A soporific 0-0 draw with Portsmouth ended the 06-07 season and it summed up things perfectly really. We had chances to win the game, could have lost it but in the end it fizzled out and we took a point away from home on the last day. While in the grand scheme of things it’s hard to get too worked up about it Charlton holding Liverpool to a 2-2 draw meant that if we’d won we’d have finished third. I really didn’t expect them to get anything from the game so it does make it a bit frustrating when we had good chances to take all three points against Pompey.
Culprit in Chief was Julio Baptista who looked as if he might be going to put in a performance which would have seen him waved off fondly at the departure gates. Early on he muscled his way between two defenders and fired off a good shot to the near post which David James saved. After that though he reverted to type and was just terrible. He headed over from about 8 yards when possibly Senderos was in a better position behind him after three Arsenal players beat the offside trap from a free kick then he missed a penalty after Eboue had been taken down in the box. Some people might say it was a ‘save’ but it was made easy for the keeper because it was so central and at the right height and that was his third penalty miss of the season. Quite an achievement.
His face after he missed the penalty said it all. It was sort of like ‘How the fuck is this happening?’ crossed with ‘Christ, I can’t wait to get back to Spain’ with a bit of ‘I don’t really give a fuck anyway’ thrown in for good measure.
In the second half he missed a header from inside the 6 yard box and again Senderos was in a better position behind him. I don’t suppose you can blame a striker for going for the chances but if you’re going to miss a header from that sort of range maybe you’re best off leaving them. His magic night at Anfield aside and a good few minutes against Sp*rs in the Carling Cup the big Brazilian has been a major, major disappointment this season and nobody will be too unhappy to hear there were removal vans with a Madrid address on them outside his apartment last night.
Other than that Hleb missed a good chance and Justin Hoyte looked to me to have scored a good goal but Baptista was wrongly given offside (the bloke has no luck, eh?). Portsmouth had the ball in the net but it was rightly disallowed for offside and that was about it.
There were some questions raised about the team selection too. There was no Freddie despite the boss saying he was available and there was no Almunia despite the boss saying he wanted to play him in the last game. Perhaps it’s a case that they have the same kind of knocks that Flamini and Aliadiere have – just ensuring they don’t crock themselves out of a summer move. It was interesting to see Djourou in central midfield. He looked quite good I thought, a couple of lose touches aside, and it was nice to see Senderos get a good 90 minutes under his belt and remind everyone that he’s a guy that still has a future at Arsenal.
So overall, meh. What can you say? Afterwards Arsene Wenger bemoaned the missed chances but even he must feel like a broken record at this stage.
I need to gather my thoughts for a few days then write some kind of season review or player by player review then we can get down to the business of summer madness.
In other news The Sun rehashes some old William Gallas quotes and chucks in a couple of new ones about him leaving England to go play in Spain or Italy. I was reading back through the Arseblog archives the other day and in June 2003 we were linked to Gallas who was having an unhappy time at Chelsea. He was moaning back then about how he didn’t think he’d be at Chelsea the following season and how he wasn’t enjoying life and blah blah blah. He really is the greatest old woman I’ve ever seen. He’s always fucking complaining about something and, honestly, I wish he’d just shut his fucking mouth. I don’t think I’ve ever liked an Arsenal player less than I like “the great” William Gallas.
So that’s it. Another season over and done with. Despite some very bright moment it’s been disappointing overall. Arsene Wenger has set the standards at Arsenal and he was right to label this season a ‘failure’. How will things change between now and August? Who will come and who will go? Who will be the new Director of Football? Will there be an Orange coup?
Well, we’ve got three months to see what happens. Fasten your seatbelts – it’s silly season.
Finally, a big thumbs down to George Hamilton, commentating on RTE yesterday, who couldn’t tell the difference between Hoyte and Eboue and Diaby and Djourou. Not just once but countless times during the game. Get some new glasses George.
