After single-handedly dismantling Rangers 3-0 last night (highlights below) and bringing on some real verve against Athletico Madrid the day before, he has every man and his dog clamouring for a starting place in the Arsenal line-up.

Heck, the hacks are even calling for an England call-up. And I don’t mean the U-15s, either.

Simply put, Jack’s performance was something out of this world for a boy his age, up there with the salivating pre-season performances of Cesc Fabregas and Jose Antonio Reyes in 2004/05, when both joined to tear Manchester United to shreds in the Community Shield.

Of course, Reyes didn’t exactly work out in the long term, but both went on to have good seasons after the fact.

Now it’s Wilshere’s turn to lap up the hype but what the Lord giveth, the Lord taketh away – Walcott, of all people, is being targetted by a certain quarters as the man to make way (Myles Palmer is up to it too, but there’s no reason to link to those articles).

Seriously, give me a break, people. Let’s get a couple of things straight – Theo offers entirely different things to what Wilshere offers – the most obvious of which is Theo’s pace, but neither player is the finished product by any stretch.

The latter of which is important to consider – by saying Wilshere should, by his very nature of being Jack Wilshere (some call it ‘axiomaticism’ for the boffins out there), start ahead of Walcott in as many games as possible just assumes he’s a straight out better player than Walcott.

This is simply not true, and contradictory to all the claims that Arsenal ‘need more experience’ – how often do the same fans call for people like Vela et al to replace elder statesmen (whoever they are) in the squad.

Wilshere is an incredible talent, but it seems Theo is seriously being underrated and rubbished for no reason at all. Okay, maybe Wilshere does have the beginnings of ‘more intelligence in his play than Walcott’, but did anybody care when Theo put in an assist for Arshavin’s fourth goal at Anfield? Which of course, was a carbon copy of Moneybags FC’s African mascot’s goal against the same opponents in the same venue the year prior?

Could Wilshere have done that? Theo himself, saints be praised, is not exactly a senior player himself, leaving him with almost as much time as Wilshere has to learn his stuff.

Take a look at Steven Gerrard – a right old mug without any semblance of real ‘footballing intelligence’ in the Paul Scholes or Cesc Fabregas sense – but ask how many Scousers care when he wallops another 40 yarder into the net.

A totally one-dimensional footballer, ol’ Stevey is, but a bloody effective one.

Besides, all those neat chips and arrowed shots that Wilshere has scored have been done by Walcott as well – only in the Champions League and Premier League.

Wilshere has a long, long way to go before he is the finished article. He deserves a heap of praise, but by the same token, so does Walcott.

Briefly in other news, Marouane Chamakh is reportedly in England trying to push through a move to Arsenal – Le Grove makes a good point about preferencing Chamakh over ‘one-dimensional’ Huntelaar – while Wenger has been giving little clues he may be making signings soon, including a possible return of Patrick Vieira.

If Vieira does sign, I will literally lose my mind with excitement, but not for the most obvious of reasons. That’s for another blog post.

Finally, many thanks for the outstanding feedback after the first issue of PORTAL was released to unanimous applause. For those living under a rock for the past few days, you can view the inaugural netcast episode issue right here.

And that’s your lot. I assure you, any offence given was well intended and verbose.

From one blog to another newspaper, the orbituaries are shouting loud and clear the end of Arsenal’s status as a ‘Top-4′ club.

The reported sale of Kolo Toure to Moneybags FC leaves our defence exposed when you look past Thomas Vermaelen, William Gallas and Johann Djourou, with only Senderos, Silvestre and Song as backup.

Even the thought of a £39million-warchest, courtesy of Citeh, won’t be of consollation of the more negative Gooners out there.

But stop for one minute and think – we need one defender to replace Toure’s departure and the much-touted central defensive midfielder to boot.

That’s nearly £20million to spend on each of those players, with Wenger to spend it.

Considering our record signing is around £16million for Andrey Arshavin – one of the finest players in the Premier League – the th0ught of what Wenger could potentially with that fodder is scary.

Why I am led to believe it will happen are the whispers of even more players leaving Arsenal, mainly Eboue (tipped for a 9million sale to Fiorentina) and Senderos, who are tipped to depart for foreign climbs.

