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FEBRUARY 1997
Leeds 0 Arsenal 0 My, my what a complete surprise. Nought Nought tm (copyright 1986 George Graham. The Brown Paper Bag Co.). Over the years I have seen some cracking 0-0’s; end to end, woodwork smacked, full of passion, fire, verve and all those other overused nouns, but none of them have involved Leeds and very few the Arsenal. You knew that this one was going to one to wipe from the memory banks as soon as Wenger looked at the boggy Leeds pitch and wisely decided to rest Wright’s hamstring for Tuesday. The pitch looked like a badly dug allotment; clods of mud, sparse grass and a viscera of slime over it, that came from God knows where. The only way to get anything to grow on it would be to smother it in manure. Good old George had seen to that by a liberal spreading of shit all over the pitch. But even 11 turds weren’t enough to turn this cess pit into something playable. This was a truly dreadful game. Leeds, one of the crappiest sides I’ve seen this year, have finally stopped leaking at the back. At the front, however, they are still toothless as ever. Like an old man with new incontinence pants. Talking of old men, a word about Ian Rush. Like all Muppets, Ian Rush (or ‘Beaker’, Professor Bunson’s assistant as he is known. Clock the spooky similarity) would definitely benefit from a hand up his arse. What a horrible embarrassment he must be to Leeds’ fans. Quite possibly the most overrated player in recent memory, now completely exposed as a waste of space. And they made the chinless horror captain. Still, he was responsible for one of Leeds’ three disallowed goals. That was a bit of a laugh. Our one bright spot came when Wrighty came on, fed a great ball to Parlour who succeeded in blasting it into row ZZZ, probably taking out some whippet’s eye. That really was it. Arsenal were definitely in a holding pattern until Tuesday. Only the supernal Merson made a real game of it. With Keown back and Wrighty semi fit, we should see off this shadow of a team come next Tuesday. But seeing as I’ve only got one lottery number right in the past ten weeks, I reckon Rush will get a hat trick and Leeds will get an award for the best kept pitch. Man of the Match: Paul Merson.
Tottenham 0 Arsenal 0 With hindsight we all should have been down the bookmakers’ bunging reddies on this one being a 0-0. Tottenham looked efficient in a kind of Derby/Sunderland kind of way; busy but pointless, whilst the Gunners looked half a kip and not terribly bothered. With no Seaman, Platt, a half crocked Adams and a five million pound hole left by Hartson’s strange move to West Ham, this game always had the feel of a big non event. After the superb game at Highbury this one was bound to be no more than sweepings. Wright looked like he’d never seen a football in his life, whilst Bergkamp looked as rusty as some big metal thing from Oz. I think Bergkamp had one shot the whole game. Merson, who’s been a revelation all season, came back from Wembley with a nasty dose of Englanditis. You know, lots of visionless dithering and faffing. On a normal day, Arsenal would have chewed Spurs up and spat out the gristle, but The Scum, under Gerry Francis have been transformed into QPR on steroids. They really do look completely artless. Basically, Arsenal pissed about, particularly in midfield. If Merson had played any deeper, he’d have got the bends. Ironically, a couple of hundred miles up the motorway, David Hillier was having the game of his life, helping Portsmouth turn Leeds over 3-2 in the cup. Weird world innit? One to forget, this one. It’s a rotten shame when your man of the match is a goalkeeper, but Johnny Lukic had a blinder. Took me back a few years seeing him perform like that. Arsenal have been looking increasingly like a great machine that’s running down. God knows what’ll fire them up. If it’s not Spurs let’s hope it’s Moan Utd on Wednesday. Man of the Match: John Lukic.
