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March 1998 14.3.98 Manchester United 0 Arsenal 1
West Ham 0 Arsenal 0 This was a miserable hump of a game. Older Arsenal supporters will recognise this game as a wretched re-enactment of the early eighties, but not as good. And, at least we had ra-ra skirts then. With no Bergkamp the creative front men were the enigmatic Anelka paired with the past-it Platt. Anelka, who has all the penetrative power of a marshmallow willy, looked fairly awful, apart from a second half dribble that showed ambition, if lacking in common sense. Increasingly Anelka is looking like the mascot that’s stayed on the pitch too long. Platt in his new role as co-striker was as effective as an oven glove in a volcano. I’ve seen Blu-Tac with more shape. At the back Keown contrived to get himself a fairly serious head wound in the first five minutes and came back on the pitch swathed in bandages. He spent the rest of the game trying to concuss Hartson. All right by me. The real problem was Berkovic. His pace and vision frequently embarrassed an Arsenal side that looked a long way from second in the league. On more than a few occasions, Manninger’s fingertips kept us in with a shout of a point. Even the referee, the hated Durkin, had a quiet game. At one point we all thought we should have had a penalty. He didn’t give it and quite frankly none of us gave a stuff; going home to a beer and a kebab seemed more important. How does this all pan out for the cup game on Sunday? Well, Bergkamp will be back, Hartson’s suspended and Keown can concentrate on removing Berkovic’s hamstrings. It must be a different game. Please. Man of the Match: Martin Keown.
Wimbledon 0 Arsenal 1 Having busted several balls trying to get to the pub in time for this game and being on the receiving end of the most disgusting bag of chips I have ever eaten (condoms filled with warm cooking oil) I was less than pleased to find out the kick off had been delayed because of a suspect package. Seeing as the only ‘suspect package’ around the Selhurst area is the Crystal Palace team, we were a little bemused to find out that the package consisted of ‘an abandoned Sainsbury’s bag’. Doubtless, the bomb squad from Cannon Street anticipating a Mardi Gras incendiary were less than amused to find a box of Dreft and two bags of crisps in the placcy bag. What the fuck do you do with crisps and crap soap powder? What is it about South London? Sky telly bricked themselves that after the lights out fiasco of the previous game that they might be left to host another fatuous cakky footy show full of dire video effects, unintelligible Scotsmen and numerous car ads for the new Ford Fanny Magnet. So Sky decided to show the West Ham/Man Utd game until plod decided it was safe for the Gunners to come out the tunnel. What happened next was surreal. We’re in The Gunners pub, West Ham score, the whole pub erupts and everybody is shouting ‘Irons, Irons’ and saluting the screen. Anybody who walked in then to watch the Arsenal game would have just turned around and walked out. Potty. It was a good job that the game was worth waiting for. Wenger had finally lost patience with the narcoleptic Anelka and replaced him with, we reckon, the underrated Wreh. From the off this was a very different Arsenal. They passed, they ran off the ball, they exhibited craft and patience and they looked bloody dangerous. Amazing. All it took was one little change. Wreh was a revelation; shimmies, back heels, neat, intelligent touches that found players that he had no way of knowing were there, he did it all. We were not long into the game and he had the ball in the net. Sure, it was a mile offside, but it was nice to see. Petit and Vieira were purring in midfield like some big cat and Keown, Overmars and Bergkamp were right on top of their game. It was a Petit pass that found a surrounded Overmars who jinked, checked, ran into the area, squared it to Wreh who cracked it into the net crisply. The rest of the half was all Arsenal, which was great because the second half was all Wimbledon. Arsenal spent most of the second half defending with more passion and intelligence than I’ve seen them exhibit in years. Keown was about twelve feet tall and Adams blocked, turned and cleared like an automaton. The real hero, however, was the bloke with the perpetual blush, Alex Manninger. Two or three brilliant saves were eclipsed by a beautiful full length tip from a Gayle header that bounced out to another Don who lashed it back to Alex at point blank range. His near impossible acrobatic push over must be a candidate for save of the season. Top man. The Gunners held out and indeed ventured out of their half and pressed the Dons at the death. A great game, that could prove to be a turning point. West Ham did us a big favour and held United to a one-one draw. Apparently, Ferguson left Upton Park silent with his collar turned up. Perhaps he can feel the hordes of Highbury breathing down his neck. Man of the Match: Alex Manninger.
