Champions' League 00/01

Well, here was something not seen in an age; the return of the classic Arsenal game- poxy match, but a great result. Arsenal, cautious and timid, played a waiting game. They all seemed to wait around the centre circle and be content to let Henry play on his own up front. Using Kanu in the deepest position I’ve ever seen him with Pires wide, it was an odd, unsatisfying formation, but ultimately very effective. Prague were no better than a robust version of Tottenham and whatever chances came their way were solid but not that threatening. Arsenal’s goal, when it came, was an absolute cracker. Silvinho received the ball wide, ran forward and then beat, one, two, three players, hit it casually with the outside of his boot and trickled it onto the post and into the net. Is there anything this man cannot do? It was also the first time I’ve seen beer drip from the ceiling of the pub.

The second half was as titillating as the Queen Mother naked and as about as slow; but the result is pure gold.

Man of the Match: We got Silvinho.

20.9.00

Arsenal 3 FC Shakhtar 2

We were so busy and so grateful to be back at claustrophobic Highbury after the killing acres of Wembley that we completely forgot that our previous European Cup games in north London have all been rather brown trouser affairs. Who can forget being dissected by Benfica? And as for the others, well I forget. But, as the papers, the pundits and my mate Dave said, this is different: this is Highbury and Shakhtar are the shit Ukrainian side, not the good one that Oleg came from. So, no problem. The problem was, nobody told the Ukrainians that they were supposed to be sacrificial fodder to the red and white gods. From the off, they ran around like newly freed lab rats; bit, kicked and elbowed anything that wasn’t nailed down and generally exhibited a level of speed and ferocity rarely seen outside of the weed killer drinking fraternity.

The usual Arsenal story followed. You know the one; the ball goes high, wide, pings bars, posts; a bombardment that on a good night could level Dresden. And then the other reds score. From a wobbly deflected free kick that bounced off Pires’s arse. Old Pikey Seaman never moved a follicle. And then they scored again. A hole the size of a washing machine appeared in Seamo’s side and the ball flew goalward. Last season he would have saved that. I’m definitely crossing out ‘Playstation 2’ on my Christmas list and putting down ‘goalkeeper.’

Being two nil down to a bunch of hyperactive midgets was a little embarrassing and then the Shakhtar skipper was sent off for a body check to add to his previous stud to testicle episode with Vieira and suddenly there was ten watt lightbulb in a very large tunnel. Pires went off mysteriously and a bouncy Wiltord appeared. One of his very first acts was to be upended in the penalty area and earn a spot kick. I know bugger all about body language but Henry’s droopy lower lip nearly got caught up in his boots as he ran up to take the kick. It had miss written all over it. The Shakhtar goalkeeper parried the ball and before we could breath out in snuck Wiltord and hammered the ball into the net. Half-time.

The second half was another Arsenal embarrassment of riches: Henry tried feints, flicks and frooballs (yes, I know I’ve run out of alliteration.) And Kanu nearly scored the goal of the century but toed it wide. Even Lee Dixon managed two shots, on target, rather than sky- the whole team in fact was moving up the pitch and packing the opposing half. And this is where I started shouting at Martin Keown. He was far too far out of his zone. What did he think he was doing up there? We’re going to get caught out in a minute. Look at him going forward for that corner. Pathetic. He really should just stay…goal. Off someone’s shoulder or chest. Who? Keown. Right, you’ve had your fun Martin, now get back and hoof. 2-2. Very respectable.

With the time up, the get away early boys were crowding the aisles when Arsenal pumped the ball forward. Kanu got into a slippery position down on the touchline, feinted the keeper, squared the ball to a team mate who hit the thing with a force that they would have felt in the Urals. After being roundly hugged and slapped by my mates I peered through the jumping bodies to see the handsome Mr Keown wheeling away with a look of utter shock on his face. Martin Keown one short of a hat trick. We truly are living at the end of time.

This is being written a couple days after the match and I can still feel the palpable relief of that third goal; like an adrenal shot to the heart. Fab.

Martin Keown may look like Jim Henson made him out of plasticene then set light to him, but as the crowd rose as one and clapped him off the pitch he looked like the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Big nights are back.

