|
April 1999 3.4.99 Southampton 0 Arsenal 0 24.4.99 Middlesbrough 1 Arsenal 6
Southampton 0 Arsenal 0 The peculiar Southampton manager, scouse ‘hardman,’ David Jones, said after the game, talking his own brand of complete bollocks, that ‘the boy Vieira knew that he had been in a game.’ This translates, broadly, that Vieira had been elbowed in the face by Mark Hughes and kicked black and blue by the Saints’ ratpack. Good old Hughsie also kicked Adams and nearly eviscerated Martin Keown before finally succumbing to his usual yellow card. This broadly summed up the game; an hour and a half, that seemed a lot longer, of tedious football, punctuated by niggly Southampton violence. Some people might see Southampton’s performance as ‘spirited’ but it was no more than opening up all the cages at the zoo and letting all the animals run around. Indeed, the last time we saw this much frenetic activity was watching popcorn jump about in a hot saucepan. If I lived in Southampton and if this was the only ‘entertainment’ in the area, I’d think I’d rather sneeze into a hankie and watch the snot coagulate than watch this grisly bunch of gimps go through the motions. Having decided to forego a trip to the Dell (er.. we couldn’t get tickets) it was over to the North Bank to watch the telly a size of a bungalow. It was a relief really, because the Dell, a cross between a collection of allotment sheds and an MFI flat pack wardrobe, is such a shitty ground; full of the smell of old damp and people who sleep with other members of their families. I’ve been in crashed cars that were more pleasant. I’d think I would prefer to spend the afternoon with my head inside a diarrhoeic’s laundry basket than go to the Dell again. Oh, well, at least they took Perry Groves off our hands. On the player front the news wasn’t that good. The international curse had struck again leaving Dennis with a runny arse and Overmars with runny feet (squits ‘n’ blisters). Wenger decided to play with Diawara wide on one side Ljungberg on the other, with Kanu and Anelka in the middle. Parlour was in his recent ‘linchpin’ role. The problem with the game from the off was that Arsenal couldn’t clear their lines adequately ie. that couldn’t get the ball upfield. Vieira was asked to do a superhuman job of bringing the ball out from defence, walking it through the sticky Southampton middle and then bringing the strikers into play; and all on his own as well. Ljungberg, in particular, looked like a real luxury. We’d have preferred Garde in the middle to take some of the pressure off Patrick. In fact, it wasn’t until the second half, when Vivas filled in the middle holes, that the Gunners looked more solid. Goal chances? To be fair the best two fell to Southampton and the grey Welsh mutant, Hughes. In the first half he hit the post from about eighteen inches and in the second his bullet header to the inside of the foot of the upright, was miraculously saved by a poked out Seaman leg. Arsenal’s best chance came from a Boa Morte flick, helped on by Anelka, that Kanu lashed at inside the box, towards a completely empty goal. Even as we were up on our feet and cheering, Francis Benali, appeared from nowhere and cleared the ball off the line. Bugger. And that was that. A pointless afternoon that only had one point in it. Man of the Match: Patrick Vieira.
Arsenal 1 Blackburn 0 Here’s a new one; Chris Sutton stole my match report. Well, to be perfectly accurate Chris Sutton and a vast vat of some lager coloured liquid. Too pissed off and pissed up to write a coherent sentence, I spent most of Tuesday evening trying to negotiate with a huge red animal to take me home. Yes, too bladdered to actually get on the bus I spent untold hours just flapping at them trying to get them to stop. Might have helped if I was actually at a bus stop rather than a lamppost. But, you’ll agree, hindsight is a wonderful thing. So what of the game? Well, the first half was a bit of a blur. Bergkamp hit a free kick straight at the Blackburn wall. The ball bounced straight back to him and he whacked it giving it a vicious whip that saw it creep around the edge of the disintegrating wall and just snuggle in between the post and the keeper. Terrific. Blackburn were nasty, niggly and had ‘Nationwide’ written all over them. Some of the human weebles who sit behind us went into a number about how good it would be if Sutton came and played for the Gunners. In between us shouting at them and putting our forefingers and thumbs together and making sliding gestures in their general vicinity we nearly missed most of the second half. Let’s get one thing straight: Chris Sutton got Martin Keown sent off. The referee; small and covered in black with a whiff of the dustbin about him was a complete nonce. Sutton’s off the ball fouls were quite amazing; elbows, studding ankles, subtle nuttings, etc. The man is completely out of control. Of course, Keown retaliated. Second yellow, first red and off he went. Chris Sutton, I must say, is moving into a territory previously reserved for one, Edward Sherringham. In between us shouting and cursing Keith Gillespie managed to get himself sent off for pole-axing an attacking Gunner. (Too much cooking lager; we didn’t have a clue who was fouled. Sorry.) Bergkamp stepped up for the penalty with ‘miss’ written all over his furrowed brow. Big surprise when it was saved. The rest of the match seemed to last five days or five minutes depending on which wave of lager nausea we were currently riding. The last thing I remember is commenting on a rather marvellous Nigel Winterburn performance, drinking more piss coloured liquid, pissing out the same and then playing with the buses for the rest of the night. I know I went home with the hump about Keown and Sutton and only realised the next day that three points at this stage of the season was probably no bad thing. Oh well. Early to bed on Saturday night. No lager, no hangovers just the M1 and the untimely cup exit of Manchester. Well, maybe just a wee one when we win. Man of the Match: Nigel Winterburn.
