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November 1998 14.11.98 Arsenal 0 Tottenham Hotspur 0 21.11.98 Wimbledon 1 Arsenal 0 29.11.98 Arsenal 1 Middlesbrough 1
Arsenal 1 Everton 0 Everton should be applauded for trying out a revolutionary new formation. Playing with eleven centre backs (though one was mistakenly dressed as a goalkeeper) was giddy, brave step forward in tactical acumen. The fact that the Toffees had all the mobility of a mountain range shouldn’t detract from a performance that was only noteworthy for having the 200 year old Dave Watson at the heart of their defence. So old and creased is Dave that the only known way of telling his age is to cut his head off and count the rings. Dave retired at half time when the van from the glue factory finally turned up to take him somewhere and put the old boy out his misery. Indeed, the entire Everton side suffered terribly at the hands of a rampant Arsenal side. In the first half alone, Anelka could have had four, Overmars a brace and Ljungberg a little peach that went the wrong side of the side netting. With Bergkamp on the bench, Adams still on his back and a couple of Wednesday’s boys seemingly out of favour (doubtless, resting them for the Chelsea game) Wenger substituted Grimandi for the strained Bould, brought back the pus toed Anelka and played Freddy in that famous footballing hole that seems to exist behind every striker. And for the first half, Arsenal were brilliant. Everton lacked so much life, mobility and passion that you half expected to look on their bench and see George Romero directing them. They were putrid. Indeed, it wasn’t until the second half when they brought on the bouncy Cadamateri and some blonde whippet called Milligan that they began to make a game of it. But for the first half the boys in red and white ran riot. Anelka looked as sharp as we have ever seen him, only getting caught out offside once in the first half. He had a couple of dress rehearsal goal attempts even before the first five minutes of the game had elapsed. Both his raids were, quite peculiarly, down the left wing. On his third attempt he ran down the channel, with Overmars running parallel on Nic’s left. We all waited for the little side pass to Marc, but it never came. From the narrowest of angles Nic took a bead and walloped the ball on the hoof with an elegant savagery that surprised us all. Straight as an arrow, a real Roy of the Rovers net buster. Fabulous. For the rest of the half it was more ‘one way’ than a Labour manifesto. Arsenal had a couple of penalties turned down and the ref, who had started out quite well, actually turned into a bit of a git. For the second half Everton emerged from the tunnel burning with shame at their first half rout and tried to make up for their shortcomings by fouling everybody and letting Mad Dunc off his very short leash. He elbowed Vieira, Vieria elbowed him back, he backed into Keown, Keown fast forwarded into him and in one bizarre episode he tried to strangle Lee Dixon. Honestly, Duncan we’ve all felt like doing that. Total heedcase. But it did take him longer than usual to be booked. That old one to one therapy with Mike Tyson is obviously paying off. As usual, Arsenal were hanging on by that thin skin you get off of teeth at the end of a game. Over twenty shots on goal and twelve corners and we were bricking ourselves that the boys in blue would pull one back. (Incidentally, we love it when a team in red plays a team in blue. It’s great, it looks just like Subbuteo.) At the end a very welcome whistle and a very welcome three points. But it’s not everyday that you get to play something that’s big, blue and smells of rotting meat. Man of the Match: Freddy Ljungberg. Incidentally, has anyone else noticed that Nigel Winterburn is increasingly looking like that bloke off of Mad magazine, Alfred E Newman? Mad or nutty? You tell us.
