Ow. My head hurts. Stupid, but lovely, red wine.
First of all, sorry for the late blog. I had a late night – I’m on holiday too (but more dedicated than that slacker that’s drinking beer in the Spanish sunshine). Apologies too to those on the mailing list who got a bunch of HTML in their email yesterday. I’ll try not to do that again today (mainly by not including any links!).
So. We played Salzburg last night and lost 1-0 to a goal from…one of their players in the second half. I can’t really comment on the match too much since the internet stream I finally managed to get working was a bit shit, but we lost to a deflected goal in the second half – I got that much. The boy was pretty lucky with the deflection too – he had the whole goal to aim at and still managed to put it in off one of ours.
The biggest surprise of the evening was discovering that Arsene Wenger obviously reads the blog and caught on to Blogs’ suggestion to make Gallas captain because our last two have ended up leaving, and so, William Gallas was captain. In a first half side containing both Jens and Kolo (who was a late addition to the starting line up after Djourou pulled out), I find that very surprising. Gallas has said some stupid things – things I’ll happily forgive Freddie for saying, but what the fuck has Gallas done to merit that? – and he’s only had one season at the club. Very strange decision.
From the reports I’ve read (sorry – second hand bullshit today) it sounds like we were unlucky, and from what I did actually see, we seemed to have most of the possession. Still – as has so often been the case – we didn’t quite turn that into goals. But there were positives to take from the game, particularly Eduardo’s performance, which was, apparently, very encouraging. It seems like we should’ve won, but these pre-season games arent’so much about the result as the performance.
Also, Eboue did end up playing on the right wing after Rosicky came off injured, which as I said yesterday, is an interesting idea. He can get forward, he can certainly cross the ball when he tries, he’s less important defensively playing further forward which is probably A Good Thing, and his theatrics (assuming he can’t cut it out) might see him win the odd penalty or two if he can get in the box (a bit cynical, I know, but it doesn’t look like he’s going to change). He’s also got a fair shot on him – remember that goal against…some cunts in the Carling Cup? It could work.
Anyway, like I say, difficult for me to comment, not having seen the game and all. After the game the manager said:
Eduardo could have scored four. He looked very dangerous, and he has shown he is top quality.
Sagna was also solid, it was his first game but he did well.
I’m happy with how we played, and with the spirit shown. The result was not important.
We knew the last 20 minutes would be difficult, but we should have scored five before they scored.
They were very defensive, which is what we face in our league, and we created plenty of chances.
Just got to turn those chances into goals though, eh?
Not much other news around – none, in fact – but I have a dilemma. Some of you may know I live in Edinburgh, and Barcelona are currently playing some pre-season games in Scotland. This Saturday, they’re playing Hearts at Murrayfield and tickets are still available. I live within walking distance of Murrayfield.
So, do I go and see Barcelona play, which I haven’t done before, and risk seeing Thierry playing for them, or ignore it with my fingers in my ears going la la la la la?
