Sometimes football is just the best fun ever. Yesterday was one of those days. The sun was shining, the pub (despite being chock-a-block with Aussie and New Zealand rugby fans) was jammed with Arsenal fans of all shapes and sizes, and the game of football itself was just an end to end extravaganza of brilliance, hilarity and excitement.
With no Eduardo or Bendtner in the 16 and Rosicky only on the bench we started with Diaby on the left and the rest pretty much as expected. Not for the first time at their ground we went behind when Gareth Bale’s free kick went around the wall and beat Almunia down low. Perhaps the keeper could have done better but he’s got a left foot far too decent for that team so we won’t dwell on it. We really should have been level when great work from Hleb put Diaby through but he could only hit the bar with his shot. Hleb had a shot saved after a nice flick from Adebayor and when van Persie drilled the ball back across goal there was nobody there. Adebayor made space from a quick throw in and had a decent effort saved by Paul the Pieman. It was the second half that really made this game so entertaining though.
We could have been two nil behind when Berbatov was played through by some twat. Almunia came racing out of his goal, missed the ball completely and Berbatov was left one on one with Kolo Toure. Berbatov showed he’s really not that good against top class sides (note how many of his goals come against teams in the lower half of the table) and he was brilliantly dispossessed on the edge of the box by Kolo Toure. Then Adebayor decided anything Berbatov could do, he could do better, and after Sagna laid it off to him after a fine run the Togonator blasted it over the bar when he should have scored. When even Stumpy McFoot, the man born with no feet and a lump hammer on the end of his legs, would have scored you know it was a bad miss.
Didn’t he make up for it though? I said it yesterday that we might have found Pires’ replacement when it comes to scoring against Sp*rs and it was Adebayor who rose highest to power home a Cesc free kick from outside their area. Sp*rs fans will be wondering what exactly Fat Pauly was doing in no man’s land, probably looking for a chip shop, but the game was now all square. They could have gone ahead twice when first Keane was denied by a great Almunia save then Berbatov’s shot was cleared off the line by Gael Clichy. Determined to choke against sides higher up the table than 6th Berbatov could only head the rebound over from 6 yards.
How they came to regret that. When van Persie drove forward from midfield he played it to Rosicky who squared for Cesc. In his current form it was worth a crack from at least 25 yards and despite Portly Paul getting a slight touch on it the ball lashed into the top corner. 2-1 Arsenal. It was a fantastic goal from a player who is now becoming almost priceless. I didn’t think he had his best game for us (which seems funny when you consider he had a goal and two assists, but there you go), at times he seemed a little off with his passing, but he’s now added goals to his Arsenal, if you will, and his 5th of the season was the finest so far. There’s hilarious footage of a Sp*rs fan behind the goal going ‘Oh fuck!’ as it goes in. Classic.
Now needing to score Sp*rs brought on their £16.5m summer signing, Darren Bent, and he immediately had a chance. He was put clean through with just the keeper to beat but his left footed effort drew hoots of derision from everyone in the pub and chants of ‘What a waste of money’. Hilariously awful. With Alex Song primed to come on with a couple of the 4 minutes of injury time remaining, we carved them open providing a great chance for Denilson. His fairly weak shot was saved but came to Cesc who fired in a ball to Adebayor. The more you see replays of the goal the more you realise that, while the finish was out of this world, his first touch was just sensational. He rolled it up into the air then hit a wonderful swiveling volley over the despairing reach of the corpulent mess in the Sp*rs goal and the game was done and dusted. That was as good a goal as you’ll see all season and the big man showed again he’s one for the big occasion.
3-1 Arsenal. 3 points Arsenal. Top of the league Arsenal. There’s really not much point in analysing it further than that. Going into the nuts and bolts of the game would ruin it. North London derbies are often exciting games in which teams are so caught up in trying to win the game that they forget how to defend. It’s no exaggeration to say we could nearly have seen another 5-4 like the one a couple of seasons ago. Except Sp*rs could have stayed out there all day and they wouldn’t have scored, their finishing was so bad.
We could look at someone like Robin van Persie, who was pretty quiet, or we could look at our defensive shortcomings, but when Cesc and Adebayor score goals like that it’s something we can discuss another time. What you can say though is that this team came from a goal behind and then stuck three past the old enemy at home. Whatever about the shaky moments at the back, those sort of things don’t happen in normal games really, you have to just love the way they continued to play their football, knowing that the chances would come and that sooner or later we’d take one. It adds to the enormously encouraging start we’ve made this season and if you can’t enjoy a game like that without having to pick holes in things then there’s something wrong with you. I’m not saying we should ignore those things, but let’s just leave them to the manager to sort out ahead of the next game, while we enjoy the misery that has just been heaped on our local rivals.
It’s another confidence booster ahead of a very important game against Sevilla on Wednesday. Afterwards Arsene Wenger was again praising the spirit and togetherness of the squad and it really shouldn’t be underesimated how much that’s doing for us. All eleven players are giving everything for the 90 minutes and that makes a big difference. It’s winning us games we just drew and lost last season, and it’s a joy to watch.
Finally, to everyone that I met in the Wool Shed yesterday in Dublin, it was a pleasure to share a game like that with you. Jumping up and down and celebrating goals with strangers is one of the great things about being a football supporter. I hope the bloke from the Arnotts TV department didn’t get in too much trouble for his extended lunch break.
Away from that the Sunday Mirror is reporting that Stan Kroenke is set to sell his shareholding to Red & White, who should be called White & White because of how wonderfully pure they are. The People are reporting it too. Discussion on that another day but it’s worrying, I have to say. It’s still worth checking out Craig Murray’s site for more on Usmanov.
Right, that’s it. Have yourselves a fun Sunday. More tomorrow.