While I think only one of those two will leave, even one more departure will force Wenger’s hand to dip into the market.

And with two good, solid signings, I’m not the only one who believes Arsenal will be solid contenders for the title, delusioned as it may sound.

Senderos leaving in particular would heighten the nerves around the club even more, but surely there would then be replacements coming in.

Hangeland is always named as a possible buy and while he was my number-one pick for defensive recruitment before Vermaelen stepped in, don’t be surprised if it’s just an invented story to sell papers.

We have enough options in attack to ignore the Huntelaar rumours which would take a nasty chunk out of this Citeh-sponsored warchest of ours.

With Jay Simpson waiting in the  wings and Nacer Barazite impressing with one hell of a finish against Barnet a week ago, there’s enough talent to stock up Carling Cup squads and fill in where need be.

Two Gunners in desperate need of a new CM

The only mystery, then, surrounds central midfield.

There are two players in the Arsenal squad who could really do with a new recruit in this area – Alex Song and Cesc Fabregas.

Alex Song came on in leaps and bounds in the tail-end of last season after having to prove his doubters as well as leapfrog Denilson.

But while I make no judgements of the man’s character, a relatively young player like him often has the tendency to rest on his laurels.

Competition for the coveted spot will only serve to improve him even further as a player. What’s more, the recruit will have to enhance Fabregas’ position on the pitch.

Fabregas was easily the best player in the league for the first half of 2007/08 before it all went pear-shaped. His performances, both as a playmaker and a goalscorer, were largely thanks to the perfect partner in Matthieu Flamini.

Whoever comes in will have to bring that same energetic element and take responsibility for the dirty work on the pitch.

Song can eventually become that. But right now, Arsenal need someone for him to look up to and challenge, as well as to push us towards a title-challenge.

Portal’s on it’s way – have your say!

A quick one to say that it’s just about 3 days before the inaugural release of PORTAL, Third-Gen’s interactive eMag for Arsenal fans!

PORTAL is all about you, the fans, so send us your thoughts by filling in the contact page below:

Deadline is at the end of the month, so send in your thoughts here or leave them in the comments.

QUESTION: Is the reported sale of Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Adebayor concerning for Arsenal? Are you confident going into the season ahead?

It’s been a painstaking 4 months of solid work to get it this far and the last few days will be just as hard getting it all together and making sure it’s all running like clockwork.

In anticipation of the release, make sure you have the latest version of Flash handy – PORTAL is based on Flash’s platform and to read and interact with it all, you’ll need it to view it.

I really do hope it’s been worth all the effort that’s gone into it, but make no mistake, this is just the first issue and it will only get better in the coming months.

Until then, it’s back with the nose to the grindstone. Adios.

News is just in that Real Madrid have denied any interest in midfielder Cesc Fabregas. Though Barcelona have been the main mover-and-shaker in the sordid affair, Real have also had many links to the player fabricated by lazy journalists.

Madrid sporting director Miguel Pardeza confirmed the uncomfirming of the previously confirmed rumour.

“He is a great player, there’s no doubt about that. But at this moment he is not a target for Real Madrid. The club are working on other alternatives.”

So, while Barcelona will continue to do unsubstantiated carnage through their mouthpiece newspapers and The Sun, Arsenal and Cesc at least have one monkey off of their back.

Of course, none of the Barcelona rumours are even remotely true – Cesc is staying with Arsenal, as is van Persie, Adebayor, while it is very likely both William Gallas and Kolo Toure will also stay on for a season at least.

The press continue to do their best to destabalise the club, but within Arsenal HQ, things seem more sturdy in reality.

Third-Gen’s Portal – coming soon

Another reminder that Third-Gen’s completely interactive eMag PORTAL is on its way to an end-of-month first publication.

So if you want to share your opinion on Arsenal, the transfer window, new and desired players, don’t forget to send a line to, or rant through the contact form below.

Spread the word and enjoy the rest of your morning/afternoon/evening.

If true, that’s absolute, pure gold. Nothing short of.

Of course, it is Goal.com. But it’s a tasty rumour, that much can be said.Furthermore, Arseblog has the ‘exclusive’ release of the Michael Owen-style brochure of Adebayor’s agent hawking his client to all and sundry. A great, hilarious read.

