Ally
Active Member
Arsenal 3
Henry 28, 79 pen, Gilberto 67
Newcastle 2
Robert 25, Bernard 71
Apologies for the hideously delayed report this week, people – certain distractions were going on on Friday night, and I was knackered. Nothing was flowing and I eventually gave up at about one in the morning and went to bed. Shall not happen again. But then again, hopefully this kick-off time won't either. The players didn't have to make any particularly substantial adjustment by the looks of things, but the fans certainly did. It didn't feel right and for all the plain advantages this might have brought (An extra day to get to Moscow), you couldn't get as involved emotionally, get yourself psyched up properly. Not a very good experiment, at all.
Where to start, then......OK, token lame metaphor. If this game were a date, it would have been one where there's an initial meeting up for coffee, some bubbly, slightly forced but genuinely enthusiastic chattering covering many topics – then culminating in some enthusiastic and enjoyable fumbling in the back row of a darkened cinema, before being unceremoniously told a few days later by a sarcastic go-between that it wasn't going to be anything more than friends. Y'see, this was mighty enjoyable, worth all the expensive drawbacks, definitely. Plenty of adrenaline-based benefits. Nothing gone majorly wrong – you've come away with short term gain. However, it's nothing to base anything on a larger scale on. There are things wrong, plainly wrong, no matter how bewildering they might seem to you; others might see them, although it seems churlish to analyse. You can move on, improve, learn from your mistakes. Maybe land something big eventually. Who knows.
Please excuse that, that was utterly appalling. I'll hang my head. But the point is there. The hair-raisingly good defensive showing of last week looked shaky again. It's clear the work has to be done, because speedy strikers are causing Toure and whomever his partner may be this week (Of course, that may just be the problem but judging by problems dealing with the same challenge no matter who is alongside him, I suspect not). Facts are that speedy strikers are giving us a hell of a torrid time. Yakubu. Martins. Anelka (Only Mad Jens dealt with him, it was nothing to do with the men in front). Bellamy. Robert. Power forwards, specifically Angel, van Nistelrooy (Twice) and today Shearer, have been taken completely out of play by our defensive unit, but pace is a factor which we are just not au fait with. Robert may be the man who constantly makes us fight a losing battle with the writing of his name on the scoresheet, but Bellamy runs and runs and runs and was posing defenders on each flank a considerable problem; more than the head-down, “Right, let's have a charge at you”-type kid many had been growing used to. The overlapping work being carried out in the opening period, for the second game in a row down the right wing, was awkward at the best of times, lethal at the worst moment.
“I think we were playing against a good Newcastle team, quite sharp, willing to run, to shoot and we had to find resources to win the game. Overall it was a good game, a good performance.”
Not quite an active proponent of hyperbole is our Arsène – over-reaction is our game of course, but to dismiss this evening as 'good', a 'good game', is something which I must naturally take mild but non-committal issue with. The performance, granted, was only good, because there were significant holes in it, but the football match was fizzing, in particular the opening 10 where we had the stadium rocking. Straight away it would have been one-nil if Given's desperate fingertips hadn't brushed the ball out when Ashley Cole cut away and dribbled a slow-motion cut back straight across the face of goal which Wiltord was primed to turn in at the back. For a pointer of how the first twenty minutes were going to shape up, this was as good as any.
