Hello to all. Andy here.

You’ve surely all realised in recent times that I have not been contributing much at all to the blog.

It’s been a huge disappointment of mine that I haven’t been able to do so, but the simple truth is that work has got the better of me of late and I haven’t been able to put the same energy into the blog that I would like.

So all things considered, I have decided to changed my role on AFCB.

After discussing things with a good friend of mine Mark, a terrific Arsenal supporter who I met during my time in Berlin, I have decided to step aside and let him take over the reigns.

As he will tell you in his welcome message below, Mark will be handling the day-to-day happenings on the blog, news updates, match reports and all the stuff that recently, I simply have not had the time to do.

My input will be scaled into an editorial: managing the content on the site and contributing feature articles and opinion pieces on an irregular basis.

It’s been a tough old season for Arsenal fans, by far the toughest since I started this blog almost five years ago. But over that time we’ve forged such a great community of supporters on this blog and I don’t want that to be lost just because I have become a little bit too busy.

With Mark now on board I sincerely hope we can reignite the joy within this community and you as loyal readers can once again get the great content and interaction that you have come to expect.

As a final comment, if you are in any way inclined to check out the new online + design business I am now co-directing, which has been taking up most of my time, poke your head in at Moonshine Madness and take a look around. Most appreciated.

– Andy

Introducing Mark

Hey all,

My name is Mark and I was lucky enough to be asked by Andy to join the blog.

I’ll be chipping in with reports, news and all things Arsenal, so I’m using this post to introduce myself and tell you all a little bit about me so you don’t think someone’s jacked the site.

Until I was 11 I went to school only a goal roar away from our beautiful old stadium of Highbury, one which we never heard because only weird kids are at school on Saturdays at 3pm.

I’ll never forget the time Arsene Wenger kicked our playground ball back over the fence as he was on his way to lunch. Anyone who could kick a size 4 plastic ball with such technique as he displayed was destined to go on to achieve greatness.

Now I am living and working in Berlin, where Andy and I met, slowly losing my hair from ripping out chunks of it during the games as my Iraqi Goals stream freezes every time we play.

Apart from the dedication and hard work Andy puts in to run this page, what drew me toward wanting to be part of it was his tagline: Arsenal, with Love.

Right now supporting the team can be hard work, what with so many of the fans divided and throwing online invective at each other, coupled with poor performances and results.

The blog reminded me that even if you want Wenger out now, or if you’re willing to blindly follow him off a cliff, or even if you’re just this guy, we’re all bound by one thing: we love the Arsenal.

So I’m happy to be a part of it.

– Mark

A couple of weeks ago I ran a competition to give away some great gear from Pelé Sports Australia.

I asked Australian readers, via Facebook and Twitter, which new Arsenal signing they thought would have most impact and why, and have since hand-picked the 3 best responses which are included below.

1 – Peter Stiles, who wins a pair of The Radium futsal shoes for this response left on Facebook:

“Definitely Mertesacker. His international experience, 75 caps and his height will prove very effective among the shaky arsenal back four. With Per combined with Vermaelen, it will be unlike any of the defensive pairings arsenal have had for the last 5 years, very solid and commanding.”

2 – Patrick Weber, who wins a pair of Solid Futsal Shorts for his comment, also on Facebook:

“I think Arteta will prove to be the signing with the biggest impact. His ability to spark something in the final third, his intelligence and his experience will prove far more valuable than the price that was paid for him.”

3 – Ryan Platten (@ryanplatten), who wins a lovely Arsenal red Shine On Graphic Crew shirt for his Twitter response:

“Mikel Arteta – a playmaking midfielder is what they desperately need in the absence of Nasri.”

Congratulations to the three winners. If they can get in touch with me via email we can organise the details.

Additionally I’d like to point out an excellent offer that Pelé Sports Australia are now running, where you can buy a pair of football boots or indoor shoes and get up to four pieces of apparel included for FREE.

For details, click here or on the image below.

Thanks again to Pelé Sports Australia for running the competition and to everybody who entered. Stay tuned to both AFCB and Pelé Sports Australia for future promotions.

