A Week is a Long Time in Football

Right, that piss poor cliché should make up for not writing an entry in about three weeks, let alone one. I apologise for that to the 2 readers of this blog, I’m just awfully slack. I’ve gone back to uni recently though so hopefully now this will provide me with a positive outlet for procrastination.

 A lot has happened since I last wrote after we beat Wigan which really does seem like it was ages ago. I won’t dwell on this stuff too long but since then we beat Bolton in our FA Cup 4th round replay in wonderful style, I’m sure we’ve shaken the bogey team bollocks once and for all. Then we played Blackburn at home in a 5th round tie and it was some of the most horrible shit you could hope to see as a fan of sport let alone football. In Australia, a lot of non-football fans like to take a dig at football (soccer) and one of their most common arguments is that the game - in general - is boring. Now you and I know that anyone that says that is talking out of their arse. Of course it helps if you have a team to support because if you’re a neutral it’s hard to get into the game and of course that’s what the World Cup did for us here, giving a lot of people some interest in the game and giving football enthusiasts, fringe football fans and non-fans alike some common ground with their national team to support, and it strengthened the game massively in this country. If you don’t have a team to support, the game can lose its suspenseful edge perhaps, but anybody can see that the game is far from boring for supporters at least, because football is a sport, and the objective in sport is to win games, to beat the other team. There is a fine balance between defence and attack in football which means that games between evenly matched teams are invariably exciting or intense affairs because there is such a fine line between winning a game and losing it.

This brings me to Blackburn and the two FA Cup ties in a roundabout way. The fifth round match at Ashburton Grove was horrible, very very negative stuff from Blackburn. Even though they were riddled with injuries, they still had players capable of attacking. We are incessantly told how David Bentley is pushing for a place in the England squad, what does playing in a 10 men behind the ball system to further those prospects? Bentley often says before Arsenal games that ‘oh it was the right decision to leave, I just wasn’t getting enough first team football’. Does Bentley realise that if he stayed with Arsenal and showed a liiiiiiitle bit of patience he’d probably be playing in the Champions League in a pivotal home game against PSV Eindhoven tomorrow, giving himself the chance to shower himself in glory that a team like Blackburn really can’t provide (based on past displays) and making a place in the England national team a virtual certainty?

There’s a lot to talk about so I apologise if I’m sidetracking myself too much here but my point is this: English football is not such a marketable commodity because of teams like Blackburn, who make dirty fouls, are barely punished for it - certainly not to any adequate standard - and show little intention of actually playing football. Teams like Arsenal (and Man U, sadly. Maybe Chelsea too but fuck knows why that might be the case) make English football the massively successful league that it is, yet the English press who I just fucking despise are always quick to sharpen the knives and back the woefully inadequate ‘underdogs’ whenever Arsenal lose and whenever a team gets away with playing ten men behind the ball, surely not a strategy the game was founded on. The bottom line is you play football to win it, Blackburn did not do that, and they won with in very fortuitous circumstances with virtually their first real strike on goal (it was a fantastic strike though).

 Arsenal do have themselves to blame for losing of course, profligacy is always a word that comes up these days when writing about them and with good reason, they were always in control but were never pushed to excel to the best of their abilities. These are lessons that will be learned though, and while Blackburn have won this tie, they won’t win the FA Cup, and this Arsenal team will push on to glory in the years to come, I am sure of it, so let them have their hollow victory. The fact that the press in England support Blackburn though and praise Mark Hughes as some sort of tactical demi-god for getting the luckiest of lucky breaks is just unbelievable. Thankfully I think most Gooners are perceptive enough to see past all this bullshit.

 This also brings me in a roundabout way to Reading (this blog entry is clearly in no particular chronological order), a team who I have a great deal of time for. They have definitely become my second fave team in the premiership for a few reasons: They let us beat them twice including one of our/the best performances of the season, they’ve come up from promotion to defy all the critics and are in the hunt for a European place which is just an amazing effort AND they play good quality football generally. Steve Coppell’s management of the team has been excellent, I really cannot praise him enough for his efforts because he’s shown all these shithouse teams like Blackburn that there is a way to play and be successful beyond making crappy fouls and that is to play football properly, (and I hate saying properly because it sounds so arrogant but it’s true, it’s referred to as The Beautiful Game for a reason, and that’s something it should never lose sight of) to play quickly and with confidence. Certainly they can not be expected to win every game, but the way they have come from promotion to be 6th/7th in the ladder or whatever they are now and give teams like us, Man U and Chelsea a good run for their money I think puts many teams in the rest of the premiership to absolute shame. I hope they don’t have a difficult 2nd season like Wigan but what they need to do is keep many of the key players they have or buy adequate replacements (Coppell probably has money to spare after he didn’t strengthen his squad very much after gaining promotion) and I hope teams follow Coppell’s managerial example and hopefully maybe then the premiership will become a lot less predictable than it already is.