Man of the Match: Guess.

27.9.00

Arsenal 2 Lazio 0

Well here was a throwback to the bad old days; a thoroughly professional performance, where just for once the big fish wriggling on the end of the line wasn’t thrown back but was roundly bludgeoned to death. A lot of blah, blah, blah journo’s were whining that this wasn’t the real Lazio team as Crespo and the Italian goalkeeper whose name escapes me but surely ends in some sort of vowel, were both absent. But seeing as the Lazio team out there tonight probably equalled the GNP of Madagascar I think all those whining press boys should just go away and quietly fuck themselves.

Whilst Ferguson was putting out his ‘C’ team and roundly dissing any PSV supporters, Wenger decided to be shrewd and clever, at least that’s what we thought- playing Bergkamp wide on the right did seem a little like one of George Graham’s bad days. (Who can forget Winterburn’s formative Arsenal days where Georgie played him on the right. Madness. I only went to see the film, ‘My Left Foot’ because I thought it was biopic about Nutty.) But I digress.

From the start Arsenal played like the sort of team that you only see in a runny cheese induced dream or one of those pig hard ‘professional’ settings you get on Playstation footy games. This was proper football; a cross between fencing, chess and boxing, if you can imagine such a combination. Lazio were solid and intelligent in the middle, unlike the drunk bloke a couple of rows in front of us who kept shouting out things like, ‘go home you paella eating bastards,’ ‘fuck off back to Spain’ and then just to completely contradict himself managed to call Stankovic, ‘an Italian cunt.’ Oh well, perhaps it’s his turn to have the brain cell next week.

The most noticeable thing early in the game was the presence of Bergkamp. In his new position he was causing all kinds of problems with an ability to ghost infield, drift around and cause mayhem. At the back, Adams was an amazing presence, doing the centre back’s role in a textbook way. As for being a captain, at one point directly in the hurly burly of the game he actually stopped to give Silvinho a tactical lecture on positioning. Amazing.

It was a fascinating game and once we got over the fact that we weren’t going to be steamrollered, it turned into a really enjoyable one. Arsenal threatened with an Henry long ranger and peculiarly enough a Martin Keown half scissors kick that the keeper saved. There was one sentence that I never thought I’d be writing. Kanu picked up a ball wide on the right and sprayed it across the pitch. Bergkamp met it and cushioned it with that rarest of Dennis things, outside of an aeroplane: a header. He nodded it down into the path of Ljungberg who whacked it from close range firmly into the roof of the net. Class move, class goal. The roar from the crowd actually made my ears ring. Long time since that has happened.

Half time and Lazio came out of the tunnel well early. They looked jumpy. Arsenal made them wait a good five minutes before they trotted out to a red and white waving rapture. Rattled, Lazio brought on a old Crystal Palace manager in the penile shape of Attilo Lombardo. Talk about desperate. Twenty odd minute later they actually took him off and brought on Teesides favourite shirtlifter of yesteryear, Fabrizio Ravanelli. Looked like the tactical equivalent of the hokey-cokey. They were rattled.

They were positively shaking a few moments later when Bergkamp went on a lateral run from the right, brushed pass the Lazio boys as if they were tiny creatures from another species and then slid a ball into the running Ljungberg, who in a convergence of defenders, kept his head and poked the ball home. Lovely goal.

Later, Wenger pulled off Bergkamp to an ovation whose warmth would have powered north London for the next thousand years. On came a fresh, slightly mad looking Wiltord.

Arsenal nearly had a third. An Adams diving header that was cleared off the line, but really all the damage we need to do, was done.

We’ve had stacks of memorable nights at Highbury, but this was truly an historic one. It was a privilege to be there. I can say no more.

Man of the Match: Dennis Bergkamp.

17.10.00

Lazio 1 Arsenal 1

Firstly, sorry this report is a bit late. An under pressure bladder with leaky suppurating seams coupled with the maze like tangle of the midnight Northern Line isn’t exactly conducive to sitting down and composing this stuff; even if it is unadulterated tripe. So it was straight to bed in the wee small hours, then off to the end of the shuffling commuter conga the next day. But what a night.

