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JULY 1999 17.7.99 Notts County 1 Arsenal 2
AUGUST 1999 1.8.99 Charity Shield. Arsenal 2 Man United 1 14.8.99 Sunderland 0 Arsenal 0 22.8.99 Arsenal 1 Manchester United 2 25.8.99 Arsenal 2 Bradford City 0
17.7.99 The next time David Dein says, "Follow me, I know where I’m going" don’t believe him. As we tripped off the train in Nottingham followed by the inevitable quick detour to WH Smiths to look at the local A to Z, trying to work out where the hell everything was, we were still full of the mindless confidence of semi awake football supporters that says, ‘We can find the ground even though we’ve never even been anywhere near it before’. Of course we’ve all been to Forest and that was only on the other side of the Trent, so how hard could it be? The problem with pre-season friendlies is that you don’t have the bulk of milling red and white shirts to follow in that simple minded conga that sometimes, at the very least, leads you to an area where you can spot a spindly floodlight rearing above the row of semis. So there we were ambling around a load of shuttered industrial buildings, hardware shops from the mid nineteen fifties and those mysterious warehouses that seem to produce nothing except scads of empty cardboard boxes; you know the places: Starsky and Hutch would always drive through them at speed or Bodie and Doyle would end fighting in them. Well, there we were, mooning about, just on the verge of being stupidly lost when who should scuttle past us but David Dein. Clutching a huge bunch of car keys in one hand he’d obviously had to park somewhere a bit of a walk from the ground. Shame. Still, he looked great; his powder blue suit set off his orange skin rather nicely, we thought. This was an opportunity too good to miss. Not only was there someone who knew where he was going, but here also was the captive audience we all dream about. Talking as loud as we could but without sounding like loonies on a day pass we shouted to one another about the Anelka business, the new striker business, the new ground business, in fact any piece of nonsense we could mange. I give Dein his due; for someone who spends his life in a top of the range motor, he can motor a bit himself. The man can walk fast. We were in some danger of losing him and besides shouting at the top of lungs, ‘Shame about Tone’s hernia’ was starting to look a little unseemly. Even for us. By now something like a big branch of Do-It-All was beginning to hove into view and we assumed that was the ground. Dein hit top speed, strode past the obvious opening and disappeared behind a clump of scraggy trees. The man definitely knew the lay of the land. We followed the blue and orange man. I don’t know who was more surprised, David Dein for finding himself in a light engineering works loading bay full of broken wooden pallets or us bashing into the powder blue wall of an expensive suit. The man may be able to negotiate million pound deals and have the ear of the good and the great, but he has the sense of direction of a small remote controlled car. Looking flustered he backed out of the yard and disappeared behind another tree. This time, we ignored him, went completely in the opposite direction; found the ground in seconds and got our tired footsies under the table of a most agreeable pub. The message is clear, never follow the leader. So, what about the football? Surprisingly good for a pre season ‘burn off the summer lard fest’. Only Bergkmap, Overmars, Seaman and Adams were missing. Kanu, it was observed, was somewhat mysteriously. ‘in the USA,’ and ‘on business.’ Hope it’s not his ticker. So the gooner line-up included Petit (no, he hasn’t had his hair cut) Vieira (yes, he has. A Wormwood Scrubs number one) Dixon, the newly mended Winterburn and Keown. Wreh played upfront. Parlour and Ljungbeg played wide and behind the Iberian. The new lad, Silvinho, played in a floating wing back role, with Nigel doing all the donkey work behind him. In the second half after Winterburn went off Silvinho reverted to a more traditional left back role. He looks good. Not overly big but he’s fast and it looks like he might be able to pass a ball too. Good debut. Goals in games like this are largely immaterial. A clever first goal from Ljungberg was followed by a well worked staple from Wreh. A word about Ljungberg. He was terrific. Maybe at last we will see his Sweden form at Highbury. By now you’ve probably heard about Tony Adam’s hernia, apparently he’s going to out for seven weeks. The rumour that he got it lifting his MBE is just that. Still, now that Bouldy’s gone to some old folks home, it was good to see Keown and Upson playing together. Not quite the full article, but getting there. County pulled a goal back just before half time, demonstrating once again that the Arse have an alarming tendency to take their feets off the pedals, eyes off the balls or something like that. You know what we mean. In the second half, so many players came on that the chipper County announcer just packed it in. The youngster, Jermaine Pennant was out there, indeed, the whole game was part of his transfer fee from Notts County. He showed some good touches, including a tasty bi-line chip, that would look great against Dennis Irwin. Keep your eye on him. The other new boy, Oleg Luzhny came on and he looked massive; biggest right back I’ve ever seen. He looked solid but there was a maverick quality to his play that was surprising. Some of his crossfield passing was nearly as accurate as it was ambitious. Another good’un, we reckon. In amongst all the unfamiliar faces we think Stefan Malz came on. Certainly there was a graceful fair haired geezer in the middle of the park spraying passes around and making intelligent runs. It could have been him. What more can we say? One of those top days when the English weather is perfect; blue sky, red shirts, blue suits, orange skin. And a decent game of football. Marvellous. Man of the Match: Frederick Ljungberg.
