribe to this one cable operator. And that cable operator, the stingy bastard that he is, gives us only THREE freaking channels for sports. In those three channels, he gives us ESPN, Star Sports, Neo Sports, DD Sports, Star Cricket, Ten Sports and Zee Sports, selectively broadcasting only three channels at a time depending on the program that is currently going on.

We have to call him up to request for a change in those channels if a particular sports channel we want to watch is not being broadcasted, and depending on the majority, he switches the channels. And most of the time his number is engaged.

Of course, cricket is what’s shown on those three channels most of the time.

But then, the funny thing is, every single Arsenal match is shown! Suppose there’s an Arsenal game at 7:30pm. Till 7:29pm there is some boring cricket match on Star Cricket or NEO sports broadcasted, and then at exactly 7:30, the screen suddenly goes bzzzzz for a fraction of a second and then ESPN or Star Sports comes on, broadcasting the Arsenal game.

I likeee very mucheee.

I long to meet the other Gunners supporters around my area here in Andheri East. I want to know these other guys who are calling up our cable operator every time there is an Arsenal match. I want to meet them, and watch Arsenal games together. After all, Arsenal fans are ultra cool dudes, unlike ManUtd and Chelsea supporters who are greedy and obnoxious and only after money.

(pssst psssst… this is a football post. You really think there’s not going to be any ManUtd Chelsea bashing? )

The other day I was quite pissed.

I missed the UEFA Champions League match between Arsenal and Dynamo Kiev recently. So the next day, the first thing I did when I reached office was visit arsenal.com

And what do I find?

Suddenly arsenal.com is no longer mozilla firefox friendly! Aaaaargh.

Here are a few screen shots I took that day.







WTF is this? How the hell are we supposed to read the articles when the stupid embedded Ad is blocking half the article!!???

The Ad is a Flash application so I could not drag it away from the article, and there was no CTA (call to action) to close the freaking Ad.

The webpage looked fine using internet explorer though. And I hate IE. I hate anything that tries to monopolize a market just because they have the moolah (yeah sometimes the communist in me speaks louder than the capitalist in moi).

Compatible only with IE? This kinda goof-ups should happen only to ManUtd and Chelsea homepages, because it fit in perfectly with their ideology and so called team spirit. But not with Arsenal, which is about true talent and genuine football spirit.

Last night ManUtd and Chelsea played. Guess who won? The young Gunners! Lolz. The game ended in a draw, benefiting Arsenal by a great deal.

ManUtd are still not even in the top 10 even till now. I’m telling you, all that hype about Berbatov joining and Ronaldo choosing club loyalty over money etc is just plain BS. This time the Red Devils are going to be relegated. Hyuk hyuk.

You could see the desperation in the way they played. Ronaldo started his usual falling down tricks but that wasn’t enough to beat the Blues. Man, that Ronaldo guy falls down so easily, sometimes if I just shake my TV, there he falls!



And sometimes when ManUtd aren’t able to win any match, they start playing volleyball! You guys should have seen that goal attempt by Scholes the other night when they played against Zenit St.Petersburg for the UEFA CL. Or maybe he was attempting another "Hand of God" shot à la Maradona, except of course, this was not so subtle and it was more like a beach volleyball smash. Hahaha. What will these guys think of next?

Watch that hilarious video here, courtesy NaziSriLanka



Really that desperate to score?

And of course good ol’ Sir Alex was quick to come in his defense saying it was "instinctive". Lolz. More than 20 years that dude has been playing professional football and you call that instinctive? Yeah I agree. After all, that is how ManUtd have been winning most of their matches – through unfair means. You are so right, Sir Alex. That was indeed instinctive. All hail the Mancheaters United!