Having elbowed ‘The Gunners’ pub seeing as they wanted to charge us a tenner for the dubious benefit of drinking out of plastic glasses, we decamped to ‘The Arsenal Tavern’ down the wet smelly end of Blackstock road to watch the game projected onto what looked like a hairy blanket. As pubs go its décor verges on the hallucinatory. Old shop signs, broken furniture and a raised platform sporting an array of electric disabled carts; it’s an intimidating hybrid of Steptoe’s yard and a set from Mad Max. Two go in, one comes out. Just to top all that the regulars look like some poor blind fucker’s made them all fresh that morning out of a pile of limbs and organs he found around the back of a hospital’s dustbins. It’s not very often that me and the mates look like we’re top of the evolutionary chain just because our features are clustered vaguely in the middle of our faces. But God loves gooners, no matter what shape they’re in or how much dribble is puddling around their feet.

And the game?

Well, finding that Arsenal had achieved the remarkable record of fielding the oldest ever player in the Champions’ League (Lukic for Seaman) did, predictably, absolutely nothing for the shredded nerves. Adams, also failed a fitness test and was deputised by Luzhny. Grimandi and Vieira supplied the midfield and Kanu and Henry the attack. Lazio played Salas, Nedved and Inzaghi with a rather fit looking Crespo running up and down the touchline, eager to get on.

Time slows down in these big games. The first two minutes was all Lazio. Then Grimandi just headed wide of the post and the game settled down to pattern that was somewhat unusual; ie. Arsenal dominant. And then Lazio scored. A fluke exploratory kick that came off of Silvinho’s intercepting boot and dropped like a mortar beyond a well stranded Lukic. Bugger.

But Arsenal didn’t press the panic button. The Lazio defence was much more organised than the net curtain they put up at Highbury. They strung themselves in a human chain across the top of the box effectively pushing Henry and Kanu into insupportable deep parts of the park. But the one weak link was out on the left and Silvinho ran them ragged there. Indeed, Silvy nearly scored another of those goals, a swaying dribble that took him through the Italian defence only to see his shot blocked by Peruzzi the only Paul Gascoigne shaped player in Serie since er, Paul Gascoigne.

In the second half Crespo finally made it on and played a fast tandem role with Salas that at times worryingly looked like the incisive movements of Barcelona at Wembley last year. But we decided to ignore all that and keep our heads down a do a bit of motorised drinking.

The Lazio players, it must be said, are prime wind-up merchants. Vieria was getting all sorts of racial abuse, shirts were pulled, elbows raised and gallons of gob were being flung about. So when Simeone tugged Grimandi for the umpteenth time, Gilles did what anyone would do; hit the Argentinean with the best right hook I’ve seen in years. It was a definite bonus that Simeone’s head actually exploded. More claret than the Queen’s wine cellar. I’ve always thought that inside the Gallic body of Grimandi was someone who looked suspiciously like David Batty. Lazio basically, then went mental. Keown was booked for picking someone up by the throat (always a card, that one) and Wenger wisely subbed Gilles before he was buried. It was great.

In the last five minutes Arsenal were pinned in their own half as Lazio got corner after corner. After about corner four I was just thinking that now would be a good time to break out when Wiltord bustled forward and sent up a long looping ball that sailed over the heads of the Lazio defenders and plopped at the feet of the running Pires. With a breathtaking turn of speed rarely seen outside of a Roadrunner cartoon, Pires outstripped the pursuit, took the ball wide and hit it with a marked curve around the goalkeeper. From thirty yards out the ball bent and snuggled into the far inside side netting. The pub went stratospheric; glasses flew, furniture was reduced to Swan Vestas and beer, unwittingly, was used as a refreshing shampoo. Rock solid. 88 minutes.

It mattered little that Salas had the ball in the Arsenal net in injury time; his overhead kick was deemed dangerous by the referee. We were still jumping up and down; everyone singing a different Arsenal song, when the whistle finally went. At the end there was a big bundle as all the players got involved in an interesting looking fracas that basically involved Simeone trying to get Gilles Grimandi’s head on the ends of his fists. Better and better.