Manchester United 0 Arsenal 1 This was just magnificent. A team performance you could only dream about, benchmark individual skills, a goal you could die happy with and a stupid but satisfying injury to Peter Schmeichel. It started out as wonderful morning; a two foot diameter greasy breakfast, a quick sprint down to the pub and then a headlong dive into the warm Goonery Guinness darkness and a 11.15 appointment with Rupert Murdoch’s tinker toy. The pub was thick with jumpy excited people all talking and singing. It was great, like being back on the terraces. All week Ferguson had been moaning about the United injury list. Well, I reckon it consists of Giggs, Keane and Butt. Hardly the battle of the Somme, is it? Arsenal were still without Bould, Seaman and Wright, so Manninger had another start and Wreh kept his place over Anelka. United started briskly; lots of tiny triangular passes and very rigid formation lines. It looked like Subbuteo. Cole up front wriggled like an eel, but Keown, who had a superb game, made him look like a schoolboy. It took a while, but it was clear that Overmars was going to be the key player. Several times in the first half he marauded down the left, shook off United defenders as if they were water drops and shot across the face of the goal. On one occasion he was millimetres out. It was agony watching the ball slowly roll past the post. United didn’t have a clue what to do with him. On the other wing, Parlour was finding less space but did manage to put a screamer only about six inches over the bar. In the midfield (and I never thought I’d say it) the Gunners were breathtaking. Petit and Vieira probably booked their places in the French Squad. Petit, in particular, produced more through balls than he has all season. At the back Manninger went from strength to strength. One save from Cole would have had us all on our feet if we hadn’t been standing up already. Half time and everybody was happy. We could have been 3-0 up, they could have had a penalty (a so-called Petit ‘handball’) and we definitely should have had a penalty when Neville chopped Overmars. The second half was a lot like the first; United played like some video game and Arsenal much to everyone’s delight began to use their heads. Wreh, an intelligent player, went off to make room for Anelka. Anelka, with a bit more pace and a lot more height began to make his presence felt. For the minute, we all forgot he was crap and just accepted his presence as part of some mysterious master plan. Ten minutes to go and you could smell the tension. It smelt like a cross between Jeyes fluid, body odour and opal fruits. A long ball found Anelka who headed backwards. Overmars, accelerating like Speedy Gonzales, nodded it down with his head, controlled it beautifully, ran on and slotted it past the Danish cheese farmer. The net billowed suggestively and the pub filled with spilt drinks and a noise that nearly split Highbury Hill in two. Bedlam. The last eight or nine minutes were a complete blur; people pleading, praying cursing, talking in tongues, hearts pumping along at 150 beats a minute and drinks being swallowed by the bucket load. In the last eight minutes United had a dangerous free kick that they fluffed and Schmeichel who came lumbering up the field for a corner managed to rip up his hamstring running back to his goal. What a maroon. After 94 odd minutes the referee blew up. The noise was incredible. People were shouting and hugging one another. Someone was crying. One bloke was just screaming at the floor. What a morning. But, of course, Arsenal fans are pragmatists. We know we’ll probable lose on Tuesday to West Ham and we’ll probably draw every league match we’ve got left. But, we had one blinding morning of glory and that will keep us warm for years. Man of the Match: Marc Overmars.
