The Beast and The Ogre

If you taped yesterdays round of the WGC World Match Play Championships and watched all 36 hole (like I did not) you would have seen the utter dominance of 77th ranked American Shaun Micheel over Tiger Woods. The match wound up being 4 and 3, which was Woods’ worst performance in this event (which has a HUGE payday of $1.83m for the winner). Micheel is no Judge Smails, who is a tremendous slouch, and has won the PGA Championship (2003) along with was runner-up to Woods this year. Too bad he isn’t on this year’s Ryder Cup team as he is giving a similar lashing to England’s Luke Donald today. I guess the force is stronger in Shaun than Luke.

As previously mentioned, this Sunday is the big matchup between the Gunners and the Mancs up north in the Trafford Devil Bowl. Wenger is now saying that Henry is a 10 to 15% chance of playing. Translation: he’ll play. These kinds of tactics happen every year when Wenger face Sir Red Nose, who spouts out a few choice comments as well. So it seems Kolo is in, RvP is out, but Rosicky is in and up for the challenge. He is not afraid of being kicked off the pitch like Reyes was a few years back. Here is what he has to say about the match:


"I know it will be physical at Old Trafford," Rosicky said. "I remember the game at Old Trafford with what happened with Van Nistelrooy. Everyone remembers that one. I'm looking forward to it. I know it will be tough but I said when I joined Arsenal that you will never see me jump when the tackles come in. I'm not as strong as some but I'm not scared either."


Good on ya son. And if you didn’t see his cracker of a goal against Hamburg, here you go.


With RvP most likely out and Henry, well likely playing but who knows, the up front player(s) are up in the air. Adebayor has been OK, but maybe he can take it up a notch against ManU. He is a good aerial target, but if Eboue is crossing not even Crouch could get a head on one of his row Zed passes. Walcott may be on the bench and may even see some game time, which would be interesting. But I think Baptista is the perfect man for this situation. Big strong guy who can score goals. Plus, it would be fun to see “The Beast” go up against The Ogre!!


Oh, and if you live in New York City or the surrounding area (though I know where my 2 readers live) there is a big Arsenal America and Man U Supporters Club meetup in the City this weekend. It should be a lot of fun and I went to the one last April in Chicago. There is a 5v5 tourney on Saturday and the whole group is meeting at Nevada Smiths to watch the match. For more info go to ArsenalAmerica.com (link on top right of page) or contact our fearless President, Mikey at mikek@arsenalamerica.com.

Finally, I am passing on a new music recommendation, though I haven’t heard any of their stuff. Lou Reed gave these guys a big ups at the VMA’s a few weeks ago and my boy Fresh Bread thinks they are the dizzle. Okkervil River is the group and their album “Black Sheep Boy” is highly recommended. So give them a listen and maybe we can all swap notes on Monday.

I am off soon to get some more rum and maybe enjoy a nice evening on the porch listening to my hip new music.

Adios.