|
January 1999 16.1.99 Nottingham Forest 0 Arsenal 1
Arsenal 0 Liverpool 0 Did you ever play football in your primary school? What a terrible chaotic mess it was. Anything up to 60 a side, usually the big kids versus the more mobile small kids and the usual shop soiled kiddy detritus; you know, kids with gland conditions, that rendered them rounder than a planet, kids with glasses, kids who couldn’t run without waving their arms around, kids who wheezed when mounting a low kerb and kids who smelt funny, never had any friends that weren’t imaginary and generally grew up to be serial killers or referees. And then was the ball; half deflated leather bladders that had been chewed on by some hyperactive Alsation dog, tennis balls with alopecia or if you were really unlucky, one of those hard plastic balls that gave you internal bleeding if it whacked you on any exposed area. On a good day we got to play with a small boy’s head. (Good bounce, if a bit leaky.) The pitches were generally the standard crowded playground. Crowds of boys flowed after the ball like flocking starlings, sweeping away skipping girls, cissy boys and the huddle of juvenile retards that just seem to stand around and indeed, spend the rest of their lives doing just that. It was fun to play, pointless to watch and ultimately as random as the wind. Which brings us to the Arsenal Liverpool game. The Red’s new manager, the affable, Gerard Houlet, or whatever, is obviously deeply impressed by the way small boys play footy. His strategy was to let an Arsenal player have the ball, get nine geezers to tackle him and then launch the ball up field like a little leather satellite and get Michael Owen to run after it like a demented greyhound. Absolutely ludicrous. And Liverpool kept it up for the whole of the ninety minutes. It was as if somebody had cross bred the Southampton team with a cloud of locusts. Deeply cacky. Houllier obviously believes that tactics are some kind of small mint. Arsenal, oblivious to the fact that Liverpool’s French mastermind was using a footballing strategy culled from Canonbury Infants School 1965, tried to play with intelligence, but faced time and again by a crowd of yellow shirts, finally had to resort to taking long range pot-shots. The good news was that Anelka was fit again. The bad news was that Seaman, Winterburn, Vivas, Adams, Hughes, Ljungberg and Bergkamp were all out. Also Overmars had such a large bandage on his right leg that he looked as mobile as a privet hedge. Indeed, Heggem, had, we reckon, his best ever game for Liverpool and managed to stifle Overmars for the whole game. What was good was Grondin at left back and Upson filling in for the crocked Stevie Bould. Upson, though sometimes a little square, did manage quite exquisitely, to take the piss out of Owen on several occasions. He was also unlucky with a header that just went wide shortly after he came on. Manninger, also, redeemed his shaky Preston performance by two world class saves, one in each half. Lee Dixon continued his vendetta with the bloke in row ‘z’ by belting an inordinate amount of balls into the crowd and Martin Keown, had a bit of an off day, but made up for it by carrying on a great off the ball battle with Robbie Fouler (sic). Up front, Boa Morte looked all right when he was allowed on the right and Anelka disappointedly failed to pick up where he left off on Boxing Day. In the middle, Petit and Vieira were superb. Petit in the first half and the soon to be suspended Vieira , in the second. Nothing else much happened. With Liverpool’s crushing game plan this was only ever going to go one way. Even Ince, who got so wound up with nothing happening, finally cracked after the final whistle blew and just turned and whacked his own team-mate, Harkness. Old Swarfega gloves, David James broke them up. We all thought it was hilarious. Liverpool are going nowhere playing like this. They may have the right nationality in their manager, but there is a world difference between a French farce and a French revolution. Man of the Match: Manu Petit by a blonde whisker.
Nottingham Forest 0 Arsenal 1 Finally, Arsenal break the curse of the ‘new broom.’ Remember, in the past three seasons the amount of teams we have had to play immediately following the appointment of the latest cut-price messiah; we had Pearce at Forest (we lose) Orange Atkinson at Sheff Wed (we lose) and then Jean-Luc Steroid at Chelsea (we lose). However, the chances of Atkinson performing a similar miracle at Forest are as about the same as a small frog in a blender just before the electrical switch is thrown. Forest fans, probably the only people who moan more than Arsenal fans, deserve better. Harry Basset was an appointment designed to mark time by a board bordering on the criminally negligent. So, it was onto the City ground on a day so wet, that it was hard to believe that the Trent was next door rather than on the pitch. The pitch itself, was remarkable; it looked like whipped chocolate mousse with green mould on top. We were all buzzing about the Arsenal’s signing of the oddly nomenclatured ‘Nwankwo Kanu’, the Nigerian with the dicky heart, dicky legs and the severely dicky boat race that makes him look like a badly squashed up photofit of Paul Davies. Some Forest fan jovially mentioned that the Gunners now have an ‘arse’, a ‘wank’ and ‘seaman’. One of my mates replied that that was better than having eleven ‘cunts’ in your side and that seemed to keep him quiet. Arsenal were nearly at full strength. Bergkamp and Adams played but looked a long way short of match fit. As did Anelka, who is still to pick up where he left off on Boxing Day. Arsenal’s goal came from a swinging Petit cross that Keown barely met with his head to deflect into the goal. Really, not that much happened. Arsenal played for the 1-0, completely unimpressed by Liverpool’s 7 and Man Utd’s 6. Forest looked a bit brighter in the second half, but even their melting gateaux of a pitch was seeming to get them down. Me, I hope they stay up, but interestingly, an awful lot of Forest fans hope they go down. They see it as the only way to get the board out and force the issue. We have some sympathy with them. Who in their right mind would want Irving Scholar anywhere near a team they loved? Arsenal are ticking over at the moment, but you sense that there will be a breakthrough any time now. I’ll stick my cock on the block and reckon that we’ll beat Chelsea at Highbury. Man of the Match: Not Petit again, surely?
