London Calling

 

Well, did you miss me? 

Sorry I haven’t been around since before Christmas but I got taken ill a couple of days after the Newcastle game (no it wasn’t solely down to the way Gallagher handled the game in such a pathetic and unbelievably one sided way…which saw him relegated a couple of divisions!) and whilst my illness was nothing that dramatic or interesting being ill and getting over it made me miss the home game against the Chavs and the aways at Charlton, Villa and Wigan.   To be honest I wasn’t intending to go to Charlton away so I guess in a way it was a bonus having an excuse…  

I hope you’ll excuse this piece being slightly more disjointed than you might be used to, but we’ll be back to normal for next week.  I hope! 

So, Newcastle away (or ‘down the road’ as I call it).  My brother came up for the weekend and whilst he was here he complained that the only times he’s been mentioned it’s been as ‘scud’ (because he never lands where and when he’s supposed to) and ‘jinxy’ (for his amazing ability to turn up for virtually every defeat we suffer).  Well, since turning up for the Newcastle defeat he went to the home against the Chavs, didn’t make the Manc game because he’d had a row with his boss and couldn’t leave early, and then there was the Cardiff game in the cup.  6000-odd (some very) Cardiff fans made it down the M4 from Cardiff to Highbury, but not my Gooner brother.  Nope, Carlos (for that is his name) woke up with a banging hangover at midday…at home in Cardiff!  Sorry bruv, but you did want your name mentioned in the next piece.  

Anyway, to 99% of Arsenal fans Newcastle is just another game but having lived up here nearly eight years (I was gutted the other day.  Flicking through the tv channels we paused on something set on a train and instantly I recognised Gateshead from the train window!  The shame!) it’s far from that to me.  In fact it’s one of the most important to me, so leaving the ground I was satisfied with our performance but furious about the ref.  Did I mention he’s been relegated to whatever the old forth division is called because of that performance?  Would you be surprised if I mentioned it a third time, because that would be once for each point the muppet probably cost us.   

Funnily enough the stick I expected from the people I see on a day-to-day basis never materialised.  To be honest everyone just seemed a little embarrassed about it.  Mind you their kids didn’t! 

I got properly sick on the day of the Doncaster game so don’t really know anything about that one or Chavs at home because I didn’t even listen to them on the radio!  In fact, I think the Chav game was the first home game I’ve missed through illness since I was a kid in the 70’s, so I guess it was due in a way.  By the Charlton game I was fit to listen to the radio, and by Pompey home I was fit for match action! 

I say fit – I got there!  To be honest the only thing I really remember from the game was their fans booing Bobby every time he touched the ball, and then Thierry taking all the players over to near the Pompey fans to celebrate a goal.  Titi stood inside the pitch with his back to the crowd and called everyone over to him.  That guy just oozes class, doesn’t he. 

I stayed down south for a week and missed the Villa match (fortunately) but (unlike my brother Carlos (that’s twice bruv)) went to the Manc match and Cardiff in the cup.  It’s funny how if you picked virtually any Arsenal/Manc match over the last few years it would take a couple of thousand words to even try to describe what had happened.  Except this one.   

Cardiff was weird.  Let’s say their fans haven’t got a reputation for being the best behaved around, and it’s only a shame that we had Almunia (who’s still doing very well since my, er, ‘pep talk’) in goal rather than Graham Stack when their fan came on and pushed him.  (For those that don’t know whilst on loan at Beveren Stack lamped a rival fan who tried to attack him in a local derby).  After the game we had intended to go somewhere away from the ground but ended up in the 12 Pins, which was virtually empty.  I’ve really not seen the area around Highbury clear so quickly in years.  An hour after the game you’d not have known it happened.   

The journey back was a bit of a mare.  There are engineering works every weekend this month and next so there was an hour on buses in the middle of the train journey and various changes, which turned a three-hour journey into nearly five.  I guess I should be happy that they kept to the five!  But when I got to Newcastle the ever wonderful Jazz was there to pick me up again - it’s just so much nicer having someone waiting there for you than having to queue for a cab. 

Didn’t make Wigan  (again one to miss – as did many many others by the looks of it) which brings us up to last week.  Drove off just after 9 Thursday for the game.  I know that seems early (even for me) but I was selling a house back home and there was a form I needed to sign.  Sign it Thursday it’s sold Friday, sign it Friday and it would be another fortnight because of god knows what.  Now normally I leave around 11 and get there around 5, so I’ve got loads of time to get there when, bang!  Or rather clunk.  Clutch cable has gone (or so I thought).  25 miles out of Newcastle and I’ve no clutch for the next 275 miles.  I’ve got breakdown cover but I was thinking it’ll take them an hour and if they can’t fix it another hour for the tow and that would drive slowly and bugger it I don’t really need a clutch, it’s motorway!  So I didn’t stay stopped.  And I did have a full tank of petrol. 

Well, I did stop.  I kind of had to, if you know what I mean.  I knew from when I started again I’d have to put it in first and bounce so I couldn’t stop in a car park where I’d have to manoeuvre.  Hard shoulder, and bounce bounce back onto the road.  Then crunch crunch up through into 5^th gear.  Nightmare. 