Borehamwood 1 Arsenal 6 St Etienne 2 Arsenal 2 What does this all mean? About as much as a kickabout with your mates. Take no notice. First big one Wembley. Funny enough the second big one is Leicester. Not often you can say that, eh?
Charity Shield Arsenal 2 Manchester United 1 After the debacle of last year’s Charity Shield that saw us tanked up on vats of mad lager, wandering around the nether regions of King’s Cross after the game, wondering how we were going to get home without exploding and vaporising in a cloud of yellow lumpy vomit and piddle, this year was always going to be a bit more ‘family orientated.’ So, girlfriends, wives and a couple of borrowed children in tow we all trooped off to Wembley looking absolutely respectable, if a little quiet. Wembley Way did its usual passable impersonation of Hell’s ante room; hot, crowded, smelly and full of red devils. The United supporters wore their usual complete nylon wardrobe; four hundred different strips all with the word ‘sharp’ on front, whilst the sweating fools inside them looked anything but. Really, you could sell Man United supporters a ball of fucking ear wax if it had a picture of David Beckham’s arse on it. Inside, Wembley is looking tired as an Alex Ferguson excuse. Crap catering, crap seats and toilets with more crap than you’ve ever seen. The sooner they pull it down the better; and they can dump that titty looking condiment set of the twin towers too. Believe me, Brisbane Road has more atmosphere and it doesn’t smell of 70,000 bladder evacuations. Just before we leap two footed into the meat of the afternoon a couple of words about the DJ’s at Wembley. And those two words are ‘automatic weapons’. Where they get those patronising, asinine bags of shit from, I just don’t know. It’s people like that that make me ashamed to be human. Let’s all hope they die in pain. And quietly. Arsenal ran out sans the one legged Seaman, the one bollocked Adams and the creamed crackered Bergkamp and Overmars. The most ill matched pairing since Cannon and Ball, namely Ljungberg and Kanu made us all look nervously at Cole and York, until we remembered that Cole couldn’t hit a watermelon with a fork and Dwight York used to be that hyperactive idiot who used to play for Aston Villa. The Gunners started with the flushed Manninger in goal, Lee and Nutty at the back and Keown paired with Grimandi. Parlour played vaguely on the right and the new boy, the Brazilian, Silvinho, vaguely on the left. Petit and Vieira anchored the middle. The first ten minutes were all Arsenal (Ljungberg cracked a shot high and wide) and the next fifty were nearly all Man United. The Mankies, to give them their due, were quick and incisive, but it’s the sort of football that leaves no margin for error; one foot wrong and they’re losing possession at high speed. And that’s what happened. United flowed forward, Petit and Vieira broke it up, released the ball early to either Ljungberg, Kanu or Parlour who galloped furiously up the field pursued by a posse of out of position United players who inevitably fouled their quarry with the complete blessing of the referee, the confused dim bulb that is Graham Barber. Manninger made one good save in the first half and one spectacular one in the second but still found himself hastily forming a wall whilst Mr Posh flicked his barnet and placed the ball for a mysteriously earned free kick. Arsenal, Wembley and free kicks don’t ever go together. Beckham got the ball in the net off the bar. Manninger scooped it out or in, depending on your viewpoint. Then there was another bundle and Dwight York got it in again. One