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December 1998 13.12.98 Aston Villa 3 Arsenal 2
Derby 0 Arsenal 0 A week after Wenger’s now famous statement that Arsenal fans’ diet of caviar was now at an end and it was time to go back to sausages, the gaffer, proved with this game, to be true to his word. The only problem was that the sausages in question came out of the small hole in the middle of the buttocks rather than a recognised butcher. This was a full blown revisit to those much unlamented 0-0’s of yesteryear. Now, we might be up for a good moan about the team’s performance now and then, but we have never booed the boys or left early, like a lot of the champagne socialists did last week at Highbury, but believe us, today tried our patience. The entire highlight of the game was a flying Ray Parlour, shooting low and hitting the goalkeeper. That was it. Smelly or what? And this was Derby. What are we going to do against Villa next week? Turn up with a note from our mums saying that we can’t play because we have a weeping verucca or something? For God’s sake Arsene, buy a striker and get some cover that doesn’t look like Jim Henson kicked them off the Muppet Show for being uncoordinated. We’re not ungrateful, but if the team is going to go back to how it played in the early eighties, then we’re going back also and intend to laugh uproariously at inept performances and take the piss something rotten, just to keep our spirits up. Still, the boys did show a lot of spirit, but they used to put that on our school reports; it means that you’re a bit thick. So come on boys, spank the Greeks on Wednesday: help Kiev qualify and shut up the whinging Lens and then teach Villa a lesson next Sunday. That’ll go a long way to making everybody feel better. And let’s get that caviar back on the menu; we’re already fed-up with the diet of long brown steaming things. Man of the Match: David Seaman (For the save from Wanchope.)
Aston Villa 3 Arsenal 2 Lucky, lucky old Villa. There were Arsenal 2-0 up, going down the tunnel at half time, absolutely gagging for the second half, when Villa, sensing that their false elevated position in the league had been finally rumbled, resorted to the oldest trick in the book to get the second half delayed; you know the one. The old ‘get a bloke dressed as Father Christmas to parachute into the ground, whack the top of the stand, get his chute and tangled up and then drop like a stone about eighty feet and break both his legs.’ C’mon Villa, we weren’t born yesterday. Mind you, we thought the day was windy enough. The small spherical object, sometimes known as ‘ball’ was continually mugged by the wind if it went above three foot; so what idiot sanctioned a parachute drop? We hope some serious heads roll on poor Santa’s behalf. Incidentally, there’s no truth in the rumour that a couple of Brummies in the Holte End were hit by falling reindeer shit. In out experience they always smell like that. In between the plummeting Christmas icons a fair bit of footy was played. And strangely enough, most of it was by the Arsenal. There’s something about the Villa manager, John Gregory, that we really hate. Maybe it’s that lardy slick of hair gel he gloops on, maybe it’s his body language, the ranting and the park manager tantrums or maybe it’s because he just talks complete bollocks; clichés and homilies that make Ron Atkinson look like Olivier. Anyway, times up Johnny boy, you’ve been sussed. Back to the middle of the table, where you belong. If Villa’s fixture list had had decent teams for them to play at the beginning of the season, they’d be keeping Blackburn happy by now. Anyway, Arsenal should have buried them. With both Vieira and Bergkamp back, and looking good at that, this was a supremely better performance by the boys in red and white than we’ve been privy to lately. Bergkamp’s first goal found him on the edge of the area, running in on a diagonal. Basically, he just hit hard and low and let the momentum guide it in. A classic Bergy moment. His second, came from some deep Anelka foot work near the foot of the post. He pushed it back into the area and Dennis squirted off at an angle and guided it just inside the post. Brilliant. The man has polygoned feet with protractor settings. He’s back, he’s fit and that old whiff of awesome is in the air. So what happened in the second half? A couple of flukey goals and an appalling piece of man marking that found Dion Dublin in the penalty area looking as lonely as a the man who dropped his guts at a Royal Garden Party. He had aeons to put the ball past Seaman. Who’s to blame? Well Keown for not getting the header away and Vivas for going awol. Shit. And only five or six minutes left on the clock. Still, it was a decent performance, with bags of effort and a few sparkly bits. Christmas is coming. Maybe he should stick to sleighs rather than parachutes, though. Man of the Match: Dennis Bergkamp.