Anyway, I don’t want to gush too much, but I can’t express enough how pleasing Reading have been this year. Our 2-1 win was deserved though a bit nervey in the end and to be honest it did flatter them in a way because we had a lot of great opportunities. That’s all there is to it, the premiership is losing importance. Many people dismissed our title chances as early as last October, for me it was the 1-1 draw away to Middlesbrough that did it. People are far too pessmistic, there’s always a chance that other teams can lose points while we pick up a head of steam. However after dropping those points I think we’re too far behind now and based on ManUre’s recent results they really do seem to have the luck of the champions about them. I can’t say who I want to win the prem more, I hate them both, but there are pros as well as cons to either of them winning. If United win, that’s a con, but Chelsea lose, and that’s a massive pro. Vice-Versa. I don’t think it’s all over though and hopefully we can have some say in it yet. For example, Chelsea creeping to within 3 points of United or whatever while United go through a form slump only for us to beat Chelsea at the Grove, effectively denying them the championship. Not that I want to do United any favours at all but christ I can’t fucking stand Chelsea. Incidentally I think we’ll finish third, I just think we’re outright better than Liverpool and hopefully our league standing will reflect this, as luckless as we have been this year (not as luckless as West Ham though!)

Somewhere in between was the Carling Cup final, a lot has been written about it. It’s true that it was a great game and it’s true that we bossed it for most of the game and it’s also true that Chelsea have a striker capable of scoring pivotal goals almost at a whim in Didier Drogba. People like to call Arsenal a one man team with Henry but I tell you what, without Drogba finding his form this year Chelsea would probably be really, really struggling in all competitions. A word for Ashley Cole, the detestable little shit, who was celebrating as enthusiastically possible after receiving a winners medal – surely for his fearsome contribution against the mighty Wycombe Wanderers – if he thinks a Carling Cup winners medal is vindication for leaving Arsenal (he wouldn’t even have played in the final if he was playing for us!) then he is woefully mistaken. Hopefully this is the start of a long Chelsea drought and we can have the last laugh, what a fucking prick.

 Anyway, yes, it was a great game, but it was undermined by the ‘brawl’ towards the end.  Here comes a long section detailing the aftermath of that and Arsene’s angry tirades in the past week. What I love (read: hate) about the press is that they say ‘well this is a game that should be remembered for the great football but unfortunately it will be remembered for these unfortunate scenes’ or words to that effect, go on to write horrible, sanctimonious articles/columns that crap on and on about the non-brawl (it barely qualified as handbags, enough politcally correct bullshit, it was literally nothing) and how Arsenal should be ashamed of themselves. It’s absurd, the game should have been remembered for the football on offer but the press themselves are to blame for that not being the case when they could have easily chosen to overlook the entire incident. Incidentally this was my reading of the incident: Mikel and Toure square up and shove a bit, this happens in just about one in every two premiership games. It should have been dealt with right then with two yellow cards by the ref. Lampard the fat fuck goes in looking for trouble, that much is absolutely certain in my mind, he headed straight for Toure, so did Cesc. Lampard wanted to antagonise, Cesc wanted to settle, it’s so painfully obvious. Lampard is English though, so he’s a hero to the people, of course. People claimed Lampard wanted to split the two, that’s hilarious! Split your own player, not the Arsenal player, because heading straight for Toure could and should be easily construed as aggressive. Basically, my theory is that Lampard’s intervention kick started the whole thing. Unfortunately in trying to seperate Lampard’s immense bulk from Toure, Cesc has to get a firm grasp over Lampards shoulder making teh act of seperation look a lot more forceful than it probably was, then they started shoving, then everyone came in to see what was going on. About 15 of the 20 people involved on both teams were looking to keep the peace, I’m sure. Then some sly stuff went on like Eboue’s stupid head-push of Wayne Bridge even though Bridge did simulate to try and get Eboue punished – possibly resulting in Adebayor’s sending off. Also apparently Drogba and Essien punched some of our players but I didn’t see that so I can’t really comment but needless to say if that is the case then it’s terrible that no action has been taken. It was a storm in a teacup and barely worthy of the ample column inches that were inevitably devoted to it. Our players, starting with Toure, should never have allowed it to happen, but these things happen and we’ll move on. I was most impressed with Theo who just stood back from it all with his hands on his hips, standing back and watching the whole situation, obviously dissappointed at the inevitable consequences of it all. I love the kid, he is smart (for an English footballer at least), he knows where his head’s at and his goal was fantastic.