That all came in the middle of writing the following – all of which is still important. It’s the beginning of July and that means it’s less than a month to go before the inaugural issue of Third-Gen’s PORTAL is released!

Lots of information can be found on Portal here – of particular interest is the bit on user submissions. PORTAL is about you, the reader, the Arsenal fan, and I want your content!

This can involve anything from featured articles to very short comments on anything to do with Arsenal – who we should sign, what you think of Vermaelen, what Arshavin’s affect on Arsenal has been – anything!

You can submit a rant on your webcam, you can even draw what you feel – heck, anything at all. Send in some video of you and your mates getting blasted in the pub while singing Arsenal chants, or some footage from your mobile phone from the stands as Arsenal scored a goal.

PORTAL’s emphasis is on user generated content as well as editorial features, which means this is as much your eMag as much as the blog’s.

So get writing, get photoing, get taping. Keep the file sizes below 15mb if you can, though if you have something really good worth sharing above this, get in contact with me and we’ll sort something out.

A lot of work has gone into this and particularly over the last few days, things have been progressing nicely. So let people know of the forthcoming release – I hope its something we can all enjoy.

Keep your eyes on the site come the end of July!

Below is a content submission form – if you prefer to do it from your own email client, send the mail to

My god – I hope that’s the last exam I ever have to see in my life. Now all I want is a hot cup of tea, an academic gown that I can run around the halls to scare little children, plus a degree. So long, university.

Anyways, Arsenal is pretty much all I care about – I don’t know about you, but I have this strange, yearning feeling of desire to be seeing proper football played already. Either that or I’m hungry from not eating any brekky. Could be both.

Update: I’ve just noticed today’s date. Today is the release of Arsenal’s new away-kit, which some like and some don’t. If you’re in the market for new Arsenal apparel, be sure to check out kitbag and the official Arsenal store to get kitted up.

Fabregas whispers my arse

We’ll start the day off with some absolutely hilarious tripe from the Daily Mail who are going around telling all who care to listen ‘there are whispers’ Cesc Fabregas is leaving the Emirates!

I have it on very good authority that there are ‘conversations’ abounding that many think the Daily Mail is a bit crap. Honestly, as a journalist working in Australia myself, I have no idea what the British sport hacks of some outlets get off on. Do their chief-of-staffs even ask their writers what their sources are?

“Phil – this is all top stuff, but blimey, who’s your source?”
“Whispers, Charlie. Whispers I hears!”
“STOP THE PRESS!!!”

To be fair, they do get a whole tally of ‘Championship Manager boffins’ to come up with the list of replacements to fill Cesc’s boots. What planet are these guys on?

I rememeber one Goal.com ‘exclusive’ a month or so ago where Gianluigi Buffon was linked with Arsenal. Of course, the people that write for that website are mostly 19-year-olds unable to get any real writing experience, as evidenced by the obsession with bylines and messy syntax. What was their proof that Buffon, famous Italian goalkeeper, was on his way to London?

“In addition, voices claim Wenger has also added Buffon to his summer wish list with a €20million bid being touted for the goalkeeper.”

I tell no lie. These people make it up from voices they hear in their head. They should be pitied, not punished.

Melo Deal ‘close’

In much more exciting news, Fiorentina striker Alberto Gilardino has said that Felipe Melo looks set to move away from the club, with Arsenal and Inter Milan the favourites to nab him.

It’s not concrete information by any stretch – the striker himself says he hasn’t spoken to the player directly – but there’s smoke and fire to this story, I think.

It would be interesting to see where a tussle between Inter and Arsenal would end up. Would Melo want to stay in Italy but play for the top side, or join Arsenal who have more Champions League chances than Inter?

I’m actually glad I can say that of Arsenal, now. Several years ago, that statement was unheard of, but such is the strength of the Premier League that we can expect all four of the English clubs to compete strongly. Not that I care for the other three clubs, they can all go play in traffic. But my point is made.

I will keep you all posted on where this Melo thing ends up. It’s a very exciting idea, signing him, one which I think will make a lot of Arsenal fans ‘quietly confident’ of success this season, as oppossed to the fanatically confident that I myself am subject to without any reason to be.

