Kick off in Cardiff & The Emirates….

The Weekend, no, not a Saturday and Sunday, but the pop group will be performing at Wembley on the 16th August so the Community Shield will take place at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium instead of Wembley. 2006 was the last time Cardiff hosted this big match which back then was between Chelsea and Liverpool with the latter coming out on top with a 2-1 victory.

The 2005/06 season ended with Chelsea crowned Premier League champions and Liverpool the FA Cup. Arsenal had finished 4th in the league and were narrowly
beaten in the Champions League Final by Barcelona.

The 2005/06 season saw Arsenal FC bring the curtain down on Highbury as the following season, the club moved to The Emirates Stadium. Things kind of went downhill from there..

So let’s look at our first season at the clubs new home, starting with the summer transfer window in the summer of 2006.

Out:

• Dennis Bergkamp – retired
• Robert Pires – Villarreal
• Sol Campbell – Portsmouth
• Jose Antionio Reyes – Real Madrid loan
• Ashley Cole – Chelsea
• Pascal Cygan – Villarreal

A number of younger players went out on loan including Nicklas Bendtner and Alex Song.

In:

• Tomas Rosicky
• Julio Baptista – loan
• William Gallas – part of Cole deal with Chelsea
• Denilson
• Alex Song

Apart from Tomas Rosicky, the transfers in certainly didn’t match the level of players who departed. Below is the squad for that season and the players stats.

The season ended with Arsenal securing 4th place but in the Champions League we fell at the first knockout hurdle as PSV Eindhoven got the better of us over the two legs. Blackburn knocked us out of the FA Cup in round 5 but in League Cup, we made it to the final which again was held in Cardiff. Mourinho’s Chelsea were the opponents in a final which was spikey. Theo Walcott gave us the lead but  a brace from Drogba saw us defeated. During stoppage time, things turned a bit ugly which resulted in both Adebayor and Toure being sent off. Eboue found himself in naughty corner, as did Arsene Wenger as both were later charged by the FA. Wenger for accusing the linesman of lying, Eboue for striking Wayne Bridge and both clubs were fined £100,000 for failing to control their players.

Arsenal had a number of superb players during that season. Rosicky, Gilberto, Fabregas, Hleb, van Persie, Freddie, Adebayor etc but, and I know this will surprise you, not, injuries had an impact on a number of them. As the photo above shows, only six players managed to play 40 or above fixtures and one of them was Lehmann. What had also gone was our physically strong and tall midfield players. Our defence wasn’t the best either. 

Losing Cole was a hammer blow which I think we’d all agree, should never have happened, certainly not in the fashion it did but Abramovich had his feet well and truly under the Chelsea table by then and with money being no object, he bought any and every player he could and trophies followed. Unlike Arsenal FC who had a huge stadium debt to pay off.

I don’t know about you guys but that season is all a bit of a blur these days, as are many which followed so of course I had to look a few things up. Here’s a few highlights.

I don’t know what was more of a shock, Arsenal getting a penalty at Old Trafford or Gilberto missing it. Still, we won the game in the end.

On 18 April 2007, David Dein left the club due to “irreconcilable differences” between him and the rest of the board. What a shock that was! It is thought that he was in favour of a possible takeover of Arsenal by an external investor and when he did finally sell his shares, he backed the wrong horse. 

The next post will be about the 2007/08 season and so on, up to the end of the season just gone when we finally lifted the Premier League again. That is unless Arsenal sign a player in the meanwhile.

Catch up in the comments.