Arsenal 3 Leeds 1 It was weird seeing David O’ Leary bobbing up and down on the Leeds bench. It was like watching Postman Pat on amphetamines. The jury re. O’ Leary is still out. Will he be one of those terrible ‘legacy’ managers? Someone who inherits a good side, rides on the back of their success for a while and then screws up horribly. We’d all like him to be the next George Graham, not the next Trevor Francis, who had such a shitty run at Sheffield Wednesday. We reckon that one day old amiable Dave could be managing the Arse rather than the small brown hole in the middle. True to form, Leeds were prepared to dish it out and were rather wussy about taking their punishment. Indeed, just before the final whistle, Grimandi was fouled by the rather tastefully named, Alan Smith, who went down like a White House intern after the most innocuous of head butts. OK, so the retaliation was a bit over the top, rather like Saddam Hussein poking out his tongue, so you bomb his country back to bacteria, but I thought the red card was a bit strong. Smith walked away and he goes on the @FC shit list; a powerful piece of paper that has the two legends, ‘Wise’ and ‘Sherringham’ permanently printed on the top. Enough of Leeds; they’re a young side that’ll either sink or swim. However, if they want to ruck rather than play, they’ll find a coterie of nutters in the Premiership who’ll think nothing of taking them around the back of the bike sheds and giving them a good seeing to. Cold day this. After twenty minutes everything was covered in a white sheen that looked like mould; but I can tell you there was nothing rank or mouldy about the performance. Petit’s groin/stomach/pony-tail was back in place and so was he. Alongside him was Vieira, Vivas for Winterburn, Manninger for Seaman and Uncle Bouldy continuing to deputise for Tony. With Ljungberg in for Parlour, the team looked in better shape than it has done in months. In snatches, Arsenal were brilliant. Bergkamp and Overmars both looked to have shaken off their recent bouts of Dutch aim disease and were firing things from all angles. Indeed, the first goal owed much to Dennis’s awareness, receiving a good ball from Anelka and showing the quickness of mind that we thought he had left in France last summer. He seemed to take an age to poke in the shot with a fumbled kick that looked just like the sort of stiff punt that toddlers produce when faced with a full size ball. Leeds screamed offside at Bergkamp, who, believe me, was totally level. Anelka, however, was offside when he produced the pass, but Nico’s always offside, so, so what? The second goal had a bit of Christmas magic about it. Vieira basically just dribbled the ball into the box, dropped his shoulder and touched the ball into the corner. Marvellous. The rosy glow of a great goal was somewhat negated a few minutes later when Hasselbaink, about ten miles from the goal, received a pass via Harry Kewell’s back and found, not only the ball’s sweet spot, but also it’s g-spot. Blimey, did he hit it. Nobody moved. The first Manninger knew about it was the sonic boom that followed it. Still, you only get one goal like that a season. Things got a little fraught then until the Arsenal started a move that would look impossible on a Playstation, let alone Highbury. It was a beautiful thing that zig zagged across the ground and ended with the man of the match, Manu Petit, just arrivaying in the nick of time and guiding the ball over the line. Still not the pukka Arsenal, but we’re in better nick than this time last year when we lost to Blackburn. And we all know what happened after that don’t we? Have a cool red and white yule. Man of the Match: See above.
