Saturday, April 20, 2024

Arseblog: Thursday 7th November 2002

november 7th

08.55 – Well, another defeat. 2-0 up and cruising, and then 3-2 down and losing.

You could say it’s just the Worthless Cup and it doesn’t really matter, but what it does illustrate is that some of the reserve squad are just not up to the job. It all started so well, Robert Pires scored a goal and Francis Jeffers took his chances with Arsenal’s second and you thought it was going just as well as it could.

Then 3 Sunderland goals in the 2nd half put us out. Losing games is never nice. I hate it, no matter how insignificant the competition. Igors Stepanovs returned the starting line-up and from what I’ve heard and from what other people have said, he had a bit of a nightmare. Charging around, missing the ball, fresh air kicks, the whole lot. Now, I’m not one for slagging players off, but what I will say is that Igors is just not good enough for the Arsenal. He’s had plenty of chances, done well sometimes but for the most part he just looks like a fish out of water. AW said after the game “Defending was our weak point.” That’s because we were playing weak defenders.

The scariest part is that he seems to be next in line should anything happen to Sol or Cygan. For a team that wants to win the Champions League, that’s not good enough. Either bring back Matthew Upson and give him a chance or spend some money in January and bring in a decent centre half. Imagine Igors facing a decent team. Shudder.

Also, why not give Rami Shaaban a game in goal? We all know what Stuart Taylor is capable of, i.e looking gormless and picking the ball out of the net. If the new lad can’t get a game ahead of him, then I worry about his capabilities as well.

Even better news is that the FA have charged Dennis Bergkamp with misconduct after his supposed ‘stamp’ on some Blackburn player. The absolute cunts. Unfortunately, they’ll cite the incident where Dennis didn’t actually stamp on Jamie Carragher as ‘previous’. Did I mention the FA were absolute cunts? Still, I said it before, when we won the Double last year and in 97-98, Dennis got a 3 match ban for misconduct so maybe it’s a good omen. You hear that? That’s the sound of me clutching at straws.

Anyway, could be worse. At least we didn’t get beaten by Burnley like the Sp*rs or get knocked out by a team managed by a tremendously ugly ex-player like West Ham. Time for Glenn to go Dead Kenny?

Newcastle next. Must win. No excuses.

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