nil to the Salford Globetrotters. They probably thought then that the job was finished and they could fuck off in the second half and play an exhibition match with the staff at B & Q down the road or something. We probably would have been down in the dumps but the delightful Teddy Sherringham decided to warm up in front of us and entertain us all with a series of mimes and charades that showed exactly what he thought of 35,000 people. The Daily Mirror on Monday called it ‘teasing’. I’d call it incitement. One syllable, Ted and it rhymes with ‘punt’. Someday, someone is going to glass him and most of North London will throw the biggest street party since the coronation. Jaap Stamm failed to come out in the second half, slipped a washer on the bolt on his neck, or something and Arsenal found a lot more room in the middle of the park. Kanu, in particular, started running through his incredible repertoire of flicks, shimmies and nonchalant, slow passes that took all afternoon to get there. It was dazzling to watch. Irwins, Nevilles, Butts and Beckhams all floundered in his elegant wake. It looked like Gulliver in Lilliput. Marvellous. Silvinho finally bowed out and on came Boa Morte, who quite incredibly, made a huge difference. Maybe it was the wing switch, maybe Dennis Irwin is just getting past it. It was only a matter of minutes later that Parlour springing across the United area, released a ball that began hopefully and seconds later whacked off the inside of the far Manchester goalpost. Bosnich wouldn’t have seen it until they showed it on ITV eight hours later. We all thought that was it. Earlier, Vieira had gone down in the United area, to no avail. Nicky Butt kicked Keown in the face whilst laying on the ground and Beckham is still the only player in Europe that is allowed to call the referee a lady’s spasm chasm and get away with it. We were getting no joy from this dismal ref. That is until Vieira made a looping run down to the United line, Irwin tugged him a bit and Patrick went down like the pope on an airline runway. Good dive and amazingly, a penalty. Complete Karmic justice. It was Kanu eventually who strolled up to the ball, looked around to see if anyone was watching and then gave the surly sphere of leather a little shove; a kick more akin to dislodging a sleepy cat off a doorstep, then a full bloodied thunderer. The ball took about a month to hit the back of the net. Lord knows where Bosnich was. It looked brilliant though. After that United flagged a bit and Arsenal were getting a whiff of something that wasn’t anything to do with the medieval catering and the Jurassic toilets. Kanu picked up the ball in midfield from a pinpoint Vieira clearance, wandered upfield and then released a sweet ball to the motoring Ray Parlour. Ray, in the same position as before, lashed the ball across the goal, hit the post in the same spot as before but this time contrived for it to go in the other direction and dribble into the net. Unbelievable. Complete bedlam. A man the size of Wales fell on my missus; she disappeared under a twenty stone new away strip and we all celebrated a sweet moment (er, that’s the goal, not my wife’s innovative new slimming plan.) After that it was just hang on time to the final whistle, a quick raising of the weird plate you win and then a pointless but deeply pleasurable knees up. Charity Shield? Means sod all, but it was nice to see the disappointment in the Manchester United squad when they realised that they are not unbeatable. I’ll settle for a few of those looks next May. Man of the Match: Kanu. Made Beckham look like a bloke from Leyton.
