Gooner Talk

England Under 16’s have won the Sky Sports Victory Shield after securing a 2-0 win over a rugged Scotland side in difficult foggy conditions at Lincoln’s Sincil Bank stadium.

Once again, the star man proved to be Arsenal striker Benik Afobe, the 15-year-old notched up a tally of 40 goals for the Gunners’ Under 15’s last campaign.

Young Guns reported several days ago that if Benik was to bag just one goal in tonights game, then he would equal Michael Owen’s goal scoring record of four in the renowned youth competition.

And It didn’t take long for the East Londoner to make his mark in the highly-anticipated final. After some severe England pressure on the Scots backline, Afobe got his goal.

Aziz Deen-Conteh floated in a corner from the right-hand side and Ross Barkley’s powerful header was cleared off the line by Dylan McGeogh. From the resulting corner, Afobe gave England the lead.

There were more chances to come for young Afobe, but a mixture of both good defending and goalkeeping kept him at bay.

Ipswitch Town’s Connor Wickham bagged England’s second within three minutes of the second half. A mistake from Scotland’s goalkeeper gifted Wickham a tap-in which proved to be the winning goal in a thrilling, but foggy contest.

Man of the Match for the tournament was certainly Benik Afobe. Arsenal have one hot prospect on their hands, and he looks ready to make that step-up to the Gunners first team, sooner rather than later.

Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger believes William Gallas will be able to cope with the abusive atmosphere he is set to face the wrath of this Sunday against his former club Chelsea.

The 31-year-old former skipper was only recently stripped of the Gunners captaincy and now makes the short visit up to West London where a fiery crowd await.

Wenger though, feels that the French defender has enough experience and class to handle the abuse that will come his way.

“I’m confident his experience will get him through that. I also believe that focus gets you through everyhing and when you are fully focused in a match, your only focus is on winning the game.” said Wenger in his late Friday afternoon press conference.

Gooner Talk aim to continue our build-up towards every Arsenal first team game, and that includes Sunday’s Premier League clash against Chelsea.

A live match stream, post-match highlights as well as our usual Match Preview & Report will be published immediately after full time.

Emmanuel Adebayor, Bacary Sagna and Samir Nasri have been passed fit for Sunday’s Premier League clash with Chelsea after completing this morning’s training session at London Colney

All three were rated ‘50-50′ by Arsenal boss Arsene Wenger after the Gunners’ 1-0 win over Dynamo Kyiv on Tuesday. Since then though, Ade, Bac and Sammy managed to pass a strenuous morning session which has brought them back into the Arsenal fold for Sunday’s crucial tie.

“We have no injuries from the Kyiv game and Adebayor, Nasri and Sagna will be available, if nothing bad happens in training tomorrow,” confirmed Wenger at his pre-match press conference.

“They all came through [training] well today. It’s good because we were experience-wise a bit short.”

Six players will still be missing from the weekends game with Abou Diaby, Theo Walcott, Kolo Toure, Emmanuel Eboue, Tomas Rosicky and Eduardo still unavailable – the latter whom, according to Young Guns, made his comeback in a behind-closed-doors friendly against Nottingham Forest yesterday afternoon.

Stay tuned to Gooner Talk for the latest news and views on Arsenal’s first team.

Arsenal defender William Gallas remains adamant that he will see out the final year of his big-money contract and admits he has no regrets over his recent critical comments towards Arsene Wenger’s young guns.

Speaking at the TV launch of his new autobiography, the 31-year-old French centre half made clear his feelings about the English media as well as the removal of his armband.

The Frenchman’s comments came on the back of a loss against Aston Villa and Gallas admits he was alarmed at the amount of negative media shone his way.

“I have no regrets. I have been surprised by the violence of the English press, but I’ve moved on now.”

Gallas wasn’t finished there though, coupled with a short poem about Jerome Rothen’s attack in his own autobiography, he concluded that all the problems have been blown out of the air, and William Gallas will remain an Arsenal player until his contract runs out next year – just like his agent revealed several days ago.

“I dont want to leave, I’m happy at Arsenal, there’s still one year left on my contract, I’ll stay until the end.”

Welcome to a brand new feature on Gooner Talk called ‘Rewind’.

Rewind will provide you with post-match highlights to every single Arsenal first team game giving you the opportunity to watch the goals you’ve missed, or want to see again.

So, sit back, relax and enjoy the mighty Arsenal on your computer screen.

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Troubled Arsenal clinched their place in the knockout stages of the Champions League for the sixth successive season with an unconvincing 1-0 win against Dynamo Kyiv.

A scrappy game seemed certain to end goalless until substitute Nicklas Bendtner snatched a controversial winner with three minutes left.

The Ukrainian side were furious that the goal was allowed to stand after Cesc Fabregas appeared to have taken a free-kick before they were ready, but it later transpired that the Spaniard had benefited from a dropped ball.

Match Summary

Successive defeats against Aston Villa and Manchester City as well as captain William Gallas’ outburst had led to a wave of depression enveloping the Emirates Stadium with Arsene Wenger’s critics having a field day.

Wenger responded by handing the captain’s armband to Fabregas, but Gallas returned to the starting line-up after missing the Eastlands defeat.

However, the injured Samir Nasri, Abou Diaby, Kolo Toure, Theo Walcott, Emmanuel Eboue, Tomas Rosicky, Bacary Sagna, Emmanuel Adebayor and Eduardo all missed out.

In Kyiv two months ago, Gallas had grabbed a late goal as the Gunners hit back to draw 1-1 against a Dynamo side that is currently three points clear at the top of the Ukrainian league table.

And the controversial Frenchman was again in the thick of the action as he single-handedly tried to add some spice to an otherwise mundane game.

After an incident-free opening 39 minutes Gallas’ awful week almost hit a new low when his casual back-pass was picked up by Ismael Bangoura, who fired a shot from a tight angle against the outside of a post.

On the stroke of half-time, Gallas had the ball in the net only to correctly be ruled offside and three minutes after the interval he contrived to block Robin van Persie’s goalbound shot on the Kyiv line.

The visitors looked the more likely winners in the second half and, with 13 minutes left, Artem Milevski found himself completely free inside the area but Manuel Almunia did superbly to block the Ukrainian striker’s shot.

Play quickly switched to the other end and a clever pass by Fabregas allowed van Persie to fire the ball along the six-yard box, but Bendtner was unable to get a touch to it with the goal gaping.

There was still time for the Denmark international to snatch the winner though and Kyiv ended the match with ten men when Alexander Aliev was sent off in the last minute after appearing to push the referee.

Gooner Talk would like to apologise for the shortness of this ‘report’, a detailed match build-up will be on the site in coming days towards the Chelsea game.

Arsenal SPOT and Nicklas Bendtner News both have excellent match reports coming up, so visit their sites for an in-depth view of tonights scrappy contest.