What had been a glowing evening on kick off gradually and bewilderingly managed to turn into a monsoon within about fifteen minutes, and, whilst I am going to resist from making some dry quip about shots 'raining down on Newcastle's goal', it was basically a barrage. Abandoning the “walk the ball into the net at any cost, and nothing else” mentality for a second, Henry leaned back and fired off a humming drive which Given palmed out; Wiltord had a simple, poachers chance right in front of goal which he attempted to turn in on the slide and misconnected hopelessly. A few weeks back, after the Boro game, I said that day that Wiltord had played the Jeffers role better than Jeffers ever had. Maybe that's something I will have to re-evaluate; the increasingly persistent screaming for Aliadiere to be given a decent chance (He was only denied on Friday by injuries, judging by the the presence of Edu and Cygan on the bench), we think, has huge basis. Wiltord is, after all, not a poacher. His partnership with Henry isn't really all that accomplished and he now looks like a winger being played out of position. He wasn't that bad – his hold-up work and keeping of the ball was very good; however Henry, of course, does that anyway. The Jeffers experiment failed due to a number of reasons, but it has to be said that the main one was injury. I still believe that a poacher who is willing to drop back and run with the ball, is exactly what is needed. Jeffers never got himself established in the team despite a very impressive strike rate; and, without wanting to put undue pressure on his shoulders, Aliadiere must be gagging for a chance and is now up the pecking order to the extent that it will arrive, sooner rather than later.
We did, of course, score a poachers goal to open up the account on eighteen. Owing to hilarious incompetence, yes, but yes another strike that has come from a cross; I don't want to over-react but there's definitely more variety and ingenuity in the way we're scoring this season, from a bullet volley from Gilberto at Boro to a number of goals being bundled in from close range – add another to the latter bracket. Lauren on the touchline was given an unduly large quantity of space; striking over the ball he delivered a spinning, bouncing delivery straight across Given which Bramble went to clear, took a kamikaze swing and completely failed to connect. Henry arrived at the far post to tuck in from an angle more awkward than many gave him credit for – the ball hit the inside of the near post on it's way in. A geometrical tap-in if there ever was one.
To say the goal had been coming would be a yawning example of, to quote Basil Fawlty, “the bleeding obvious”; we'd played Newcastle off the park, and the main thing was obviously that the pressure had actually paid off for a change. Possession was ridiculously disproportionate, so was the shot count. To convert this into goals has been our infamous and long-standing plaint, for want of a better word; perhaps now it should be keeping our leads?
This time the excuse for throwing away an advantage was the disruption of the midfield, with Vieira coming off as a precaution and Edu partnering Gilberto in the centre. Why, then, were we cut apart down the right wing? I've seen the “Lack of time to reorganise” being pulled – nah. This was just slack. So intricate a move over so little an area of the pitch, with so many defenders present, should not be resulting in the ball being swept home easily in front of an open goal, but, of course, Dyer had time on the by-line to prod a little cut back right to Robert who slotted easily enough. That was a leveller – Bernard showed a little flash of prophecy when he swerved away and spun a low drive which Lehmann gathered in much the same manner as so many other similar attempts at Old Trafford recently. For such a big keeper, his movement of feet is breathtaking. The transition between a goalkeeper who had become an institution of sorts, and 'the new guy', which by rights should have been slippery and error-ridden, has just, well, not been. In any way.
Second half and the game evened out. We showed that we still lack imagination when the passes aren't getting through, when changes have to be made, when the opposition will run themselves into the floor, at any cost, to prevent you scoring again. The otherwise dreadful Ljungberg did hit the frame of the goal after being played in by Wiltord – he opted to try and beat Given on his near post, wedged under the ball and it failed to curve in time, brushing off the upright to safety. For what he was lacking, and, oh there was plenty, Ljungberg was fouled for the free-kick that led to the goal. Well, whoop-de-doo. If that's supposed to serve as an excuse, it's a fairly amusing one. So far, this season has been a bit of a disaster for Freddie, with exceptions. I don't see any point to him being on the field, and if that seems brutal, it's because his performances are too. People wonder what his best position is. I'll tell you. It's on the bench.
Sacrificing fight for flair, Wenger put Pires on as the last of his changes (Cygan – swallow hard, lads – in the left back position to cover for Cole who had hobbled away). More or less straight away, the decent French replacement delivered the free-kick which Ljungberg had won; Gilberto peeled away with sublime disguise and thundered in a header, via his shoulder – suspiciously similar to Campbell's goal in the 2002 FA Cup replay. Just as Henry's first was suspiciously similar to Pires' opener in the Highbury league game in the double year. And as his penalty was suspiciously similar to what happened against Villa at home last season. And as Bernard's goal looked suspiciously like an amalgamation of Martins for Inter the other week, and Pires at Elland Road in 01/02. Hmm. I'll stop now.
