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2001/02 First League Bit 11.9.01 Real Mallorca 1 Arsenal 0 19.9.01 Arsenal 3 Schalke 04 2 26.9.01 Panathinaikos 1 Arsenal 0 16.10.01 Arsenal 2 Panathinaikos 1 24.10.01 Arsenal 3 Real Mallorca 1 Second League Bit 1. Let's never, ever talk about the Deportivo game.
Real Mallorca 1 Arsenal 0 When George Graham was at Spurs some of the hardcore scum supporters refused to chant his name and came up with the breezy get-out of singing, ‘bloke in the raincoats blue and white army.’ After tonight, Arsenal fans might have to get a similar thing going for Sol Campbell. How about, ‘man who wanders about a bit.’ Ambling Cam, as he is known in certain sections of the ground, is beginning to get royally on our collective tits. I’ve never seen a single person that had the ability to ‘mill’ all on his own. If you get a sheet of paper and put it on his forehead and rub a pencil across it, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the word ‘liability’ appear in six inch letters. What is the attraction of this man? Certainly, Spurs fans weren’t too bothered about losing him, only losing him to us. We’ve had our laugh, they can have him back now. Right, let’s start slaying the other ten muppets in this grisly, depressing advert for everything that is depressing about modern football, and in particular, modern Arsenal. It says a lot when the best player was David Seaman and even he, had a bit of a mare. This was a disgraceful gutless performance. Cole was sent off in the first ten minutes for a dim foul that didn’t deserve the early bath treatment and Mallorca stuck it away. Van Bronckhorst filled in adequately at left back and old Mallorcan boy, Lauren, did OK on the right. And that was your lot. Wiltord looked like Balloo the bear and Henry spent the whole game doing fucking circus tricks. It was only when Jeffers came on with ten minutes to go that old juggy stared to put it about a bit. Two good chances but too little time to convert them. Play him from the beginning Wenger and he’ll get ten, fifteen chances. And you can get rid of Wiltord to that place where all the old crap French players go: Newcastle United. Terrible game, but an impeccable show of silence in an otherwise rowdy pub for the American dead. Man of the Match: Seaman kept it real.
Panathinaikos 1 Arsenal 0 Apparently after the game Thierry Henry went barking mad, screamed at the opposition that they were a bunch of ‘heating shunts’ (my lip reading’s a bit rusty) and then indulged in a bit of scary finger pointing. Then he had to suffer the ignominy of being restrained by that other hard man, Arsene ‘I’m the Daddy’ Wenger. If only Henry had displayed the same passion in the preceding ninety minutes then this tie would have been sewn up instead of stitched up. I know the Greeks were falling over like dandelions in a wind, but you should expect that level of cheating and collusion from the officials at this level. Anyway, if the Greeks had stood on their feet like men, instead of acting like cravens, we still wouldn’t have beat them. This was another clueless travesty. The inclusion of Pires and Ljungberg, our so-called ‘midfield drivers’ did nothing except clutter up the midfield with blind, stupid hyperactive midgets. Vieira sleepwalked though the middle of the park and Ashley Cole’s now perennial absence from the left hand channel gifted the Greeks with their goal. Seaman’s positioning continues to astonish in its ineptitude; it’s amazing that this man has managed to find the hole and father three children. Parlour was awful and Wiltord and Henry continue to hone their styles in their pursuit to be the most grisly double act since Fred and Rosemary West. Blah, blah, blah. Yes, I could go on and on, but what is the point? Me moaning isn’t going to make them play with any more conviction or spirit or get them stringing more than one pass together. What’s needed is corrective surgery. And Liam Brady. And Ian Wright. And Alan Smith. So, in all this grisly mousakka was there anything to write home about? Well, Kanu and Jeffers looked infinitely better than Henry and Wiltord and Upson had another solid game. But the rest of the muppets only knocked another five million off their transfer prices. European football can be wonderful, but playing like this the Arsenal make ninety minutes seem like an eternity. Woeful, completely woeful.