Arsenal 0 Tottenham Hotspur 0 There’s a word for games like this, and the word is ‘poxy’. In the old days the stadium would have been heaving with shouts, invectives and insults all bellowed out a hundred decibels plus. And with a real tinge of menace in the air. But now, after the initial verbal jostling, the atmosphere at Highbury was about as flat as Anne Diamond’s tits. George Graham, now ‘Judas’, ‘George the wanker’ and later just ‘the thieving bastard’ (I’ve always thought that Stalin learnt his little revisionists tricks from a bunch of football supporters) fetched up with his latest piece of tactical meccano: eight gorillas strung across the centre line, a lone Armstrong up front and Stefan Iverson, looking like Bam-Bam on growth hormones, to act as a kind of bookies/drug runner to the ex-Palace junkie. The whole formation reeked of 0-0. George may want revenge on the Arsenal, but he was clearly prepared to do it in stages. Arsenal without Bergkamp, who one suspects wasn’t fit so Wenger wouldn’t have to release for some upcoming meaningless Dutch international game, played Ljungberg instead of the maestro. Unbelievably, Wenger stuck Freddie on the left wing and moved Overmars inside to keep Anelka company. Believe me, that worked as well as a chocolate watch. The main problem was fighting your way through all those white shirts. Anelka came incredibly close on two occasions. The first was a terrific loopy up-and-over ball from Keown that Anelka saw late, managed to leave Sol Campbell rooted and still have time to hit a low volley that unfortunately went the wrong side of the side netting. Later, Dixon whipped over a flat cross that Anelka swung onto, from about five yards out and the keeper made a tremendous reflex save. Basically, everybody had a hammer at the Spurs goal; a repeat of last seasons game but without the woodwork hits. Oh, and Tottenham had one shot in the first half, that Seaman parried away. That’s your lot Spurs fans. We know, we’ve watched teams like yours for years. (Well, we’ve been teams like that.) Just think, unless Tottenham can get themselves an equivalent of Alan Smith or Ian Wright, they’ll be watching 0-0 draws for the next ten years. Excellent. As the mighty Darth would say, ‘You are my creature now’. In the second half, Wenger put Overmars out where he belongs and moved Freddy in behind Anelka. Unfortunately, Anelka had to go off. And on came Wreh. End of game, really. Wreh against Campbell was like some weird all black production of ‘Of Mice and Men’ and as about as entertaining. When Boa Morte came on, we all felt like upping sticks and leaving. The sooner they stop training Boa Morte with that old Glen Helder video, the better. Suddenly, what was just an average game became fairly liquid poo. Only the stalwarts: Adams, Dixon, Keown and Winterburn held it together. And Petit on his own was the only creative player on the whole pitch. Vieira, by the way, had the worst first half I’ve ever seen him have. So we had a 0-0 in every sense of the word: two holes full of nothing and an experience akin to shopping with your mum; goes on for fucking hours and nothing fits properly. So, where do we go from here? Well, first the pub and then I reckon Wenger should get himself over to the upcoming Anfield car boot sale. He could probably pick up a slightly used Robbie Fowler for a little over 10 mill. Bargain. Man of the Match: Manu Petit.
Wimbledon 1 Arsenal 0 Remember when we used to be called ‘Lucky Arsenal?’ Seems like a lifetime ago. What we have now is a malignant god who hates Arsenal with a vengeance. Balls bounce the wrong way, hamstrings ping, muscles rip, golden eagles carry off goal bound balls, well, you get the idea. The day started badly. In lieu of the odd comet or babies born with a two heads, we nowadays get our omens from more mundane sources and in our case it was a Sony Playstation. Being sad, anally retentive half-wits, we were the first in the queue to buy the PSX game, FIFA 99. Not only does it have Dennis Bergkamp on the cover but it features the first, to our knowledge, weeny virtual Highbury for you to play in. A few seasons ago we instigated the very sad ritual of playing the game on the Playstation before we went to the match. Maybe it was the unfamiliar control method or maybe it was the shock of seeing the virtual Ian Wright (in a Hammers strip) with a huge polygoned head that makes him look like a funky version of the Mekon. Or maybe it was the frightening Jaap Stam sprite, the most terrifying cluster of pixels in gamedom. Anyway, we played Arsenal against the Dons and bloody Wimbeldon won 1-0. And Robbie Earl scored with a dubious shove-come-shot. Spooky. So it was off to Selhurst with its wonderful stands (two sheds, the back of a Sainsburys and some laughable bit of ‘modern’ kit that looks like a fucking bonnet off of Vanity Fayre.) Wenger put out the full strength side and everybody was well pleased. Over the last month we’ve been on the verge of taking someone apart on several occasions and we all thought today could be the day. An early Anelka shot that hit Sullivan’s flailing legs had banished the Playstation fiasco from our minds and we were all up for an early Chrissy pressie in the shape of a nicely wrapped tonking. And then, God went all old testament and started smiting unto the peoples of Highbury and yeah he waxed exceedingly wrothful. Boom. There goes Vieira’s hamstring and there goes the central midfield for the Lens game (remember Petit is suspended). Boom. There goes another muscley bit of Bergkamp. Boom. Lee Dixon hits the bar with a stunning bendy shot. Boom. Robbie Earl. Yes him. The Playstation geezer. He handles the ball in the Arsenal area, knocks it down for Ekoku who scores from about seven inches. Shit. Shit. Shit. Bad luck? Well, what about both Man United and Villa losing and bloody Chelsea winning. I tell you, God’s not finished with us yet. Keep away from Wembley on Wednesday, it’ll probably rain frogs and the pitch will be invaded by the Shittites, or whatever. The problem was that Arsenal lacked that extra gear. Wenger threw the towel in halfway through the second half when he pulled off Overmars; you could feel the fight drain out of the boys. Wimbledon, though, after being dissected by Chelsea last week looked much the better side. It’s a shame their goal was so bloody unfair, though. Still, our luck must change soon. Either that or change the forward line. Anyway, FIFA 99 goes back the shops on Monday, we’re thinking of swapping it for Tomb Raider III. It’s much more therapeutic moving a bird with massive hooters around a jungle or something. She’s fit, she’s quick and she doesn’t score against the Arse. Man of the Match: Tony Adams. (Boy, did he have the hump.)
