Arsenal 3 Sunderland 2

Note: Humble Footballers waving scarves directly to the left of the goal after Van Persie scores.
Note 2: Sunderland fan with Tourettes. You can't see him, but he made our day with his incomprehensible jibber-jabber and red-faced random swearing.

Arsenal-Sunderland pregame

Haute-cuisine

Good morning! It's an overcast and cold Sunday as the HumbleFootball team prepares to head up the Balls Pond Road to the Grove for today's clash with Sunderland. Expect northern grit and snarl. Expect a sluggish and nervous start from the boys in red. Expect flashbacks to last year of trenches dug into the attacking half. Expect us to sneak a goal towards the end. Expect the away support to chant "inger-land, inger-land, inger-land". Expect the home support to reply: "Are you Ireland in disguise?" Don't expect good veggie sausages when you stop for breakfast at the Arsenal Cafe on Blackstock Road.

Reason # 1829 to hate Usmanov

He's a nose-picker.

Cheryl explains Ash's little mistake

Cheryl 'Titus' Cole describing why Ashley went to Chelsea instead of Real Madrid (wow! what great options) - "Why should all my dreams and aspirations be shattered for the sake of his career? It would have meant that I'd have had to give up my career, which I wasn't prepared to do". Too right really. Ashley is rubbish anyway.

Man with mustache makes us happy

'....Stan Kroenke is understood to have informed the Arsenal board during a meeting in London that he will abide by the terms of its agreement preventing major share sales'. Did I mention that he had a very nice mustache.

Di-duh?

Oh dear.

Successful on the pitch, successful in politics

From the Guardian:

Iraq Sunni bloc replaces lawmaker with soccer star

BAGHDAD, Oct 4 (Reuters) - Iraq's parliament agreed on Thursday to let the main Sunni Arab bloc replace a lawmaker-turned-insurgent with one of the country's most famous soccer stars.

Deputies voted to let striker Ahmed Radhi, the only Iraqi player to have scored in World Cup finals, replace Abid-Nasir al Janabi, who announced in June he was leaving the political process to take up arms in Iraq's insurgency.

Radhi, 43, netted in Iraq's 2-1 defeat by Belgium while his team were a man down in the 1986 tournament in Mexico.

Soccer players are held in high regard amongst Iraqis after repeated successes despite hardships at home. Iraq won its first continental cup this summer, sparking unprecedented scenes of joy and celebration on Iraq's streets.

Radhi played a large role in campaigning for the Sunni bloc in December 2005 elections but failed to win a seat.

... some politicians use euphemisms for what they plan to do next- spend time with the family, start a philanthropic organisation, cream millions off-of half-arsed ghost-written recollections describing why they were right about everything. Not Abid-Nasir al Janabi. Oh no.

Usmanov #1828...

From Craig Murray: '...Usmanov is also dogged by the widespread belief in Uzbekistan that he was guilty of a particularly atrocious rape, which was covered up and the victim and others in the know disappeared. The sad thing is that this is not particularly remarkable. Rape by the powerful is an everyday hazard in Uzbekistan..'.

Reason #1827 to hate Usmanov

Despite his insistence that he's a committed gooner, Alisher Usmanov is in fact a Man U fan. He "spends hours following the Red Devils. ... His posh West London office is littered with Man U annuals and photos. And Usmanov’s vast desk is piled with rows of United DVDs. There are also match programmes and videos of Man U hero Eric Cantona."

Note: he has an office in west London, of which HumbleFootball has received exclusive photos accessible here.

Arsenal envy up norfff

First, they claim to play as beautiful football as we do. Then, Jol says his youngsters are as good, if not better, than ours. And now, they want to move to a 60,000 seater ground in Enfield. If you can't beat the Arsenal, it seems, you have to pretend to be Arsenal.