ARSENAL DRINKING GAME: 2011-12 season

I like watching Arsenal. Sometimes they don’t like me back, so I also like drinking! These are two tastes that taste great together.

Have a drinking game! I also wrote one last season.

Please don’t sue me for any damage this might cause if you follow all of the rules simultaneously.

——–

Take ONE drink if…

• “One Man Team” is mentioned.
• You yell/want to yell “shoot!” at the team. (This is more last season than this season, but it still applies sometimes.)
• You find yourself going “come on, Gervinho, Gervinho— awww, Gervinho…” a la Szczesny playing FIFA.
• Cesc Fabregas is mentioned.
  • Take another drink if Barcelona’s dreamy football is discussed.
• Unlucky Theo. (OR, alternately, every time you yell/want to yell “GOOD DECISIONS!” at Theo.)
• The commentators are obviously biased against Arsenal. (an extra long drink if it’s Stuart Robson)
• An Arsenal player looks injured.
  • Another drink if they have to be subbed off.
  • Maybe finish your drink if it’s one of our defenders.
• Arsenal score a goal!
  • Take another drink if it’s somebody who isn’t Robin!
• Alex Song takes off his glasses and suit to become SONGINHO.
• Arsenal don’t score from a corner.
  • Order a shot if they do score directly from a corner?
• Someone is wrongly ruled offsides/onsides.
  • Take another drink if it leads to a goal scored or conceded.
  • Ditto for uncalled handballs.
  • Oh, hell, if you want to get really pissed, drink every time there is a bad refereeing.

Finish your drink if…

• There’s even a hint of an injury to Robin van Persie.
• Almunia is in goal. Then order a second round and down that as well if Squillaci is in front of him.
• Arsenal win!
• Arsenal lose. (Well, you’re going to need a drink either way, so why not?)

 

BONUS POINTS:

• Before every match, take a shot for every starting XI squad member we have out injured. Wilshere counts.
• Take a shot, however, if all of our back four is actually playing in position!

Visual interpretation of Arsenal’s injuries: COMPLETE

Hi, folks! At long last, I return, after abandoning the podcast for greener, more lucrative pastures (AKA a promotion with crazy hours; I really do miss the girls). It’s earned me the nickname of Di£i. Shame on me.

Remember this post? Depressing, right?  Well, here’s the whole, sad thing:

(Click to enlarge)

As you can see, and as my previous post states, by the end of the season it didn’t really matter who was injured. We do better with our preferred starting XI, obviously, but after the Carling Cup final… it all went downhill. I’m mainly posting this here for posterity’s sake. I think it’d be really cool and interesting if I created one every single season from now on!

How about this season so far, you ask?  Well, let’s take a look.

So beautiful. So perfect. What a flawless starting XI.

Ha, just kidding. Will post a real one around mid-season!  Up next: an updated and revised version of the good old Arsenal drinking game.

Addendum to the latest podcast

This is a visual representation of what happens when you’re a Liverpool fan, I’m your best friend, and it’s April Fools Day.

The large block of text reads:

Dear diary,

Today I realized that I was following the wrong red-wearing EPL club! Manchester United are so great. They’ve won so many titles already and so have Liverpool, and they both wear red – so, y’know, it’s almost like they’re the SAME CLUB!

I love Manchester and want to move there and marry another fellow United fan. It’s all I aspire to in life! And by “fellow United fan” I obviously mean “Wayne Rooney”. He’s so gallant and talented and gentlemanly and looks so dashing in red! Sigh.

The Manchester United crest went right over the Liverpool crest hanging on her wall (though it almost went on the front of her Gerrard jersey) and all of those signs were plastered all over her room with the “Home Sweet Home” one going on her front door.  I’m cruel. I know. Next thing you know, I’ll be taking a picture of her broken luggage.

ARSENAL DRINKING GAME

Just in time for the North London Derby!

Note: Most of this is tongue in cheek and/or included for maximum alcohol consumption.  I’m sure that once you get to a certain point, you’ll start making up rules of your own.

Take ONE drink if…

• You yell (or want to yell) “shoot!” at the team.
• There is a bizarre defensive cock-up.
  – Take another drink if this defensive mistake leads to a conceded goal.
  – Finish your drink if it leads to being knocked out of a competition.
• The term “DNA” is mentioned.
• Barcelona is mentioned.
  –  Take another drink if Barcelona is mentioned in conjunction with Cesc Fabregas.
• An Arsenal player is injured.
• An Arsenal player is fouled, but the foul isn’t called.
  – Take another drink if this player is Jack Wilshere.
• The commentators are obviously biased against Arsenal.
• An offsides call is wrongly made.
  – Take another drink if this leads to a disallowed goal.
  – Take another drink if this leads to a conceded goal.
• You can hear the Nasri song being sung by the fans!
• Nicklas Bendtner clasps his hands to his head in abject horror that the ball didn’t magically bend into the goal.
• Unlucky Theo!
• Arsenal score a goal!
  – Finish your drink if someone scores a hat-trick.

Visual interpretation of Arsenal’s injuries

Here we all are, nearing the end of the season, and there are a lot of “what if”s floating around.  What if so-and-so hadn’t been injured at that crucial moment?  What if Arsenal’s preferred starting XI had been fit for most of the matches?  There’s obviously no use in dwelling on these questions, but if you’ve ever wondered about the extent of our first team’s injuries like I have, here’s a visual depiction of it:

(Only Premier League matches have been included in this analysis in order to simplify it. Click to make it larger!)

The text below the image should all be self-explanatory, but here are some more things to note:  The first international break was between matches #3 and 4.  Stoke City at home was match #27.  Note the extra blank spaces (injuries) after those two matches.  The only match where Arsenal’s preferred starting XI all started and the result wasn’t a win (#21) was Manchester City at home.  The Carling Cup final took place after the 27^th match, the second leg against Barcelona after the 28^th match.

If you bring in the statistics, it gets more interesting:

(Ignore the roughness of this chart; it was 4 am and I grew a bit lazy after how tedious the first image was.)

Van Persie has only been available for one match fewer than Fabregas this entire season; 21 compared with 22.  If you look at the first image, too, his injury was for the most part a single, six-match injury.  He took a while to recover from it and was mainly substituted in from the bench – but once he did, he went on a goal-scoring spree and also scored his first hat trick for the club.  Fabregas on the other hand has had sporadic injuries throughout the season.  It’s been much more difficult for him to recover from an injury and then begin playing to the best of his ability again, because once he does, he aggravates his injury and is out once more.  If we decide that van Persie is a luxury player and that he should be sold because he’s injured too often, shouldn’t we say the same of Fabregas as well?  (I’m sure that some people do, but that isn’t the point here.)