London Calling

 

I’m angry - bloody angry. To make my life a bit easier this week I’m writing this piece in two parts and right now I want to talk about the Bolton game which will take up the first half of this and probably turn into a bit of a rant.

Now amongst other things if you’ve been following my season you’ll know I’m a pretty positive person – well certainly as far as Arsenal are concerned. I certainly don’t think I watch games through rose tinted glasses but I do tend to look for the positive. I guess it’s the nature of the football fan; you’ve got to have something to believe in. I mean every year until it’s a mathematical impossibility I honestly believe we can win the league, and that feeling is no different now under Wenger than it was any season during the 70’s, 80’s or 90’s. But sometimes the anger takes over.

It’s not the money it costs now (although that does register) because that performance would have made me just as angry any season. It was gutless.

Ok, so if Thierry had scored twice rather than hitting the post and CageBoy hadn’t had a goal disallowed (or if deliberate handball was a bookable offence against Arsenal and they’d gone down to 10 and the great god ‘Maybe’ had come into play) we could have nicked the points. But in truth we were pathetic. We just didn’t have the guts to compete.

Don’t get me wrong. I hate Bolton, especially their walrus faced manger. I’ve no idea at all why he’s so lauded by the press because his teams display everything that is bad about the game today. His Bolton have always been full of transient players and cloggers; and they’re incredibly snide. Their idea of a fair challenge is to shove their opponent in the back just before the ball arrives. The corner of the pitch sums them up. There’s a wide strip of grass around the pitch and you can see an extra set of (faded) markings outside the pitch. Those markings are the size they mark the pitch for European games (the smallest allowed without dispensation for playing at Highbury). I reckon the strip is about a yard wide each side and with the pitch around 100 yards long that’s about 200 square yards less space on the pitch. Or metres. Same idea. Everything they stand for is despicable and should be detested, but it’s not like we didn’t know what to expect…

We bottled it big time. I’m one for understanding Wengers’ selections not criticizing them but I couldn’t believe he picked Pires ahead of Reyes. Now I think Pires had a good game, one of his best this season to be honest, but he’s not the type of player we needed. Freddie’s normally a grafter but he was reluctant to get stuck in. I could say things about so many performances, but then there is Pascal!

Now I actually rate the chrome dome. As a back-up centre half he’s a good squad member and I can see the logic of giving him a few games with Cole and Clichy out but it’s obviously not the way. He was, to be frank, pathetic against Bolton. Even allowing for the fact he’s a centre half playing on the flank he didn’t have a clue. Lumbering, lunging, lame, ludicrous (pass me the dictionary). I hope he’s embarrassed about his performance, because rarely have I seen such a lax (another ‘L’) display by an Arsenal player. Poly will be (rightly) criticized for losing the ball for their second but I must mention that he was in the left back position at the time and there was no left back to pass to!

Another thing. Surprisingly Pascal was actually trying to stay in position and his discipline in that direction was pretty good but not having a more natural full back there noticeably reduced out attacking options. There just wasn’t the outlet there – or Reyes to ping the ball to the other wing…

Right – rant over. As I said I’m a pretty positive person and there were good things. I drove down to Manchester on Friday and stayed with my daughter Gina. She’s just moved into her first ‘own’ place (if you’re interested I asked her what she needed as a moving in present and she wanted/needed towels so I got her a big to little with spares set in a decent Egyptian cotton. I don’t care how poncey it sounds but when you’ve had a wash you can’t beat a nice towel!) and it was good to see that although she’s going through her first experiences of the laws of borrowing in a shared house her share-ee is a friend she gets on with and it’s a decent place.

Gina’s training in child-care and works fulltime+ in a nursery at the moment so although the plan was to go out for a meal she was knackered and just as happy with a take-away (as I was – pizza and garlic bread…oh yes) so we stayed in which was great because it gave us time together as she had the house to herself. Saturday we got up and went into town after breakfast because she was meeting a friend, then we drove on to the match. Bolton is in ‘Greater Manchester’ and it’s an easy drive so we were there fine and in plenty of time. Despite being out for pre-season in Amsterdam this was the first time Gina had been to an away game that actually mattered so it was good for her to be in early and see all the warm ups and stuff from close by. And I was amused that she was as transfixed by Jens’ warm up routine as I was the first time I saw it – a man shouldn’t be able to bend like that!

Something else happened. Having only been to a few games it’s obviously taken her a while to get the hang of things but in the second half she was like a veteran. Screaming at the officials, encouraging the players. She was great. And she displayed the passion that you can only display when it really matters. Made me proud. With it being the first time she’d seen Arsenal lose I couldn’t help thinking of an old mantra Tony Adams used to use that you can only really enjoy victory when you’ve experienced defeat. That one always struck a cord with me, and I do sometimes wonder whether the newer fans (brought up exclusively on a diet of Wenger induced success) can really appreciate how special each trophy is as some of us ‘older’ fans who’ve seen some Arsenal teams where qualifying for the UEFA cup would have been a good season.