It was only later that the news filtered through that the Ukrainians had beat Sparta Prague. Arsenal, no matter what, were through to the next round. So more drinks, more larging it and more singsongs. Which is why this report is late. Which is where we came in. Goodnight.

Man of the Match: Martin Keown.

25.10.00

Arsenal 4 Sparta Prague 2

Well, this is going to sound like sacrilege, but magnificent as this game looked, it was, in fact, just a teensy weensy bit boring. Effectively over after seven minutes owing to a superb Ray Parlour 25 yard bombshell and Lauren’s sublime clip from a breathtaking Pires run, we could all have adjourned there and then to a warm hostelry for an early post match inquest. Yet, there were times when the maroon clad team of dwarves from eastern Europe tested the increasingly atrophied reflexes of Mr Seaman to a degree that we would have found alarming if we’d actually been awake. Maybe we’re just becoming ungrateful. Europe this season has been everything it wasn’t at Wembley for the past two seasons; solid, exciting stuff.

The most exciting thing, however, was the debut of the Arsenal’s deeply unnecessary third strip; an ugly navy blue shirt with some ‘tasteful’ yellow piping. They looked like Chelsea in a downpour. Seeing as how Sparta were playing in a serious purple mufti it didn’t take long to figure out that any passes that involved peripheral vision were in grave danger of going astray. Come half time and the blatant commercial plugging over, the boys resorted to the familiar yellow and blue, hopefully consigning the new unlovely strip to the wardrobe of history.

Arsenal’s third came from a source that certainly had us turning over and stretching in our seats; a rapacious Lee Dixon darting in like lightning to smash home the saved rebound from Henry’s well lashed free kick.

Sparta then pulled one back as Seaman flapped at a Czech player, clipped his hip and conceded the penalty.

Sparta, who must be the shortest bunch of players in the world, indeed, the only team that would find Nelson Vivas deputising as an erstwhile centre back a bit tricky to deal with, now decided to play a bit; a kind of running human pinball, like a good Spurs side on ecstasy.

Arsenal’s last goal was an electric bit of Henry running, a great cross and then Kanu picking around it with his size fifteen’s and finally scooping it into the net from about a foot out. Easy, easy.

Prague pulled another back at the death with an impressive dribble that if it meant anything would be the goal of the season. Arsenal merely stood back and watched this tiny man in purple, no bigger than a Subbuteo player, run around and do his party piece.

So, Arsenal finish top of the group no matter what happens on the Russian steppes in couple of weeks. Great days, these. Embrace the Euro.

Man of the Match: Patrick Vieira.

7.11.00

Shakhtar Donetsk 3 Arsenal 0

Anybody reading the Daily Mirror today would think that this score was a tragedy on par with world hunger and third world infant mortality rates. John Cross, a fat faced Harry Harris soundalike journo used words like ‘dismal’, ‘weak’ and ‘they will have to improve dramatically’. Some one should have had a word with chubbo and told him that this game mattered not one iota- paradoxically on the same page Real Madrid are praised for losing 1-0. You figure it out.

Not the greatest game this; Wiltord look sharp and that was that. Two Arsenal goals disallowed, one was onside, the other slightly debatable. The real downer here was the resurfacing of that old problem- that Keown always plays shit when he’s paired with Upson. Bit of a worry that. Cold night in the Ukraine, cold one here, but we’ve still got that warm glow that says we’re through.

Man of the Match: Wiltord.

22.11.00

Spartak Moscow 4 Arsenal 1

The figures don’t look too clever; play brilliant for three minutes and then revert to a Hackney Marshes Sunday football sensibility for the remaining 87. When Henry slipped a ball through to the gliding Silvinho, who beautifully judged the keeper’s lunge and slid ball under his body in the second minute, that, we assumed, would be the beginning of something marvelous. But, knowing the boys as we do, there was always that nagging little arsehole who lives at the back of your head saying, ‘this is too good to be true.’

Basically, Mr Wenger, you buggered it up.