Ljungberg's match was now finished after the crunching challenge by Robert – although as the subs were all away, he opted to stay on the park, limping around and unable to touch the ball. I'll say one thing for this. It made him more noticeable than the previous seventy minutes.
“We were careless at 1-0 up and at 2-1. We had injuries everywhere today, it looked like everything went against us. I felt at 2-2 that the game would become very difficult for us.”
And then, of course, we got caught out again a few minutes later, when Dyer split us again and Bernard flashed in to cut a stunning finish straight into the top corner. The difference between such a sublime goal, and a block from Keown who had thrown himself at the ball, was two degrees, one tenth of a second. Mad Jens was again left exposed. For the mounting number of goals he's conceding – Inter apart – few are his fault.
Wiltord attempted a volley from 45 yards, which he hit alarmingly well and forced Given into a save, but such a ridiculous idea tells you a lot about how far our creative ideas were stretching by this point. OK, daft penalty then. Jenas is a prospect alright. He's a talented midfielder (To be honest, would you want to pay five million quid for a player from Forest? A solitary and eyebrow-raising exception there, then...), capable of magic on occasion (see his volley against the Mancs, a true 'blimey' moment), but his naivety is truly astonishing. From wildly taking out some Everton guy on the by-line, to chipping a penalty in the Singapore cup so high over the bar it came down somewhere in the Pacific with snow on it, possibly bumping into Jaap Stam's ball from his penalty in the Euro 2000 semi which, of course, is still travelling. And now this. What is the sodding point? On the jump with Cygan he waved his arm in the air, and, of course, touched the ball.
I have to say that on first glance I didn't think it was in any way a penalty. The replays didn't too much to curb fears of hysterical media accusations (“Bribed the ref have you now, Arsène?”), but subsequent analysis was pretty much unanimous that Jenas was, in fact, acting like a tw*t and deserved everything he got. Henry's penalty, you will of course have heard about by now – awesomely good, cardiac-inducing in the circumstances but a fitting finish to the scoring, because on the night we deserved it, and he deserved it.
“Today he has a really tremendous attitude, positive with his partners, pushed the whole team up.”
The last ten were played out in the standard bite-your-lip-and-pray-one-of-these-crosses-doesn't-get-bulleted-in mode, but, as you might have deduced, one of those crosses didn't get bulleted in. And we won.
So, half way through the league portion of this run of fixtures obviously scheduled by an utter Manc bastard, we are unbeaten. If we can repeat the last two results against the Mafia and the Car Thieves, with the win preferably coming against Chelski, well that's absolutely superb. Eight points from this run would be fine and dandy and will set us up ideally. Not speaking too soon of course. Two losses, and the games against the Mancs and Newastle might end up counting for not-a-lot. How suspensions and injuries affect us is just something that remains to be seen.
So on the whole, perhaps that 'date' metaphor needs to be re-evaluated. Maybe we should end it after the fumbling in the cinema. We don't know what it's leading to next. Maybe it's in our hands, maybe it isn't. We dunno if we're gonna get dumped in a few days, your object of attention turning their attention to favour someone else, someone who's better than you, with more depth to them and who doesn't engage in rash activities now and again. Or maybe it'll all be wonderful and perfect, and we'll go off and get married.
Man of the Match
No other word for it – titanic. I've been on his back recently for acting like a spoilt brat at times, and I now feel very very ashamed. More than making up for what he was lacking, Newcastle couldn't really deal with him all night; cool, powerful, passionate, creative. Hopefully now back to his genuine best. Thierry Henry, mais naturellement.
Moment of the Match
Second report in a row where I have to give this to a penalty. Where genius beats brute force, folks.
Moan of the Match
Cygan's first touch. Nuff said.
