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October 1998 17.10.98 Arsenal 1 Southampton 1 25.10.98 Blackburn 1 Arsenal 2
Arsenal 3 Newcastle 0 What a strange week this has been. First Wembley as home, then Carlos the Jackal having Vera Lynn on his hit list (I’m not making this up) then George taking over at Spurs. (I’m never going to get used to the Scum singing, ‘Georgie Graham’s blue and white army.’ Mind you, what did they sing at Leeds? ‘Georgie Graham’s white and white army?) Still, it’s nice to have something you can rely on and a Newcastle team dressed in bin liners and stinking of rubbish has become a welcome feature in recent seasons. They was a vague suspicion that Ruud with his talk of ‘sexy football’ might have conned a few people into believing that this was a different Newcastle. But the big problem with ‘sexy football’ is that you can’t keep it up for ninety minutes. Three minutes top whack of huffing and puffing, a bit of a mess and then a long kip, that’s your lot. It seemed to us that the only thing that Ruud has brought with him is the residue of an extremely one dimensional offside trap. A trap so flimsy that even Anelka could spring it. Arsenal looked the full monty straight from the off. Adams patrolled the back line like a god, whilst Keown did what he was born to do; make Alan Shearer look like he once played for Southampton. Overmars, Anelka and Bergkamp looked like they did last season and the midfield boys cut open the lardy underbelly of Newcastle with breathtaking regularity. Ljungberg, having his first full start was as spiky as his hairstyle. Believe me he’s going to fit in brilliantly. Later on we even had a rare appearance of the underrated Alberto Mendez. Terrific. Oh, we also had four goals. Yes, four. Goal number one was from a wonderful piece of deep dogged play by Anelka, who hustled his way through the black and white tramlines of the geordie midfield, arrowed a ball through to Bergkamp, who side on to the goal, slid it past Givens. Earlier Bergkamp had missed a much easier chance that went high and wide and probably ended up in some old lady’s lap in Elwood Street. Goal two and Bergkamp returned the compliment to Anelka. Doing all the hard work Den ran down the defence, outpaced them all and then simply squared the ball to Anelka who had a simple tap in. Goal three was a second half penalty. Overmars ran clear and whatsisname, Dabitoff, hacked him down and got himself red carded for it. Bergkamp’s penalty was cool, low and left. Givens nearly got it but the net bulged suggestively. Now that’s sexy football. Goal four saw Bergkamp crunched in the Newcastle area, down he went, but still managed to stick a foot out and guide the ball into the net. However, the ref blew for a penalty. Bergkamp tried the cool, low and left business again, but this time Givens parried it away. Bugger. Newcastle? Shearer had the royal hump for most of the game and the rest of the barcode army looked ill at ease with the big nosed yeti’s rudimentary tactics. Get that address book out Ruud or you’ll be playing Stockport in nine months time. The Geordies did have one fabulous shot that produced the best save I’ve seen this season from the shaggy haired northerner we have in goal. Classic spunky. Great afternoon. Sex, foreplay, orgasms, a bunch of Northerners getting shafted and three satisfying hits on the old G spot. Man of the Match: Welcome back Dennis. But it has to be Martin Keown.