Arsenal 2 Leicester 1 One nil down against the mighty Leicester to a goal gifted to the Foxes by Grimandi exhibiting all the grace of some poor git in the last throws of a particularly nasty motor neurone disease, you’d be forgiven for thinking that we were more than a little depressed. But then you looked at our forward line: Kanu, Bergkamp, Overmars and Henry (or ‘Terry ‘Enry as the North Bank have begun to call him) and you just couldn’t help smiling. And Sukor and Adams and Seaman and Silvinho and Lutzny to come; and Jermaine Pennant looking dead tasty in all the pre season malarky. Who cared if we were one down? We’d read the script already, we knew what the outcome was supposed to be. Unfortunately either Leicester couldn’t read or they have no respect for teams that are supposed to win. The thing is, Leicester played extremely well. Two men on each Arsenal player, closed down every bit of daylight and ran around like border collies that had just had their shots; they were actually very good. If they can ship in a striker that has a track record rather than a desperately overrated reputation, they’d be great. Oh, and if they knocked all that bleedin’ shirt pulling on the head, then maybe we’d respect them a little more. Arsenal started off bright; Bergkamp exhibiting a pace not seen for a season or so, Winterburn and Dixon looking like 18 year olds, Petit and Vieira looking large and bothersome and poor old Kanu looking absolutely cream crackered after his midweek mercy dash to Nigeria. Me, I get knackered on the Northern Line and Lagos is a bit further than Old Street by my reckoning. (See, I knew that O level geography would come in handy one day.) There was a real buzz going around Highbury just before kick off. For the first time in years the fans felt that the team was just about right. Nobody was doing the usual of ‘we should have bought him or him’ apart from the tawdry pond life behind us who spent a significant portion of the ninety minutes lamenting the departure of Anelka. Last year they wanted to sell Bergkamp. Fucking hell; I know Spurs supporters that like Arsenal more than they do. If I had the money I’d buy their season tickets off them, kick their teacher/social worker arses all the way up Avenall Road and give their little red ticket books to Barnado’s or something. On the pitch, Leicester were doing their best to self-destruct. Walsh went down like a dropped sack of spuds, when absolutely no one was near him; those injuries are always serious. And Heskey, after backing into Grimandi, went off on a stretcher wearing a large neck brace. Going against the Foxes was like trying to erode a planet by spitting at it. I believe the word for Leicester is ‘obdurate.’ Even though we were playing with the millennial forward line the scoreline was looking a bit mid eighties. 0-0 looked favourite until Grimandi fluffed a clearance and the ball ran straight to a Leicester player. Run, square and shoot. Goal. Simple tap in for the long lived and over the hill Cottee. Arsenal began to wake up. Wenger threw on Henry on the left and then switched him over to his favoured right when Overmars came on. Bergkamp emerged from his mid game slumbers and suddenly found the smallest of chinks in the Leicester defence (That joke would have worked better if we’d been playing Crystal Palace.) Suddenly a high ball into the Leicester area was pounced on by Dennis. He leant back, got his balance and encroached on by a gaggle of blue shirts, he dipped his body and tipped the ball into the net. Nice goal. Terry ‘Enry then went close about three times and looked absolutely electrifying. My, there’s going to be some decent things to watch this season. Maybe Wenger has played his ‘get out of jail free’ card early in the season. But with nothing on the clock the Arsenal launched a vicious attack on Tim Flower’s goal; the ball went up and wide and there was Sinclair heading the ball into his own net. Even though we were clapping and laughing our heads off, you couldn’t help feeling a little bit sorry for him. Three hard earned points and I don’t think many games this season will be that tight or well contested. Good luck to Leicester; they made a few mates and made a game of it. Arsenal? It’s just going to get better. Just lay back and think of England, France, Holland and Nigeria. Man of the Match: Dennis by a blonde whisker and a good goal, just pipping the evergreen Winterburn.