Arsenal 1 Chelsea 0 Chelsea supporters fall into three categories: the yuppie flotsam that think coloured mobile phone covers are both practical and impressive, the middle-aged marrieds that live in the more York Stone clad parts of Surrey and really believe that Peter Osgood was a better striker than John Radford and fat fifty somethings that have spent their whole lives growing beards and wear nylon car coats with florescent chevrons on them. Together they make up probably 90% of Chelsea’s ignorant rabble. Well, tonight they’re all feeling as unwell as a Macaw with terminal psittacosis. Excellent. This was a terrific, full-bloodied, deep throated game. Passionate, tense and it gave out so much heat that 38,000 people completely forgot that small gangs of brass monkeys were wandering the streets of Highbury clutching their groins, vaguely wondering why their scrotal sacks were empty. Indeed, the game was so tense that I managed to put my back out jumping up when Dennis scored. The game started at an unbelievable pace. Chelsea, fast and mobile, with Zola and Vialli swapping positions like an Italian acrobat team, managed to stretch our fairly unsupple back four to the limit. Dennis Wise, who everybody would like to see mangled by the side of King’s Road, the victim of a London cab hit and run, had, I hate to say, an absolutely fabulous game. Nothing that Chelsea did failed to go through him. At the back LeBeouf played with Anelka like he was some sort of broken action figure. They looked good. And for Chelsea, unsually, they had a bit of depth too. This, we all agreed, was going to be some battle. For the Arsenal, it was great to see Seaman back and interesting to see the new boy of two days, Kaba Diawara arse warming the bench. The game began with some fairly speedy yet scruffy end to end stuff. Chelsea controlled the middle of the pitch and we controlled the thin green bit immediately in front of our own area. With all the fast, switching movement and the little flurries and sorties it looked like a game of Risk played by hyperactive children. No wonder my back went ping. It was niggly out there: the referee was a man who liked getting spit on his pea and his linesman spent the first half hour of the game semaphoring inanely to one another. The game, all over the place, was exciting without much actually happening. But the expectation was unbelievable. It was Overmars that had one of the first shots. A side netter if I ever saw one that the lugubrious Ed De Goey tipped for a corner. Arsenal’s play: parry, block, attack was quite exhausting to watch. Some players were having serious games out there: Dixon, Keown, Adams, Petit, Parlour and Garde were all magnificent Garde in particular, looked like Errol Flynn; dashing, precise and everywhere. Marvellous. The boys at the front were doing well; only Anelka looked shadowy and insubstantial. Rumours of a £10 million move to Paris St Germain were going around the ground. It’ll be a shame if he goes, but at the moment he’s definitely suffering from ‘Michael Thomas’ syndrome. You must remember that particular disease. It goes something like, ‘every time you touch the ball a million pounds gets knocked off of your valuation’. Nicky better watch it. With Chelsea’s well worked defensive strategy, Arsenal’s goal was only ever going to come from a route one hoof. Sure enough the ball came fizzing out of the air like a hand grenade, Overmars (!) won the header and the ball went wide to a languidly sprinting Bergkamp. On the corner of the area, in space, he hit a beautiful drive across De Goey and stroked it into the more difficult far corner of the net. Ninety nine out of hundred strikers would have gone for the near post and the ‘keeper would have smothered it. Pure class. We all went bat shit. Hands up like Seventh Day Adventists, screaming hallelujahs at the floodlights. In all that noise a small back muscle went ‘ping’ quietly. I must be as fit as Bernard Manning. The second half was more of the same. Chelsea always threatened and Arsenal always replied with a counter attack. Indeed, Bergkamp could have finished it off, but a Chelsea player fell out the sky and blocked the shot. Later, Diawara came on and looked mobile and fast. He trapped one ball, plucking it out the air and ran with it, ignoring the swivelling blue shirts. He also crossed a beautiful ball to absolutely no-one. In my head the ghost of Alan Smith nodded it in sweetly. Jesus, I hope that Diawara or Wankywoo can head a ball. At the end it was all frantic Chelsea pressure, but you knew it was going to be our afternoon. The final whistle brought lots of wry smiles and nodding heads. Arsenal are definitely on their way. There’s no turning back. Well, not for me anyway. Man of the Match: Remi Garde.
I Current Season I Match Archives I Mail us I Links I Home I
|