Arsenal 1 Southampton 1 They tell you lies, you know. They say things like beer with the word ‘ice’ on it actually tastes like a decent drink rather than the truth that it is a chemical swill made from flat lager slops and cat urine. They tell you that Anthea Turner has a ‘bubbly’ personality when the reality is that she is a conniving slapper who would only look half decent if she was being cut from a steaming car wreck on the M40. The supermarkets insist that they offer ‘good value’ when the reality is that they are short-changing us something rotten, treat us like simpletons and are slowly poisoning us to boot. Lastly (and finally coming back to the point) they tell us that Southampton have a bit ‘romance’ about them, that the Premiership needs the minnow teams like Coventry or the Saints. Twaddle. Southampton look like a Romany camp that has nicked all the wrong bits of a car. Nothing fits, nothing works. From the pug ugly David Howells to the grizzled wreck of John Hartson’s psychotic forebear, Mark Hughes, they reek of malice, stupidity and violence. Indeed, if they stood still long enough, flies, no doubt, would feed off of them. The smell is that bad. Some of you probably saw the Southampton manager, Dave Jones, give the most extraordinary press conference in the week, when he invited a large squad of interbred Saints’ fans into a hall about five times larger than the Dell. Relying heavily on his ‘honest’ scouse qualities, he first tried to charm them, then con them and when that fell on cloth ears, he offered them out. Really, he sat on the stage and offered to fight all the supporters one by one. Typical Scouser. Extraordinary. Still, the Saints arrived at Highbury on a wickedly blustery day; big bolts of wind like old boxers’ punches made a mockery of putting the ball anywhere where you wanted it. Also, about this time of year, one of the shittiest referees in the land makes one his sojourns to Highbury; the ridiculous Mr Winter. (See many previous reports for this clown’s performance.) Suffice to say Arsenal were denied two of the clearest penalties you’ll ever likely to see. He even booked Overmars whose only sin seemed to be that he didn’t take too kindly to being eviscerated by some Southampton mug. The Gunners should have been about five up by half time. Overmars had a cracking shot saved early on and indeed, the whole team appeared to take turns to put the ball high and wide of the seemingly cling-filmed Southampton goal. The boys missed the injured Petit. His telling passes would have given the front boys better service than Keown’s well meant but poorly placed up and over shovel passes. At the back Adams and Keown had good games; good skills, lot of application and the occasional eagle eyed interception. In the middle, Ray Parlour, unspoilt by England, played well and Stephen Hughes, on the odd occasion looked absolutely awesome. Some of his ball skills had people up on their feet and applauding. If he goes to Tottenham I’ll burn my season ticket. (Actually, I’ll probably just moan in the pub a bit, but that doesn’t sound half as cool.) Midway through the first half Bergkamp received a ball upfield, slotted it through to Anelka. He outpaced some Southampton slab, feinted the keeper with the faintest of feints and shot the ball into the gap that 99 people out of hundred would never have gone for. Sweet goal and done on the hoof. It was then that the grisly pattern of the match began to emerge. We knew that as the red rain washed over the Saints’ goal that this match had 1-1 written all over it. We’ve seen this match before, a thousand times. Southampton, who barely had the ball all afternoon, were going to score. God knows how but they were. Well into the second half they brought on Matt LeTissier. Sad or what. He now is about the same size as a small channel island. They could have stripped off his shirt, wrapped him in greaseproof paper and written ‘lard’ on his chest and nobody would have noticed. Fat LeTissier. Yes, we all know what happened next. Chubby gets hold of the ball, slips the Arsenal defence, puts it through to pig-faced Howells who slaps it at the surprised Seaman, who was probably rehearsing his lines for ‘Noel’s House Party’ and there you have it. One bleedin’ one. What a rotten, frustrating afternoon. Two points lost and the wretched Saints get their league point total increased by 100%. We were robbed/unlucky, you take your pick. Onto Wembley and Dynamo Kiev. At least there won’t be any Welsh people playing.
Blackburn 1 Arsenal 2 Having decided that: 1. We had no money and 2. The weather was life threatening and 3. That Ewok Park, or whatever it’s called, is one of the great open sores of England, me and the brethren decided, with a democratic show of hands, to show two fingers to Lancashire and watch the game in a warm, dark pub that smelt of unwashed orifices, fat blokes wearing lurid man-made fibre shirts slightly smaller than their actual skin and Jeyes Fluid. Up until now the old away record was a bit smelly. No wins and only one goal scored. Today, Arsenal had about three attacks and managed to score with two of them. That sort of percentage play is very nearly championship form. And so, full of delightful memories of our last Blackburn outing (super Nick putting his foot cheekily over the ball) we laid on the Guinesses and settled down to watch the big projection telly. The fact that the picture on one these devices looks exactly like some rug rat has chucked up over a sheet, did nothing to dampen our enthusiasm. Arsenal were without Adams