Derby 1 Arsenal 2 Well, it’s our best start in years, we’re finally beating those teams that we should be beating, the football, in patches, is great and yet somehow over the summer Arsenal appear to have lost a gear. Two superb goals against Derby’s solitary offside rolling punt, yet we all felt at the end of the game as empty as the wet clutter of Guinness glasses on the table. Maybe it’s us that need the rest, not the Arsenal players. And maybe we’re just ungrateful swine who don’t deserve a red and white full bloodied side. Still, Petit’s goal was a masterful moment, surely destined for the opening credits of Match of the Day. Picking the ball up just outside the Derby area, Manu in a bit of space the size of a dinner plate, looked up, leant his body one way, shot the other and tested the very boundaries of the laws of physics by bending the ball up and over the Derby throng and into the top left corner of the net. Textbook goal that made Beckham’s effort at Wembley look like a Hackney Marsh special. Great stuff. We particularly liked Petit’s imperious swagger after the goal; a cross between Julius Caesar and Norman Wisdom. Just when we thought the Arsenal would catch fire, Derby pulled one back; a daft goal that Sky TV made out to be a bit special. We were still grumbling as the second half started, looking at the screen through the bottom of beer glasses, lamenting eating that antique cheese roll in the first half and generally moaning as only real Arsenal supporters can when Bergkamp, sensing somehow that most of north London was not paying him enough attention, slipped the Derby offside trap and stabbed the ball into the net. Smart, sharp, predatory stuff. That was it really. Arsenal could have had five, ‘Enry looked great again, Luzhny came on and put over some of the best crosses seen in years in an Arsenal shirt and generally the team purred like a big cat. And yet…it wasn’t that exciting. Maybe it’s a lack of passion, maybe it’s just too early and nobody has woken up yet. Maybe we’re all turning into Spurs fans. Anyway, it’s still better than watching Hillier, McGoldrick and Morrow. We really had something to moan about then. Man of the Match: Petit. A True Story about David Beckham We realise the above match report is about as interesting as irritable bowel syndrome so here’s a story about Leyton’s favourite son that we know is 100% true and we really shouldn’t be telling you, but seeing as it’s just you and me; well, here goes. David employs a very ritzy firm of accountants to manage his considerable packet. Being a pukka pro firm they have laid down a few rules for the young stud, the main one being that Becks has two accounts; a business one and a personal one. Time and again they have tried to drum into him that when he writes a cheque, that he should draw it off the right account. You know, keep business and pleasure separate. Well, one day they ring him up a tell him that he should write a cheque for three and a half grand out to the customs and excise. On the business account. The cheque arrives at the accountants, they open it up and it’s groans all around. A girl in the office asks if he’s written the cheque on the wrong account again. The cheque is thrust into her hands. And there is a cheque, actually written to the right account, for three and a half grand, made out to ‘costumes and exercise.’ When they phoned him up he said he thought it was something to do ‘with Victoria’s gym.’ If his IQ was any lower he’d fucking photosynthesise in sunlight…
Sunderland 0 Arsenal 0 Let’s get this into perspective. America spent billions of dollars and thousands of lives trying to bomb Vietnam back into the stone age; Arsenal spent ninety minutes shooting, bombing and running at a team that was supposed to roll over and play dead, but didn’t. Maybe we should have tried Agent Orange. This was the most one-sided match since the Queen Mum miraculously went the distance with Mike Tyson. (Now did that really happen or are all those little blotters with smiley faces on them that we took at college returning for a flashback fest and an embarrassing metabolic revival?) Silvinho shoots, Parlour hits the bar, Ljungberg trundles one wide, Kanu bullet headed a flying one wide, it went on and on. And guess what? Right at the death Sunderland nearly nick it when they bring on our old Bank of Friendship, Guinness Monster Mucker, Niall Quinn, who comes within a whisker of pulling off a shock one. What a frustrating afternoon. There wasn’t even anything to make us laugh. (You can’t count the spooky spectacle of both sets of fans cheering wildly when the referee, Uriah Rennie, came on. After all, the man who had the bottle to send Captain Elbow (Shearer) off deserves a bit of respect- but not that much.) The good news is that our shooting outside the area is on the verge of being spectacular. The bad news is that we desperately need someone who can operate a bit more covertly in the box. The sooner Sukor pulls on an Arsenal shirt, the better. The other bad news is that some of Petit’s knee ligaments went south whilst the rest of his body went north. Might be out for a couple of weeks. Also Bergkamp was kicked up the arse (sorry, coccyx) by Sunderland’s young centre back, one Steve Bould and is sporting a soft purple bruise the size of Nuneaton. He might be a doubtful for the big one next Sunday. Also the game suffered from the same malaise as the first two; nice car, runs like a whippet, but where are the soddin’ gears? Good things? Upson. Silvinho. A running Ray Parlour and Peter Reid doing his famous gurning chimp impersonations on the bench. Bad things? The injuries, the fact that Sunderland is further away from London than Paris, the away kit looks like the graphics on a horrible seventies arcade game and in eight days we have to play the Stretford Fantasy XI again. It’s going to be a long week. Man of the Match: Intelligent, Brazilian and more gold than Silvinho.