Arsenal 5 Wimbledon 1 All week we’ve had the so-called ‘Giggs Wonder Goal’ rammed down our throats. And what really happened? A tired defence backed away from a bloke going on a run. It just went on a little further than usual. Fortuitous, I’d call it. I remember another goal a couple of seasons ago; long run from inside his own half, beat half a dozen players as he ploughed his way across the pitch and finally walloped the ball past the ‘keeper. No, not an Arsenal player. A Derby one. Yep, Wanchope’s goal against Manchester United. Finest goal in the last five years? Maybe. What about Wrighty’s goal against Everton where he juggled it over two players, ran around them and scored? What about Owen against Argentina? Bergkamp’s World Cup pull down? Anyway, you get the drift. If any Arsenal player had bothered to read a newspaper in the last five days they would have thought that the universe had turned into a huge version of Old Trafford right down to the atomic level. Tonight then, was supposed to be foregone conclusion. We’d draw 0-0 or surrender a 2-0 lead like the hapless Chelsea and then all the United fans could rush out onto the streets of Exeter, or wherever they live, and celebrate the successful conclusion of another bit of their treble. Ha, ha, ha. Arsenal don’t read scripts; they write them. This was a fairly cowered Wimbledon side. It would be tempting to say they lacked heart; but that would be a rather cheap jibe at Joe Kinnear’s behest. But to be honest, I can’t think of another way of putting it. Wimbledon, nowadays are ball players, who use the ground, rather than gravity and whose grit is confined to resolution, rather than the stuff you used to pick out of your legs after they had kicked you. In Thatcher, Hughes and Cort, they have players that would look good in any top flight side. However, seven and a half million pounds for John Hartson (the same amount Bergkamp cost!) still illustrates why people think the Dons are all slightly light in the cerebral department. The game started off at a nervous pace. The Dons are pacey and awkward at the front and Arsenal nearly got caught out very early on. Arsenal were without Dixon and Anelka, preferring Vivas and Kanu and the boys did look a little wonky in the first ten minutes. Then, the one-way traffic started. Arsenal trawled up the pitch, had a potshot at Sullivan, tracked back to pick up the Wimbledon pacesetters and then turned around and went back up the pitch again. It looked more like commuting than attacking. Parlour missed, Bergkamp had a superb shot superbly saved and everyone and his misses had their er.. misses. One titanic run from Overmars saw him just about running out of pitch; he cut the ball back at an angle that was so acute it ached and Parlour flashed into the area, collided with a defender and guided the ball in on the slide. One-nil. So, bags of effort and only a single, carved from granite goal, to show at half time. As the boys tramped out for the second half, we thought that another goal would settle the old nerves, stomachs and bowels. So, how about four of the sods in fifteen minutes? Goal two was a real peach. A long considered cross field ball found Vieira, who ran onto it and smacked it from about twenty five yards. Straight as an arrow, it ripped into the near post space with a fizz that made the air crackle. Goal three was a cross that Kanu helped onto the post; it came out, hit Sullivan and went in. Goal four was a piece of Bergkamp magic; a juggle in the area, a ghost around the defender, then a low, well placed shot. Goal five, a mad cat’s cradle of passing, helped in at the end by the stilt legged Kanu. Bam, bam, bam and bam. It really was that quick. And it could have been six, seven and eight. Arsenal’s patches are getting purplier by the week. Stunning. And four goals eaten into United’s goal difference. Wimbledon got the consolation goal they already threatened. Those boys have more air power than NATO. They even brought on a slimmed down Johnny Hartson, who looked thin in all departments. That’s it. A breathtaking night and it demonstrates that it’s only over when the fat lady sings, not when then thin Welsh gippo scores. Man of the Match: Difficult. Bergkamp by a sliver.