Please note that this competition is only open to my AUSTRALIAN READERS and those people residing in Australia.

The lovely folks at Pelé Sports Australia are here to help us celebrate the morale-boosting spending spree that was the final days of the transfer window by giving away a bunch of fantastic gear.

Three great Futsal-focused items are up for grabs: a lovely Arsenal-red Futsal t-shirt, a pair of white Futsal shorts and last but not least, a pair of very cool Radium Futsal shoes.

Entering the competition

This is a Twitter and Facebook-based competition and to enter you’ll need to do the following:

1. Become a fan of Pelé Sports Australia on Facebook and follow Pele Sports Australia on Twitter (@PeleSportsAu)
2. Answer the question “Which new Arsenal signing will have the biggest impact and why?” posted on Pelé Sports Australia’s Facebook wall or by replying @PeleSportsAu with your answer on Twitter.
3. The best 3 responses will be hand-picked by yours truly (2 from Facebook and 1 from Twitter) and will win one of the 3 items shown above.

Pelé Sports have been long-time supporters of the Arsenal FC Blog, often giving me free stuff to give away to the community of the blog, so get behind them and enter this competition to help spread the word about this top-quality football brand.

Cheers, good luck and I look forward to reading your responses on Facebook and Twitter.

This competition is only open to my AUSTRALIAN READERS and those people residing in Australia.

Liverpool and the first home game of the Premier League season is just around the corner.

Will we win? Will we lose? Will we draw? For once the answer to that question really matters.

You see, the excellent folks at Pelé Sports have once again thrown some lovely gear my way to give you guys a reward for all your support and contributions to the blog.

This time around I’ve got some shoes to give away: specifically a pair of either Pelé Sports Radiums (and indoor futsal shoe) or the Pelé Sports 50/50s (for turf/astroturf).

Pelé Sports Radiums

It’s a Twitter-focused competition so to win all you have to do is predict the score, tell us what colour shoes you’d like (follow the link above) and tweet your reply to @afcblog and @pelesports, along with the appropriate URL link (http://bit.ly/oeF0n8 for the Radiums or http://bit.ly/oxSVSS for the 50/50s).

For example:

“@pelesports @afcblog Arsenal 2-1 Liverpool – The Radiums in black please! http://bit.ly/oeF0n8”

“@pelesports @afcblog Arsenal 1-0 Liverpool – The 50/50s in blue! http://bit.ly/oxSVSS”

So, a final reminder: @pelesports and @afblog on Twitter, enter your score, tell us what colour and style shoes you want and post the appropriate link as shown above.

Good luck.

Follow @AFCBlog and @PeleSports on Twitter.

Sit back and watch the best of the 2011/2012 Premier League season live with Sky Sports HD.

The prospective news that the FA may call off the opening round of Premier League fixtures could prove to be a minor blessing in disguise for the Arsenal.

With the exits of Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri approaching inevitability and replacements an absolute necessity, there are few things more valuable to Arsene Wenger to sort out the problems than the gift of time: a luxury that would be provided by the postponement of Saturday’s opener against Newcastle.

As things stand though the game will go ahead, providing the first fixture in what is a devilishly difficult beginning to the season.

A quick glance at the first month does not make pleasant viewing: the trip St James’s Park is followed by a home-and-away Champions League tie with Udinese and two tough games against improving Liverpool and last season’s league winners Manchester United.

It could be argued that the opening month could make or break our season. The distraction of the Fabregas & Nasri affair and the desperate need to quality for the Champions League is a powder keg waiting to be lit.

If disaster strikes is it that unreasonable to expect that our team could struggle badly, or that Wenger could even lose his job?

Fortunately, history tells us it could be quite the opposite. After all, we’ve have played plenty of European qualifiers before and never been once beaten, we managed a respectable draw at Anfield in the first game of last season and we’re catching Manchester United at what has traditionally been the best time to grab a result: as early in the season as possible.