After the game we spent about an hour getting out of the car park and onto the road back. The Reebok is a good stadium. Strangely it’s similar to the kind of modern identi-kit stadia I hate but it works really well and is a great place to watch a match (unless Bolton are playing…). There’s one problem with the place though. It’s great to get to. Junction 6 of the motorway and you can see it. Walk to it even, but the only parking is at the stadium. And the away fans get their own car park. Now we get car park A, which is the furthest from the motorway. Good to get to, and although they jam you in it’s easy parking and at six quid is only a quid more than you’d pay at a school near a ground type car park. After the game though… The trouble with the concept is that although the delays and queue’s when you arrive are acceptable and not a problem, having two hours worth or arrivals want to leave at the same time just doesn’t work unless you build more roads to get out! It’s not so bad when you win, but on days like this.

So we got back to Manchester and I stayed a while before having to head back to Newcastle. Most of the journey was fine but I got a flash from a speed camera in Manchester (not my fault your honour) so I’ve got a wait now to see if there’s a fine on the way. Ho hum.

And so to the relative safety of the Champions League. Train down Wednesday and over to see George (I was staying at his again). Got there about 3 and had a relaxing afternoon before going to the match. Unfortunately as we’re getting ready to leave George realises he can’t find his ticket. Panic, search, and no ticket. He called TicketBastard and (after talking to a supervisor) the operative said there was nothing they could do as the line to the Arsenal Box Office wasn’t answered after office hours and Arsenal wouldn’t have the ticket details. George is (obviously) disheartened by this, but as someone who’s forgotten a ticket on occasion I didn’t believe it couldn’t be sorted out at the ground, so after a little encouragement he decided to give it a go.

Stefan was using my errant brothers ticket and I met up with him as George went off to the box office. Five minutes before kick off we saw George coming up the steps to the seats with a beaming smile on his face. He went to the ticket office and was told, basically, that the person he spoke to on the phone was a bit of an idiot and was directed to a TicketBastard representative who checked his details and quickly sorted a duplicate ticket for him.

Mind you, not so sure he was glad he bothered. Ok, there was absolutely nothing at stake and we all knew it could well turn into a nothing game with players rested, but then again you always hope that the players with something to prove will take their opportunity to impress. The driving rain can’t have helped but there were very few performances out there that impressed, with Senderos being the most notable exception. Dynamic, commanding and powerful, he was superb. He looked like an experienced player out there, not the youngster that we must remember he still is.

After the Reading game I mentioned Seb Larsson, and he did it again. Nothing much that stood out, but no real mistakes. He may not have the same artistry as some of the squad but he’s a wonderfully consistent player with (*cliché alert*) a damn good engine. I do think he could have a future at Highbury and his versatility to play across midfield could be invaluable – maybe from the bench.

Quincy again seemed threatening without any end product. It’s obvious that the other players have faith in him, but he really does need to learn that sometimes simple is good if he’s going to become a regular in the first team. To be fair to him he was playing against the club that kicked him out so maybe he was a bit overawed by it but the kid has tricks to burn and if he can learn to use them for the team he will be a devastating player.

Manuel Almunia. Three games since I told him to go home and three great performances. Apart from the odd sliced clearance I don’t think he’s made a mistake of note in any of those games, and he actually looks like a proper goalie! I don’t know what they did to him over the summer but he’s now playing with a level of confidence and authority that wasn’t there last season. Dare I say that (whilst still first choice) Jens has some serious competition at last? Well let’s hope so.

So, no goals, no real action, and certainly no thrills. A 90-minute training session, witnessed by 35,000 people. In fact the biggest cheer of the night (followed by much giggling) was when they announced that the mancs had lost to Benfica and were out of Europe altogether. Oh how we laughed. In the 12 Pins later they had Sky on the big screen and everyone jeered when the drunken jock came on to be interviewed, then everyone shushed so we could hear his excuses. After about 10 seconds of listening everyone seemed to think ‘who cares’ and we went back to abusing the screen. Well I never said I football fans were grown-ups, did I.

Which’s brings me here – my GNER train back to Newcastle on Thursday (or advanced guard for the next away match as someone said last night) afternoon. I’ll obviously talk about the Newcastle game next week but you’ve got no idea how nice it is to know that when I get home today the total amount of travelling I’ll need to do to watch Arsenal for the next 10 days is a 30 minute walk from my front door to St James’ Park. Bliss.

Come On You Red(currant)s!