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August 2001 18.8.01 Middlesbrough 0 Arsenal 4
Middlesbrough 0 Arsenal 4 It only seems like yesterday that we silently crept away from the looming shadow of the Millennium Stadium fed up with anything that was red and white, or round and leathery; with nothing to look forward to except that marvellous institution; the English summer. Warm beer, warm rain, dangerously botched DIY jobs and the chance to resume acquaintances with all those mutant relatives and lesser mates that are so easy to avoid when the Arsenal are playing three times a week. Instead of the healing oblivion of the close season we had nursery warfare with Vieira slinging all sorts of things out the pram. Once again, the close season was about four years long, full of backbiting, smearing and snide. Like having a bad night’s sleep, when the sun finally rose on the morning of the 18th, we all felt a little knackered. However, unlike previous campaigns, the difference this year is that there’s very little to moan about. The signings of Jeffers, Wright, Van Bronckhorst and Inamoto were, if not inspired, then certainly informed. The centre back freebie from the Seven Sisters park side was also a major coup. And the tactical tinkering (the new right back - Lauren) looks like it could be a stroke of genius. The team is looking good. But there is a but. While the team is looking good it isn’t actually looking good at all. Which brings us to the revolting tarty cabaret, lap dancing, tit holder, away strip. Metallic gold and blue. Give me a break. What might look alluring draped around Shirley Bassey’s gusset looks absolutely ridiculous stretched across Sol Campbell’s fifteen foot shoulders. The whole team looks like it’s wearing underwear; Nike’s Agent Provocateur collection could hardly worse. What’s next? Tony Adams in a basque? I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. See, if you do dig deep enough, you can always find something to moan about. Still, life isn’t all fashion, as the surprising amount of holes in the wrong places in my M & S ‘Ramrod’ briefettes will testify to. And certainly there was nothing fashionable or wacky about the team Wenger picked for the opening game. It looked exactly like last year’s team with only the substitution of Sol Campbell for the injured Martin Keown. Big ugly bastard with a baby scaring face stuck in the middle; so no change there. Lauren started on the right, Parlour, Ljungberg and Vieira supplied the engine and Henry and a surprisingly fit looking Wiltord were the marksmen up front. The bench had about thirty million quids worth of arse on it. Typically, we all feared the dreaded ‘new broom’ syndrome. Steve McClaren, the new ‘Boro manager, is one of those blokes that can probably inspire people for about ten minutes. Without the gravitas of Ferguson it remains to be seen if he can be more than just another red faced northerner. Despite what the reality addled press write or ITV emperor’s new sports clothes show say, this game was all Arsenal. Ashley Cole and Vieira have rarely looked better and Ljungberg continues the grow in stature in direct proportion to his hair which continues to do a passable impersonation of a skunk out clubbing. Whilst the team is looking better at any time since the departure of Petit, the standard of refereeing is still fuelled by self importance and prissiness. Graham Barber booked Parlour twice, Adams once and sent off Ugo Ehiogu. One of Parlour’s tackles got the ball first, contrary to what the News of the World and that asinine arse Des Lynam think. Ball, then leg, no foul in my book. But Barber must have his moment of fame before he’s forced back into whatever dreary trial he calls life. And as for the sending off of Ehiogu. Pure farce. Ashley Cole, on a run, is tripped on the outside of the area. OK, I was glad of the penalty. But, a sending off? The penalty, which Pires converted with a surprising amount of power made it two-nil. Earlier, in the back end of the first half, Wiltord had gone wide, whipped a cross over and Henry majestically chested it down, stuck out a leg and volleyed the ball into the top left corner. Actually, it was somewhere between a lob, a lift and a volley. Henceforth we shall refer to it as a ‘lobby-lolly.’ If Ron Atkinson can make up his own language, then so can we. Arsenal were then forced to play the rest of the game with only ten men, which is ten more than Middlesbrough will ever have. They did look a bit wretched. Seaman’s one bit of exercise came from a low Ince shot which he tipped around the post. After Ehiogu went off Middlesbrough reversed engineered themselves into muscle, sinew, bones and 90% water. Bergkamp came on for his two minute run out and promptly scored two goals. Taking advantage of the yawning Ehiogu shaped hole, he fashioned two sublime classic Bergkamp goals; low shots, advancing, committed goalkeeper and that little stab/rasp at the end. All last season, away from home, we looked like Bradford City. At last we looked like Arsenal. Apart from the shirts. Man of the Match: Still not quite forgiven. Patrick Vieira. (Look if my dog keeps biting you, I don’t say, ‘sorry I didn’t know he was biting you.’ You have the mutt put down. Marc Roger is still biting people and the last time I looked Vieira was still holding the leash.)