***“They took responsibility, and we have played in the last 6 or 7 years maybe 300 games, and we have always tried to play football. The two teams tonight played very good football.”***
Henry 28, 79 pen, Gilberto 67
Newcastle 2
Robert 25, Bernard 71
Apologies for the hideously delayed report this week, people – certain distractions were going on on Friday night, and I was knackered. Nothing was flowing and I eventually gave up at about one in the morning and went to bed. Shall not happen again. But then again, hopefully this kick-off time won't either. The players didn't have to make any particularly substantial adjustment by the looks of things, but the fans certainly did. It didn't feel right and for all the plain advantages this might have brought (An extra day to get to Moscow), you couldn't get as involved emotionally, get yourself psyched up properly. Not a very good experiment, at all.
Where to start, then......OK, token lame metaphor. If this game were a date, it would have been one where there's an initial meeting up for coffee, some bubbly, slightly forced but genuinely enthusiastic chattering covering many topics – then culminating in some enthusiastic and enjoyable fumbling in the back row of a darkened cinema, before being unceremoniously told a few days later by a sarcastic go-between that it wasn't going to be anything more than friends. Y'see, this was mighty enjoyable, worth all the expensive drawbacks, definitely. Plenty of adrenaline-based benefits. Nothing gone majorly wrong – you've come away with short term gain. However, it's nothing to base anything on a larger scale on. There are things wrong, plainly wrong, no matter how bewildering they might seem to you; others might see them, although it seems churlish to analyse. You can move on, improve, learn from your mistakes. Maybe land something big eventually. Who knows.
Please excuse that, that was utterly appalling. I'll hang my head. But the point is there. The hair-raisingly good defensive showing of last week looked shaky again. It's clear the work has to be done, because speedy strikers are causing Toure and whomever his partner may be this week (Of course, that may just be the problem but judging by problems dealing with the same challenge no matter who is alongside him, I suspect not). Facts are that speedy strikers are giving us a hell of a torrid time. Yakubu. Martins. Anelka (Only Mad Jens dealt with him, it was nothing to do with the men in front). Bellamy. Robert. Power forwards, specifically Angel, van Nistelrooy (Twice) and today Shearer, have been taken completely out of play by our defensive unit, but pace is a factor which we are just not au fait with. Robert may be the man who constantly makes us fight a losing battle with the writing of his name on the scoresheet, but Bellamy runs and runs and runs and was posing defenders on each flank a considerable problem; more than the head-down, “Right, let's have a charge at you”-type kid many had been growing used to. The overlapping work being carried out in the opening period, for the second game in a row down the right wing, was awkward at the best of times, lethal at the worst moment.
“I think we were playing against a good Newcastle team, quite sharp, willing to run, to shoot and we had to find resources to win the game. Overall it was a good game, a good performance.”
Not quite an active proponent of hyperbole is our Arsène – over-reaction is our game of course, but to dismiss this evening as 'good', a 'good game', is something which I must naturally take mild but non-committal issue with. The performance, granted, was only good, because there were significant holes in it, but the football match was fizzing, in particular the opening 10 where we had the stadium rocking. Straight away it would have been one-nil if Given's desperate fingertips hadn't brushed the ball out when Ashley Cole cut away and dribbled a slow-motion cut back straight across the face of goal which Wiltord was primed to turn in at the back. For a pointer of how the first twenty minutes were going to shape up, this was as good as any.
What had been a glowing evening on kick off gradually and bewilderingly managed to turn into a monsoon within about fifteen minutes, and, whilst I am going to resist from making some dry quip about shots 'raining down on Newcastle's goal', it was basically a barrage. Abandoning the “walk the ball into the net at any cost, and nothing else” mentality for a second, Henry leaned back and fired off a humming drive which Given palmed out; Wiltord had a simple, poachers chance right in front of goal which he attempted to turn in on the slide and misconnected hopelessly. A few weeks back, after the Boro game, I said that day that Wiltord had played the Jeffers role better than Jeffers ever had. Maybe that's something I will have to re-evaluate; the increasingly persistent screaming for Aliadiere to be given a decent chance (He was only denied on Friday by injuries, judging by the the presence of Edu and Cygan on the bench), we think, has huge basis. Wiltord is, after all, not a poacher. His partnership with Henry isn't really all that accomplished and he now looks like a winger being played out of position. He wasn't that bad – his hold-up work and keeping of the ball was very good; however Henry, of course, does that anyway. The Jeffers experiment failed due to a number of reasons, but it has to be said that the main one was injury. I still believe that a poacher who is willing to drop back and run with the ball, is exactly what is needed. Jeffers never got himself established in the team despite a very impressive strike rate; and, without wanting to put undue pressure on his shoulders, Aliadiere must be gagging for a chance and is now up the pecking order to the extent that it will arrive, sooner rather than later.