Arsenal 2 Parafinaikos (well, you know) 1 It’s amazing what you just pick up walking up the hill after the game. For the first time in ages there seems to be a consensus about the direction of the team. The conclusions are: 1.Wiltord is fine against Derby and Southampton but completely out of his depth against anyone better. The grumblers, mumblers, seers and sages of Avenall Road reckon that Bergkamp should play alongside Henry, but with an active role for Jeffers, a less active role for Kanu and a cheese roll for Wiltord. 2. Richard Wright is infinitely preferable to Seaman. 3. Ashley Cole has gone backwards since he played for England. 4. Sol Campbell has never gone forwards and indeed, a backward movement in the direction of White Hart Lane would be more than welcome. 5. If Lauren is a right back, then so I am I. (To the tune of ‘If Dixon plays for England, etc, etc’). 6. What exactly does Van Bronckhorst do? Anyone can look like a superstar in Scottish Football. Chris Sutton. Rod Wallace. Terry Butcher. I rest my case. And the game? In a nutshell, a great result, but ultimately not that convincing. I’ll just say one thing about the Greeks before I start slagging them off; they’re a good side and they don’t have to cheat, dive, moan and act like fucking hyperactive ankle biters to get a result. They were a complete disgrace. It’s like they’ve watched one of those exploitation videos ("When Teams Go Bad") and decided to follow it to the letter. Me, I hope they get their petulant arses kicked all over Europe. Snuffed out. Humiliated. Horrible side. Without any honour. Let’s just hope Man Utd get them at a later stage. Hell, let’s just hope they get sent home back to Bumos or whatever Greek hole they crawled out of. Funny thing is, a couple of years ago when we played them at Wembley they were a much more professional team. In between the Greeks falling over like Afghan buildings Arsenal found it extremely difficult in getting hold of the game. Vieira was a one man team in the middle, though. His dispossession and disruption of the Greek midfield produced a fantastic moment where the whole play opened up like a sectioned orange. He found Henry with a pinpoint pass that Thierry ran onto, moved his head, juggled the ball a tad and slid it past the goalkeeper. Unsmiling, he walked over to the part of the ground where the Greek fans were and just stood there with a complete look of insolence. Pires joined him, put his arm around Thierry and tapped his finger to his ear. The Greeks, weren’t singing anymore. Great moment. Shortly after that Upson upended someone and the boys from Athens had a penalty. Richard Wright made himself into a peculiar starfish shape and then dived crisply to his right and parried the ball away. The North Bank fucking detonated. ‘Richard Wright, Wright, Wright’. No where have I heard that before. Their goal was well worked and beat Wright on the near post. But the problem was that world class defender, Sol Campbell, who failed to head the ball clear a couple of moments earlier. A lazy side header just laid the ball right back at the Greek’s feet. Poetic justice was served by Wiltord going down in the Greek area under the most namby pamby of challenges. Henry loped up for the penalty and smacked the ball into the inside of the right side netting. The Greeks went into hyper moan drive then and spent an awful amount of time holding their collective heads in their collective hands. God knows what that all meant, but it looked dramatic. Bergkamp and Parlour came on late and immediately showed Wenger that crispness and urgency aren’t the ugly things he believes they are. Not a perfect night. I woke up with a sore throat the next day. That’s the first time in months that’s happened. Who knows, perhaps things are looking up. Man of the Match: Vieira.
Arsenal 3 Real Mallorca 1 As Sol Campbell committed himself to a fifty-fifty ball wrongly, yet again, and was brushed aside as if he were no more than a black shadow, allowing the Mallorca player to find acres of space down the West Stand edges, there was a collective drawing in of breath. Our whole season hinged on the next few microseconds. Wright dived vaguely in the direction of the threat, the Mallorca player guided the ball around him and the Spaniards had their much needed goal. In-between remembering to breath out and collective spleens beginning to vent, a phrase, a collective distillation of every supporters’ moan over the last two months went through my head, ‘Thanks for the talented individuals Mr Wenger, but can we have our team back now please?’ In light of the ultimate score in would be churlish to embark on our usual big moan, because it was a remarkable night and now we have that much needed breathing space to get things right before the Champions’ League moves up a gear. My mate’s exclamation at the final whistle, ‘Bring on Real Madrid’ was barely audible, his tongue being firmly in his cheek. Or maybe he really believed it; the gene pool around Highbury isn’t that deep- a lot of us still think Sesame Street is put out by the Open University. But with the caveat that we’re still not quite convinced by the current team, we’ll stop being miserable humps and just say it was a great result and a great night. Mallorca, having sacked their manger after the 4-0 drubbing at Schalke, didn’t look as convincing as we remembered. Saddled with a third choice keeper and having to plug the gaps left by injuries and suspensions they were there for the taking. There are still obvious problems with Arsenal’s central nervous system; the signals from the backs to the midfield to the strikers are not really getting through. Certainly, it’s a system that makes me nervous. Lauren and Van Bronckhorst continue to do the worse Dixon/Winterburn impersonations ever seen, Campbell, rested against