and Parlour but Petit and Vieira were back and Bouldy was captain for the day. Blackburn, we thought, started off rather well. Good passing, good width and a certain athleticism that they never were going to keep up for ninety minutes, not unless they were sneaking off for swigs of Ben Johnson’s urine. After about ten minutes we figured out the Blackburn game plan. They were playing the perfect formation if they were allowed to play fifteen or sixteen men. One in goal, four across the back, a five man midfield and that idiot Sutton up front on his tod. Another five blokes and they would have been have been devastating. Arsenal lapped this up; got the ball, played with it, taunted the Blackburn and never fell for the ‘come and get us’ approach of the northerners. Nothing really happened until midway through the first half when some blue and white defender cleared a ball with the side of his foot. It squirted across the front of the area, landed at Anelka’s feet and he just lamped it. It hit the post and shot in. Flowers didn’t move. And they tell me that women, when asked who their favourite goalkeeper is, say they prefer Flowers to Seaman. I don’t believe it. It’s lovely when another team does all the graft and you get all the credit. Blackburn redoubled their efforts only to see the exceedingly ugly Henchoz give away a free kick right on the edge of the Blackburn area. Arsenal had about five players all with their hands on their hips deciding who was going to take the kick when Petit strode up, whacked through the leg forest and into the net. Sweet. Half time and Roy Hodgson who always looks like a worried budgie to us, did what he should have done from the beginning ie. bring on Kevin Davies. Just so you don’t think we never get out of N5, let us just say that we spotted Davies three seasons ago when he was playing for Chesterfield. I think my mate even wrote to Stewart Houston and said we should sign him. But seeing as cone man couldn’t fight his way out of a paper bag, I assume that opening envelopes was way beyond his motor skills. It was a different Blackburn side in the second half. Sherwood should have walked for a tackle that left Vieira’s bollocks hanging from the floodlight pylons and that shitty prick Sutton did walk for a tackle that would have made an abattoir boss wince. Who’s laughing now, Sutton? Ha, ha. So, they got a goal back? Big deal. (Good header, though.) This was a great performance from the boys against a team that I reckon will tonk someone bad in the next calendar month. Let’s hope the higher numbered squad boys do the same against Derby on Wednesday. Man of the Match: He’s blonde, he’s quick his name’s a porno flick.
Coventry 0 Arsenal 1 Funny enough, we reckon that old miserable ginge has done a good job at Coventry. Last season they were one of the better teams when it comes to entertainment. However, this year with the mercurial Huckerby having a bit of a Le Tiss and Dion Dublin threatening everbody with lawyers unless he gets a move to Aston Villa (please God, don’t let him come to Highbury) Coventry, of late, having been looking like, er, Coventry. It’s a shame really as we all have a bit of a soft spot for Coventry, both the team and the city. When something is so fucking ugly and everybody hates it, you can’t help being a bit contrary and sneaking in a bit of admiration. So what if the city was designed by the Luftwaffe? So what if the team looks like it was assembled from the debris after an explosion in a hospital morgue? We like them. And to be fair, today, at least, they tried to play the game with a bit of swagger and a lot of spirit. So what if it was well beyond them? Arsenal, sans Bergkamp (ankle and back) and Adams (wear and tear) made a bright start with Ljungberg looking way cool. Indeed, when he was brought down in the Coventry area, we all screamed ‘penalty’ and everybody else screamed ‘cheating foreign git’. I still think it was a penalty, but Uriah Rennie, one of the better refs, carded him immediately. Oh well, maybe, he dived a little bit. Overmars was far and away the most effective player on the pitch. Playing more central than usual, his runs were certainly causing Coventry to have runs of their own. It was from a Coventry corner that the ball fell to Marc just on the edge of the Arsenal box. He ran the entire length of the pitch, evading one or two tackles, propelled the ball into the Coventry area, shot low and hard, only to see the ball parried by the goalkeeper. Picking up the rebound he squared the ball to Nicholas ‘The Dutch never pass to me’ Anelka who sheepishly sided the ball into the net with a tap in that even Stephen Hawking could have managed. 1-0. And that’s how it stayed. Not a great rehearsal for the mighty Ukrainians on Wednesday, but at least the team have experience now of winning in places that Hitler flattened. Man of the Match: Marc Overmars
Postscript Nobody should go to a football match and die. Not even Tottenham supporters. The death of a Coventry steward, crushed by the reversing Arsenal team coach, was a terrible thing. All the players, both Arsenal and Coventry felt that the game was meaningless, in light of a man dying. And it was. We like people alive so that we can have a laugh, take the mickey and get them riled up. That’s what it’s all about. If you’re going to die, let in be in bed on your ninetieth birthday, watching the video of Michael Thomas winning the league at Anfield. Our sympathies to everybody connected to the poor Coventry bloke.
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