Arsenal 1 Middlesbrough 1 So why do dogs chase cars? What are they going to do if they catch it? Eat it? Fuck it? Drive away in it? Like, what is the point? So why did Arsenal chase this game for the majority of the ninety minutes? What was the point? After Boro went ahead in the sixth minute from a decent Gascoigne midfield spray out to the left wing that was crossed back for Brian Deane to walk in, Arsenal spent the remaining 84 mins running around like the aforementioned dim-witted canines. This was a truly memorable pile of cack. The team, being horribly close to the mob that gave Chelsea such a close run-in a few weeks ago (this is the writer being ironic, in case you can’t tell) performed about as well as some of those grisly early eighties Arsenal sides, ie about as well as a stringless yo-yo. Just in case you get the wrong impression, in a funny sort of way the game was quite enjoyable. The worse it got the more the supporters drew on their reserves of humour, bile and downright awkwardness. At one point the diminutive Chris Wreh marked by the stratospheric Gary Pallister went up once again for another pointless heading exercise. His tiny body arched uselessly as Pally cleared the ball again with a bovine nod. Someone waved a half interested hand in Wreh’s direction and said, ‘there he goes again, Free Willy’. Well, it made me laugh. Stupid conversations abounded. My mate’s theory that Middlesbrough were stunningly average as a side was based upon the fact that they had the word ‘middle’ in their name. Nobody had the heart to point out that based on the same theory ‘Arsenal’ were on well dodgy ground, let alone ‘Scunthorpe.’ Mates, sometimes display all the brains of your average single celled organism. But this was a grim old game. Anelka played intelligently for the first half before disappearing into that thoroughly invisible parallel universe that inhabits in second halves. Ray Parlour played ‘atmospherically’ ie he stank. And good old Lee Dixon is the player England having been crying out for. That’s the England that play at Twickenham, not Wembley. He hit so many long range shots over the bar that we were beginning to suspect that he was conducting a vendetta against someone in row z. Really, it just got worse and worse. However, Middlesbrough were nothing to write home about. Not unless you wrote ‘Dear Mum, you know you get those funny vegetables that look like mens’ willys. Well, I’ve just seen a whole football team that looks exactly like a turd.’ They were rubbish. But we made them look like Inter on amphetamines. We were that poor. We were having a bit of a laugh, trying to work out just how poor they were about two minutes from time when they’re was a bit of a flurry, a neat over the top pass that somehow found Anelka in his garden of rest and Nic managed to bury the ball in the Boro goal, via the crossbar. We just laughed and laughed. It was the funniest thing this week by miles. One-one, nothing on the clock. And we nearly scored again about a minute later. Welcome back, ‘Lucky Arsenal.’ What a hoot. Ok, there was more than a touch of hysteria about all the thigh slapping, but it was funny. The team looks in a sorry state, but maybe we’ve turned that corner. It’s time to get back in the driving seat and let all the other dogs lick their balls, sniff their arses and carry on chasing the Arsenal mean machine. (Yeah, we know that’s a bit strong, but it fitted so nicely.) Man of the Match: Ljungberg was alrightish, but Martin ‘red boots’ Keown was better.
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