february 15th
There was no repeat of Palace’s Selhurst Park heroics last night as the lads romped to a 5-1 victory.
Dennis Bergkamp opened the scoring with a neat finish at the near post before José Antonio Reyes made it 2-0 with a real daisy cutter from outside the area – nice celebrations with the team afterwards as well. Then up stepped Thierry Henry – he got the ball from a short corner, took it into the box and just buried it in the top corner. Totally unsavable and quite brilliant.
3-0 at half-time and you might have forgiven the Gunners for slacking off a bit but they kept creating in the second half. Patrick Vieira added the fourth when hapless keeper Gabor Kiraly was put off by the swishing of his tracksuit and another cracking finish from Henry made it 5-1 after Andy Johnson had notched a consolation from the penalty spot. He could have had a hat-trick but the officials felt sorry for Palace and disallowed a goal for offside when he wasn’t offside at all.
Afterwards Henry said “There were some great moves and great goals and it was easier in the second half. Chelsea are doing tremendously well but we have got to try to stay as well as we can.” Henry also had some kind words for José Antonio Reyes after his troubled week. TH said “The guy is young and things happen. That is when you have to show we are a team.”
The boss was pleased with the performance too, saying “We want to do as well as we can and with the number of good players and young players here the future is very bright.”
It is nice to see Edu back in the team. I do love our two new boys in midfield but Edu gives us fantastic experience in the centre of the park and takes the pressure off Vieira a bit. It would be nice if there was some way he might stay with us and sign a new deal. Of course there was a little bit of history made last night as Arsenal didn’t have one English player in the squad – although Chelsea became the first team to field a starting 11 without an Englishman a couple of years ago. Ashley Cole and Sol Campbell were absent through injury and a case of the blue flu so it was an entirely foreign first 11 and bench. I think more would have been made of this a few years ago and while it would be nice to see English players in the team you have to pick the best players. You can’t choose somebody just because of their nationality. The boss wasn’t worried either saying “I don’t look at the passport of people, I look at their quality and their attitude.”
Yesterday saw us linked with another goalkeeper. The fabulously named Silvio Proto plays for La Louvière in Belgium and according to reports both Arsenal and Manchester United PLC (for sale to highest bidder) both had scouts watching him at the weekend.
There’ll be an Arsenal contingent in Barcelona tonight as the game to raise money for the victims of the tsunami takes place at Camp Nou. I might go as tickets are only a tenner – I might even try and jump over the turnstiles. Just joking. Honest. Arsene Wenger is manager of one of the teams and I think Henry and Vieira are supposed to be here. It could be a fun night.
