october 3rd
Three points yesterday as we beat Birmingham 1-0 but didn’t they make it hard for us? Well, by they I mean Maik Taylor, who despite having the ponciest spelling of the name ‘Mike’ I have ever seen put in a goalkeeping performance that’s unlikely to be bettered in the Premiership this season.
He made great save after great save. His first from a José free kick after Kenny Cunningham was rightly sent off for a foul on Freddie Ljungberg. Then he saved a Robert Pires penalty after Freddie had been chopped down in the box and continued to do so for most of the game.
In the second half he made a couple of good stops from José (who had something like 7 attempts on target in the game), one fingertip save from Robert Pires which saw the ball bounce off the post and go clear and one absolutely outstanding save from Freddie after he’d been set up by José after a lightning Arsenal breakaway. You were left wondering what it would take to beat him and Robin van Persie showed us.
We had a corner, Birmingham failed to clear, the ball came to Robin whose shot deflected off a defender, wrongfooted the keeper and even though he nearly got back he didn’t get back enough and it scuttered along, bounced over him and went in. Heartbreaking for the man of the match but anything that makes Steve Bruce upset is all right by me. They had a goal disallowed when Tebily headed in a Pennant corner which had gone out of play and that was about it.
A decent enough performance although we didn’t click until they went down to 10 men. Again we didn’t do enough in the wide positions. I wish the real Bob Pires would come back, he needs his stripe back Samson style, while Alexander Hleb had a bit of a nightmare and showed he still has a way to go before he can really push for a first team place. I’m a fan of van Persie and even though Freddie was excellent up front I’d prefer to see him out on the wing and let Robin do his stuff in his natural position for longer.
Still, the three points are the most important thing, especially as Liverpool took it in the arse from Chelsea later in the day. Are they just a good cup team? Certainly they look like a league challenge is a long way away and they need strikers. Especially as Dribbly Cissy is going to do a 10 year stretch for assualting an Arsenal fan.
Thierry Henry has revealed that talks about his new contract will not take place until the end of the season. He says “At the start of the season I said I want to concentrate on football, help my team and focus on winning trophies, rather than worry about contracts. At the end of the season we will talk about it and look to sort something out. I will speak to the boss, ask him about things, but my mind isn’t on that at the moment.”
Obviously the end of the season doesn’t really suit the club seeing as how he can let his deal run down and join somewhere else on a free at the end of the following season. Still, que sera, sera. It’s up to the boss to convince him to sign based on the ambition of the club, who we might bring in in January and the idea of leading the club at new stadium. Speaking of which…
I mentioned an article in the Sunday Mirror yesterday about the ticket prices at the new Emirates Stadium. Back in August Keith Edelman, who is slowly gaining a Kenyonesque reputation amongst Arsenal fans, said “Part of our ethos is that we always want to keep ourselves as affordable as we can. We are trying to ensure that there will not be a huge increase if any [at the new stadium]. The hope is that we can go in on the same prices as Highbury.”
With that in mind please take the time to read The Emirates Stadium Mystery – whatever happened to The Arsenal? – an article written by a season ticket holder who was distinctly unimpressed with the way he was treated by the club when he went to visit the reservation centre for the new stadium. For his own reasons he has asked to remain anonymous. It does not make for pretty reading and the club need to get their house in order very quickly. Fans cannot be taken for granted like this. There aren’t an endless supply of eager-beavers willing to pay whatever it takes. This isn’t the way the Arsenal are supposed to do things. Nobody is naive enough to ignore the business side of football these days but they are in danger of milking it to death. Anyway, read and make your own minds up.
Plenty to get your week started there. How was your weekend then?
