By Tony Attwood
Three wins and a draw in Europe to kick off the season – is that our best start? Actually it isn’t, but I just wanted to make the point about how silly all the knocking stuff is.
Before Wenger there was no regular European service at Highbury – under Rioch we made the didddly widdddly cup that we now laugh at the Tinies for being in, on the last day of the season. Under Graham, sometimes we did it, sometimes we didn’t.
Now we are there, and in a week when Manchester City had a player seemingly forget where the pitch was (“all a misunderstanding” apparently), and then lose, and Man U and Chelsea draw, we won.
Not that you would know this from the press. Nor would you know that this was a game with over 30 attempts on goal. (If football in reverse with the team bus parked is known as Notlob, this must be Bolton – err, perhaps not – but it was attacking all the time).
OK not stunning – bit of a laugh really, but I have witnessed the goal by the youngest ever Englishman to score in the Champs League, and a game that just didn’t stop. This was football – crazy, exciting, engaging, fun, nerve racking, football like I seem to remember it from the old days. This was (from where I was sitting) a ref who utterly and totally lost it, and two teams who thought that defence was a dirty word.
Oh yes and I have now even heard the Arsenal crowd cheer and applaud because a big central defender (one of ours) hoofed the ball right up the field just to get rid of it. Mr Wenger must have been having nightmares in the stand. It was a bit like Arsenal under Billy Wright only with talent.
And what of Arsène and his new find: Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain – snigger snigger, Arsenal claim to have bought a player for £10m and he is just a kid. We want a 27 year old!!! We want to spend billions. We want big players.
Yeah, well, I like some of these young players. At least the Guardian regained a little of their composure this week by recognising that this is the era of “financial madness”. Thank you, at last for seeing what is going on. And apparently Alex is the guy that Terry Enry fella said we should sign. “Ox in the box”. Ho ho.
And we have done all this with our best players buggering off to foreign parts (well Manchester has never looked very English to me, except for the rain), and everyone else injured or being rested ahead of the Tinies on Sunday.
In the league our start to the season is nowhere near as bad as that collapse that Chelsea had last season – which if you remember was the season in which the journalists told us that it was all over by the end of September because Chelsea were going to walk it. Even if we lose to the Tinies on Sunday (and of course like everyone else I desperately hope not, and I will be very despondent if this were to happen) we will still be doing far better than Chelsea did in that run last season.
Real supporters – I mean really real supporters – go to the matches if they can, and support and support and support. If you don’t have a ticket you shout your support at the TV screen, as I did last week for the Notlob game. We support the players, the manager, and the club. That is what support means.
Those of us lucky to have tickets did it again last night, and from the noise all around the ground I think most of us quite enjoyed it.
More of the same on Sunday please. And, does anyone know when Appy Arry’s court case starts. Must be soon, surely.
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Arry’s court case is apparently slated for late Oct/Nov. There are reporting restrictions however (there is a related trial running simultaneously… hmm) so you won’t hear about it until both trials are over. But if Arry disappears from the bench late in the year for unexplained reasons then this might be why.
One question will be answered shortly Tony. The one about the ref. Did he lose it or not? Is your judgement right or wrong? 😉
In fact it was all what you want from football: tension, goals, fouls (but not really over the top…), wrong decisions, good decisions, running out of position, making mistakes, doing good things, high pace. I could use the words of Allen Hansen: we defended with grrrrit and deterrrmination. 😉
And all this with a squad that was down to the last resources and missing key players all over the pitch.
A really great result.
3 wins on the bounce and the most clean sheets in the Premier League. We have also knocked the 2nd best team in Italy out of the champions league are well on course to progress from the groups and oh we are in the next round of the Carling Cup.
Spin, Spin, Spin but lets all be totally honest we look really shaky when we are defending and we are really struggling to keep the ball.
For me we need more technical players in the team. I would like to see us switch to the Christmas tree formation and whilst JW and TV are still out line up like this
Chezzer
Sagna Mertesacker Song Santos
Ramsey Coquelin Arteta
RVP Benayoun
Park
When JW and TV return it would be at the expense of Santos and Coquelin
Headlines “United save embarrasment” ” Arsenal Scrape win with defensive frailties showing”. Hilarious considering the amount of first choice players we had out there. If United had played that game last night it would have surely been “United win with strength in depth” Dirp de dirp de dirp. Same shit different game!
I think Alex Ferguson had a great point about the media having way to much a say in football affairs. Although he was talking mainly about fixtures, I think that can be extended disruptive effect of non on the pitch matters such as unsettling players/teams, stirring controversy with no context or retrospective accountability and creating a narrative, and not just sticking to GOD DAMN SPORT JOURNALISM!
Has anyone else noticed this new trend? If an incorrect call gets made against Arsenal commentator allways say its the refs call and the ref is allways right, but in favour of Arsenal they allways give their own personal oppinion. Really ridiculous.
The game last night was erratic. The biggest scare was the Zonal marking from the first couple of corners. We were absolutely nowhere near the ball or the opposition. We were marking space that was not involved in the game. Thank Rice that the zonal marking went out the window later in the game and there was a semblance of defence from corners and free kicks.
Arteta did a good job on the post but the posts were not being manned like we used to. Player tight on each post for corners. The rest should take a man and ensure that the incoming ball is attacked. It will not come to you if you dont make it yours.
The referee was pathetic in his attitude and after letting play flow following a foul didn’t come back to card the culprit (usually an Olympiakos player). I am still disappointed with the way free kicks are squandered because we dont know the technique.
Hey I forgot the CATERING REPORT!!!!
No beers in the stadium because it is Euro night – but all the adverts are up advertising the beer. Come on guys you should not do this. (In fact I think it is against Trading Standards regs to advertise something you know you don’t have).
Cappuccino – yes it was fine.
Fish and chips – ditto
So nothing wrong except the beer ads? Yes – I had to go searching for bloody miles to find the HP sauce and the mustard. Why can’t there be full pots of both on all the places where one is likely to put down one’s food to eat it?
Eventually a kind bi-lingual lady took pity on me and pointed out the location of each plastic jar. I immediately told her of my chauffeur driven limo outside and suggested a quick getaway before kick off but she did not want to know. So I told her she would be mentioned in the most popular blog in the mutliverse. That didn’t seem to impress either.
No pleasing some people.
As I was watching in the kitchen on my laptop on a (official) stream I had all I wanted to eat and drink. I could eat warm of cold, drink warm or cold… Not a bad place to watch an Arsenal game in fact. Apart from the live atmosphere in the stadium of course. 😉
And the fact I had to make the food myself…
Sure sometimes I am disapointed, who’s not when your team loose in a weird way and I mean when the gunners have a 65% possession and some players in the other side did touch the ball for the sake of it. But what I know, I am an Arsenal fan in my heart and whatever happen, I believe. I live now in southern france (if any of you goes by my door is wide open for a drink, a meal and a bed for a night and of course a good chat about our boys) Anyway, once again, well said Tony, thumb up.