Adebayor to leave – thanks, Dzeko

In the rumour mill’s other offering, the club’s chances of selling Adebayor look set to improve after AC Milan admitted ‘it would be difficult’ to sign Edin Dzeko from Wolfsburg.

That old chestnut of Adebayor’s £25million price-tag pops up again, here. We’re pretty much adament this is the price Emmanuel must be sold for, though my feeling is that Arsenal may climb down to about £17million in a real market. Hope remains of a hefty price-tag given the inflationary pressure Kaka and Ronaldo have put on the market, however, so hopefully the club can make a killing.

Some comments have jumped on the proverbial ‘hating Adebayor makes you racist’ bandwagon.

Pretty much, you’re an idiot, for whoever said that. One – I don’t ‘hate’ Adebayor, I’m just angry with him. ‘Hate’ suggests some kind of unforgiveable bloodlust I have towards the man, which I don’t. He put in abject, lazy performances for much of the end-season and seems to think he’s made it, given his huge paycheck.

I don’t mind him being paid extortionate amounts if he can show effort and application on the field and contribute well to the team. If the manager can sit him down and somehow turn his attitude and his fortunes around, then I am all for a revived Adebayor who, on his day, is a very dangerous striker.

As for the racist thing, I have no time for that either. He’s black, so therefore he’s obviously exempt from criticism to you. Anything else must be hate-speak, clearly. Get a life, stop showing allegiances to particular colours of skin and start supporting your team based on their badget and colour of kits, you fool.

Win an Arshavin shirt – last chance!

This is the last port of call for the Arshavin shirt giveaway, brought to you buy Third-Gen and partners Arseshirts.

Third-Gen’s Portal is on its way in late July, and we’re celebrating with a shirt giveaway emblazened with our goal scoring phenomenon, Andrei Arshavin.

To win this spunky piece of attire, just answer the simple question:

Andrey Arshavin scored his first goal for Arsenal against which club?

A) Liverpool
B) Blackburn Rovers
C) Wigan Athletic

Send in your answers to  with your name, contact details and shirt size. The winner will be announced on Friday, June 26.

Winners are chosen randomly out of a hat – so it’s never too late to enter. Entries will be shut off tonight, Australia time, so for UK readers, that’s around 3:00pm London time.

And of course, check out Arseshirts through the banners attached to the post and on the left-sidebar for an even wider selection of shirts.

That’s it for now. Updates might be a little sparing until Saturday as I’m off up to the Sunshine Coast for some birthday partying with the brother.

Thanks for all your entries thus far (keep them coming) to the competition, the response has been better than I expected. The winner will be announced in tomorrow’s blog post.

Until then, stay cool to those in the north, stay warm to us in the south. Bye…

What is Portal?
Submitting content to Portal
Issue release
Navigation
Sections
Switching between full-screen and windowed modes
System requirements
Advertising and sponsorship

What is Portal?

Portal is an online, fully-interactive magazine published by Third-Gen set for July release. The magazine will detail the month in review for Arsenal FC, including feature stories, reviews, match reports and performance tracking of the team and its players.

Also included will be a collection of ‘Quickfire Q/A’ (QQA) with well-known bloggers (Arsenal-supporting or otherwise), where the interviewees are given a limited time to answer questions pertaining to Arsenal, the season, favourite player, anything at all – it all depends whether they can answer in time.QQA will feature within feature-length podcasts for a more indepth analysis with the guest.

Portal offers an interactivity few webzines offer, with intuitive navigation, appealing interface and an emphasis on user-submitted content. Feature articles, short blurbs and video submissions are all welcome for fans to express their thoughts on the greatest club in the world in a manner of their own choosing.

Submitting content to Portal

Portal relies on your contributions as the reader. There are a number of kinds of content you can submit to be viewed for the coming months’ issues of Portal. All submissions can be sent to

portal [at] third-gen.com

Articles

Ever wanted about your favourite club? Whether it be a rant or a thought-provoking essay, Portal is the right place for it to go. Just email the article to the address above with your name and reply-to email address and we will send back thoughts and confirmations of publication. All articles sent in are edited for grammar and style, but you get your own byline in an online work!