Arsenal 1 Sheffield Wednesday 0 I was always crap at maths. There was I, eleven years old, covered in that peculiar brand of schoolboy grime, blemished and cratered with leaky pus filled volcanoes, listening to some hairy northern maths teacher, in a green corduroy suit, trying to ram into my thick skull that if you add an apple and a banana together then you get ‘applebanana’, or AB. That was algebra, I think. Later on there were Venn diagrams, logs and of course, statistics. All of this was a complete waste of time for somebody like me, who if asked what seven sevens are has to add up three fourteens and add another seven to that. So, when all the amateur statisticians start banging on about that if the Arsenal win all their games then they’ve won the league, I start thinking that surely that this was exactly where we were at the start of the season. This is when people look at me as if I’m some kind of dim bulb. Honestly, I still don’t think that the stats look that brilliant, but then I did get lost at the apple/banana stage big-time. Talking of bananas; every match now is a potential slip-up waiting to happen. Wednesday turned us over rotten at Hillsborough. Fired up by Orange Ron they made us look like, well, Sheffield Wednesday. This time, it couldn’t have been more different. Wenger had reinstalled Seaman between the sticks and dropped Anelka to the bench, favouring Wreh up front supported by Bergkamp, Overmars, Parlour and Hughes. It was a formation based on mobility: soirees, raids, even a bit of pillaging. It was fast and fascinating. Overmars was in fabulous form; he ran, twisted and surged past Earl Barrett so many times that the only way the Wednesday defender ever saw him was as an after image when he blinked. Bergkamp, who before the game, received a trophy weirdly reminiscent of the old Jules Rimet cup for being the ‘third best player in the world’ played a powerful, elegant role that certainly made him look the best player in N5. In the first half Arsenal could have had a bucketful of goals: Bergkamp, Parlour, Hughes, Wreh and Adams all spurned chances or finished lazily. Just before half time Overmars chipped a ball over the Wednesday defence that looked like it came off a nine iron. Bergkamp ran on to it, glided through the static defensive wall and just sided it in. Simple, beautiful and it looked a mile offside until you saw the replay and realised it was a mile onside. The mark of a great goal. In the second half Wednesday upped the pace and made more a game of it. Tony Adams had his best game of the season; it’s not often that a centre back could be called breathtaking, piss-taking yes, but his positioning, tackling and ball control was never anything less than world class. Second best player on the planet, I reckon. It was a shame when the final whistle went. It was a glorious early spring afternoon, full of warm watery sunlight and lovely football. You don’t get that on the telly, Mr Murdoch. Of course, Arsenal didn’t have it all their own way; United poked two past Wimbledon in the last ten minutes and Spurs tonked Palace, but Arsenal are still there. Bolton on Tuesday and then it’s out with the scarves and the flags, big breakfast on the M1 and up to Villa Park next Sunday morning. Great. I do believe I’m on the verge of being happy. Man of the Match: Tony Adams.
Bolton 0 Arsenal 1 It’s a bit weird to name a whole stadium after a boot. Bolton’s Reebok stadium is snug, stylish in a cheap way, a bit manky in the design stakes and a bit hard on the old leg room. Aptly named, we thought. Perhaps it will start off a whole trend. Millwall could have the ‘Dr Marten’ stadium and Chelsea would feel well at home in the ‘Kickers’ ground. The problem with these new stadiums is that they all look extremely photogenic, but in reality they’re tiny; like something out of a big Subbuteo box. You remember, the set that had the floodlights and the rows of supporters in pink plastic all joined together at the arse. Bolton are a bit Subbuteo themselves. Small, well moulded and as close to the real thing as you can get but without being the real article; like Spurs, but with a brain. Indeed, their first idea, though sound, was despicable; bury Overmars. As early as the sixth minute he was hobbling around after some Bolton bruiser decided to do a bit of impromptu keyhole surgery with an unsterilised stud. Much of the first half was a bit touchy-feely; lots of prodding and poking but nothing happening. Bit like Gazza shagging. Wreh and Anelka up front were like a couple of ghosts. They certainly put the willies up me. The Bolton fans were doing their pieces every time somebody touched the ball. I know it’s tedious up North but surely they must get more entertainment than this. Talking of cheering; the second half was only minutes old when Petit did a neat one two with substitute Hughes, who came on for Overmars at the start of the second half. The ball fell for Wreh, who hit a twenty five yarder that screamed past Branagan in the Bolton goal. Get hold of a video and have a look at that one. The last time I saw a goal like that was on the Playstation. Wonderful. Even better was the back flip Wreh did to celebrate. Pure athleticism. You hope that if Lee Dixon scores before the season’s out that he doesn’t attempt any acrobatics. He’d probably have someone’s eye out. However, Arsenal didn’t have it all their own way; Martin Keown was sent off for a second bookable offence and I believe that means he’ll miss the Newcastle game. Bummer. What else? Seaman made a solid one handed save and Dean Holdsworth tried to whack Tony Adams. Ridiculous. Like a small dog trying to piss on a live rail. Not a great game, but a bloody important one. Any more of this celebration drinking and I’ll be seeing double. Man of the Match: Tony Adams.
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