“Jesus fucking Christ” – Me, 94th minute. Sorry, not just me. Me + every other Arsenal fan on the planet. They say a problem shared is a problem halved but that’s a load of old bollocks. We all shared that ‘problem’ last night and I’m sure we all felt as gutted as a newly caught fish.
Let’s be clear. We should have won that game. We should have won it at a canter, instead we let Sp*rs back into it and frankly it’s not good enough. I know derby games are crazy. I know anything can happen but being 4-2 up in the 89th minute and then drawing the game 4-4 is just ridiculous. Not good ridiculous either.
It’s hard to get my head around the game as a whole so let’s do it goal by goal. I remember doing something similar with another derby game a couple of years back, was it 5-4 at the lane that time? That kind of madness is acceptable because we won. This kind of madness isn’t.
Arsenal 0-1 Sp*rs: A bouncing ball that we should probably have dealt with by Robin van Persie fell to Rat Faced Chav and his control and volley caught Almunia out from nearly 40 yards. Some blame attached to the keeper here but it was a once in a lifetime strike from RFC and the ball was swirling around like a balloon.
Arsenal 1-1 Sp*rs: A Robin van Persie corner was headed in by Sylvester with Gomes nowhere. Jamie Redknapp was on Sky bleating about a free kick for Sp*rs when Cesc tripped RFC. He seemed to conveniently forget RFC handled the ball before the trip. Anyway, irrelevant, like Jamie. 1-1.
Arsenal 2-1 Sp*rs: Robin won a free kick on the right, curled it in and Gallas headed home. A very good header from a good delivery. 2-1 and things approaching normality.
Arsenal 3-1 Sp*rs: Robin van Persie played a beautiful ball through to Nasri whose clip over the goalkeeper wasn’t quite enough to put it in the back of the net. Luckily for us Hutton, as quick of thought as I am over 50 yards, stood watching which let Adebayor mill in and poke it home. This is good. Enjoyable. Fun. Hurrah.
Arsenal 3-2 Sp*rs: Huddlestone’s long shot is powerful and seems to hit Almunia in the face, dazing him momentarily. Darren Bent is quickest to react and slides it home. Poor from Almunia all the same. He won’t be happy with either of the first two goals. Not as enjoyable any more.
Arsenal 4-2 Sp*rs: Hutton, for some inexplicable reason, plays a wonderful through ball to Adebayor who takes it on, plays it across to van Persie who lashes it home with his right foot and Arsenal go 4-2 up and it’s enjoyable again.
Arsenal 4-3 Sp*rs: Let me qualify this by saying I think Gael Clichy is a great little player. However, he is prone to moments of madness and this was one. He couldn’t decide what to do with the ball so he instead decided to fall over for no reason. This let Jenas through to curl one in with his left foot. Sylvester should have closed him down more quickly. Surely it would be nothing more than a consolation though.
Arsenal 4-4 Sp*rs: Blaha alkhda ieda [pak sjd [i urei jf Modric shot deflected onto the post vhas asjh y asd hp;lsajdusad c cunting Lennon gets rebound bh asdhiasdlk s[oiu 34 09 u HHN †π ∆ƒ˚ß∆˚ƒ∂. Full time.
Arsene Wenger shook hands with Harry Redknapp and it was as angry as I’ve ever seen him look. And I don’t blame him. HIS team threw away a game against Sp*rs. And that’s what it was. They didn’t outplay us. They didn’t dazzle us with awesome skill. They didn’t bamboozle us. We gifted them a point from this game when we should have taken all three.
Say what you want about the goals being somewhat fortuitous but when you get to the 89th minute at home and you’re 4-2 you do not expect to concede two goals. To Sp*rs, to Man United, to the Harlem Globetrotters, to the team from Escape to Victory who need two goals to make good their freedom from the Nazis in the last moments of the movie. Nobody. You should not throw away two points like that. It’s crazy.
