december 22nd
As usual Arsenal didn’t do things the easy way last night against Doncaster in the Carling Cup. They took the lead after some comedy defending between Eboue and Djourou allowed some bloke in to squeeze the ball in at the near post. We huffed and puffed but didn’t do much. Hleb played in Lupoli when everyone, especially Lupoli, thought he’d shoot so the ball just bounced off the young Italian’s shins. Then Nicklas Bendtner, on for the injured Robin van Persie, had a header which was well saved by some bloke.
At our end Manuel Almunia made a couple of good saves including one fantastic double stop. In the second half we didn’t really look like equalising. Quincy was doing his utmost to show everyone he was the king of the stepover and the awful through pass but then disaster struck. He took a shot which was headed miles wide and it whacked off the arse of some bloke and went in 1-1.
Not much else happened in normal time. Arturo Lupoli and Bendtner combined well a couple of times and Lupoli created his own chances seeing as nobody else was creating anything for him but he couldn’t score. Quincy then played another pooey pass and signalled to the bench that he had to come off. I know a lot of people talk about him but to me he’s a fairly ineffectual show pony with no end product.
We had extra time then and it wasn’t long started when some bloke got in behind our defence and crossed from the left. Philippe Senderos tried to clear it, miskicked and the ball ended up under Almunia and then under his feet. As he tried to clear some onrushing bloke scrapped it home. 2-1 Donacaster and you could feel the hacks sharpening their pencils again. We had some chances, Eboue blasted over, Larsson shot straight at the keeper and then in the very last minute we played our best football of the match. Some nice interplay saw Eboue set free down the right and he crossed for Gilberto to sort of clump it home to make it 2-2. Last minute goals are ace, especially when you don’t really deserve them.
So it went to penalties. Gilberto scored, some bloke scored, Cygan scored, some bloke hit the post, Larsson scored, Almunia saved from some bloke, Hleb passed the ball to the keeper, Almunia saved from some bloke and Arsenal went through. Heartbreak for Doncaster who played really well but that’s football and I can’t feel too much sympathy for a bunch of cunts who sang that ‘Same old Arsenal, always cheating’ song every couple of minutes. Shut yer traps.
In the end the result was fine but the performance was not so good. I know this was mainly a young/reserve team but the display showed the lack of confidence throughout the club right now and it showed us that while some of our young players have got what it takes and have the potential to improve some of them just aren’t up to it. Quincy I have mentioned above. I’ve been watching football a long time but I just cannot understand the hype around him. Alexander Song is young but he’s already lazy and in this day and age you can’t beat that out of a player. As I said the last time I saw him he’s got no business being anywhere near the Arsenal first team. He certainly wouldn’t have been a couple of seasons ago even in the Carling Cup.
Regular readers will know I’m a great fan of Arsene’s faith in youth but the youth have to be in the team because they’re good enough not just because they’re young. Senderos, his mistake apart, and van Persie are the only ones who played tonight good enough to play in the Premiership. But we’ve already seen that. Eboue is a very big maybe as he has this terrible tendency to pass the ball to the opposition in and around our penalty area. Lupoli and Bendtner look very promising. Djourou did well enough without being noticeable and again the senior players, Almunia apart, didn’t lead by the example (not until the very last minute anyway). Symptomatic of that was the throw in we had in our left with about two minutes of extra time left. Pascal Cygan simply threw it to a Doncaster player and if that’s what the experienced guys are showing the youngsters is it any wonder we struggled?
Hats off to Manuel Almunia though who, even without the penalties, was man of the match. I’m still not convinced he’s got what it takes to be the number one at a club like Arsenal but if he’s into it he’d be the perfect number 2 (heh). He’s a very good shot stopper and looks more at ease this season than last when everything seemed to look really frightening to him. Afterwards he said “I am very happy for the team and for Philippe because he is my friend and he was worried after their second goal. The team were very disappointed then. But penalties are lucky – sometimes you save them, sometimes you don’t.”
The boss was quick to praise the keeper for keeping us in the game and despite the narrow result also praised the spirit of the players, saying “When there are 60 seconds to go and you are away from home, 99 per cent of the time you are out. But you have to try to get in the goal and the credit to my team is that they tried until the last second.”
True enough and Doncaster had already beaten Manchester City on penalties and they stuffed Aston Villa in the last round . That said, given the hype that surrounds some of the youngsters
we probably expected a little bit more. Not our fault, the boss is always talking up the their quality. Taking nothing away from Doncaster who were a more experienced and more physical (a team full of Stephen Hawkins would be more physical than us at the moment) we were very lucky to go through last night. And in the semi-finals we’ll play Wigan with the first leg at the JJB stadium. The boss has already said he’ll include more senior players for this one which is the right decision if he really wants to have a chance of lifting the trophy.
In other news it appears Thierry Henry is going to be fit for the festive games after having a scan on his achilles. All the more important having seen Robin van Persie pick up a knock last night.
The Sun reports some kind of ‘ding dong’ between Arsene and Gary Lewin over Jose Mourinho’s Christmas card but without too much detail. And that’s about it. I’ve finished work, today I’m going to do the last of the shopping and tomorrow I’m back home to Ireland for 10 days. Fa la la la la, la la la la….