Arsenal 1 Manchester United 2 Arsenal fans, unlike their spoilt Manchester counterparts, don’t expect much out of life. A bit of effort, a bit of inspiration and a bit of magic now and then are enough. We also expect a level playing field where the rules of the game apply equally to both sides. Alas, Highbury today looked like Yeovil’s famous sloping pitch as things were tilted so far in United’s direction. A referee who blithely sanctioned the most audacious attempt I’ve ever seen of one side to nobble another player (Mankies on Vieira). A referee who constantly favoured Stam’s holding of Bergkamp, yet wagged many fingers at Keown for doing the same thing to Yorke. A referee who seemed to relish the greedy mick, Keane’s, rabid midfield headhunting. And a referee who has in his possession a completely different set of rules that allow anyone in a United shirt to legitimately use their elbows whenever they want. Beckham, also, in his new position as the FA’s favourite son also was allowed to get away with red murder until he called one of the linesman a philosopher. Well, at least I think he said, ‘Kant’. Poor old Becks. In trouble this week for v-signing the Leed’s fans, he was let off scott-free because that sack of shite, Gordon Taylor said that the boy had been ‘under a lot of pressure.’ I don’t recall Ian Wright getting a sympathetic hearing after enduring 90 minutes of the filthiest racial bilge I’ve heard at Oldham a few years ago. Old ladies and kids were spitting at him. He v’s them back and they threw the book at him. But then he’s not a blue eyed boy and he played for the Arsenal. More playing fields that are anything but level. Talking of v signs, yours truly nearly missed the whole of the game, teetering on the edge on incarceration for a two fingered showing of my own. Walking along Upper Street before the game, the traffic parted to allow three screaming police outriders through. Behind them was a big brown coach, that we assumed was ferrying the Man United side. Looking through the smoked windows I saw something that looked vaguely Sherringham shaped (brown, turdlike). Well, of course I gave him a victory sign and a raspberry and a gesture that looks like someone describing an invisible broom handle. The next thing I know the Mankie entourage has disappeared and I’m left looking at a copper on a motorbike with my thumb and forefinger making the letter ‘O’. It’s nice to know that some old time coppers still exist. He paused his bike, pointed at me with his gauntlet and told me ‘pack it in’. And I did. Still, I have no idea why the United coach was coming from the west, rather than the north. Perhaps the team, like the supporters, have sod all to do with Manchester. And the game. Well, the first twenty minutes it was all United and the last twenty five were all us. Honours shared in the second half. Arsenal were a bit lopsided. Winterburn was out and Silvinho deputised. Fine player but he does have a tendency to go walkabout and get caught out of position. Parlour and Ljungberg anchored the middle and Dixon patrolled the right. Vieira looked fab and played just in front of Keown and young Upson, who had his best game ever in an Arsenal shirt. Up front were Bergkamp, Henry and Kanu. The first half, though slow to get going, was a real peach. Kanu had a fizzer tipped over, Bergkamp went close on several occasions and Vieira made some stunning runs. At the back, Manninger made three saves that removed most of the oxygen from the East Stand, such was the intake of breath. Top, top drawer. You kind of started to believe that a bit of telepathy was beginning to happen up front with some of the switching play. Indeed, it was a corking run from Ljungberg down the left that saw him go through the United defence like a warm Vindaloo through a ringpiece. Terrific acceleration, layed the ball off to Bergkamp who returned it to Freddie then whipped it under fucking Hertz Van Rental, or whatever he’s called in the United goal and drilled it into the net. 1-0 to the forces of light. In the second half arsenal never had quite the same momentum as the first. Wenger pulled of Kanu and Henry and brought on a quiet and barely moving Overmars and gave his Arsenal debut to Sukor, whose first touch was an attempted shot from the halfway line. Pathetic or genius? Who knows? I don’t care to describe either of the United goals, suffice to say that Roy Keane’s second came from a badly placed clearance from an out of position Parlour. We could see it coming a mile off. With the very last kick of the game Martin Keown had the ball in the back of the net but was judged by the muppet in green to have fouled the ‘keeper. Pissing Van der Valk, or whatever, pretended to be injured, just to make it look authentic. They really are a sorry bunch of cheats. So, not a good afternoon. You can’t beat 12 men, you can’t fight City Hall and if you’re playing Manchester United it’s no good sticking to the rules because they wrote the book. Man of the Match: Patrick Vieira. World cup winner and dude. Worth twenty skinhead bog trotters.
