football rambles

The stand at Mildenhall's Recreation Way ground. Ely warm up before the game. It's looking like it is going to be a long hard season for Ely City, who are still without a point never mind a win in the Eastern Counties League. I have been away on holiday, but the reports that I have heard are far from encouraging. The team, with the exception of James Seymour, Ian Walter- who has stepped up from the reserves and Richard Gammon who has returned to the fold are pretty much unknown to me at the moment. In fact Richard Gammon went off early with an injury and was replaced by Ian Walter. Of the mass of players who left at the end of the season Chris Sterecki and Adam Murray have gone to Tuesday's opponents Mildenhall, but only Sterecki was playing on Tuesday night. Despite this game ultimately ending in defeat there were some encouraging signs. Ely over the last few seasons have had a bit of a reputation of being a bunch of route 1 bruisers, but at least there were som

Nadiya took a few photos at the game with Parma yesterday. Here are a few of them:

Villa are celebrating 140 years this season and they have had the idea of having covers that look like programmes from throughout the club's history. For the game against Parma it echoed the programme for 1969-70

In the last preseason game Villa played out a 0-0 draw with Parma. The first half was fairly even although Villa had the best of the chances with Andi Weimann came close for Villa on 11 minutes and Phillipe Senderos had a goal disallowed on 15 minutes. Brad Guzan played in goals for the whole of the match and was his usual solid self when called up on. In defence Alan Hutton started on the right, he was often bombing forward and linked up well with Charles N'Zogbia. He put in a decent shift and the much maligned Scotsman must have forced his way into Lambert's plans for the new season. Enda Stevens started on the left. He still looks a bit out of his depth, but was a bit of an improvement on Joe Bennett. At half time the fans were introduced to new left back Aly Cissokho, hopefully he'll finally be the man to fill this difficult spot. In the heart of defence Phillipe Senderos looked useful and could be pretty handy going up for set pieces. He was accompanied by Nathan Bak

N'Zogbia clears the ball. Delph cuts inside. N'zogbia tells Richardson that he is taking the free kick! Senderos scored from this free kick, but he was offside.

As you can tell we got there nice and early.

A few photos from outside Villa Park from the 0-0 draw yesterday.

We weren't at the Emirates for the second day, but saw the games on TV. Arsenal went into the second day as heavy favourites, but it was Valencia who were the surprise winners of the tournament. They beat Benfica, who looked poor again 3-1 after trailing for most of the first half. In the other game Alexis Sanchez started for Arsenal and Radamel Falcao started for Monaco. It was the Colombian who had more to smile about than the Chilean in the battle of the South American heavy weights as Falcao scored to give Monaco a 1-0 victory.

AC Milan were rumoured to be watching Joe Campbell for Arsenal on Saturday, but it was another young forward who stole the headlines - Yaya Sanogo had a good day and scored four of the goals that sunk a sorry looking Benfica, who after reaching the Europa League final last season and achieving a domestic treble have seen an exodus of star players that only Southampton can probably empathise with. Joe Campbell got the other goal for Arsenal and Alexis Sanchez made his first appearance in an Arsenal shirt towards the end. Sanogo opened the scoring on 27 minutes when he converted an Aaron Ramsey cross. On 41 minutes Joel Campbell doubled the Gunners lead with a volleyed shot home. Benfica's defence were looking beleaguered and pretty flat. Before the break they didn't manage to track Sanogo a further 2 times and the young striker rounded off the first half with a hat-trick. The second half didn't start off much better for the Portuguese side, but got even better for Sanogo

The first game of the Emirates Cup saw the cash flushed Monaco side take on Valencia, who despite being the third most successful team in Spanish football have been a bit hard up recently. It was a clash between two of the biggest names in Europe, but it was pretty quiet when we go there, which begs the question as to how much Arsenal fans know about football. That said it wasn't just the atmosphere that was subdued at the start of the game. Monaco took a while to settle and Valencia did most of the early running. The first chance fell to the Spanish side on eight minutes when Dani Parejo released Antonio Barragan who did well to find Rodrigo de Paul who fired over. At the other end Monaco seemed to be relying on Dimitar Berbatov who looked typically laid back despite the fact that he got booed every time that he touched the ball. The second decent opportunity also fell to Valencia when Sofiane Feghouli, one of the stand out players out jumped Monaco's star defender Aymen Abd

Here are a few random photos from Arsenal 5 Benfica 1 The teams line up Arsenal kick off A few random shots from the game.

A couple of photos of Arsenal and Benfica warming up before Arsenal won 5-1 on the first day of the Emirates Cup. The Arsenal players are nearer the camera.

In the second half Valencia in orange were attacking the goal closest to us. Valencia go on the attack. Valencia controlling the midfield, as they did for long periods of the match. Aymen Abdennour - the number 5 for Monaco makes a clearance. He opened the scoring and was superb in defence. There also seemed to be quite a lot of time wasted and here are the players standing around here. Valencia come close.

Valencia are in orange and Monaco in blue. Monaco were attacking the goal closest to us.  The teams line up. I don't understand why the ground is always half empty for the game that doesn't include Arsenal. Monaco launch an attack. In the corner

The trip to the Emirates Cup was the third time I have been to this tournament, here are a few photos from inside the ground

Yesterday we saw Valencia and Monaco draw 2-2 and Arsenal beat Benfica 5-1 in the first day of the Emirates Cup. Outside the Emirates Tony Adams statue outside the Emirates