I came off the motorway a junction early, thanking whatever was looking over me that there hadn’t been any jams to deal with, because it’s much quieter and I knew where I could dump the car 100 yards away.  You’ve no idea how glad my back was to get out of the car!  It was only around 2 as well, so I strolled down the road, had a beer and some lunch in a little pub (West Wycombe is owned by the National Trust and is the kind of village the word delightful was invented for) and since I obviously didn’t have to worry about driving I had another beer.  And a third, because it was nice.  By then a mate I’d called had turned up to pick me up and sort the car.  He looked – ‘No problem, but it’ll take 20 minutes’.  So we left it and he took me to the solicitors, and everything was fine until he phoned later to say it was not good news.  Something in the gear box, one of those £20 in parts but loads of time (ie labour) jobs.   

Sod it.  The house sold so I hired a car on Friday and forgot my 106 for a while (it’s still there by the way).  I hired a big one.  And why not. 

It nearly always seems to be a good time for Arsenal to play ‘Boro, and Saturday was no exception.  As they were warming up Cygan and Cole were lazily passing the ball to each other on the wing.  In between them there was a rack of drinks bottles and they were passing over it.  Then poor Pascal hit the drinks bottles, which cracked Pires and Cole up.  Next time the bald one got the ball he hoofed it into the top tier and ran off with a big grin on his face.  Ahhh, row Z, the first pass any centre half should learn. 

There’s no doubting we were good on Saturday, and there’s no doubt Titi was playing with a freedom he hasn’t shown recently.  There’s also no doubt that ‘Boro would have lost to a pub team.  They were abysmal – truly awful.  There was just no guts or teamwork to their play.  Arsene shocked me though. 

At (I think) 3-0 Pascal was injured and eventually replaced by Cole.  Arsene was out on the touchline going absolutely looney-tunes at the 10 men left – I don’t think I’ve ever seen him so animated.  Mind you I’m not surprised Cole has picked up a tweak, he didn’t look happy during the second half and kept feeling his legs.   

Now 7-0 is a wonderful score, but I’ve seen Arsenal score seven before - never eight (I’m not counting friendlies or anything).  Last year against Everton I really thought we’d do it, and made the mistake of telling those around me how much I’d always wanted to see it.  So when we’re 4-0 up George and Simon start holding four more fingers up to me.  Five times I’d seen us score seven (if memory serves), surely this would be the time for eight.  5-0.  6-0.  It was going fine.  Then I got a text from my brother who I’m not going to call jinxy saying we’d get the eight.  Damn.   

But, hey, 7-0 is a wonderful score whoever it’s against.  By the time we’d got to the pub scoring eight was back to a ‘one day’ rather than today then I see the goal we’d had disallowed should have stood!  Damn it I felt cheated, and I’ll not tell you what I said a few minutes later when I was flicking through the match programme and there’s a report on us beating ‘Boro 8-0 in the 30’s.  Ho hum.  Never thought I’d be so hacked off at winning 7-0! 

Now the ‘big’ car I’d hired is rather quicker than my little motor that I bang up and down the motorways, and it was nice to drive in luxury for a change.  I’m no boy racer, but whenever I hit a long clear stretch of motorway I couldn’t resist opening the engine up.  Got back up here to the coast (ie JazzTowers) well in time for Match of the Day as well.   

Transfers.

 Well by the time you read this Walcott may well have signed.  It’s Thursday evening here and the strongest rumours seem to be he’ll be unveiled tomorrow.  As I understand it the ‘haggling’ may have been over the odious Rupert Lowe trying to lever as much as possible to let him go now rather than stay at Southampton on loan.  Believe the hype about this kid.  He’s absolutely ready for the bench now.   

Diaby – another guy I’d expect to see in the 16 almost immediately.  He’s been compared to a young Vieira for good reason, and it appears Arsene has been tracking him for a couple of years!  You know, I’d bet he virtually knows who his transfer targets are for the next few years already. 

Adebayor (where’s my John Smith M Wenger? Theo Walcott is potentially a good one but it’s still a little hard.) I know nothing about.  He’s said he wants ‘25’ because he idolised Kanu, but I was more interested by a line in what Arsene said.  It was something like ‘he’s big and strong in the air and gives us different options’.  I’m surprised that comment hasn’t been picked up on because Arsene isn’t one to let his players play in the air and this would suggest he’s prepared to look in another direction.  Based on no more than that statement I’d expect to maybe see him play the 1 in a 4-5-1 when Arsene sees fit, with Titi playing deeper.  Or maybe start 4-4-2 but using pragmatism to switch to 4-5-1 at some point.   

Anyway, guess I’ll be watching Togo over the next week or two (Africa really does need to sort it’s continental championship.  Whilst I absolutely and completely defend it’s right to have it at whatever time of year it chooses, it really has to come into line and change to every four years.  Now the Ron Noads type of comment is rightly unacceptable there remain two suspicions of African players.  One is the (Roger Milla induced) age/passport thing; it happens but it’s far more rare, and more spurious rumour, than the norm.  The second less spurious suspicion is that every two years they’ll be off in mid-season to play a major championship.  To be honest I think if they made it every four years and left it when it is then it would make African players potentially more attractive than European players in that they get at least three out of four summers off.)

 Before I go one last thing about refs.  Rob Styles was the ref against ‘Boro, and whilst it wasn’t a hard game to ref there was one thing he did I loved.  Ref’s are normally so officious about all free kicks being taken from an exact spot, even the offside type ones where the ball is going to be hoofed 60 yards.  Well Styles didn’t do that at all and it was nice to see for a change.  There’s just no need for it, and there’s no one it doesn’t annoy.  Other refs are so pathetic they get relegated loads of leagues (that’s my hat trick…goodnight.)

 Come on You Red(currants)s!