Arsenal 2 Bradford City 0 The air was so full of moisture it was like looking through a greasy fishbowl. The pitch, a watery emerald, danced in the thick refractions of the buttery lights…blah, blah, blah. OK, I admit it, tonight was nobbing boring. Two swift goals, then the rapid decline of a world class side. Christ, after ninety minutes Arsenal had regressed so much that they weren’t even capable of recognising the ball. I think Ray Parlour picked it up and shook it to see if there was any milk in it. It must have been the sultry heat that sapped their will and their skill. It started brightly enough; Parlour shooting wide and then Vieira heading in an absolute peach from that most rare of Arsenal things: a perfectly taken corner. Minutes later Ray went down in the Bradford area seemingly butt-fucked by some City defender wearing a strip so hideous that it looked like the sort of thing they wear in DIY warehouses. Kanu, now definitely the designated penalty taker after Bergie’s shaky FA Cup semi final colly wobbles, did the cheeky aplomb bit (slow, piss taking side footer) and we all cheered for the last time in the evening. Really after that it all went to wrack and ruin. Bergkamp and Henry went off, then Kanu; Sukor, Overmars and Upson came on and Arsenal showed as much shape as Posh Spice’s love ring. We also had to put up with 70 minutes of balls going high, wide and smacking into ambling Bradford defenders. It was like watching a team of piranhas playing a mob of sedated Golden Labradors. And yet, nothing went in. We amused ourselves by trying to make up songs; the best my mate came up with was ‘Hi ho Silvinho timing’. Shit or what? Still, that was nothing to what Bradford sang after one of their players was yellow carded for a nasty tackle from the back. Venting their full Yorkshire ire on the hapless ref, they sang, and I swear this is true, ‘You don’t know what you’re doing.’ Frightening. How long has William Hague been a Bradford fan? That was it. A night hotter than hell and wetter than John Prescott’s lovemaking; full of forgetful football, forgetful songs and one half decent goal. Me, I’m having trouble remembering it already. Alzheimer’s football, pure and simple. Man of the Match: Patrick Vieira. (More like ‘Man of the 15 Minutes’, though.)
Liverpool 2 Arsenal 0 The end to a perfectly wretched week. Quite frankly we could see this one coming for the last couple of games; (All the fruitless effort against Sunderland and United, the shooting fish in a barrel Bradford episode and the complete desertion of any modicum of luck or run of the ball; you could see the confidence draining away.) This season Arsenal have looked like a jelly that will never set. The inclusion of Ljungberg, Henry and now Sukor has overloaded a system that was used to a bit more route one with Anelka. Petit’s injury has also put a terrible burden on Vieira, who has been playing brilliantly, but had looked a bit lonesome on occasions. This game was like some horrible throwback to the eighties. Go to Anfield, shut up shop, admire the poise of Alan Hansen (overrated a-hole footballer) and try and keep the score respectable. Arsenal, today, looked like their last game was on Highbury Fields rather than Highbury Stadium. Bereft of any ideas, they plodded along, watched the Scousers play keep ball and generally looked as effective as all those geezers with the red shirts on in the old Star Trek series that were purely there to be zapped into oblivion. Even the returning Tony Adams looked poor. I really hated this afternoon. Right at the death Arsenal had a penalty. As soon as Sukor placed the ball we knew that he was going to miss. Lazy run, lazy kick and it made the saving keeper (Westworld, or something) look good. The only good news was that apart from Manhole United the league is looking very fluid and that Arsenal can probably afford to write off this afternoon as a bit of form incontinence. Me, I’m off for my own version of ‘very fluid’ at the nearest red and white hostelry. Bad day. Man of the Match: Nah.
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