Simon Barnett

Simon Barnett

The blog entries from the days when I wasn’t a lapsed Arsenal fan.

Football

Change Something, Arsenal. Please.

I typed this blog by hitting the keys so hard on the keyboard that my girlfriend complained about the noise of it from downstairs.

Good Old Arsenal

After nine years of being constantly reminded of how long we’ve gone without a trophy, Saturday was a blessed relief.

No Fun

An opening day defeat and some idiotic fans have made me wonder whether I still enjoy going to see Arsenal play football.

Losing My Rag

We won 7-3 and yet I’m ranting furiously.

Who Are We?

“We’re gonna win the league”.

Is Talent Enough?

It is 1 year and 3 days since Arsenal beat Barcelona. I think it’s fair to say that since then, things have not exactly gone according to plan.

Signs Of Life

It is customary, in this bizarre day and age, to base your opinion of any football team on the last 7 or 8 games (or less, in some cases) that they have play...

The End Of An Era?

**He may be my father but that doesn’t mean I have to agree with all of his views on our beloved football club.</p>

Arsenal (repeat)

If you logged on to this website in order to read something original about Arsenal, then I’m afraid you’re going to be sadly disappointed.

Why Must We Have What Ifs And Buts

Would we have qualified for the 1/4 finals of the Champions League last night had the referee not shown Robin Van Persie a red card for kicking the ball at t...

Diaby And Decisions

What a frustrating weekend. What a brilliant weekend. What a disappointing weekend. What were those refs doing at the weekend?!

Sour Grapes

We lost. In the last minute. We weren’t good enough. We didn’t want to win as much as they did. Simple as that.

Pulis Throws In The Towel

You could be forgiven for thinking that Tony Pulis was really annoyed about his team having to go to North London last night. He certainly was not re...

Exorcising Daemons

It took me 6 days. But I finally got round to watching the visual images that have haunted me from last weekend.

A World Without Wigan

Their own fans don’t even care about them - can the Premier League do without Wigan Athletic?

The Simple Things

Some early season glimpses of improvement leads some all-too-rare optimism.

2008/2009 Season Reviews – The Realist

We’ve read the positive views of The Optimist and we’ve pored over the depressing thoughts of the Pessimist – but what was 2008/2009 like from the point of v...

20 years ago…

A man who writes a blog about Arsenal cannot fail to write a post on this day – the 20th anniversary of the closest finish to any Football League season in h...

What’s wrong with Arsenal (repeat)

There is nothing new to say about today’s performance that hasn’t already been said in a hundred posts on this and almost every Arsenal website over the past...

Phil Brown in sanity loss shock

I must admit, I was quite impressed with Hull City. The way they played when they beat us in the league and again last night in the cup, was excellent in my ...

Eduardo is the key man

I have thought this for some time but Eduardo is the key to our season now in my opinion.

Bye bye, Eboue

After his latest embarrassment on the football pitch yesterday afternoon, are there any Arsenal fans remaining with any sympathy whatsoever for Emmanuel Eboue?

ITV hit new low

I have never been the greatest fan of ITVs coverage of football. Actually, I tell a lie, I’ve always hated them. Let’s be honest – their commentators, their ...

Has Arsene lost his marbles?

After yet another yawn-a-thon on Saturday against West Ham, Arsene Wenger has made some extremely surprising statements which would appear to point to a loss...

Running out of patience

There is so much wrong at Arsenal Football Club at the moment, there seems little point in raking over the same ground again and again.

Thoughts on our new captain

I had a plan tonight. I got home from work, all ready to put my thoughts regarding our new captain down on e-paper when I saw the Portsmouth-AC Milan game on...

It may be time for a change at the top

I am not the greatest fan of the media – they tend to over-exaggerate anything that happens in the game, whether it be good or bad. When the reaction to Will...

Can we still win the title?

All the talk leading up to the United game last week was of how everyone at Arsenal still thought we could win the title, despite losses to Fulham, Hull and ...

