november 26th
08.34 – HOORAY HENRY GIVES INTER FIVE IN THE EYE-TIE.
“surely, surely this team is capable of a PSV away or a Roma away style performance after so long”
That’s how you make a prediction, Myles. You just keep saying stuff until it comes true. One day we’ll sign Patrick Kluivert too.
What can you say about that, eh? Of course, I was always quietly confident of the 5-1, had a couple of quid on that, you know yourself, just didn’t want to jinx us by saying anything about it. To a man they all performed tonight. I thought Kanu did well up top, and at one stage streaked down the wing so fast I thought it was Toure or Henry.
I thought my man Edu was the business though, he never hides on the pitch, always wants the ball and people don’t see the defensive work he does. Dropping back to cover Pires when he went forward. I was chuffed for him that he got on the scoresheet. I’m not going to go over it goal by goal, but Henry’s second was just sheer class. At the moment there isn’t a player in the world who comes close to him. He’s a genius. Inter Coach Don Alberto Pavarotti said “We gave Henry far too much space to play in and you just can’t do that with a player of his quality.”
Henry himself said after the game “We didn’t show the true face of Arsenal in the Champions League until tonight. Everyone was waiting for us to do something in Europe and tonight we did.”
Overall, a dream result for Arsenal. Not forgetting there’s still work to be done to qualify for the next stage, this performance has to go a long way to giving the team the confidence they need. You just feel that sometimes there’s a lack of belief about this Arsenal team in Europe. 5-1 at the San Siro should put paid to that.
That Materazzi is a sly cunt, isn’t he? A more niggly, cynical football you won’t find this side of Spuds Argie Tarrico. I did laugh when he threw himself to the ground in the penalty area, the clever and quite good indeed ref ignored him, and TH went up the other end and scored. I was watching on Irish TV and Frank Stapleton, of all people, was well into it. He was praising Arsenal players all over the place and got right behind the team. Even he sounded chuffed as we went goal mad in the last 5 minutes. A word for the travelling fans who were absolutely brilliant, really loud and got the praise they deserved from the players at the end too. It’s nice to see such mutual appreciation.
Final word to Arsene Wenger who said “I am so very proud of all my players, of their spirit and the quality of their display. We are very close to being a great European team.”
