Written by Lindsay Melrose Monday, 23 August 2010 17:57

GunnerTalk Blog

By Lindsay Sheehan

Firstly thank fuck the Arsenal are back. What a horrible summer for us Gooners to endure. We witnessed THE most boring World Cup I can remember coupled with England’s shocking.... well EVERYTHING about England was shocking, the players, the tactics, the manager, the press interviews, the FA – just all of it. Simultaneously we suffered the infuriating Barca courtship of yet another Arsenal captain. When I say courtship I mean near rape, nothing subtle or romantic in the minds of those bastards from the Nou Camp. Anyway that’s all behind us now and today we saw our first home game of the 2010-2011 campaign.

There was a ceremony for the return of The Clock. Well it’s not the actual clock but that would ruin the story. We are a club with a proud, long, passionate history; there is nowt wrong in celebrating that and transferring a symbol of it into the modern, new era stadium.  The naming (or is it the renaming of the stands) sees me back in the North Bank and the Clock end with said clock to prove its them!! There were also some red and white fireworks. Can you imagine Chamakh’s phone call back home to mummy after his Emirates debut? “Yes mum, first home game today.  The stadium, ooo yes its lovely.  Rained though. There was a sort of party with fireworks and everything before kick off. Yeah amazing. What for? Something to do with a clock mum. Yep I said a clock.”

Full credit to the Arsenal technology team for the fantastic montage of great goals scored in front of old skool Highbury stands. Watching raised the hairs on the back of your neck and made you thirsty for more more more. Beautiful goals interspersed with the loud boom boom ticking of the clock – very emotional. Let’s hope that along with the clock we smuggled in some of the old Highbury magic to finally end our silverware drought.

To be honest there could have been trickier opponents than the visit of the Prem’s new boys but seeing as our first game was at Anfield, we deserved a team to grandstand against so we could get proper in the mood for the season ahead.  And in the mood we were. 6 – 0.  Now being a bit churlish I would have preferred to go one more than the Chavs but whatever trevor it was a spanking. The best part for me was at 5 – 0 up we then brought on Cesc Fabregas and RVP. It went deathly quiet for the first time in the away end as I think the enormity of the task ahead of them this year set in.

Now the main highlight of the match was Theo Walcott. Is this finally the season where he turns from a boy into a man.  3 goals cannot hurt his cause plus it must make Chris Waddle smile on the other side of his mullet for 5 minutes, which is always worthwhile.  We were all ready to shout “Unlucky Theo” at every opportunity but his rabbits foot must be on the mend as most (and I do say here - most) things went his way. I could be picky but I’m not going to be, he has had enough of that. What we saw was desire, commitment, practice paying off and a bucket load of determination. So one good thing looks to have come out of the England debacle, a fired up Theo. One swallow does not a summer make but if he continues to develop and show that kind of work ethic against stronger opposition then maybe just maybe this will be the year he finally rewards Arsenal fans for their patience.

There were plenty of strong and pleasing on the eye performances. Song was, as usua,l solid and dependable and Rosicky carried on his creative start to the season. But I am unsure what we have learnt from today’s match. Against the new boys handicapped by 10 men for the majority of the game we should have and did give em a hammering.  Defensively we were rarely troubled but on the few occasions they did go forward, to me it is clearly still an issue. Our goals came from 4 different goal scorers so hopefully that part of our game is as versatile as ever. So a lovely home start but next up is a trip to Ewood Park and another meeting with the Walrus. I think you’ll agree we’ll all know a little more after that one.