A rare sensation began rattling around the old noggin this week. It began as something of a tremor in the bottom of the brain pan* then made its way down through one’s hause pipe** down to the arms to one’s daddles*** all the way into the old corporals****.
It fizzed around one’s Maconochie***** before causing an uneasy sensation in one’s Trillibubs****** and ultimately a quavering in the Prayer-bones*******. I had the butler call my personal Physician, Doctor Robert, who had to be persuaded that something was amiss before he made the journey to the main house in his motor car (something to do with faking illness to get my hands on his medicinal morphine & cocaine, I have no idea what the bugger is talking about).
Yet when he arrived, bag in hand, he could see what ailed me instantly. “Gent,” he laughed “there is nothing wrong with you at all, you silly old bespawler********! Your malady is known as Woolwich Half-Dozen Guts, also known as Mourinhoitis or Arsenal Win A Game of Football Against a Top Six Club Syndrome.
And it was true, dear reader. Such has been the finger-gnawing horror of this year I had forgotten what it was like to beat a club in the top 6. This event had induced a profound physical response. The very cells of my body were rejoicing. The effect was doubled by it being the first time Mr. Windsor had defeated the Portuguese Mountebank, the Snake of Stamford Bridge, Beelzebub’s Concubine himself.
The first goal was mirth-inducing. Graham Shackleton, much maligned midfielder, loosed a rip-snorter toward United’s goal. This hilariously ricocheted off the back of Mr. Herrera for one nil. In the time it takes to boil a hen’s egg Mr. Oxlade-Chamberlain delivered a sugar-sweet cross which was duly converted via the noggin of United’s hater-in-chief, our Brazilian Danielsan Arantes do Dat Guy Nascimento Santos Welvalho, or ‘Welé’.
He loves scoring against United like no other, such is his deep revulsion for the boys in white, black and red. Harry the Helmet saved from Mr. Martial and Mr. Rooney, but United failed to score and we inflicted upon them their first defeat since October. In the interim period, their glorious undefeated run has lifted them just one place. That is more Arsenal than anything Arsenal have done this season. Perhaps United are the new Arsenal. It was a hilarious and joyful occasion and Mr. Mourinho skulked back up North a broken and bitter man.
To Southampton then, the doomy graveyard of so may games this season. We required our first league away win at Saints for fourteen years. We had just won a game, and Arsenal logic dictates that we should draw or lose the next one. Our Brave New World of the WM means that we frequently endeavour to get the ball out to Mr. Oxlade-Chamberlain who pings one in to the idle in the hope of hitting the noggin of a striker.
And this he did, right up until his leg-knack, when he was replaced by Harry Bell. Shackleton, married to Mr. Ramsara in the middle, found Mr. Orwell with a cheeky one. Mr. Orwell sent a mesmerton through to Mr. Saunders who reminded one and all of the great Dionysus Bergton-Camper with his hither and thither movement, sending Southampton’s defenders so far the wrong way that they woke up in Aberdeen. For the second, we have our very own Mr. Inconsistent, Saunders, to thank.
This is a man capable of such heavenly delights that at least half of his goals or gentleman’s favours would not look out of place painted by Giotto, yet his careless surrender of the ball is like something scrawled by your average simple-minded neighbourhood tagging ruffian.
Thankfully this was one of the former. Mr. Ramsara had scampered to the far stick and Saunders found him like a pig to a truffle. Ramsara’s demi-noggin found Goring-Hildred, who had only recently joined the field of play, and he skulled the ball into the net like a Scotsman fighting at a wedding. 2-0.
Chelsea will win the league tonight. It will be their BLAH BLOODY BLAH title since they were invented in 2003. But no more trade their recent bought success for our more modest achievements than I would swap houses with some local vulgarian just because it has a swimming pool. NO THANK YOU.
* The skull
** The throat
*** Hands
**** Thumbs
***** Stomach
****** Intestines
******* Knees
******** Someone who spits when they talk, also known as Jose’s Mouth.