Arsenal 1 West Ham 0 Boxing Day games are like no other. Invariably, they are the coldest, wettest games imaginably and they are usually shitty little kickabouts or weird rule bending extravaganzas. This one lived up to all expectations on the weather front (a kind of sleety/rain that through the wonders of capillary action managed to find its way into your arse crack through about twenty layers of nylon) but in terms of actual footy was a bit special. Indeed, the only bit of weirdness was that Manninger, aided by the fag-end of some clapped out hurricane, nearly managed to score twice from a clearance in his own area. I remember, a few years ago, Seaman nearly doing the same thing. One day, maybe. Just like last season, Arsenal were magnificent in the first half. West Ham looked shell shocked and Rio Ferdinand looked like he couldn’t wait to get back to the other Bash Street Kids. Seven or eight nil to the boys would have been a fair reflection on that first forty five minutes. Petit, in particular, looked the best a bloke in a pony tail is ever going to look. After about five minutes, Overmars, ran down the left wing, dribbled, feinted and teased a bit and then let loose with a shot that looked a little feeble. Shaka Hislop picked that moment to fall over and the ball seemed to pass beautifully through the big round hole in the middle of his body. Terrific. 1-0. The rest of the half was all Arsenal. Anelka slayed the Hammers with his pace and it was a rotten shame that he had to go off. On their side, Ian Wright got the warmest of welcomes and was clearly enjoying every minute. He pleased the Arsenal fans by fluffing a couple of the clearest chances you’ll ever see. Bless him. In the second half, Arsenal must have swopped shirts with the Hammers in the tunnel during the break. The smell of day old turkey began to permeate the ground. In the end, even Neil Ruddock was dribbling through the Arsenal defence. The final whistle was the loveliest sound I heard over Christmas. If Arsenal can tape the ‘on’ switch down, they’ll absolutely murder someone, but at the moment you’ll going to get a lot of these cliff hanging 1-0’s. Charlton won’t be easy and Liverpool after that even worse. I’m off to read my signed copy of Tony Adam’s biography. (Top man that Santa; red and white, what a combo.) Later. Man of the Match: Manu Petit.
Charlton 0 Arsenal 1 I used to like Charlton, but then again I used to like lager and lime, Norman Wisdom and eating my own snot. So some things, you just grow out of. Last season Charlton were probably the best of the grisly bunch of hatchet men that make the annual yo-yo pilgrimage from the Nationwide League. However, the Premier league isn’t all Spice Girls and sarongs; the reality is a long way from beating Grimsby and QPR. Charlton, it’s sad to say, started the season with resolve but are now just reduced to be a cheating bunch of under-talented fuckwits. You can probably tell that I’m a bit annoyed, but when Vieira was judged to have ‘elbowed’ Neal Redfearn (caught him marginally on the right shoulder) and the aforementioned Redfearn goes down clutching his face, I start thinking of hiring hitmen, blowing up buildings and kidnapping pets. The reality is that I’ll end up down the pub moaning to a bunch of overweight blokes all dressed in nylon replica strips; but I tell you, it’s stuff like that that makes my blood pressure dangerously close to a new world record. For the record, Redfearn fouled Vieira and Patrick held up an elbow. That was it. Red card. Youds’ nasty little back tackle on Bergkamp, that saw the Dutchman limp off to be replaced by the ‘exciting’ Christopher Wreh, was infinitely worse. Doubtless, all tomorrow’s newspapers will be full of ‘battling’ Charlton bollocks and the usual ‘crisis at Highbury’ headlines. If anyone battled, it was the Arsenal. As early as the first five minutes, Boa Morte, whose previous strikes include touch-line paraplegics and sleepy pensioners in row Z of the North Bank, actually managed to hit the Charlton bar with a stinging shot. Later, Bergkamp had a couple saved, after some wonderful footwork. And generally Arsenal got stuck in and made a decent game of it. Charlton looked like a team made up of Big Issue sellers and some of the more co-ordinated care in the community people. The rest of the team was made up of something that even a dog wouldn’t lick. A plague on them. In a way, this was more of a ‘vintage’ Arsenal performance than the West Ham game. Charlton never really looked like getting a goal back, even though Manninger wobbled more than a vibrator on a spin dryer. Three well earned points, but spoiled by the Robin bastards. Man of the Match: Patrick Vieira.
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