Again, the press reaction was disgusting. No mention of the stuff thrown onto the pitch by the Chelsea fans (I know they were just vegetables but something hit Almunia, oddly it may have saved John Terry’s life as Gary Lewin was on hand for speedy treatment), no mention of the genuine concern of all the Arsenal players who, together with the Chelsea players, gesticulated wildly towards the touchline for immediate attention with genuine concern, barely any mention of Diaby seemingly overcome with guilt bordering on grief - no doubt an indication as to the potenial seriousness of the incident and no mention of Wenger apparently seeing Ashley Cole post game and telling him to send Terry his best wishes. Mostly just utter garbage about what an awful team we are and how undisciplined we are and how we’re guilty of all the wrongs in the world including but not limited to the Iraq war. It’s hard to complain about this because any Arsenal fan that does is immediately accused of having a persecuion complex and being whingers but jesus, there’s something off here and Arsene has hinted at it so capably and strongly in recent press conferences.

One thing that annoyed me the most was the blasting that Adebayor took from the press. The press mostly acknowledged that Adebayor was sent off unfairly, however they had a go at him for not leavint the field like a polite gentleman. Let’s put ourselves in his shoes:

1. You’ve just come on as a substitute in a domestic cup final, you were there to win the game but now you’re there to chase it and try and claw back into it, there’s not much time left.

2. A mini-fracas occurs and you join the crowd, presumably trying to restore some order and make sense of the whole situation.

 3. After the whole thing has calmed down you find out that you have been red carded (a subbed on striker in a cup final) for doing – in your opinion – nothing wrong.

For those reasons it is not only entirely understandable but in my view completely acceptable to stand there are demand satisfactory answers especially if the sending off turns out to be completely unjust because it’s just fundametally un-fucking-fair. They say he was aggressive. He was undeniably passionate but he was never going to hurt the officials. In some ways complaining about a red card seems pointless because you know officials are never going to rescind it immediately but he has the right to demand answers and he left eventually, even if he had to be escorted. HOWEVER, my issue if with the press saying that Adebayor, of all people, set a bad example by failing to leave the pitch in an orderly fashion. What. This is an utter load of trash in an attempt to take the moral high ground. The argument is that kids will emulate his behaviour. His behaviour? Surely it teaches kids to stand up for perceived injustices commited against them. Now I want you to tell my, how the fuck is that a bad thing for supposedly impressionable kids to learn? Furthermore, it’s diverting the attention from more pivotal issues. Influence of kids in football culture pretty much starts and ends in the terraces where everything is a lot more ‘real’ than what actually takes place on a pitch. Now I don’t know about you but on the TV coverage I can hear pitch-side mics pick up choice gems such as ‘KICK THE BALL YOU FUCKING CUNT!’ and so on and so on, words to that effect. What a great environment to raise little football fans across England in! But no, let’s try and shift our attention towards a footballer who thinks he’s been unfairly dismissed in a cup final, clearly responsible for any undesirable behaviour in young footballers across the country. It’s just daft. Adebayor definitely could’ve handled himself better but he has been treated very unfairly by the press with their widespread condemnation of failing to leave the pitch with a coke and a smile.

That’s it for now, though there’s still much to talk about, not least of which is the upcoming, somewhat important game with PSV.

Frustrating In So Many Ways

The title of the blog of course refers to the game on the weekend. Despite the very, very welcome three points the match was frustrating for the following reasons:

1. We just weren’t playing that well. Probably an international week thing but we never really hit our rhythm, not until the last 10 minutes anyway but that can probably be attributed to the fitness of our team which to me seems to be clearly above anyone elses in the premiership. Anyway, after a bright start, we lacked any real threat in the final third and passes went far too easily stray and we resorted to long balls from defence far too often for my liking. Something I noticed is that a lot of passes, particularly from Baptista, had way too much pace on them. That includes a cross from Walcott that Henry skied. He probably could’ve done better but the ball was coming in really fast and he did have to reach a bit so there you go. Anyway, I don’t want to single out any players for particular bad performances because it wasn’t that sort of game, the whole team didn’t really gel and so it’s difficult and unfair to single anyone out. I will single out Rosicky though for working hard all night long and being class and also Clichy for being bloody excellent and probably our best player of 2007 so far.

2. Wigan scored first. I’d thought we’d got over this little problem but apparently not, and it was a great goal and one of the kind that you wish we would score more often. Surely if someone playing for Wigan can hit a cracking strike like that then our players have the technical ability to do the same when they find a little bit of space around the 18 yard box than looking for another pass in a very congested area. We know Rosicky can do it but he’s only really done it 3 times for us so far. Actually that’s pretty good, they’re three great goals I’m referring to, but still, you’d never expect Adebayor to have a crack from more than 10 yards let alone 18. Basically this frustration boils down to not scoring first at home.