Quick comments

Within Portal, space is provided for short, to the point comments extracted from the blog. But if succinct is more your style than a long-winded essay, you can submit your thoughts to the address above, and they will more than likely get featured. Plus, there’s a higher degree of success your comments will make it to publication!

Video blog

To all the webcam-philes out there – you can submit a good, solid rant via your webcam or hand-held camera. If we like your stuff, you could become a regular video blogger for the webzine! Please be advised that submissions must be less than 10MB to be considered for publication.

Fan-footage

The blogosphere is read by thousands of fans world-wide, some of which never have the priveledge of being able to witness the incredible atmosphere of the english terraces (sentimental wording). Youtube is full of these, but if you’re the kind who just loves whisking out your mobile phone to record the crowd going nuts after van Persie smashes home a penalty, Portal is the place to send these. But anything is fine – get shots of the crowd during a “One-nil to the Arsenal”, or you and your mates taunting some Spurs fans at the pub. Again, keep the file size below 10mb – the inbox can take a battering.

Issue release

At this stage, Portal is set to be released in monthly parts. As it is a one-man operation (at the moment), it is a lot of work to produce this thing and so for the time being, a monthly release has been drafted. But the possibility of a fortnightly release has not been written off entirely yet, so stay posted.

Navigation

Portal’s design has been made as intuitive as possible so as to make for easy navigation between pages. On every page, the masthead (red and grey bar, pictured below) allows for quick access to all major sections of the webzine. The various subsections will then be viewable from each section’s page.

Each section’s page and subsection’s navigation may differ sl

ightly from the overall theme, but every effort is being put in to makesure it is as simple as possible. Some pages include scrollable text with dragbars for navigation. Others include arrays of buttons to navigate to subsections. In the end, Portal’s emphasis is on interactivity, so don’t be afraid to click to your heart’s content. You should be able to find your way back to where you left off.

Sections

Portal, like your traditional magazine, has regular sections of content. They are listed below in detail:

Home

The Home page features the traditional ‘word from the editor’, with links to that month’s featured articles written by Jammathon, guest bloggers and reader submissions.

Reports

Reports features match reports from all fixtures that month involving Arsenal. Featured alongside the match reports are photo-galleries from the match as well as fans’ video submissions before, during and after the match.

Reviews

Reviews will include analysis of players performances, what they bring to the club and interesting facts and trivia about the player – all brought to you in video presentation from yours truly. Product reviews (equipment, club memorabilia, etc) are also planned for future releases.

Rivals

Rivals keeps an eye on the progress made, not just by the Big 4 and Spurs (distinctions must be made), but of every team in the Premier League. Think of it as a light scouting method to try and guage who to put bets on for the following month.

Chat

Chat is the section where I talk to fellow bloggers and fans about Arsenal and football. Chat features the Quickfire Q/A and podcasts for the month, in easy-to-play interactive menus.

Opinion

The fun bit – Opinion is where all the audience input goes in. Here you’ll find submitted comments and articles from reader submissions.

Img&Vid

Img&Vid, or ‘Image and Video’, is where all user submitted pictures and videos go. Take pictures and videos with your mobile phones or hand held cameras during the match, send in a rant from your webcam, or film you and your mates singing your drunken arses off at your local after an Arsenal win.

Sponsors

Sponsors is the section for advertisers and sponsors. You can contact third-gen at the above email (top of page) if you would like your company or product advertised.

Switching between full-screen and windowed modes

One feature that some readers might miss is the ability to toggle full-screen and windowed modes for viewing Portal. The magazine ‘cover’, or splash screen (pictured further up the page) has an option on left of page to switch between viewing the magazine in either mode.

Also on the left of every page in the magazine are buttons to switch between modes when not viewing the cover.

The keyboard short-cut for full screen mode is ‘Ctrl-F’. To exit full-screen mode, press the Esc key.

System requirements

Minimum system requirements are not yet known. However, you will need the latest flash player to view Portal.

You can find the latest flash player here.

Advertising and sponsorship

Portal provides the opportunity for advertising your product and company to sponsor the costs of producing the webzine. Contact third-gen at

jammathon [at] third-gen.com

to discuss commercial arrangements.

So there you go. It’s all systems go, production wise, to get this ready by the release date. At this moment in time, July 31 is the expected release date. So stay tuned, and send your submissions in!