october 31st
Football is a funny game. Sometimes you can play really well and lose. Sometimes you play really badly and win. Sometimes you score three goals and draw. Sometimes you hit the post, the bar, the keeper makes a load of great saves to stop you winning. And sometimes Rory Delap scores two goals against you. Football is a funny game. That’s why we love it and why we keep watching.
The first half was dominated by Arsenal, we had all of the ball really, then they hit a post. We got a penalty which Henry hit the post with and you just got that feeling it was going to be one of those days. We looked sluggish all the way through. Then in the second half Henry beat the offside trap, controlled a Bergkamp pass and put us one up.
Southampton equalised when Vieira lost Delap from a corner and when Cesc gave away a free kick on our left Vieira let Delap do exactly the same again to put them 2-1 up. We brought on Robin van Persie and with in injury time he got the ball in their box, sidestepped rather niftily and crashed a left foot shot into the top corner to make it 2-2.
He could even have got a winner if the touch he got on a Pires free kick was slightly heavier.
Arsenal fans have been more accustomed to teams scoring late equalisers to peg us back. It’s been some time since we’ve saved a game so late and it really does feel like a win. In The Philharmonic in Barcelona all the Arsenal fans were jumping around as the United fans sat in a far corner watching their great Arsenal-conquering, all-problems-solved team lose 2-0 to Portsmouth. A game against Southampton is generally one you’d expect us to win, but not even considering the fact that we might not is a major flaw in the make up of some fans who need to be reminded sometimes that what we have at the moment is a bit special.
Afterwards Arsene Wenger was unhappy with the defending, can’t say I blame him, but all in all on days like this, and in the manner the result was gained, you can’t be too unhappy with 2-2.
Elsewhere, and in a pathetic attempt to distract people from the fact he couldn’t manage a pub side at the moment, Alex Ferguson has demanded the FA charge Thierry Henry saying his challenge on Gabriel Heinze was worse than van Nistelrooy’s on Ashley Cole. Now I watched the game with United fans and not one of them had anything to say about that particular incident. One United site has a video of it, and it does nothing to prove the case. If any United fan really thinks that’s a case of Henry deliberately kicking and stamping on Heinze then they’re full of shit and they haven’t been watching football very long.
All the video proves is that South Americans are prone to the worst kind of over-reaction. It’s nonsense, it was a nothing challenge and United fans should really be more concerned with how hapless and vapid their team are at the moment instead of this kind of stuff. Ferguson should concentrate on getting his own house in order, if he’s capable of doing that, instead of making himself and the supposed ‘biggest club in the world’ look like more desperate and spiteful idiots, determined to take more than the 3 points from the game last week.
And that’s that. Off to get some breakfast. Happy hallowe’en …mwa ha ha ha.
