August 25th
Hopefully last night’s 4-1 win over Fulham will settle the nerves a bit. It was just what the doctor ordered really and it was a good steady performance which will boost the confidence of the players and the fans, I hope.
We started well, missed a penalty, made a couple of chances and were really getting on top of the game when Claus Jensen added to his collection of rather good goals at Highbury with a deft curler over Jens. Totally against the run of play we were one down.
But Fulham reckoned without the awesome power of Pascal Cygan and he got on the end of a Dennis Bergkamp free kick to nod home the equaliser. Dennis later got booked for pulling the linesman’s flag out of his hand. Silly, but funny.
The second half began, we pressed, passed it well and José played a beautiful lobbed ball through to Thierry who put us in the lead. Late in the second half Mathieu Flamini won the ball well and put Henry in for his second and right at the death Pascal showed Fulham his awesome power yet again when he slammed home another Dennis Bergkamp pass between the legs of the leaping Kolo Toure. The cheers he got when he made a tackle or a header until the end of the game were a nice touch. Well done, Pascal.
Overall I thought we were very good. Fulham weren’t up to much but we passed it well and their keeper kept the score respectable really. He made some outstanding saves. José had a good game for his first outing of the season, Dennis got in the box and had some chances and all over the park I thought we were very good. I have to mention Jens Lehmann again. He didn’t have too much to do but at the moment he looks confident and decisive which is good to see.
Henry’s goals move him to within one of Ian Wright’s record while Cygan’s two move him to within 182 goals of the record. I reckon he’ll have it by Christmas. We’re going to have to wait a while to see Thierry break it though as we don’t play again for ages. Our next game was supposed to be against Liverpool but they’re playing the European Supercup or something so our next outing is Boro away in two weeks plus. The boss was quick to praise Henry afterwards, saying “He is what you dream of as a centre-forward. He led the line very well. When he’s playing like that, there’s no better player in the world,” before adding “But what has the useless cunt every done for us? He can FUCK OFF!!!!!!!”
Away from last night Jeremie Aliadiere‘s loan spell at Celtic came to an end as he just couldn’t get a game. He came back to London and immediately found himself out on loan again, this time at West Ham. I think whatever experience he gets in the Premiership will serve him far better than Scotland.
Today sees the draw for the group stages of the Champions League too. It normally takes place around midday but all the fooferah starts much earlier if you’re into that kind of thing.
And there you go. Things are more normal but we have a really long wait until our next game so no doubt people will have worked themselves up into a frenzy again by then. Bring on Europe.