Spot the Champions

I’ve been accused of only blogging when we’re losing so I feel its high time I got round to writing something about one of the best performances by an Arsena...

Disgraceful

Nothing short of disgraceful.

Sort it out, Arsene

Sometimes, football has a habit of kicking you in the teeth. Tonight, Arsenal thoroughly kicked themselves and their supporters in the teeth by allowing Tott...

The pointlessness of the media

After a dreadful performance all round against Hull and a typically toothless effort today at Sunderland (albeit sandwiched around a superb win against Porto...

Arsenal 3 Newcastle 0

My first home game of the season, having missed the West Brom game as I was away saw us roll over a poor Newcastle side 3-0.

Senderos joins Milan

AC Milan have taken Phillippe Senderos on loan. Voluntarily. One assumes because someone who works for them has seen him play and thought he was just what th...

Toothless

Sometimes, I feel quite optimistic about the future of the current side. We’ve certainly got some extremely promising youngsters, some of which are not there...

Some late night ranting

First, an apology to my loyal army (ahem) of avid readers. My last post was on April 28th and I have had nothing to say since then, despite the end of the se...

Sometimes, football is rubbish

If we’d have held on to our 1 goal leads away at Chelsea, United and Liverpool, then we’d be in the Champions League semi-final and a win on Sunday would cli...

The hardest defeat of the season

Considering this season was, until the end of January, so enjoyable and exciting we have had an awful lot of spirit-crushing defeats to contend with.

Wenger the villain again

This lunchtime, Eduardo was hospitalised by a tackle from Martin Taylor of Birmingham City. He will almost certainly miss the remainder of the season and wil...

Carlos Vela – remember the name

Before the start of this season I watched a lot of youtube clips of Eduardo, which led to me waxing lyrical about how good our new signing was. This was met ...

After the Riverside

This is in response to Paul’s question about whether we want to win the Premier League this season.

A blogger silenced

When I began this blog, back in March 2006, it was primarily so that I could vent my spleen when Arsenal failed to produce the goods and made me unhappy. Thi...

Thoughts on the new season

After precisely 4 months without a single post, and with the new season starting tomorrow, I think its time I was passing my latest wisdom regarding Arsenal ...

Gutted to gutless in less than a year

327 days ago, Arsenal heroically pushed what was arguably the best club team in the world to the last 10 minutes of the Champions League Final having been do...

Reflections on our European exit

Here are the views of 3 fellow Arsenal fans who sit near me at Highbury (I refuse to call it “The Emirates” – it sounds silly) on our pathetic exit from Euro...

Why do we bother?

Finally, Arsenal have showed some passion and commitment. In all the wrong areas. Pathetic.

The truth is out there

It seems that, whilst I was writing my previous post, Mister Wenger was telling everyone in the media that:-

Tottenham back in the big time

So after 16 years, UEFA have, at long last, expanded their second string competition enough to allow Tottenham to join in.

To boo or not to boo

So finally it looks as if Ashley Cole is going to leave us and join the wonderful family club that is Chelsea. The question is, is this the sort of decision ...

Gutted but proud after heroic effort

Arsenal always seem to try and do things the hard way, but I think that playing with 10 men for 73 minutes against arguably the best team in the world might ...

Bye bye Highbury

For some people, the fact that the name “Highbury” rhymes with the word “Library” is more than just pure coincidence. And to be fair, sometimes they’re right...

Sorry Annika

I’d like to take this opportunity to apologise to my fantastically patient and understanding girlfriend, Annika, who had the misfortune to be born on 17th May.

1 point from 6

Well, it seems that you cannot paper over the cracks of a truly awful Premiership away record by having a good run in the Champions League.

Juve bore themselves into submission

Well, not much to say about this game really. For me, it was a typical Champions League game – far too much cagey defending and not enough players willing to...

Juve outclassed on a night to remember

If the unthinkable happens next Wednesday and this turns out to have been the last ever European football match at Highbury, then there can be no more fittin...