august 10th
17.43 – Arsenal 1-1 Man Utd (Henry) – Man Utd win 4-3 on penalties.
Not much of a game to look at really, but interesting in ways. It was always going to be a slow game with temperatures in Cardiff at 100F. At times the first half was played at walking pace. Some poor defending let Silvestre head United in front, a nie Henry free kick made it 1-1.
The penalty shoot-out was insignificant really. Tourette’s syndrome Tim saved from Bob and Gio, but new keeper Lehmann scuttled up and down his line like a mad man and saved RVN’s penalty.
Some thoughts. I was impressed with Kolo Toure at centre-half. He’s quick, strong, good in the air, a good tackler and showed enough today to suggest he could be the answer to our problems. He looks very promising there. Ray Parlour can’t play wide right for this Arsenal side. We play fast, technical, pacey football. Parlour isn’t fast, is not so hot technically and struggled on the wing. He can still do a job in the centre from time to time, but I can’t see him starting too many games this season. Also hopelessly guilty of standing still as Silvestre ran straight past him to score their goal. I would like to have seen Pennant get a run out.
Francis Jeffers – stupid boy. Maybe he was keen to impress, but someone should tell him you do that by scoring goals, not getting all mardy during a game which really doesn’t merit it. Doing something like that in front of the referee was always going to result in a red card. He now has a 3 game suspension and to be honest, it’s hard to see a future for him at Arsenal.
Patrick Vieira got 90 well needed minutes under his belt. He looked a bit tired near the end, but the game will do him good. In general Lehmann looked ok, didn’t really have enough to do to make more comment than that. All in all a good work out for the boys, we passed the ball nicely, kept posession well, didn’t create a lot but then neither side was going all out today.
Anyway, I’ve been stuck inside on the hottest day of the year so far. I’m off for a swim.