We could blame the cold. But we won’t. We could blame the pitch, but it wasn’t that bad (they had harvested the spuds from it the day before.) We could blame the freezing of some of the players from the world’s more exotic climes, but seeing as Spartak were fielding three Brazilians, that would be churlish. We could bring out the old chestnut of expensive nancified foreigners ‘not up for it’, but that, like the chestnuts, is a pair of round ones. No, the only thing left apart from stupidity and fate are tactics. Spartak, play straight through the middle, now Arsenal without Vieira or Grimandi are desperately light in that department. Me, your average, terrace loudmouth would have played Luzhny alongside Adams, Keown just in front of them and Dixon at right back and in typical George Graham fashion, a lone Henry leading the line. If you’ve got a leaky toilet you don’t stop it dripping by drilling more holes in. Kapeesh? Still, I’m no manager. Also Mr W spend today having a look at Weaver or Wright’s CV’s; there’s definitely something wrong with Manninger’s head. I think he’s got goalkeeper’s block.

Long term, this is probably not the disaster it looks. But I can’t help thinking that Leeds on Sunday is going to prove as cold and fruitless as tonight.

Man of the Match: Suspended until further notice.

5.12.00

Arsenal 2 Bayern Munich 2

Perhaps the lowest point of the season so far was when Bayern equalised and the German supporters chillingly displayed their world renowned sense of humour by chorusing en masse to the disgruntled English, "You’re not zinging anymore." And that is a blunt summation of Arsenal’s current problems. They’re just not zinging anymore. Something has gone flat as day old bubbly. It’s not injuries, it’s probably not tactics and it can’t be fatigue. The only thing left is a widening mental chasm between attitude, intent and application. In a word; it’s mental. Something in their heads isn’t working. I don’t know much about psychology, but I think the little ball has come out of the little hole.

After a terrible month, Arsenal, seemed finally to have put it all behind them and started brilliantly. A Vieira pass, a Pires pickup, onto Kanu, who played a blind ball into the path of a flowing Henry and a sweet stroke saw the ball whipping into the Bayern net within the first ten minutes. There then followed a solid half with terrific performances from Ljungberg and Ashley Cole and a short but sweet five minute cameo effort from the sporadic Pires. Manninger had nothing to do and Adams, Grimandi and Keown policed the edge of the box well. Even Effenburg, was corralled and indeed, looked dead nervous as if suspecting that if ever one of Gilles amazing sliding buzz saw tackles actually connected he would be spending the next year back in Munich General. But then half time happened.

Arsenal started bright enough; a tenacious Kanu held off the might of Bavaria, stuck the ball across the face of the goal and watched it hit the post and then decide to go in, rather than out. A long moment, that one.
2-0 up home and home and dry. And then the Germans scored from a mistake. Keown berated Luzhny for minutes and Oleg just shrugged. Then Munich were awarded a free kick that never should have been. They scored. Manninger never moved an eyelash. And then. And then it all went to pieces. Any fragile soap bubble confidence was popped. Suddenly Effenburg had all the space he needed and moved up from pained clumsy monster beset by irate lynching villagers to teutonic god. His passing was world class and our mob just sat back and watched the bastard do it. It was also about this time that the ref whipped off his neutral disguise to reveal a small man with his black hair plastered across his forehead sporting a rather natty toothbrush moustache. With his arm dubiously straight and raised he declared a three foot exclusion zone around anybody vaguely German and went about his business of annexing Highbury for the thousand year Reich. We had no chance. The Germans fouled, dived and showed why they are genuinely the most loved country in Europe and Arsenal went completely to pieces. Meanwhile their drone like supporters bounced up and down waggling the pom-poms on their Father Christmas hats and succeeded on scaling the heights of everybody’s tits.

It was fucking murder.

By the end the Gunners were hanging on by their fingertips. It was worse than losing. Whilst there were some bright performances (Cole, Ljungberg, Adams and Vieira) and there were others that were adequate but lacked spirit (Henry, Kanu and Pires) there were others that were genuinely shit (Manninger, Luzhny and the current worse waste of 14 million quid that I know; Wiltord.) So, nothing really changing there, then.