 3. Kirkland’s time wasting. It was baaaad. It’s also unsportsmanlike and all those preachy buzzwords. The press reaction to Henry bringing it up after the equaliser I find bewildering. When he first did it I thought ‘well, that’s not very nice but I find it somewhat amusing, and it’s a good sign because it shows  a great bit of passion for the club and for the result.’ and I thought that would be that. Yet for days after the British press are still carrying on about it like it’s the worst atrocity commited in the history of modern football. A particularly odious piece published in The Guardian comes to mind. Henry is arrogant and, let’s face it, he has a number of good reasons to be, but for bringing something to Kirkland’s attention that should’ve been brought to his attention by the generally piss poor referee Phil Dowd far earlier in the game, whether it was after an equaliser or not, is to me a total non-issue. It’s not pretty but fuck Kirkland if he’s going to make such a poor effort by wasting time so much during the game. Not only that but his time wasting barely made sense. Wigan were playing pretty damn well (and they deserve credit for that, I’d say one of if not the most positive prem team to visit the Grove yet and that includes United) and he had apparently started doing it before they had scored (harder to tell when you watch on TV). What we have to put up with instead are sob stories from the press about ‘oh Arsenal don’t know what it’s like to be a small club about to beat a big club away’ fuck off with that bullshit, if places were swapped the press would be writing the exact opposite of what they are now. The fact is timewasting isn’t a part of the game, it is cheating and the press are making a mountain out of a molehole with regards to the banter between henry and Kirkland. Incidentally, Lehmann’s antics at the end when he bounced the ball off the advertising hoarding was downright hilarious. Oh also, Wigan manager Paul Jewell deserves some credit for not bitching about Henry and Lehmann and Arsenal in general but focusing his considerable anger on the referees instead. People calling Arsenal cheats for what they feel are the shortcomings of the referees defies belief. Nevertheless he identified what was important and focused on that rather than what was so utterly, hopelessly trivial (Henry brandishing the ball in Kirkland’s face) and ignoring it for the heat of the moment outburst that it was.

 4. Phil Dowd’s and his linesmen were pretty damn bad. I don’t like to criticise too much sometimes because it’s not an easy thing to be a referee but come on, this was riddled with mistakes. 6 yellow cards for Arsenal which is just absurd. One for Rosicky apparently celebrating with the fans which is just crap, he ran up to the crowd but was kept away from them by the steward so how that could be a yellow makes no sense to me, not to mention the fact that that’s a stupid fucking rule to begin with. Henry got one for the aforementioned incident, which didn’t really seem card-worthy and Lehmann got one for time wasting, which is fair enough really because he made it incredibly obvious but he did do it to make a point and also to prove that he has a sense of humour so I can easily forgive him for that, but what all fans want to see I think is consistency and the fact that Lehmann got one and Kirkland didn’t is a bit of nonsense. Then we have the contentious decisions late in the game. Adebayor was level and his goal should have stood. The penalty claim was 50-50 I suppose. Flamini definitely made contact and penalties like that have been given, but in my eyes Heskey dived pretty poorly, and to say Flamini denied Heskey a goal scoring opportunity for touching his shoulder is nonsense when Heskey easily could have shrugged off Flamini and gone on to take a shot at goal. So far that to have been given would have been extremely soft. Flamini’s cross which lead to the goal moments later was offside but then that balanced out Adebayor’s wrongly disallowed goal.  God knows why Dowd didn’t let Skoko back on to the pitch but I doubt it would have made a difference. While we’re on the topic of contentious issues Henry made a penalty claim in the first half which many have labelled a dive, but I disagree. I think he just lost his balance at speed after the initial contact form the Wigan players. He tried to regain his footing but lost it and fell over. Neither a penalty nor a yellow for simulation so I think that was a good call.

 5. The press after the game has been insufferable. All this bollocks about poor hard done by Wigan and evil cheating Arsenal, basically. Just crap. Wigan had a fair bit of reason to feel hard done by by the ref but then so did we for the reasons above. Adebayor’s wrongly disallowed goal has been conveniently ignored, for example. Here’s the funny thing though, our manager, smarter than all the hacks that write for most of the papers that will have a go at Arsenal at any available opportunity, is exactly the one who wants to avoid just this sort of problem that seems to befall the ’small’ teams by extolling the virtues of technology in making refereeing decisions at just about every available opportunity and in some cases he is dead right.  It would be difficult to implement but the benefits are quite obvious, aren’t they? Sure it takes away an element of controversy and excitement and spontaneity from the game but with the stakes as high as they are nowadays it makes a bit of sense doesn’t it? However this is where I take issue with Paul Jewell’s ‘Dowd could have cost us 50 million pounds here’ comment. Presumably it was a heat of the moment thing but frankly I think it’s a terrible thing to say for a couple of reasons. One, it’s an incredibly negative attitude, when Jewell should be sending out the strong message that he doesn’t consider his team to be battling for survival he seemse to be implicating the team to be in the dogfight when he should’ve been much more positive and two, if Wigan are relegated, maybe he shouldn’t just be criticising Dowd - who did deserve some criticism make no mistake - but shining the spotlight on that fairly dismal eight game losing streak they just came out of? Give me a break, surely he has to take a bit of responsibility for any potential relegation?

