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Tag: Arsenal

  • Brooklyn Beckham Signs with Arsenal, Snubs Manchester United

    Brooklyn Beckham, the 15-year-old son of soccer star David Beckham, has reportedly signed a short-term contract with Arsenal.

    After impressing coaches at a north London club, Brooklyn signed a one-year deal with the team, who jumped ahead of Chelsea and Manchester United, the first team that signed David Beckham when he was 17-years old.

    “Brooklyn is talented and he has stood out in all of the training sessions and games he has played,” an Arsenal source said. “He has had other teams sniffing around and it was always going to be a case of when, not if, he was signed up by a big-name club. Arsenal realize he can be a huge talent. They have seen that potential and protected their asset.”

    After next summer, Brooklyn could receive a long-term “big money” deal from Arsenal.

    The contracts may not stop with Brooklyn. David and Victoria Beckham have two other sons, Cruz, age 9, and Romeo, age 12. Romeo has been playing with the Gunners under-13s team for a year. He also models for Burberry. Cruz plays on the under-10s team.

    But is Brooklyn’s contract a snub to Manchester United?

    “The Beckhams have a strong link with Arsenal despite David’s Manchester United past,” a source said. “David has a good relationship with manager Arsene Wenger. Brooklyn really has potential. Wenger was impressed with his talent, his attitude and his drive to succeed.”

    Along with Mancester United, David Beckham has played for Preston North End, Real Madrid, Milan, and LA Galaxy. He retired from professional football in 2013.

    David and Victoria Beckham have been married since 1999. In addition to the three boys, they also have a daughter, Harper Seven, born in 2011.

  • Arsenal F.C. Suffer Crushing Defeat To Chelsea F.C.

    It was supposed to be a glorious day for Arsene Wenger to remember. Not only did the London derby promise to be an exciting match up, it would also mark Wenger’s 1000th game in charge of Arsenal FC.

    Unfortunately for Wenger, the Gunners weren’t nearly up to the task of coping with a rampant Chelsea FC.

    Within five minutes, Chelsea was up thanks to a successful effort by Samuel Eto’o. A mere two minutes later, André Schürrle made it a 2-0 game.

    As the pace of the game favored Chelsea, Arsenal found it more and more difficult to keep up. This led to a desperate handball by defender Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain.

    Incredibly, referee Andre Marriner showed the red card not to Oxlade-Chamberlain, but to his teammate Kieran Gibbs. This despite the offending Arsenal player owning up to the fact that he was supposed to be carded.

    Despite the embarrassing mix-up, it’s not as though it mattered. After Eden Hazard sent home a penalty shot for the handball in the 17th minute, it was clear that Arsenal were in danger of a resounding away defeat.

    Wenger brought on defender Thomas Vermaelen a few minutes after the third goal in an affort to keep his side from hemorrhaging additional goals, but it proved to be a futile effort. Player Oscar closed out the half with another Chelsea goal, allowing the home side a comfortable 4-0 lead with at least 45 minutes still left play.

    It was hoped by Gooners that their team would somehow find the will to get four goals from somewhere, and bring things level. Instead, two second half goals by the home team would go unanswered.

    When the dust settled, Arsenal was left to limp back to the Emirates with yet another embarrassing away performance to add to their tally this season. This time the score stood six goals to zero.

    A day meant to cement Arsenal as the dominant London side following their away win over the Tottenham Hotspurs ended in bitter disappointment.

    It would be rivals Chelsea that would be moving three points closer to a potential league title.

    Image via YouTube

  • Robin van Persie Out for Six Weeks

    Robin van Persie Out for Six Weeks

    Dutch Manchester United striker Robin van Persie will be sidelined for four to six weeks due to a sprained knee sustained shortly after scoring against Olympiakos in the Champions League on Thursday.

    Van Persie, regarded as being one of the best strikers in the world, joined Manchester United in 2012, after leaving Arsenal as team captain. Van Persie was United’s highest scorer last season, logging 30 goals, helping his team to win the Premier League title. His style of play has drawn comparisons to legendary Dutch striker Macro van Basten.

    If van Persie, 30, is out for the full six weeks, he will only be able to participate in two or three of United’s final Premier League games. United manager David Moyes had hoped that United’s 3-0 victory over Olympiakos would be a turning point for a bad season, as his team has already been eliminated from both domestic cup competitions.

    Van Persie was injured shortly after scoring on this free kick:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knH-JsUnj1o

    Van Persie was taken off the field in a stretcher, and United manager Moyes commented during his weekly press conference that “We’re just getting him re-scanned again today. We’re not conclusive in everything we’ve seen yet, so we want to check that out and be sure. He won’t be available for the West Ham game, but we’ll try to give some update as soon as we can on the outcome of it.”

