january 4th
19.30 – Leeds 1-4 Arsenal (Henry, Edu, Pires, Toure)
The last three times we’ve played at Elland Road we’ve won by the same scoreline. “We always win 4-1” sang the Arsenal fans. I laughed.
It had started pretty badly when Jens Lehmann paid the price for staying up all night playing Nintendo with David James. He touched a pass back a little too far ahead of him, and was unable to get the ball past the hulking deathstar that is Marc Viduka. His clearance cannoned off one of the uncharted regions of the monstrous Aussie and it was 1-0 to Leeds.
Then two brilliant goals – Kanu fed Ljungberg whose fizzing cross was tucked away by Henry, then Henry fed Edu to touch it past Robinson. There wasn’t too much going on until the last 10 minutes, then Henry again found space and fed Pires for his 10th of the season, and a couple of minutes later another fantastic move saw Le Bob dink a little pass over the defence and Kolo Toure knocked in a well deserved first of the season.
All round it was good stuff, with good performances throughout. Into the third round, and Leeds can now just concentrate on getting relegated.
10.37 – I think I’m getting a bit fed up with all these hangovers. Might be time to stop drinking. Or start drinking the moment I get up in the morning. I haven’t decided which yet.
Before today’s game there’s Juan less Brazilian at the club, as the pint sized left back has gone back to Brazil to play for Fluminese. With Clichy and Cole set to battle it out for the left back position his future was always going to pretty uncertain but the one certain thing about his uncertainty is that he wouldn’t get too many games for Arsenal.
Arsene Wenger talks about money, about finding players from all over the world to fit Arsenal’s budget and according to the Sunday Mirror we’ve beaten off all competition to sign Samuel Eto’o – but it all sounds ridiculously complicated with Real Madrid holding a 50% share in the player and they want to offset that against Thierry Henry – we’ll see.
Right. Some breakfast is needed. Coffee, neurofen and quite probably a beer. More later.