 Apart from all that, a fairly impressive fightback and a great result but we’ll need to take our game to a higher level if we want to beat Bolton tomorrow, and we should, really.  Speaking of, fat walrus look-a-like and general prick Sam Allardyce has called hypocrisy towards Arsene for complaining about timewasting and the fact that it is not what spectators come to see. Allardyce’s comment comes merely days after ‘Big Sam’ called England a ‘fat nation’. The irony is so sweet I bet Allardyce would be scoffing it down if it was in any way tangible and edible.

Anyway there were international friendlies last week and it was booooooooooooring. Australia lost 3-1 but it was a more evenly matched contest than that scorelines suggests, but Denmark impressed with their smooth counters and classy finishing. I was a bit dissappointed not to see Bendtner play in that game but oh well.

Meanwhile, I don’t know if you’re aware, but I take immense pleasure from watching the English national team situation from the outside. It is a farce. From the FA to the outrageously negative British press and public, the whole country, not just the footballing authorities, need to get their shit together. The country thinks far too highly of itself in footballing terms, probably because of the success of the Premier League and, y’know, the whole inventing football hing. I can guarantee the Premier League won’t be anywhere near as successful/highly regarded though if that planned quota of 6 or whatever native players is introduced. Anyway, fancy the hugely negative reaction from the press after losing a friendly against a team like Spain, who aren’t exactly bad, with several key players missing (not that they would have made much difference, really), after losing to a single, excellently struck goal. It’s unbelievable, the team will never win anything as long as they have that sort of pressure on them, it is too much not just for the coaching staff but for the players to bear, not to make excuses though as a lot of the players are truly wankers too, the premature autobiography publishing fuckwits. Meanwhile Australia can lose to Denmark in a friendly, with what seemed like a very positive live atmosphere, take the positives away from the game, and ignore the numerical result of the match. It must be good for them not to have so much expectation weighing them down, not to mention a great deal of support and affection from their country. England need to take a long hard look at themselves though if they really insist on whinging and whinging every time things don’t go their way with the national team (and we know how much English people like to whinge and whinge and whinge – apologies to any English people reading but it is true). It’s not just the FAs fault, it’s not just McClaren’s fault, it’s not just the players fault, it’s also the press and to a lesser but still – I think – true extent, the public’s fault for being so damn negative, lead by the press of course. England need a manager who can ignore all that bullshit and get on with the job and Steve McClaren is not that man, it would seem. One person whose fault it isn’t though is Arsene Wenger. He knows it, I know it and everybody with half a fucking brain knows it. Unfortunately too many brainless people involved in football in some way are given a platform to air their vacuous opinions.

A couple of weeks of high and flat moments sees us still unbeaten in 2007

After the high of beating United and coming back from behind to draw with Sp*rs away, we had Bolton to attend to in the FA Cup where we lapsed back into ‘concede first’ mode at the Grove. Credit should be given though, it happened with United the week before and with a team like them you can understand it happening and Bolton are no slouches either. It’s really the early season draws that have come back to bite us in the arse, namely Villa, Boro and the likes. This was an FA Cup game though and we earned an unwanted away replay. The Reebok hasn’t been a happy hunting ground for us recently as we all know but I still believe we are more than capable of beating Bolton away. There’s no doubt that we’re good enough. A lot is made about them being our bogey team but I think that’s crap.

Which brings me to the second leg of the Carling Cup semi final against Sp*rs. Talk about bogey teams, the thing that I’m sick of is pundits saying before games ‘well it’s a local derby so anything can happen’. No, based on the last, what, 12 years, I can give you a rough account of what will happen: Arsenal will not lose, and they will probably draw or win. For fuck’s sake they haven’t beaten us since 1999. Forget Bolton, THAT is a bogey team of fairly big proportions yet it’s rarely reported that way until after we’ve won.

 Anyway extra time in that game flattered Sp*rs considerably. I can’t help but feel they got their tactics all wrong. They had to come out and attack and they just didn’t do it so we really dominated the games and it was really only a matter of time before their defence cracked. Adebayor scored with a neat finish late on but then, unbelievably, Mido equalised minutes later from a soft free kick in one of maybe two Sp*rs attacks in 90 minutes. Irritating.

 Still we wrapped things up in extra time with a great finish from Aliadiere and an own goal forced by Rosicky. It was a great performance from the team in general and even though we had to call upon some first squad regulars to make sure the job was done, it should take nothing away from the excellent work the younger players have done. Traore in particular looked quite sharp at left back and he had some fairly impressive moments. Denilson looks an awesome prospect as everyone is saying and Diaby had his longest spell yet since his return from injury and he coped well which is good to see. It was another one of those moments, like the win against United, which will help give the new stadium a bit of character, and you could see it meant a lot to everyone on the pitch as well, which is good.