The advantage of Fabregas and Nasri featuring so sparsely in pre-season action is that the players who did compete regularly will be fired-up and focused. People can talk about how unsettled the squad is as a whole but the fact is that we have a very settled starting line-up from day one, even if it will lack the star quality that Fabregas or Nasri could provide.

Predicting the outcome is a mug’s game and whether or not Arsenal will coming racing out the blocks, just do enough or spectacularly implode is largely down to personal opinion.

But what is for sure is that our opening month of fixtures are unmissable.

This season, Sky Sports will be showing 115 live Premier League fixtures, with every match available in HD and selected matches in 3D.

Every single Barclays Premier League team shown live in the first set of Sky Sports HD fixtures, and all three newly-promoted clubs shown live at least three times by the end of November.

Sky Sports will be covering all the big head-to-heads, including Manchester United’s heavyweight clashes with Arsenal (Aug 28th) and Chelsea (Sep 18th), as well as screening seven major derbies in HD including Everton v Liverpool (Oct 1st), Tottenham vs Arsenal (Oct 2nd) and the Manchester derby followed by QPR vs Chelsea (both on Oct 23rd).

Please note however, that all fixture are liable to change – we wouldn’t want you to miss out!

Sign up with Sky Sports Football and feast your peepers on the 2011/2012 Premier League season in glorious HD.

The following is a guest post from Gareth McKnight of Soccerlens.com.

The next two weeks may very well make or break Arsenal’s season, as the ongoing transfer sagas of Cesc Fabregas and Samir Nasri are potentially set to be solved, and the current squad’s abilities to be assessed on the upcoming pre-season tour to Asia.

The squad that faded away at the end of last term is seemingly set to be reshuffled, with some of the senior players leaving and new faces hopefully arriving. The group that traveled to participate in fixtures in Malaysia and China should be the bulk of the team that challenges for honours in 2011/12.

Wenger on tour in Malaysia

Señor Fabregas has remained in England, sparking speculation that the Spaniard’s return to Barcelona is nearing conclusion. With Jack Wilshere emerging as the natural leader in the team’s midfield and the ongoing will he, won’t he nature of situation, a conclusion one way or the other is needed. An injection of foreign currency and the departure of a captain, talisman and mercurial talent looks likely.

Arsene Wenger stipulated that Cesc has stayed behind to recuperate from a muscular injury; this may be partly true but it looks like the Frenchman is planning for next term without Fabregas. The pre-season games are a method for the side to finalise tactics, gameplans and get ready for the Premier League season starting on August 13th; the fact that Fabregas isn’t travelling would lead us Gunners fans to believe he isn’t going to be lining up at St James’ Park on the first day of the season.

The Spanish international wants to go – let’s face it. He recently purchased travel insurance and took a break to New York whilst in the off season, using the holiday as a chance to meet up with former club great Thierry Henry, who now plays for the New York Red Bulls. One would hope Thierry urged Fab to stay in England, but the fact that the striker had a successful spell with Barcelona, which included winning the Champions League, may mean that the advice could have been on the contrary.

Nasri’s situation is more promising, as although some Gunners would not be overly phased if Cesc left, the majority want the former Marseille man at the Emirates. Nasri has went on the tour to Asia, which hopefully shows Wenger’s defiance that he will not be sold to either of the dreaded Manchester clubs, and contract running out regardless, he will help the club push forward this season.

With a few new faces in the mix and a good start to the campaign, Nasri may be convinced to have a change of heart, and feel that silverware is a real option with his current employers.

With Gervinho’s transfer all but done, if Wenger can add another one or two new players and get the best from emerging prospects such as Ryo Miyaichi, and it could yet it could be a historic season for the Gunners with or without Fabregas.икониПравославни икони

A few people have asked me recently why I haven’t been covering any Arsenal transfer news or speculation on a day-to-day basis since the end of the season.

There are three reasons.

The first is that I find transfer speculation immensely tedious and frustrating to both follow and write about. One day you’re linked to one random player, the next a completely different one. It’s boring, it forces me to read papers I have no interest in supporting and it is ultimately a waste of time and energy.