So what’s next? The Champions’ League is history now until February, so forget about that. Me, I’d settle for a spirited, committed draw against Newcastle and a balls-out attempt to destroy Spurs away the week after. Nothing less. If I want to watch teams make promises, fail to deliver and then chaotically fall apart I’ll go to a Labour party conference. For the Arsenal, this isn’t good enough. It’s not about winning or losing, it’s about giving a fuck. Too many bodies without beating hearts. Over to you, Mr Wenger.

Man of the Match: Ljungberg. Brilliant. Ten more like that and you could rule the world.

21.2.01

Arsenal 1 Lyon 1

An unpalatable truth, but still the truth, is that Arsenal got no more than they deserved out of this game. A hard won goal in the first half from a determined bit of Bergkamp running and a sublime strike at the end of it wasn’t enough to make up for a dire second half with Arsenal having so little possession and absolutely no idea what to do with the ball when they actually got it. Just to rub salt into the wound Lyon’s goal came from the Brazilian bloke we’ve being trying to buy since the year dot, Edmilson. His 89th minute header from a corner was probably Lyon’s first real chance of the night. But Arsenal were mentally dead and buried long before Lyon’s goal. An inability to clear their lines with nothing more than a shovelling hoof was always going to get us in trouble. Lyon were tenacious, hard to shake off the ball and above all patient. Arsenal were a mess. Bergkamp’s understanding with Henry made them look like they were from different species and later Wiltord and Kanu gelled as well as oil and water. It was all too horrible to watch. It might have been different if Parlour had stuck away the sitter of the season early in the first half, but Raymundo, near enough to count the keeper’s nasal hairs, screwed the shot so crookedly that it finally hit the outside of the post. The only bright spot, apart from the classic Iceman goal, was a superb performance from Ashley Cole. Well, that’s England’s left back position solved for the next ten years. The only other thing of note was how much Lauren is looking like Michael Thomas. God help us all if he ends up playing like him.

Not one of the great nights. Many more nails to chew methinks.

Man of the Match: Ashley Cole.

6.3.01

Arsenal 1 Spartak Moscow 0

"So young Skywalker the choice is clear. Either you drop a bomb the size of a Malteser into a conduit the size of a jam jar that is situated in a two hundred feet trench on a death star that is slightly bigger than Jupiter, and, I may add, you’ll be in a speeding X-Wing fighter, which is slightly less stable than a Trabant or you and your mates will have to go to Munich and beat Bayern."

"What was that Malteser thing again?"

Welcome to the future Arsenal style.

After a deeply frustrating night of pissing about and looking like a team composed of the freshly dead, the Arsenal, now face the inevitable prospect of having to go to the hinterlands of the Black Forest and carve out a win. Don’t believe any edited highlights; this was a dreadful game. A bright ten minutes was followed by a turgid eighty. Arsenal, the recipients of 17 corners, finally got the last one right when Henry rising above the pack headed the ball down for a goal that was anything but well earned. In fact just prior to Thierry’s goal we were all baying at Wenger to take him off. This must have been his worst performance at Highbury; stuck out on the right wing, he looked slow, petulant and out of it. More like Lenny Henry than Thierry Henry. Thank God Bergkamp was up for it. Of course Wenger pulled him off. The crowd were not best pleased. However, the injection of Kanu and particularly Wiltord did inject a bit of much needed muscle and indeed, indirectly, a goal.

In summary; a poor game with a sterling performance from Ljungberg, Dixon and Adams and a glimpse of Henry that nobody wanted to see. Next week looks well hard. An Arsenal win takes us through regardless, an Arsenal draw and a Lyon defeat likewise, also quite weirdly an Arsenal defeat and a Lyon draw too. This one is going to the wire.

Man of the match: Tony Adams.

14.3.01

Bayern Munich 1 Arsenal 0

The big problem with this game was trying to work out if Arsenal were cack or Bayern were brilliant. But as this grisly mess slowly unraveled you had the distinct impression that the terrible smell wasn’t coming from the fat bloke full of lager in front of us but was actually seeping directly out of the television set. Really, this was a terrible performance: Grimandi nearly puts through his own net in the first minute, Adams’s waving raised arm was still waving when the Bayern players were long gone, Henry, a miserable sullen shadow of himself and Kanu doing the impossible, making a seven foot geezer absolutely invisible against the short grass. Apart from Ashley Cole, Dixon, Adams, Vieira and Seaman the rest of the side were so devoid of skill, motivation and motor skills that it looked like me and my mates playing. ‘Motivation’, however is the real problem. Wenger can find real gem players, buy players shrewdly and bring them on, but somehow he lacks the ability to fire them up. Maybe he needs a new assistant manager; look at Ferguson, Houllier or even O’Leary. Who do we have? Pat Rice. I rest my case.

