Thursday, March 28, 2024

Arseblog: Wednesday 25th January 2006

january 25th

An exciting cup tie last night but heartbreak for Arsenal as Wigan went through on away goals despite our 2-1 win.

José missed a penalty in the first half then spent the rest of the game sitting on his arse every time a Wigan player came near him. He needs to be stronger and quickly. We scored midway through the second half when Kerrea Gilbert, who looks more like a right footed Ashley Cole clone (and that’s a good thing), broke down the right and crossed for Thierry to head into an empty net. His reluctance to take any credit for the goal was kind of nice. No more goals until 10 minutes from the end of extra time when Robin van Persie crashed home a brilliant free kick which should have been remembered as the goal that took us to Cardiff but will now just become part of his personal, and increasingly impressive, showreel.

Then the crowd started cheering our passes even though a Wigan goal would see them win the tie if we didn’t score again. I know football is entertainment too but that Oléing and cheering each pass is bad enough when you’re winning comfortably. It was horrible to listen to when we still had so much to lose. I can’t begin to tell you how much I hate it and I was thinking “Stop doing that. It’ll come back to bite us in the arse.”

We had a great chance to make it 3-0 when Wigan’s keeper saved from Dennis Bergkamp then lo and behold – into the last minute. A hopeful ball over the top, Sol Campbell totally misjudged the bounce, it scrambled around and fell to the feet of Jason Roberts who tucked it away. 2-1 Arsenal but Wigan go to Cardiff. And I blame the cheering.

I fucking hate last minute winners against us. I’m not going to get into individual performances but although it was a better performance than against Everton there were still some worrying displays which are going to have to be righted before we play Bolton on Saturday. Realistically the FA Cup is our last chance at silverware this season. I know we’re still in the CL but given our current form it would take a miracle of me getting a go on Angelina Jolie and Kylie at the same time for us to win that.

The manager’s comments about the side are a bit worrying though. He says “Saturday we will rest many players. It is the FA Cup on Saturday, we have many injuries, and many players have hamstring problems – two or three hamstrings – we will not take a chance in the FA Cup. Lauren, Campbell, Henry will all be rested.”

Erm, bollocks. This season is a bit hard to take at times, eh?

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