Then this weekend against Boro. People have been disappointed by the performance but we honestly weren’t that bad. With a tired squad quite heavily undermined by injuries, we kept Boro fairly suppressed and had a fair bit of control over things, but their defence was impressive. The main talking point of course was the penalty and sending off of Senderos and quite frankly it was pretty scandalous and Mike Riley should never officiate an Arsenal game ever again. To only give Viduka a yellow for elbowing Toure in the head (I stand by Viduka’s assertion though that he’s not a dirty player… Australians this year seem to have a prominent part to play when they play Arsenal, it’s a big conflict of interest for me) and give Senderos a straight red for such a tame foul, where Yakuba went to ground VERY easily and then to award a penalty despite the contact occurring OUTSIDE the box was just fucking insane.

To nick a goal back from an Adebayor knockdown and neat Henry finish and still get a point was a fairly commendable effort though, but obviously it was dissappointing not to come away with a win especially when Liverpool dropped points. It shits me that Liverpool are still ahead of us on the table when we proved recently, pretty conclusively, that they’re not very good. Ah well.

For the most part it’s been a very positive start to 2007 though, here’s hoping this run continues for some time, we have good runs in the FA Cup and Champions League and that the 3 ahead of us start to falter. No whuckas. Players need to stop getting injured though, it’s very frustrating.

Finally, this doesn’t really merit a mention but I will anyway: There are stories floating around saying that Arsenal are considering selling Henry and he’s considering going to Barca or Real Madrid. I know these stories are fucking bullshit but I’m just so fucking sick of them. The thing is, I’d be absolutely gutted if he left so these stories, however dubious they may be, always cause a certain amount of anxiety even if it is reactionary. I just can’t fucking the stories and the pricks that write them. Anyway this story from The Mirror quotes Henry as saying ‘you know where my heart is’ in the general direction of Arsenal fans so hopefully this latest round of bullshit stories dies.

Beastiality?

This was really a win-win situation for us from the beginning. Maybe not win-win but there was nothing really negative to take out of this encounter whatever the result. If we win, fantastic, a half-reserves/half-fringe-first-team Arsenal team beating a Sp*rs first team desperate for a win and the chance to win something. If we lose, fine, it’s only the Carling Cup and we’re better than Sp*rs anyway AND we have the second leg to try and make something of it. If we draw we go into the second leg at Fortress Ashburton with a pretty good chance of going through.

 Still it was pretty upsetting to go into the second half of the first leg 2-0 down. It was a great opening half with both teams having good attacking chances although Sp*rs defence was looking stronger, and Sp*rs got off to a quick start, probably spending all their energy in the first 20 minutes. The first goal seemed like a bit of miscommunication between Toure and Almunia, and the second was just an unfortunate own goal when the ball became tangled between Julio ‘The Beast’ Baptista’s legs after a softly awarded free kick. There were more chances and Arsenal probably ended the half stronger but it was still a pretty even contest in terms of attacking movements, but we were 2-0 down.

The second half was all Arsenal though, with the amazing Cesc controlling the game in the midfield making the similarly aged and admittedly talented Tom Huddlestone look like a rank amateur by comparison. He bossed the game there throughout the match but had the biggest impact in the second half, finding himself involved significantly in almost every Arsenal attacking move, and there were a lot of them. Sp*rs capitulated when they had a real chance to have their first win over Arsenal, their bogey team surely, in 7 years. It must be a psychological barrier for the team now that just makes them incapable of beating us. The fact that it was a game they took so seriously because it seems to be their only real chance of making a final made it even sweeter, even though this tie is not over yet by any means. Still the comeback was great and our forwards pressure almost incessant. The turning point was when Hleb came on for Diaby and offered a bit more penetration, far more than he provided on Sunday. His ball control is mesmerising but it’s even better when he adds to that with silky forward moves and great passes and surges into the box, which he did. He helped heap on the pressure on Sp*rs and create more chances. The goal eventually came from Baptista after a fleeting little flick from Walcott after Walcott replaced Aliadiere at centre forward with Eboue coming on to take Walcott’s place on the right with a great deal more authority. Baptista was blocked by some Sp*rs wannabe defender and Baptista lost his balance, but he showed great determination to get back up, chase the ball and slot it past Robinson. The SHL crowd became pretty subdued and was silenced eventually after Hoyte beat the offside trap, Robinson came out to try and close him down on the right (fuck knows why, maybe he saw somebody in the stands eating a pie or something and was running towards him instead) and Hoyte ultimately had a simple cross to Baptista who dragged the ball into the net, totally redeeming himself after the own goal.

 

 We could have had a third and Walcott looked far more comfortable as a centre forward than a winger, but ultimately Almunia also did well with a fantastic fingertip save to deny Defoe towards the end. 