Arsenal 1 Leeds 2 Same old Arsenal. Same old Arsenal. You wouldn’t believe the promise of the first half. Movement, tackling, piercing vision plus glimpses of an Elysian field with eleven red and white supernal beings in perfect harmony; it was that good. Pires, despite the new alarming Hugh Grant fringe, has never looked better. Lauren, on the right, looked as fine as Ashley on the left, Sol Campbell looked as if he were born in an Arsenal shirt and Vieira was so good that you forgot to breathe when he moved with the ball. It was wonderful. And Leeds were no more than a disease; albeit, a fucking virulent one. And then it dawned on us poor saps, that this was exactly the same as last season; tons of possession, the odd shot, the even odder Henry back heel into nowhere and then us being suckered by a crap/lucky side and staring at a ball nestling in the back of the wrong net. You could argue that Leeds’s first goal was unfair in that Seaman was still organising the wall as Harte struck a clean free kick; but really, we should be looking for that sort of thing. And the second goal, a piece of Viduka opportunism came about because Adam’s was copping some zzzz’s and Seaman still hasn’t learnt to cover his near post. But ultimately we let the other mob off the hook and they spanked us. Even after Bowyer and the hated Mills were red carded, Arsenal with just about everyone on the pitch, apart from Inamoto, had descended from the giddy heights of the first half to doing a passable imitation of a bunch lads having a kickabout in the car park. Awful. The Arsenal goal came in the first half from an inspired bit of Ashley Cole running. A cannonball cross was met by the flicking head of Wiltord and Nigel Martin was forced to show his arse to the evening as he picked the ball out of the net. The season is four days old and most Arsenal supporters are fed up with it already. There’s bad luck and there’s dangling your balls in front of a starving pitbull and inviting him to a nosh. Arsenal, are the architects of their own misfortune. There you go, we’re getting morbid again. So what was good about the evening? 1. Stacks and stacks of Japanese girls all running around Highbury. No kidding. Maybe they’ve always been there, but we’ve never noticed. Well done to Inamoto. And thank God nobody followed Luztny over from Kiev. If we want sad, ugly women we can always get a bus to White Hart Lane. Could have done without all the high pitched chanting of ‘come on you leds, though. 2. Finally working out that Mark Viduka is a dead ringer for Benny from Topcat. 3. Chanting ‘Guilty’ every time Woodgate touched the ball. 4. Going home. Man of the Match: Robert Pires.
Arsenal 4 Leicester 0 I hate to be ungrateful, but this was bloody boring. Ninety degrees, sitting in swimming pools of your own water; you could hear people sweating. The only person at Highbury who felt more uncomfortable was probably Peter Taylor. In just over a year he has turned Martin O Neill’s smart, strong footballers into a team that turns out for a pub. Well, at least that hyperactive Afghan hound of a player, Robbie savage, has found his own level. Once again Highbury was full of Japanese schoolgirls moistening up in the hope of a glimpse of Inamoto; they would have given Arsenal a better game than Leicester. The match began the same as all the others lately. Massive possession, fluid moves, but going nowhere. The goals when they came were all no more than glorified tap-ins. The first, a sublime Bergkamp back heel, picked up by Pires, who outfoxed the Foxes, squared it Ljungberg who sided it in. The second, like the first, involved pulling the defence like a cat’s cradle, and this time Wiltord had the two yard poke. After half time it got even hotter; people liquefied, metal bent life soft toffee and there was so much water hanging in the air that the pitch looked the view of the world through the bottom of a pint glass. Maybe the heat was getting to the players. When Pires was fouled, Dennis Wise decided unwisely to get involved. Vieira stepped in for a word and they went nut to nut like stags, playful lovers or even dim footballers. Given that there were no great signs of obvious violence, it was a bit of a surprise when both of them were sent off. I’d never thought I would live so long as to side with Dennis Wise. Welcome to the world of the professional referee. Do they have quotas to fill or something? The last two goals came from the subs: Henry and Kanu. Henry, in particular, could have had at least four, but he continues to fluff most chances and over complicate the easy ones. I’d have preferred Jeffers, personally. His goal was a decent lash that took a horrible deflection off a blue arse and left Flowers waving in the wind. Likewise, Kanu’s goal was a scrappy affair, coming out at the third attempt and then only finding the net because the big man fell forward in a surprisingly graceful attempt at a diving header. Baked, broiled and suffering complete dehydration, we couldn’t wait for the final whistle. One side was well done and the other needed turning over; much like the afternoon, really. Man of the Match: Pires. Just gets better.
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