Emphatic. I want the King Kev thing to work, I do… I really do. The Premier League just wouldn’t be the same without Newcastle, and I think he is the man to keep them up and bring them up. But, damn… what a time to sign on, with back to back fixtures at Ashburton Grove. 72 hours, 6 goals against, 1 OG, and a bounce from the FA Cup. Rough ride, my Toonish friends. Rough. But fear not… the man just got in the door. Given time (and metric shitloads of cash) Kevin Keegan can and probably will bring great things alongfor the Magpies.

This post is looking a bit like the one just before it, eh? Arsenal basically played the same game they did in the FA Cup fixture on Saturday, only better. Let’s see… complete and utter ball control? Check. Emmanuel Adebayor header goal? Check. Mathieu “Gattuso” Flamini firing one in from 28 yards out? Check… pardon? Yes, that’s right… Mathieu, who had himself a positively brilliant match even without that goal, decided that he needed to show the world what sort of touch he has from distance. A setup from Cesc to Mathieu about ten yards outside the box on the left corner… he takes a single touch, then just floats it to the top right past Shay Given. Shots from that distance usually go in like rockets… this one went in like a piece of moving artwork. Of course, his teammates went thoroughly bat shit. Manu even came over and polished his boot for him. A classic moment.

And, it turns out that this is just what Cesc Fabregas needed to pull himself out of his goal scoring slump of late. Cesc has been in fine form as his usual self, but his scoring streak from the first few months of the season cooled after he went out injured. Seeing Mathieu find the net must have inspired him, because he found himself a goal. Well, not by himself… Nicklas Bendtner’s gorgeous footwork to bring the longball down and flick it in front of Cesc certainly made it happen. Sure, Nick might have been a Danish pubic hair offsides, but at least he didn’t spend the entire match in an offsides position, unlike Michael Owen.

A nice bounce back from our previous performance, I’d say. The first half, although ending nil-nil, was still a fast paced affair, with strikes coming in at both ends of the pitch. Arsenal seemed to have the lion’s share of possession, and strikes. But it wasn’t until the early second half when Cesc Fabregas hit the left post hard, Emmanuel Adebayor took the deflection, set himself up with a touch and put the ball past Shay Given on the left. One Nil To The Arsenal.

After the first goal it was quite a bit more of the same until the last ten minutes, when Ade gave us some more of his more of the same. He found his way into the left again making it 2-nil. Then our new striker, Nicky Butt, hammered home the killer goal at 87′ on a set piece from Cesc.

Oh, and… I miss Fat Sam. Yeah, I know that sounds odd… but a result like this feels much better when you’re sticking it to Fat Sam. It’s not as much fun doing it to someone like Kevin Keegan. There’s no reason to dislike him yet. In fact, he seems pretty damn likeable. I hope the whole thing works out for the best for Newcastle at least. He needs time and money, that’s all. As for Sam… put yourself in charge of some scrubby promotion side coming up next year so we can beat on you some more, eh?

Ouch… and I say that in a cold, ungreased speculum sort of way. Just… ouch. I didn’t get to see this one and I’m sure as hell glad I didn’t take the time to find a torrent for this match, download it and watch. I would have been a pretty cranky Gooner come 1am when I finally got it on screen. And I know the Pond Life will be expecting all Arsenal fans to be saying this, but… it’s only the Carling Cup. Of course, it would have been nice to stay in it, but it may well be a blessing in disguise. If we’re to have any shot at overtaking Manchester United in the Premier League this year, we need all hands on deck. It’s great to see our younger players out there and getting a shot, but now we can focus a bit more. I hope… come on you Arsenal!

I’d say we kept control of that one from whistle to whistle. As I had hoped, the boys would respond to the disappointing outcome of the Birmingham match with the correct response. Emanuel Adebayor put in a matching bookend set of headers at 19′ & 39′ and Tomas Rosicky made an unblievable lunge to toe tap a cross in from the left. I watched the replay of that shot no less than 7 times and it still amazes me that he got a boot on that ball. Apart from that, it was a pretty low key match. Fulham did give more fight than I expected though. The opening 10 minutes had me wondering if this was going to be a bit more entertaining that I had thought. Phillipe Senderos did his impression of a hemophiliac in the second half. I’ve never seen anyone spew that much blood from an unbroken nose. Amazing. But, he picked up and got right back in there. Nice work, Phillipe. And what was with that little exchange between Adebayor and Niemi at the end of the match. Ade had earlier run into Niemi who came out for a save, which stopped the game. Niemi took a pretty hard shot to the head, but managed to carry on. After the whistle, Ade went over to him and it appeared he offered his shirt to Niemi. I’m hoping Niemi’s reply was to hang onto it until they got into the tunnel due to the temperature. But it appeared he blew Ade off. Curious…

Update: Phillipe did actually break his nose in this match. I thought there was a bit much spew coming out of that beak for it not to be. Ouch.

For those of you who think we dropped two points on that match, I’ve got news for you… we stole a point. That one pathetic PK that barely made it in wasn’t even deserved. Of course, we’ll take it, but we’re lucky the ref got that call wrong. And that’s not how I want to see my Arsenal win. Credit has to be given to Birmingham for the fight they put up. They’re happy with taking a point away from Ashburton Grove, but it seems like they probably could have gotten all three. And, as you may have heard… the Red Devils took it upon themselves to pad their goal differential a bit this weekend. Just a bit. So, now we’re level on points but seven behind on GD. That’s going to be tough to make up with 16 left to play. Even if we won our remaining matches and Man U did likewise… ack… too early for such talk. Come on you Arsenal!