Blackburn came back and made us wistfully remember the days when he used to wear a white shirt with a leggy budgie on his left tit, Keown continues to investigate the nether regions of old age and Richard Wright is making the choice between him and Seaman look a lot closer than we would like. Out of all the people at the back, only Vieira looks absolute class. Grimandi played in that accompanying role alongside Vieira. The one that inspires as much confidence as Stephen Hawking playing Twister. Sorry. Enough of the grumbling. Force of habit. Arsenal went close in the first half. A Ljungberg run down the right wing resulted in a powerful cross that Henry slid the wrong side of the post and Bergkamp, in a moment of delirious skill, lobbed the keeper with a shallow arced ball that nearly redefined the word ‘precision’. Not quite up there with Pele’s marvellous dummy/miss in 1970, but close, real close. Half time with nothing on the scoreboard was nervous, but the Greeks were one-nil up so it was all up to us. Pires’ goal, when it came, was a much more difficult to take than the couple of others he fluffed earlier. Finding a gap, he smacked it low and left and gave the strained nerves of the Highbury faithful a much needed slackening. The second goal was the finest of the night, technically. Van Bronckhorst got down the edge, showed that he can do a blinding cross if pressed and Bergkamp met it square on with that blonde thing that wobbles about on the top of his neck, which I believe is his head. Stunning header, like something out of a Playstation game. Unreal. About now we were feeling a little guilty about moaning so much. Two clear goals would take us through to the next round. We were beginning to feel good; clouds were lifting, lights at the end of tunnels glimpsed and then the Spaniards virtually walked the ball into the Arsenal net and we were back on our arses in Moanworld. Wenger made the unpopular decision to take off Bergkamp and bring on Arsenal’s most expensive mistake since Eddie McGoldrick, Silvain Wiltord, and we all suddenly back sat under our tiny localised thunder cloud moaning for Britain. And that’s how it stayed. Ninety minutes up, all the part-time supporters that sit around us had pissed off, leaving the hardcore, the drunk, the fat and the stupid behind. Three minutes added on. Kanu missed a sitter, Henry kicked the shit out of one of the advertising hoardings in frustration, we had a goal disallowed and ninety three minutes were up. Arsenal got a free kick on the edge of their own area- Van Bronckhorst toed the still moving ball out to the left wing to Henry. Acres of space. Thierry sprung forward. Mallorca opened up and then, then it was one of those season defining moments. Henry one-on-one with the goalkeeper in the very last second of the game. I don’t know which foot he hit it with but the ball curled right, then left. It spun on its axis and then settled low and right in the old onion bag. Or French onion bag. To say the crowd leapt around a bit is a slight understatement. I seem to remember that absolutely everything fell out of my pockets. The players’ reaction was heartwarming and brought a slick of moisture to the eyes. Henry disappeared under a monumental pile of red and white shirts and for the first time this season came up with an eight foot grin plastered across his chops. Even Sol Campbell waggled his arms in a peculiar movement not seen outside of really crap Anime. (Note: All Anime is crap anyway.) Even Wenger was hugging Pat Rice; not a pretty sight, but we’ll allow it just this once. Absolute world class goal under the most intense pressure. Bodes well, that. A fevered ending that just might prove to be a new beginning. Wonderful night. Man of the Match: Had to be Vieira for his breathtaking dominance. But Henry’s goal will get all the headlines.
Arsenal 3 Juventus 1 Right, let’s start with the third goal or how it shall be known from now on as ‘The Goal of the Season’ (TGOTS). In the 87th minute a ball was played through the referee’s legs over to the left wing, pumped forward and eventually fetched up at the feet of Dennis Bergkamp. At this stage no-one had any idea that this was going to be TGOTS. Dennis, surrounded by Italian feet, was going nowhere. He checked, put his foot on ball, rolled it back, rolled it forward, dummied, moved the ball again, checked again, pulled the ball back, then forward. He did all this for a good five seconds. Pick, place, pick, place. The Italian legs wobbled like jellies and still Dennis did his dancing through a minefield trick. A gap appeared, no wider than a blade of grass. In an instant he lofted the ball over the nearest Juventus player. Ljungberg arrived from nowhere and in one sweet moment lifted the ball over the keeper. In amongst the jumping about, the losing of lose change and the screaming throats to the night sky scenario, it dawned on us that we just might have experienced TGOTS. But it wasn’t until we had seen the replay about a dozen times that we realised that Bergkamp’s dance of life was one of the most satisfying football moments ever. Up there with Maradona’s dribble through the entire England side, Pele’s dummy (and miss) in 1970 and Micky Thomas launching the career of Nick Hornby in 1989. For the people out there reading this tripe, stop now and beg, buy or if you’re hung up on the internet, steal a video, mpeg or diagram of this goal. The rest of the season is immaterial. Turn off your central heating, this goal will keep you warm through the winter. Tell your boss to go fuck himself, this goal will give you self belief. It was that good. Really. And the rest of the game wasn’t bad, either. In a nutshell.
Unbelievable night. And don’t forget to look up THAT goal. Man of the Match: Freddy
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