 The whole team ended up looking good at the end, but a few points to raise. Traore had a tough time against Lennon which is no surprises really, I’m sure the 17 year old left back will improve but Lennon is tough to play against. Hoyte was looking in fine form, defending pretty well but also getting forward a bit more than we’re used to seeing from him and his cross was very good. Senderos, Toure and Almunia settled after the first 20 minutes but both their goals were pretty soft to give away. It was great to see Diaby get his first start in 9 months or so and with that in mind I thought he looked really good. Perhaps much of a muchness having him with Cesc and Denilson  and he was supposed to be playing wide but went very central, but for a player returning from a bad injury it was impressive to see him coping pretty well if lacking the penetration that Hleb eventually provided. Cesc was godly. Denilson looks like a good prospect, a bit more defensive minded than Cesc I think but still with a fair bit of attacking ability and he had a nice attempt on goal from distance that went a bit wide. Aliadiere had a tough game with just a couple of noteworthy moments but nothing to get excited about. the Beast grew in stature and I desperately hope he brings his Carling Cup form to the FA Cup/Prem where required, but he needs to start to settle in to games at this stage I think, sub appearances aren’t enough. Walcott also grew in stature, he wasn’t very good on the wing, same as against Liverpool, and was looking a bit nervous and exciteable in general. Every game this year he has had these moments where he gets a bit carried away, wanting to go on a Thierryesque run but ultimately running into a dead end. His first goal will do him a world of good and he looked a lot more confident as a centre forward, having a shot go close towards the end and his assist for Baptista was quite neat too, if a bit frenzied. Eboue did a great job replacing Walcott on the wing and Flamini seemed to do what he had to do, settling things down a bit.

 Perhaps there’s a little disappointment we didn’t go on to find the winner but all in all a fantastic nights work for a young Arsenal team that eventually settled and then dominated the best that Tottenham has to offer at their home. To the spuds, a resounding ‘you’re not singing anymore’ and we go into the second leg as favourites I would think, but it’s not 100% guaranteed that we’ll win and it could be a tricky tie, we will need a similar performance that we saw in the second half.

 Incidentally, that match was the one year anniversary of my first and only visit to Highbury for the second leg semi last year against Wigan! A big event for me but thankfully the result was far more positive today.

Simply The Best

Any one of our 2007 results could have prompted me to finally start writing this blog but the one just passed has finally done it. How can I not write about that? It was just awesome and when I say the best I refer to a few things: We’re the best team in my mind, with tremendous character and skill to match in these big games and it’s only a matter of time before we win something, and we look as though we’re on the cusp of banishing the shoddy performances we give at Fulham, Bolton and so on, I suspect they will become a distant memory. It refers to Wenger being the best as that win took his one-on-one tally with Ferguson, his major competitor, to 13-11. It refers to that win coming in the best possible way, with the faith of Gunners around the world tested only to be duly rewarded with two great goals from two great players.

 Sadly the win has been ever so slightly tainted by some press saying we scarcely deserved that win, or that at least United didn’t deserve that loss. That’s a load of crap for my money, for a few reasons: We had more shots on goal, we had more corners and we had more territorial advantage with 50-50 possession (that was the official stat but I thought we had more) and finally we scored two good, honest goals and they only scored one.

  There were apparently spells in which United ’dominated’ but that’s crap too. There were only a few short periods where they had the upper hand. The first 7 minutes of the game, where they couldn’t really do anything to make us pay for the slight nervousness we were showing, the last minute and a half of the first half where Lehmann was tested and finally the 15 minutes after Rooney scored his goal which in terms of their attacking threat it was pretty much the same story as the first 7 minutes of the game. The time between 7:00 and 45:00 + 2 was mostly Arsenal although United had a few chances themselves in that time as you would expect a team of their quality to have. I was struck by the fact that we were having far more shots on goal from distance than what we’re used to at the Grove, and although there were times where we tried for the perfect goal I thought there was a nice balance between trying from range and trying to outpass united, but the cries of ’shoot’ were pretty annoying. Especially telling Hleb to shoot from about 25-30 yards, which just isn’t Hleb’s strength, and when he did shoot you saw what happened, it went out for a throw. Adebayor had some good crosses in the first half, one to Henry and the other to Rosicky I think, which he tried to collect on the run with a volley and ended up whizzing over. They were our best first half chances I think, and United really only threatened in the last two minutes of that half with some great Lehmann saves although Clichy probably had the second one covered, but better safe than sorry.

 The second half started with barely any nervousness compared to the first. Fabregas had a good shot from range which sadly didn’t test Van Der Sar as much as you would like. Then United scored their goal, a good counter spearheaded by Evra who I think was United’s man of the match, at least until the last 10 minutes or so. Unfortunately his cross took a deflection off Kolo’s head which I think did Rooney a pretty big favour, taking Clichy out of it as I thought he was going to clear the cross with his head before Toure touched it, and putting it in a place where Rooney was able to get as much of his weight and pace behind the ball as possible, driving it with his head and giving Lehmann no chance even if he was in a good position to save.

