Good morning to you all. I am positively twitching with tiredness having arrived home around 12.30 last night.
It was hard going dragging the old carcass out of bed, I have to say. First off, thanks to Tom for filling in and ensuring you had a blog to read each morning. Splendid work, sir. Secondly, I believe I am sweating gin and beer. Thirdly, Zzzzz.
It was a fantastic trip, obviously with great Arseblog company and the atmosphere around Villarreal was superb. It’s funny, the town itself is as small as the one I used to live in just outside Barcelona and the idea that their football team might be playing the Champions League 1/4 finals is just ludicrous. It’s only when you get there that you realise just how small the place is.
Having arrived in Villarreal we ended up in a bar absolutely chock full of home fans who were most welcoming and engaged in a good sing-off. No hassle, a great bit of craic and it was great to see the fans mixing so freely. Even outside the stadium home and away fans jumped around singing and dancing like loons.
One slight correction to yesterday’s blog, near flawless as it was. We were right behind the goal, not to the right hand side, and the view was somewhat restricted by the giant metal bar going across the pitch. And the net which appeared to be made of chicken wire. See below.
As such I sort of saw Senna as he scored his goal and when Adebayor scored in the second half I just about made out his foot as it came over the top of the bar. I only knew it was a goal when someone jumped on me and started vigorously frotting my face.
In terms of the game I’m quite happy with a 1-1. The papers over here were trying to say there was no real advantage to us but we all know how important an away goal can be in situations like this. I thought we certainly deserved the draw even though we didn’t play well at all in the first half. A clean-sheet at home and we’re through. Not that I think we’ll be playing for that but still.
So we had some beers in Valencia post-match after a highly entertaining train journey back. Lots of good natured singing and multiple renditions of ‘Harry Redknapp’s got a twitch’ song helped pass the time – and the TV cameras seemed very keen to get footage of it all. Me being shy I kept my head down, I think.
I really could have done with another few hours in bed this morning but what can you do? It’s a bank holiday weekend coming up, I may just have to drink some of the duty free rum I brought back. And the duty free wine. And the duty free Jameson 12. I think I brought back enough booze that I really should have gone through the Red Channel at customs. Oh well. Stick that one up your hole, government.
So back onto matters football and having seen the Adebayor goal now a few times without the handicap of, you know, not being able to see it, it truly is a thing of beauty. Theo Walcott has called it one of the best Champions League goals ever. It’s certainly one of the best I’ve ever not seen and when you consider we weren’t exactly peppering their goal its importance is obvious.
Adebayor’s thoughts on it are here. Cesc Fabregas, who got pelted with stuff trying to take a corner at one stage, said of the team:
I feel really proud as captain of this team. When you see your team-mates playing like warriors it is really good to play next to them. They should be proud as well. I think we could have done a bit better but we can’t complain after losing Manuel and William. To do that and still come back and get a 1-1 is not a bad result.
I think we’ll be better at home and with any luck we’ll have more firepower to call on. If Eduardo and van Persie are fit it’ll add an extra dimension to things up front. Obviously we’ll have to wait and see what happens with Almunia and Gallas who both went off injured on Tuesday night. There don’t appear to be too many worries over Manuel, with Fabianksi deputising well and determined to take his chance, but Gallas may well miss the rest of the season if he’s done knee ligaments.
It’s a shame because he has been playing well and his experience at this stage of the season would have been important. If he is out though we’ll just have to cope. Djourou has been kicking his heels on the bench a bit for the last couple of months so he’ll be out to prove he’s got what it takes. After that we’re looking at Sylvester. *gulp*
I’m sure we’ll get an injury update a bit later on from the boss. Meanwhile the FA have asked for Cesc’s version of events having eventually managed to translate Hull’s evidence from ‘tard into English. Again we’ll have to wait and see but as he has publicly and categorically denied it I don’t think they really need much from him, do they?
That aside it seems fairly quiet this morning. We can start looking ahead to the Wigan game on tomorrow’s blog.
So there you go. I’m off to shower then I have to go talk into a microphone for a bit, then think about some kind of Arsecast for tomorrow. Until then.