    Then Manchester United took to Twitter to confirm van Persie’s sidelined status:

    Moyes had at first minimized the seriousness of the sprain, saying it was “hopefully not too bad.” Repeated injuries have restricted van Persie to only 18 league games this season, but he was still able to rack up 11 goals.

    Image via YouTube.

  • Chelsea Ends City’s Perfect Home League Record

    Before the EPL season began, most soccer pundits would have pegged Manchester City to carry home the title at the end of the year. Coming into Monday’s contest with Chelsea, City boasted a perfect 11-0 home league record and was looking to reclaim its position atop the league standings from rival Arsenal. Unfortunately for City, no one had told Chelsea any of this information.

    In somewhat surprising fashion, Chelsea was able to defeat Manchester City 1-0 Monday, ending City’s home winning streak and tying the standings in the EPL between the two teams. The winning goal came in the 31st minute, off the foot of Branislav Ivanovic from 25 yards out. While only 1 goal was scored by either team, Chelsea threatened on many more occasions, hitting the woodwork 3 additional times.

    The shutout by Chelsea marked the first time City had not scored a goal in a home match since November of 2010. Chelsea is only the second team to defeat City at their home field of Etihad all year, the other being European champions Bayern Munich.

    The victory for Chelsea adds new pressure to the EPL title race. With a victory on Monday, City would have been 6 points ahead of Chelsea and would have surpassed Arsenal for the top spot in the league. After suffering the loss, however, City and Chelsea are now tied in second place, with Arsenal sporting a 2 point margin over both clubs.

    When asked if the two victories over City this year proves his team is a title contender, Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho was more than humble: “The title race is between two horses and a little horse that needs milk and needs to learn how to jump. Maybe next season we can race.”

    Mourinho followed up his comments by explaining how he sees his team this year: “What we are doing this season is what Arsenal have been building to for years. It means nothing for us to come here and park the bus and win 1-0 in a lucky situation. The evolution is more important.”

    Mourinho did give a hint of optimism concerning his team’s title hopes, however, in saying that, “We can (win the title) if they (City) lose it.”

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSaOtlTwCtc

    While Chelsea celebrated the victory over the top team in the EPL, City brushed the loss off as a slight disappointment: “Chelsea played very well, but we had important players out missing. A lot of things like this affect the result, but even so, I don’t think we deserved to lose the game… It’s just three points. Now we have 42 more points to play for,” stated Manuel Pellegrini, manager of Manchester City.

    The title race may be heating up,but there is still quite some time until the end of the EPL season (May 11). City manager Pellegrini may feel as if the loss was not representative of the talents of each respective team, yet his teams two losses to Chelsea may prove costly in the end.

    Image via Twitter

  • Kim Kallstrom Set to Play on Loan with Arsenal

    Swedish soccer star Kim Kallstrom is the talk of the UK as he prepares to play on loan with England’s Arsenal Football Club.

    Kallstrom, who has played for Spartak Moscow since July 2012 and for Olympique Lyonnais for the six years before that, will cover injured midfielder Aaron Ramsey. Ramsey was injured in training – the aggravation of a thigh injury sustained against West Ham on January 26 – and won’t be back in play for four to six weeks.

    Another Arsenal midfielder, Jack Wilshere, is sitting out at least one more game with an ankle injury. He won’t play in Arsenal’s Sunday match-up with Crystal Palace but team manager Arsene Wenger says he hopes Wilshere will be back in play the following weekend.

    “We have good news. For Sunday he will be short but he has a chance to be available for the week after at Liverpool.”

    Adding to Arsenal’s troubles is the fact that Mathieu Flamini is currently serving out a four game suspension after receiving a red card in Arsenal’s match against Southampton earlier this week.

    Of Flamini’s two-footed challenge on Southampton’s Morgan Schneiderlin and the associated red card, Wenger said: “To me it looked harsh … He got the ball. At some stage we all have all the feet off the ground. If you say every time a guy makes two-footed tackle its red, he deserved a red. If you say it was a violent tackle, I would say no.”

    Regardless of Wenger’s feelings about the red card and resulting suspension, he’s been forced into the transfer market and it looks like Kallstrom will be playing on loan until the end of the season.

    “Kim Kallstrom is a hugely-experienced player. He is a midfielder with proven quality at both club and international level. We welcome Kim to Arsenal,” Wenger said.

    Kallstrom shared his thoughts on the move: “Arsenal is an amazing club with a lot of great players and a coach who has done really well here for a long time. I am so pleased to come here to learn as much as possible. I’m here to do my best for Arsenal and to help out the team, so we can achieve good results for the last part of the season.”

    In a press conference on Friday, Wenger addressed speculation that Arsenal was seeking a transfer of Julian Draxler from Germany’s FC Schalke:

    “Draxler deal is not active. Anti-climax? I don’t know what a climax is. There is always hope. It is superficial and artificial. [The] Draxler situation has been created by the newspapers, not by me. Nothing is happening on that front. He will stay at Schalke.”

    Image via Twitter