We did, of course, score a poachers goal to open up the account on eighteen. Owing to hilarious incompetence, yes, but yes another strike that has come from a cross; I don't want to over-react but there's definitely more variety and ingenuity in the way we're scoring this season, from a bullet volley from Gilberto at Boro to a number of goals being bundled in from close range – add another to the latter bracket. Lauren on the touchline was given an unduly large quantity of space; striking over the ball he delivered a spinning, bouncing delivery straight across Given which Bramble went to clear, took a kamikaze swing and completely failed to connect. Henry arrived at the far post to tuck in from an angle more awkward than many gave him credit for – the ball hit the inside of the near post on it's way in. A geometrical tap-in if there ever was one.
To say the goal had been coming would be a yawning example of, to quote Basil Fawlty, “the bleeding obvious”; we'd played Newcastle off the park, and the main thing was obviously that the pressure had actually paid off for a change. Possession was ridiculously disproportionate, so was the shot count. To convert this into goals has been our infamous and long-standing plaint, for want of a better word; perhaps now it should be keeping our leads?
This time the excuse for throwing away an advantage was the disruption of the midfield, with Vieira coming off as a precaution and Edu partnering Gilberto in the centre. Why, then, were we cut apart down the right wing? I've seen the “Lack of time to reorganise” being pulled – nah. This was just slack. So intricate a move over so little an area of the pitch, with so many defenders present, should not be resulting in the ball being swept home easily in front of an open goal, but, of course, Dyer had time on the by-line to prod a little cut back right to Robert who slotted easily enough. That was a leveller – Bernard showed a little flash of prophecy when he swerved away and spun a low drive which Lehmann gathered in much the same manner as so many other similar attempts at Old Trafford recently. For such a big keeper, his movement of feet is breathtaking. The transition between a goalkeeper who had become an institution of sorts, and 'the new guy', which by rights should have been slippery and error-ridden, has just, well, not been. In any way.
Second half and the game evened out. We showed that we still lack imagination when the passes aren't getting through, when changes have to be made, when the opposition will run themselves into the floor, at any cost, to prevent you scoring again. The otherwise dreadful Ljungberg did hit the frame of the goal after being played in by Wiltord – he opted to try and beat Given on his near post, wedged under the ball and it failed to curve in time, brushing off the upright to safety. For what he was lacking, and, oh there was plenty, Ljungberg was fouled for the free-kick that led to the goal. Well, whoop-de-doo. If that's supposed to serve as an excuse, it's a fairly amusing one. So far, this season has been a bit of a disaster for Freddie, with exceptions. I don't see any point to him being on the field, and if that seems brutal, it's because his performances are too. People wonder what his best position is. I'll tell you. It's on the bench.
Sacrificing fight for flair, Wenger put Pires on as the last of his changes (Cygan – swallow hard, lads – in the left back position to cover for Cole who had hobbled away). More or less straight away, the decent French replacement delivered the free-kick which Ljungberg had won; Gilberto peeled away with sublime disguise and thundered in a header, via his shoulder – suspiciously similar to Campbell's goal in the 2002 FA Cup replay. Just as Henry's first was suspiciously similar to Pires' opener in the Highbury league game in the double year. And as his penalty was suspiciously similar to what happened against Villa at home last season. And as Bernard's goal looked suspiciously like an amalgamation of Martins for Inter the other week, and Pires at Elland Road in 01/02. Hmm. I'll stop now.