 We looked a bit lost after that but United didn’t take advantage of it and let us claw our way back into the game with the same admirable character and spirit that has guided us so well so far in 2007.  For the first goal Fabregas and Rosicky worked tirelessly to disposess Scholes, eventually winning the ball and Rosicky instantly new when to make his run, then delivered the clever low cross. Henry got a touch to it. It’s hard to say what he was trying to do, score or accident but I think he did what he meant to do, I thought he sensed Van Persie running behind him and he never really looked as if he was going for goal. Maybe I think too highly of the great man and maybe it was just a fluke but still, it worked, because Van Persie ran perfectly and smashed in a fantastic goal that was far harder than he made it look from a very acute angle.

 Then for the decisive goal, Eboue had a geat bit of interplay with Rosicky and delivered an amazing cross where Henry timed his jump and judged the necessary power perfectly, and Ashburton Grove (and me, on the other side of the world in my living room) went ballistic.

 On to the individual players, Lehmann was good and showed the sort of athleticism in his two saves which belies his 37 years. They were really the only occasions I can recall where he was genuinely tested. Also I loved his work at the end after the second goal when United delivered their last desperate cross and Lehmann’s attitude was all ‘yeah, I think there’s a cramp in my foot or something, might take my time with this’ to take the piss out of United’s time wasting.

 People raved about Vidic and Ferdinand but frankly I think Toure and Senderos were just as good. Probably could have been better on some corners but otherwise they controlled the area, stopping most play whether it came from above or on the ground, they were just as good as the Vidic-Ferdinand combination, but then, they didn’t concede two goals did they?!

Clichy has been the most underrated player of our 2007 so far, he has made great strides and should properly replace that other turd that filled our left back position before him. Everyone admired his forward runs but now his defensive prowess seems to have improved. This was highlighted when Ronaldo, supposedly the leading light of the Premiership, was forced to switch wings as he couldn’t find any way of getting past Clichy after 25 minutes. Giggs couldn’t do much against him either. He has performed with fantastic consistency so far this year and long may it continue.

 Eboue showed his best and worst today. His cross was just sensational but he was drawn into some immaturity throughout the game, but it has improved and he was more willing to get on with it. I like him as a player and I hope he stays with the club, and maybe it’s time we cut him some slack because his assist was just awesome but at the same time he needs to cut the bullshit, and he probably will.

Flamini worked tirelessly until he was substituted for a great attacking threat with Baptista who sadly didn’t really have time to impose himself on the game. I thought he kept United’s midfield threat well subdued even if his own attacking ability (and he does have that ability to bob up and score a big goal) was stifled.

Cesc seems to be getting a lot of praise on the blogs at the moment but I think that’s just the status quo, I thought he was kept quiet by United for most of the game in the way that Scholes was kept quiet by us. It’s only when United tired in the later stages of the game that he proved his most useful, involved in both goals, but I thought prior to that he was good, but well below his usual standard. Outstanding player that he is and God that he will become, he’s not infallible just yet.

That brings me to Rosicky who was my man of the match I think. He absolutely worked his tits off. The whole team did, really, but Rosicky in particular was just everywhere, trying to impede United’s attack but trying to get involved in everything we had going forward, an he tried some long range shots which is something we’ve all been begging for at home.  His work for the first goal in that tight tussle with Scholes was excellent.

Hleb was okay but fairly ineffective in the second half and the substitution made sense.

Adebayor also worked his tits off and has also received a lot of kudos but apart from two great first half crosses and that tussle with Van Der Sar which ended with Van Der Sar stalling for time, he didn’t pose as much attacking threat as I would like, probably due to his recent injury lay off, but I think he will seize this opportunity with Van Persie injured wholeheartedly.

Finally, Henry. The goal was great, but many people seem to have said that he didn’t do much throughout the game. I think his performance was vastly underappreciated and I think he worked almost as hard as Adebayor but in different ways. He had a good penalty claim denied in the first half and he was always looking to run in to a position where he could be useful, but he was well marshalled by Vidic and Ferdinand until the end. Let me put it this way, we had 18 shots on goal, I bet Thierry had a significant part to play in at least half of them.

It was a wonderful team performance from a wonderful team in general.  I believe we can still win the title. Our title hopes were written off by press and fans alike pretty much after the first three games of the season. It seems to be this ultra-pessimistic English sporting mentality that after the slightest bit of adversity it’s time to capitulate and not give yourself a hope in hell. You see it with the national team and you see it with the England cricket team as well, for example. I don’t believe for a second that we can’t win the title this year until it’s a mathematical impossibility and I hope (if not believe) that Wenger feels the same way. I don’t think United are as good as their position in the table suggests, and if they can lose to West Ham, and in other competitions the likes of Celtic, FC Kopenhagen and fucking Southend United, I see no reason why they can’t lose to Portsmouth, City away, Tottenham if they decide to not be shit for a change, Chelsea and Liverpool. For us to have any chance though we have to be incredibly consistant, but based on the results so far this year, I see no real reason why we can’t win every remaining game in the league. Even though it’s extremely unlikely we have a team capable of doing it. A bit of faith, please.

PS my apologies for the basic appearance of the site, I’ll work on that