In the game, Kanu went off, and Gilberto Silva came on, and with the game just about wrapped up, Henry was taken off and Jeremie Aliadiere given a few minutes run out.
Yet what made the game so particularly interesting was the fact that on 17 September 2003 the teams played the reverse fixture at Highbury, and Arsenal lost 0-3.
Although this was in the Unbeaten Season, Arsenal did of course lost a few games – it was just that not any of them were in the Premier League. These defeats included an FA Cup loss 0-1 at home to Manchester United and a Champions League defeat to Chelsea,1-2, to lose the tie 2-3. Those games came just three days apart, on the 3rd and 6th of April.
Still, looking at this season, we can see that things are on a positive run at the moment. In the last 11 games for the first team, Arsenal have won nine and drawn two. This run includes games in all four of the competitions that Arsenal are competing in: the Premier League, the Champions League, the FA Cup and the League Cup. The two draws have interrupted the otherwise perfect run of victories, were the a goalless home game against Liverpool and the recent goalless away game with Nottingham Forest.
Indeed, that last game was one in which the commentators I heard singularly failed to recognise the rather obvious fact that what was coming up was a game that was going to be much more momentous than the Forest match – not because the result particularly mattered (Arsenal have qualified for the next round of the Champions League anyway) but because of the way in which the media have been knocking Arsenal of late.
And of course, now there is the constant, ceaseless tirade of journalistic jibes against Arsenal. Take for example…
‘Arsenal will never forgive themselves if they don’t win (the) title now’ – a jibe to give hope to all those chasing Arsenal, no matter that they are seven points adrift already. And you can be sure that if Arsenal carry on as they have been doing, we will soon get talk of Arsenal not really being worthy champions because they have already had half a dozen matches in which they have only scored one goal, (or indeed some other irrelevant statitic which rather curiously has never been deemed important before but has been dragged out for this match.)
The Standard predicts a lineup of
Raya;
White, Saliba, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly;
Rice, Merino, Eze;
Madueke, Jesus, Trossard
Football London offer
Raya;
White, Mosquera, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly;
Norgaard, Merino, Nwaneri,
Madueke, Havertz, Eze
The Metro go with
Raya;
White, Saliba, Gabriel, Lewis-Skelly;
Rice, Mourino, Eze
Madueke, Jesus, Martinelli
Which by and large seems to suggest that the journalists, for all the money they are paid, haven’t got much of a clue.
Kick off is at 8pm and the radio commentary is on Talk Sport 2.
And here’s a little thought which occurred to me during the writing of this little piece. I have often seen journalistic copy in which the writer calls for the manager to resign or be sacked. But I can’t recall any commentary in which anyone calls for the journalists to be sacked for predicting the wrong lineup, or wrong result. I wonder if it is time for us to even things up..
Maybe if they were, that would make them a bit less gung-ho with their predictions.