Arsenal 1 Man Utd 2 Windy night this one. Before the kick off a black plastic bin liner blew onto the pitch. It skipped around, floated a bit before deflating and flattening when all the puff had left it. ‘Blimey, Andy Cole’s on early’, quipped the bloke next to me. That was the last funny of the night. So what went wrong? Basically, it was men against boys. Specifically, old, slow men against fit boys. Winterburn and Dixon were nigh on invisible and Bould and Adams could only keep up by committing fairly grisly fouls. In fairness to Adams he didn’t look too fit; on a normal day he’d have eaten Cole. But one look at the Beckhams, the Giggs, the Butts and the Nevilles and you knew it was going to be one of those nights. For Pete’s sake, I’ve got spots older than Solskjaer. For the first ten minutes or so, Arsenal looked keen. Merson and Bergkamp switched wings and confused United and Wright looked sharper than he had for weeks. It was evident that despite the swirling winds, that United were going to use the width of the pitch creatively. Without any man to man marking strategy Arsenal were doomed. Suddenly we looked stretched. Both of United’s goals had a horrible inevitability about them, particularly the second. As soon as Giggs got the ball just outside his own area you knew where it was going. There then followed a sweaty, squirming hour where all of Arsenal’s faults were paraded one by one: the lack of a Roy Keane figure in our midfield, the lack of a proper striking partner for Wrighty, the pace of our defence and the continuing exposure of Ray Parlour as not being up to the job. Half time and two down. Adams never made the second half and Stephen Hughes came on to bolster the Bermuda Triangle of the Arsenal midfield. And a fine job he did too. His hunger for the ball was refreshing. We’re beginning to like him up in the East Stand. The second half was more of the same, however the off the ball stuff was interesting. Beckham whacked Keown, Keown whacked Butt and Keane and Wrighty had a marvellous two footed opportunity to break the legs of that odious white supremacist, Schmeichal. The big Nazi made a right old meal of it and old Taggert was off the bench waving his fists and going that peculiar purple colour that only the malnourished Scottish underclasses can seem to manage. Same old moan, moan, moan. The only thing that made me laugh in the second half was when Dixon returned the ball to Keane who was on the touchline waiting to take a throw. Dixon, about ten feet away from Keane, managed to kick the ball about twenty feet wide of Keane. Summed up the whole night for me. Slowly, Arsenal were managing to string more than two passes together and during a patch that was looking increasingly purple, Parlour managed to slip the ball to Bergkamp, whose shot from the most acute of angles flashed passed the lumpen body of the United Ubermensch. 2-1. The last ten minutes were terrific. Wright had a wonderful header that he directed down only to see it bounce up for Schmeichel to tip over the bar and generally the Arsenal found that long looked for second gear. But it wasn’t destined to be our night. For long periods of the game the boys looked clueless. If they had played with their heads instead of their hearts we might have shaded this one. A bit more patience, a bit more trying to bait Keane and a few less wasted passes and we might have stood a chance. When the whistle went Schmeichel decided to wind Wright up by pointing at him and call him all those names that get normal people arrested for racial incitement. Wright reacted badly by trying to whack Schmeichel. Fortunately for Schmeichel there was a copper between them. Unfortunately for Wright he’ll probably get a long suspension for this one. Also unfortunate was the BBC’s footage of the incident which excluded all the threatening build up by Schmeichel and just focused on Wright losing his nut. It’s all very well paying lip service to stamping out racism in football, but when odious idiots like Schmeichel are allowed to break the law in public and nothing is done, you begin to suspect that racism isn’t confined to the terraces. Schmeichel’s main ‘complaint’ seems to be about Wright’s two-footed tackle. A keeper like him who comes out feet first has no cause for complaint. It seems he can dish it out, but can’t take it. INTERESTING FACT: When I was on holiday last year I met Alan Shearer’s next door neighbour. Obviously worth a few bob, but a nice bloke. He reckoned that one of the reasons Shearer didn’t go to Man Utd was that, ‘He can’t stand Schmeichel’. ‘Nuff said. Wenger now has the excuse for his clear out. An Ince figure is vital coupled with someone alongside Wrighty who can use his head, in both senses. Man of the Match: Stephen Hughes.
Arsenal 0 Wimbledon 1 Let’s be positive about this. I compiled a list of things that I’d rather be doing than watch this match: 1. Clear the thick wad of verruca scabs out of the bathroom plug hole. 2. Scrape the clag off the haemorrhoid cream plastic applicator. 3. Watch the ‘Clothes Show’ on the telly. 4. Treat the dog’s genital warts. This was a full blown horror of a game. Arsenal were without Seaman, Adams, Keown, Platt, Bouldy for the second half and it seemed, most of their marbles. Apart from Wright hitting the post and a couple of Bergkamp half stabs the Arsenal were completely devoid of any ideas. Somewhere also in this mess were Stephen Hughes, Paul Shaw, Morrow and a Lee Dixon performance so inept that it made Steve Morrow look like Pele. Wrighty was trying, but the service he was getting from Merson was so shitty it was almost as bad as Burger King. Vieira looked confused and seemed unable to comprehend that the blokes closing the game down so efficiently in midfield were actually from Wimbledon. Of course, seeing as the script for this one had been completely thrown out of the window, the goal, when it came, could be nothing else but that rarest of beasts; a Vinny Jones volley. Bang goes the league and highly probably, the chance of European footy too. I know that this is overly pessimistic, but I was there and it was shit; the worse game of the season by a long shot. The bloke next to me even spent the bulk of the second half calculating if we were mathematically safe from relegation. Where do we go from here? First the pub. Then home. Man of the Match: Me for forking out hard earned folding for this horrible mess. (Oh,
alright then: Dennis Bergkamp)
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