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September 2001 15.9.01 Fulham 1 Arsenal 3
Chelsea 1 Arsenal 1 One of the Sunday newspapers summed this one up perfectly. They described it as a ‘runners-up’ performance. Nothing, on the surface has changed one iota from last season. Seaman still looks increasingly on the wane, Henry, a pale ghost of his former self seems to have his head stuffed full of complicated one-twos and flick-ons to imaginary players. Wiltord is all huff and puff, and the midfield, though over abundant with grafters, is still devoid of any visionaries outside of Vieira. The game wasn’t a complete disaster, but did follow the now over familiar pattern of complete domination followed by absolutely nothing. Henry’s goal, a simple whack in following Pires’s parried shot, was the one bright spot. Hasselbaink was sent off for elbowing Keown (and even us, biased idiots, who see even less of controversial decisions than Arsene Wenger, think he made a right old dogs of it) but then karma was restored by Zola swallow diving over Keown’s leg to nick a penalty. That was your lot. Kanu came on late and nearly nicked a goal and poor old Jeffers, scorer of a fine hat trick a couple of days before in the under 21’s game, didn’t even make bench arse warmer. Scandalous, Mr Wenger, drop one of those French misfits and get old jug ears flailing around at the front. A forgettable game. Petit, looked a shadow of his former self and unfortunately so did his old team mates. Man of the Match: Robert Pires.
Arsenal 1 Bolton 1 Arsenal continue their amazing transformation from title contenders to perennial runners-up. Naïve, passionless football where even the vaunted technical skills seem to be atrophying like rams’ testicles with a tight rubber band around them. Henry continues his descent from supernal striker to performing seal ending up like a vaguely athletic version of Marcel Marceau. Wiltord defies description, looking increasingly like Emile Heskey’s crippled brother. The list goes on and on. Parlour plays another stinker and manages to increase his value only in the eyes of the West Ham management and Luzhny, deputising for the resting Lauren, merely confirms our belief that you can remove the cart from the horse but it still remains a carthorse. Dropping Ljungberg and Pires for this game was complete madness. Nobody wanted to take responsibility for driving the ball forward. Cole, now suffering from a full-blown case of Englanditis, was constantly out of position and gave the ball away at every opportunity. Even, Adams, unfit and press-ganged into playing played with all the spirit of the freshly dead. The only bright spark at the back was the bringing on of Upson for Grimandi. Here’s someone who has kept the faith and the Arsenal fans appreciated it. And he’ll probably be a Southampton player by this time next week. Shame. Bolton are no great shakes either; masses of commitment and a well drilled offside trap. That will keep them going to mid October and then they will start their inexorable slide back into the Nationwide. Whilst Arsenal aren’t about to plumb those depths, back end of the top six is looking increasingly likely. Arsenal’s goal came from exactly the sort of thing thirty thousand supporters knew should be happening after the five minutes of this dreary arid game. Pires and Jeffers came on. Pires herded the ball forward, split the Bolton defence, sprung the offside trap, squared it to the man with the biggest, small ears in the world, Jeffers. He sided it in with a poacher's economy sadly missing from Henry’s increasingly tortuous ball tricks. That’s exactly what we want. Direct, single-minded football not ping pong balls shot out some overactive fanny. The remnants of the Arsenal defence then collectively copped forty winks and Bolton, who up to that point were as threatening as jam, waltzed the ball up the field and scored one of those goals that everybody gets against the Arsenal. Absolute rubbish. Watching the Arsenal at the moment is a monumental chore; dry footballing exercises, peppered with impossible parlour (no pun intended) tricks and a lack of fun, wit or in Henry’s case, even a smile now and then. It’s funny that the French invented joie de vivre. I wish some of them in north London would rediscover it. Man of the Match: Not, really.
Derby 0 Arsenal 2 Don’t get fooled by the scoreline. This game had more to do with Derby not being arsed to turn up, rather than an Arsenal power performance. The two Arsenal goals were both from dead balls; the first, a sublime Henry free kick and the second a competent Henry penalty after Kanu got all tangled around his legs and fell over. Somewhere in between this Keown was shown a second yellow card for God knows what. Wenger experimented with Henry and Jeffers up front, not even bothering to put Bergkamp on the bench. And really, this game was made for Bergkamp. Whilst Derby re-wrote medical history by redefining the word ‘narcoleptic’, Arsenal continued to look like red and white shadows of a once great team. Good performance by Upson, though. There aren’t going to be many teams like Derby for us to steamroller. It’s going to be a long season. Man of the Match: Matthew Upson.
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