Let’s just accept that the third Sp*rs goal was a freak due to Clichy’s error. Had he booted the ball out of play or simply played a pass back to the centre-halves we’d have won the game. But at 4-3 ball retention is paramount. You don’t go hell for leather trying to get a fifth goal. You just make sure you hold on to the ball and we did not do that. It’s not like we don’t have the players for it. And I’m not sure I buy the ‘this is a young team and they’ll learn from it’ excuse. It doesn’t matter if it’s a young team. What you need to do in that situation almost goes without saying. KEEP. THE. FUCKING. BALL. You do not need to be wizened all pros to know that.
Maybe it was down to lack of leadership, someone just calming things down and making sure that’s what we did, but, more worryingly, you might just put it down to the fact this team has a bit of a soft centre. Yes, we showed great character to come back from a goal down, to go 2 up, to go 2 up again, but to let 2 in in the last 5 minutes is not good enough.
People will be critical of Almunia today. And that would be reasonable in relation to the first two goals. He didn’t do as well as he should have done for the second and a maybe a little bit for the first, but at the same time, when you’re 4-2 up with just a few minutes to play it’s not the keeper’s fault you haven’t won the game. You might also wonder about the manager’s substitutions. Without Walcott and Nasri we invited pressure onto us and that’s fine when you have an outlet. If we have pressure and we break and we have the pace of Walcott and Nasri then it’s a good thing. When we have Song and Eboue, neither renowned for their pace or astute decision making, then you’re giving yourself problems you don’t need. Our ability to hold the ball and pressure Sp*rs was lessened by the removal of so many attacking players.
To me it just feels like we bottled that game. We were in a winning position and the Arsenal of old would have just passed Sp*rs to submission. They wouldn’t have even tried getting the ball back after a while. They’d have just accepted they were beaten. Now though this just gives everybody the signal that even if you’re a couple up against Arsenal the game is not over right till the death. As much as we’re capable of scoring at any time, we’re just as capable of conceding. We have never conceded four goals at the Grove before. I’d love to say it’ll be a long time before it happens again but you just wouldn’t know with this team. Defensively this team needs a real leader and as long as we don’t have it we’re going to concede too many goals.
Overall it was just terribly, terribly disappointing and to see Sp*rs players celebrating like they’d won the game, or indeed the World Champions League European Championship FA cup, was rather too much. RFC on Sky’s post-match interviews was almost too much to take. Especially as he did it topless. The nippley cunt.
Afterwards Arsene Wenger said:
Well I am angry. I believe we produced an outstanding game and got the minimum result. We didn’t keep the ball. We were there for the taking. We should have had a negative passing game but instead we exposed ourselves by trying to go five or six up. The team has outstanding potential. They learn from moments like that tonight.
Arrrrrrgh. Yes, until the 89th minute we were outstanding but the game is not over until the final whistle and so much of that good work was undone by not just naivety but stupidity. All we had to do was keep it simple, keep the ball and we failed, miserably, to do that. Will the lessons be learned? Were the lessons of the Fulham game learned ahead of the Hull game?
Again it just makes the games against the top teams all the more important. We’ve dropped points this season against the lower teams. Fulham, Hull, Sunderland and, of course, lowest of them all Sp*rs. There’s no question we have a very obvious weakness here. Can the manager do anything to address it without uttering the stock phrases about how his team is young and will learn and has potential? He needs to and quickly.
Still, there’s nothing we can do but put it behind us, move on and make sure we get all three points this Saturday at Stoke. The manager’s got a big job to get the players going again and once more we’re looking for a reaction from them after a disappointing result. It’s an all too familiar theme this season.
Finally for tonight, a word for Sky. I realise that the son of one of the managers might find it hard to be impartial as a pundit, especially when he used to play for one of the teams. So here’s an idea – get somebody fucking else to do it. Having to watch Jamie Redknapp enjoy Sp*rs goals was adding salt to the wounds while that jabbering monkey Richard Keys enjoying ‘Redders’ enjoying the goals was like pissing in the salty wounds. I realise Sky are a pack of scabby wankers at the best of times but this was a load of bollocks.
Right then, arsers, have at it.
