February 22nd
Well, I dunno about you lot but I could hardly watch the last five minutes of that game! What a result!
Our best in Europe? Perhaps not as spectacular as against Inter a couple of seasons ago, but to have gone to
Madrid, written off by absolutely everybody, with the number of players out that we did, it’s certainly up there. Of course
it’s only half time, and we mustn’t get too carried away – a single away goal doesn’t count for too much since
Madrid still have to score, but you’d certainly rather have it than not.
We played very well – everyone played very well. Thierry beat five players to score another very special goal,
Fabregas was absolutely sensational (how he must’ve loved that win!), Gilberto kept Zidane quiet, Reyes
was all over Cicinho (who should’ve got at least three yellow cards), Eboue got forward well (and looks
excellent to me), Flamini did well to keep Beckham relatively quiet and was full of running, playing well out of
position, Hleb had a few nice touches and I remember him making at least a couple of excellent tackles. Freddie
played as well as he has this season and he even made one of those runs into the box we’ve not seen for a while and
was unlucky he was so close to the keeper when he got the ball. Lehmann saved well from Beckham twice and a Carlos
screamer, and despite one error from Big Phil, him and Kolo were solid (Sol who?) and Madrid rarely threatened
seriously, despite the ref trying to give Zidane a free kick every time one of our players got anywhere near him. Was Ronaldo even playing?
And the tactics. I hate 4-5-1 as much as Blogger, and there were a few times we were just humping it forward for
someone to chase, but we got it just right in the end – credit to the manager
for giving the players the belief they could do it. I thought we struggled to keep possession at times with Madrid having a lot of the ball, and we sat a bit too deep for my liking,
but we got the result and that’s all that matters – and in truth, we should’ve scored more. I think it helped that we were playing a team that actually likes to play football
(unlike those horrible, horrible cunts from Bolton, for example), and that Real weren’t exactly amazing (which of course was partly down to how we played), but it matters not.
We’re the first English team to win at the Bernabeu, and it was a proud night for Arsenal. What a game it’s going to be at Highbury!
And a word for all the away support – you made lots of noise, supported the team brilliantly and did the team proud. Hope all the
Arsebloggers that went out to Madrid enjoyed their evening and got horribly drunk. I know of at least one
Arseblogger that’ll be *boiking* it today. 😉