Gervinho

The second is that I’m quite enjoying my break from heavy blogging. Nobody pays me to run this blog, I make only a tiny bit of money from AFCB t-shirt sales (thanks to everybody who has supported by purchasing, for those that would like to you can do so here) and just like any activity that takes up a lot of time and energy, a good, refreshing break is always necessary.

The third reason is that, on an impulse, I decided to follow the 2011 Women’s World Cup. In fact, I started a feature on my other blog — Football Nomad — and have been posting articles about the tournament in a bid to promote the women’s game. It’s been an enjoyable tournament so far and if you’re a bit like me, tired and weary from a long season of Arsenal, it’s a perfect refresher for the new season.

Follow the 2011 Women's World Cup

So that should clarify things for you. I’ll have the final two season review articles up relatively soon (focusing on the goalkeepers and, as MANY people have requested, the manager) but in the meantime, enjoy the sunshine.

Share the Arsenal love by leaving a comment.

A little while ago I ran a competition with the folks from Pelé Sports. Well, they’re at it again and have been kind enough to give away two more t-shirts for the readers of this blog.

I like to think of it as a welcome consolation for the terrible few weeks that we as Arsenal supporters have just gone through.

So here’s what you can win and how you can win it.

Prize 1: Pelé Sports Edson Electric Crew

Pelé Sports Edson Electric Crew

To win the Edson Electric Crew shirt simply post a prediction for the score of tomorrow’s game between Arsenal and United using the form at the bottom of the post.

Prize 2: Grand Master Tee

Pelé Sports Grand Master Tee

To win the Grand Master Tee all you have to do is answer the question: “What promise did Pelé make his father when he was only 9 years old?”

The answer can be found in the Pele bio article on PeleSports.com. Email submissions must be delivered using the following form, and a winner will be picked at random from the submissions.

Please note that all answers must be in by 10am UK time of the morning of the game (Sunday). Answers after this time will not be accepted. Good luck!

As you might imagine, writing about this club for four years on an almost daily basis has created a fairly unique connection between myself and the club.

I’ve passionately argued with fellow supporters about whether Nicklas Bendtner will ever be good enough, written a very personal piece about my all-time footballer Freddie Ljungberg and received a couple of splendid tweets from the very lovely Johan Djourou.

I’ve spoken on the Arseblog Arsecast, designed and released Arsenal t-shirts, written match report after match report and on the way, found a tremendous community of fellow supporters who feel the connection with Arsenal in the same way that I do.

This time I'll go one step further

And so it is with great joy that I share with you some rather excellent personal news on the blog today.

Next Saturday Arsenal will host Blackburn in the Premier League. Nothing too special about that, you might think. Just another bread and butter Premier League fixture.

Except for me, it will be special. Very special indeed.

You see, after 13 years of supporting Arsenal and four years of writing the Arsenal FC Blog I will be watching our boys play live for the very first time.

How brilliant is that?!

Of course, I wouldn’t be a very good blogger if I didn’t share with you my thoughts and feelings of this momentous trip with you.

But unlike a lot of my Football Nomad work (yes, I write another football blog!), where the handycam and camera are never too far away, I’m going to do my best to simply enjoy the sights and sounds of the experience myself and put them into words for you when I get back. You know, living in the moment and all that jazz.

As things stand my plan for the week is to leave Berlin on Thursday morning next week, hang out with my brother for a couple of days before participating in Arseblog‘s excellent 6-a-side football tournament on Saturday.

From there I’ll meet up with a couple of the lads, head to the game with the brother in the afternoon and let the madness unfold.

Spread the Arsenal love by leaving a comment.

Today in Barcelona I scaled the heights of Gaudí’s unbelievable Güell Park and had this lovely photo taken.

Notice anything interesting about my shirt?!

A bit of Gaudí in the background for good measure

That’ll show ‘em!

You can get your Captain Fabregas shirts or any others in The AFCB Shop by clicking here.

They’re rather good, if I do say so myself, and buying them helps give me food and drink and the ability to keep writing this blog.

Spread the Captain Fabregas love by leaving a comment or buying the shirt.