Ljungberg's match was now finished after the crunching challenge by Robert – although as the subs were all away, he opted to stay on the park, limping around and unable to touch the ball. I'll say one thing for this. It made him more noticeable than the previous seventy minutes.
“We were careless at 1-0 up and at 2-1. We had injuries everywhere today, it looked like everything went against us. I felt at 2-2 that the game would become very difficult for us.”
And then, of course, we got caught out again a few minutes later, when Dyer split us again and Bernard flashed in to cut a stunning finish straight into the top corner. The difference between such a sublime goal, and a block from Keown who had thrown himself at the ball, was two degrees, one tenth of a second. Mad Jens was again left exposed. For the mounting number of goals he's conceding – Inter apart – few are his fault.
Wiltord attempted a volley from 45 yards, which he hit alarmingly well and forced Given into a save, but such a ridiculous idea tells you a lot about how far our creative ideas were stretching by this point. OK, daft penalty then. Jenas is a prospect alright. He's a talented midfielder (To be honest, would you want to pay five million quid for a player from Forest? A solitary and eyebrow-raising exception there, then...), capable of magic on occasion (see his volley against the Mancs, a true 'blimey' moment), but his naivety is truly astonishing. From wildly taking out some Everton guy on the by-line, to chipping a penalty in the Singapore cup so high over the bar it came down somewhere in the Pacific with snow on it, possibly bumping into Jaap Stam's ball from his penalty in the Euro 2000 semi which, of course, is still travelling. And now this. What is the sodding point? On the jump with Cygan he waved his arm in the air, and, of course, touched the ball.
I have to say that on first glance I didn't think it was in any way a penalty. The replays didn't too much to curb fears of hysterical media accusations (“Bribed the ref have you now, Arsène?”), but subsequent analysis was pretty much unanimous that Jenas was, in fact, acting like a tw*t and deserved everything he got. Henry's penalty, you will of course have heard about by now – awesomely good, cardiac-inducing in the circumstances but a fitting finish to the scoring, because on the night we deserved it, and he deserved it.
“Today he has a really tremendous attitude, positive with his partners, pushed the whole team up.”
The last ten were played out in the standard bite-your-lip-and-pray-one-of-these-crosses-doesn't-get-bulleted-in mode, but, as you might have deduced, one of those crosses didn't get bulleted in. And we won.
So, half way through the league portion of this run of fixtures obviously scheduled by an utter Manc bastard, we are unbeaten. If we can repeat the last two results against the Mafia and the Car Thieves, with the win preferably coming against Chelski, well that's absolutely superb. Eight points from this run would be fine and dandy and will set us up ideally. Not speaking too soon of course. Two losses, and the games against the Mancs and Newastle might end up counting for not-a-lot. How suspensions and injuries affect us is just something that remains to be seen.
So on the whole, perhaps that 'date' metaphor needs to be re-evaluated. Maybe we should end it after the fumbling in the cinema. We don't know what it's leading to next. Maybe it's in our hands, maybe it isn't. We dunno if we're gonna get dumped in a few days, your object of attention turning their attention to favour someone else, someone who's better than you, with more depth to them and who doesn't engage in rash activities now and again. Or maybe it'll all be wonderful and perfect, and we'll go off and get married.
Man of the Match
No other word for it – titanic. I've been on his back recently for acting like a spoilt brat at times, and I now feel very very ashamed. More than making up for what he was lacking, Newcastle couldn't really deal with him all night; cool, powerful, passionate, creative. Hopefully now back to his genuine best. Thierry Henry, mais naturellement.
Moment of the Match
Second report in a row where I have to give this to a penalty. Where genius beats brute force, folks.
Moan of the Match
Cygan's first touch. Nuff said.
***“They took responsibility, and we have played in the last 6 or 7 years maybe 300 games, and we have always tried to play football. The two teams tonight played very good football.”***