Of course, this all sounds like sour grapes, seeing as the real game was going off on a chocolate mousse pitch somewhere in Moscow. Certainly, Bayern stuck to a dogged game plan; basically two back fours (highly mobile, sure) but still two back fours. Arsenal were woeful in all departments and certainly for once deserved the epithet ‘lucky’.

The last four minutes of the Moscow game were terrific, though. Real tension and thrills. And the Russians, honorary Gunners for one night only, did us proud, which was more than the Arsenal doppelgangers in Munich did.

A one off aberration or the end of the line for this team? We know which one we favor.

Man of the Match: All the ‘ovs’ itches’ and ‘kovs’ of Moscow Spartak.

4.4.01

Arsenal 2 Valencia 1

Make no mistake this is no waning European power like Barcelona or a five minute wonder like Deportivo, but a pukka side at the top of its game. If I didn’t have a vested interest in the game, I could watch Mendieta plough up and down the right wing all night, putting eighty yard balls on a ladybird’s back, tackling like a demon and gliding past Arsenal players as if they were made of string. Valencia reek of a class. And when they went one up nobody but nobody was surprised. What was surprising was the heads down doggedness of Arsenal’s approach. For every top drawer save produced by Seaman, Arsenal clawed something back. They harassed, ran and bothered like they should be doing every week; in short they looked like Arsenal.

Unbowed, they dug in and moved the ball forward with something that looked a whole lot like intelligence. Early in the second half a smart move culminated in a Pires back-heel that split the Valencia defence, Henry ran through and all the Spanish boys raised their hands like a gaggle of Tony Adam’s impersonators and waited for the linesman to do his wagging. Henry just walloped the ball into the net. Even the people sitting in front of us thought it was offside. Wasn’t though. He, heh.

We’d have all settled for 1-1, but the Arsenal, lifted for once by the tremendous racket the crowd was making, were driving forward like men possessed.

Ray Parlour picked up the ball around about the half way line. He ran, shifted, and ran a bit more. Where we were sitting we were looking straight down the line of his spine. His head came up for a millisecond and then he let fly. Twenty five yards out. The ball screamed and dipped and we knew it was going nowhere except the top right hand corner of the Valencia net. There are parts of the season where you lose it completely; brain, voice, sphincter, whatever. This was one of them. Voices cracked, exploded and terminated in screams that sloughed off the soft throat tissue. Me, I was still croaking twenty four hours later. Goal of the season without a doubt. Best bit of the season (up to now) without a doubt. This is why you spend all those tedious hours watching Derby, Coventry and Tottenham, for one soaring moment that reminds you why you give the Arsenal stupid amounts of money. Brilliant.

In two weeks Valencia could click, engage and roll over us, turning us into red and white mulch. I really don’t care; I’ve got my 2000/01 hotspot.

Man of the Match: Vieira. Outofthisworldstanding.

17.4.01

Valencia 1 Arsenal 0

It’s all very well laying in the big bed, larging it up, but when the bears come back to see who’s scarfed their porridge and busted their chairs then it’s time to piss off. Arsenal have been breathing someone else’s air now since the second league stage of this competition. We all knew it. Having relinquished control of our own destiny and having to rely on other people doing us favours is no way to win a competition. Still, hope, like an unwanted erection when the dental nurse leans over you, keeps rearing its head. The boys played well against a terrific Valencia side, but the rub, nub and percentage numbers were ultimately, with the Spanish boys. Nothing to do but go home, dig out the old vids of that night in Copenhagen, suck on a beer and watch Smudger define the perfect Euro moment. Next season things will be different. They always are.

Man of the Match: A staggering performance from Ashley Cole and a supernal one from Vieira

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