Middlesbrough 1 Arsenal 6 It was Joe Frazier, talking about how to bring the invincible Ali to his knees, that said, ‘First you kill the body, then the head.’ Arsenal, it appears, have adopted this strategy towards Man Utd; first, you knock out their goal difference, then you do their heads in by zooming up the league and staying there. Having the benefit of hindsight and knowing that the overrated ones form Mudchester could only manage a miserable draw against Leeds, it looks like Arsenal now have the slimmest of chances in hanging on to the Premiership title. Indeed, the horrible possibility of relying on Spurs to win the last match of the season at Old Trafford now seems possible. But, as you know, all this Nostradamus guff is pretty unreliable (‘I see a man of Erin called ‘Kin’, kicking people. I see a man with a red nose and another with a purple countenance moaning as if they are in great pain. The mists are clearing once more and I see a high voiced castrato called ‘Bickham’ mating with a woman who looks like a pig.’) You get the message. Counting chickens is wrong. Well, what about the match? For once, we can think of nothing to moan about. A couple of more games like this and we’ll pack up the website completely. To be honest, this match was awesome. Middlesbrough, though slightly depleted, haven’t lost in seven games. One-nil us, would have done me, particularly as Den, the recipient of one of those mysterious ‘training ground’ injuries was absent. So, the Gunners began with Anelka and Overmars up front with Kanu tucked just in behind them to supply the ammo. It was evident from the off that someone had flipped that little switch in Anelka’s back to ‘on’. His pace was electric and within a couple of minutes he had burst through the ‘boro defence and been brought down for a clear penalty. It was probably a blessing that Bergkamp was out as Overmars stepped up and drilled a fairly wonky shot straight down the middle, relying on Mustoe to move rather than save. It was after the first goal that Middlesbrough staged something of a comeback. Seaman saved with his legs from Ricard and then the floppy haired one tipped a Deane loft over the bar. After that the game began to look suspiciously like a Subbuteo masterclass. Vieira struck a wonderful ball to the accelerating Anleka, who ran onto it, struck it low and still had time to nutmeg the goalkeeper. Sweet goal. ‘Boro then had two shots: Seaman saved from Deane and then Mustoe just missed the post with a curler. Arsenal’s third, just before half time, was another Roy of the Rovers special. Kanu, Anelka, Nico cross back to the running Kanu, who passed the ball into the open goal with his size 16’s. Neat goal, that looked like someone had drawn it out on a blackboard beforehand. We were all happy with 3-0. We’d have settled for 45 minutes of Adam and Bould defensive blocking, but no, within minutes Overmars nearly had another from a superb Anelka cross. We were still wiping ourselves down and adjusting our clothing when Anelka burst forward, put the ball to Overmars, who played it straight to Vieira, who whacked the ball low. Bang, another goal. Not long after, Dixon fed the ball to Kanu in the area. The ball had a bit of pace to it and Kanu was closely shadowed by a ‘boro defender. Looked like a whole heap of nothing to us. What happened next is probably candidate for goal of the season. Forget all that Giggs bollocks. The ball came in, Kanu, with his back to the goal ,caught the ball at speed and backheeled it into the net. Cross, look, move, flick. That quick, that clean. A piece of top drawer world cup winning skill. Kill to see a video of it. To give ‘boro their due they didn’t roll completely over. Just after Arsenal’s fifth, Ricard rattled the post with a well taken free kick. Arsenal’s sixth, though, was another of the peach variety. Kanu passed to Anelka, who juggled the ball around a player, settled himself and then just let fly from just inside the area. Majestic strike. Several minutes later Vickers headed off the line from Anelka and we had what now has become a well established custom; Diawara missing an open goal. Unlucky. Oh, and Middlesbrough scored with a header that boinged off the upright before pinballing in. Phew. Eleven Arsenal goals in six days. A goal difference of one. One point in front of United and they have a game in hand. If it gets anymore exciting we’ll have to give up supporting the Gunners and go and watch Orient instead. (Yes, we know they won 6-1 too yesterday. Cracking.) On days like this, you can do no wrong; drink mad lager all day and not feel any effect, pull the local villain’s bird and not get your legs broken and get one of those shitty scratch cards in a packet of Dorito’s and win another shitty packet of Dorito’s. (Who came up with a snack that tastes like animal scabs?) Life can be good. (Shame about the Dorito’s though.) Man of the Match: Kanu. The best Dennis Bergkamp impersonation we’ve ever seen.
I Current Season I Match Archives I Mail us I Links I Home I
|
