London Calling

 

Well, what can I say about the Everton game?  Not a lot really as thankfully I didn’t go but by all accounts (and judging by the highlights) it was quite an insipid affair.  There’s no doubt Fab had to go (if it had been earlier we might have got a draw!) but it’s also true when Wenger says that yet again it’s the retaliation after a bad foul that gets punished more than the original foul.   

Clive Thomas (yes Clive ‘I don’t care if it’s the World Cup I’ve blown my whistle’ Thomas) was on the radio the other week, and if you think I’m scathing on referees these days then I sound like their best mate compared to him!  Boiled down his two main points were ones that I can’t help but agree with – they don’t understand the game and they’re too interested in being celebrities and playing up for the camera.  Mind you I did think it ironic that arguably the most high profile ref of his generation talking about celebrity refs… 

Whilst I’m off on tangents (can you go off on more than one?), a little word about squad numbers.  Diaby has been given the number 2 – and I’m pretty certain that Wenger deliberately gave a midfielder the shirt last worn by a legendary full back.  Diaby has been signed to immediately be competing for a place and so he had a ‘right’ to a low number if he wanted.  4 is a more logical number for him to take, but having the shirt with all the comparisons with Vieira anyway would be too much.  Now when Ljungberg signed I remember Wenger saying that he deliberately gave the shirt to someone who didn’t play in the same position as the last number 8 (Ian Wright).  Mind you in his first substitute appearance he managed to get booked and score in about 20 minutes (against the Mancs?).   

And back to the football.  My car is still rather abandoned (I’m going to have to do something about it soon) so I’m still hiring (if anyone wants to sponsor this column with a nice car for me feel free to get in contact) and this time it was a big Mazda.  Nice.  Bombed down to George’s but I had another trip to make before the game.  With the number of times Jazz has gone out of her way to pick me up from the station after games I could hardly refuse when she asked if I could meet someone she knew whilst I was down in London to collect a laptop Jazz was being given.  Her mate lives in Balham (deep dark south London if you don’t know) so logic led to us meeting halfway, at Oxford Circus tube.  To make it harder it was the new boyfriend of her mate and I was meeting him for the first time!  It worked out though and I was in the 12 Pins by 6.30.

A semi-final is special and terrifying at the same time.  It’s an old (but true) adage that people rarely remember the losers in the semis unless your team played in the match.  If you’ve been following these columns you’ll remember me talking about the ‘singing section’ in the middle of the North Bank lower tier for the game against Reading.  Well this time I was in there, lungs and chewy ready.  After all those years of sitting upstairs it was strange being downstairs (for the first time since it was a terrace) but the seats were superb – more or less dead centre.  Found our seats and a lady in the row in front turned round and said ‘You do know this is the singing section?’  Yup – right place, well for me anyway… 

One of their players fouled Reyes (I think) and a chant that implied they were illegitimate northerners in need of a bath started.  Now if there is one thing northerners go on about it’s how good their pies are and just as the chant died out I shouted ‘And your pies are shit!’   Got a good laugh for a throwaway line from everyone.  Well almost.  There was one of ‘those’ blokes a couple of seats down.  You know the sort – Smuggy McSmug who spent the whole game telling people (known or unknown) funny stories that only he thought were funny.  (Didn’t sing once either).  ‘No they’re not – they’re actually the best pies around’.  Oh dear.   

Back to the game.  Firstly, a quick delve into the ‘Thierry as captain’ debate.  He’s no Tony Adams (then again Tony Adams doesn’t appear to be a Tony Adams anymore) but the way he took the impressive Kerrea Gilbert to the crowd in front of him after the first goal spoke volumes for me.  1-1 (on aggregate)...and extra time.  To be honest there was a quick check of the programme to see whether away goals counted double – damn.  Then RvP added another masterpiece to his gallery of great goals and all seemed well with the world.  I was slightly uncomfortable about the way the crowd appeared to think it was all over and we got bitten on the bum right at the end.  From jubilation to despair in a few seconds, and it was all over.  Apparently their keeper didn’t know that away goals counted double and was rather surprised that their bench were celebrating the tie going to penalties. 

Maybe it was because it all happened so late but the crowd was still quite bullish at the end and chanting ‘We Love You Arsenal’.  I was also quite glad that a fair number of people applauded the Wigan players off the pitch.  We may have just been denied a Cup Final in just about the cruellest of circumstances, but we’re still The Arsenal. 

Refs – well I’ve got to.  I think a conversation we had with a couple of Wigan fans after the game sums his performance up.  We spent about five minutes basically taking it in turns to complain about a wrong decision in favour of the opposition, and the funny thing was we agreed about virtually every one!   

Oh well, there’s still the FA Cup.  Bolton away with half the first team absent is never going to be an easy one but you’ve got to have faith.  A friend of mine up here is a Bolton fan and although he doesn’t go that often I’d persuaded him that he should not only go to the game but also drive us!  His brother lives a few miles out of Bolton and we stopped there for a rather excellent pre-match meal (and it must be said I had a couple of drinks) then on to the match.  We had the radio on in the car and (and as they always do on FA Cup day) they’re coming out with odd statistics.  Apparently the last time Arsenal lost a game after a Steven Spielberg film had been released was when ET first came out.  Well obviously we couldn’t lose now, not with his latest film being out. 

There’s a lot of talk these days about managers disrespecting the FA Cup by putting out weak sides but I sometimes wonder if it’s the weak teams leading to lower attendances at cup matches or the smaller crowds encouraging the managers that it’s not as important.  Bolton v Arsenal in the league - 26,000; FA Cup - 13,000.  Wigan v Arsenal in the league – 25,000; League Cup Semi – 12,000.  Having said that the only players we rested were Den and Bobby – everyone else being unavailable.

 OK, we lost to a terrible goal (again) right at the end, but we didn’t roll over.  We stood there against them and didn’t look for a moment as though we were going to get kicked out of this one.  Diaby showed he can ‘put it about’ (something our midfield has missed) and with his wayward shooting and (enjoyably) reckless tackling the Vieira comparisons are going to keep coming.  We competed, we fought, and we only lost to a stupid goal.  One week, three stupid goals conceded, three defeats (sort of).  I suppose I should be downhearted after the last week, but there have been some very big positives over the week. 

 Firstly, Kerrea Gilbert.  You’ve got to class him as an identikit Wenger full back.  Cole, Clichy and now Gilbert have come into the team as very similar types of full back and immediately looked at home.  Yes there will always be the odd mistake early on (due as much as anything to lack of experience) but the former England u17 captain has been absolutely superb in the last week.  Lauren and Cole are our obvious first choice full back pairing but Clichy and Gilbert are extremely able deputies – and let’s not forget Justin Hoyte who’s been very popular at Sunderland and who I really can’t see Wenger letting go. 

Djorou.  Arrived at Highbury fairly quietly and just been getting on with it whilst Swiss Tone gets all the press.  He’s also come in and looked every bit the first team player – possibly playing better than his Swiss team-mate recently.  Another very able deputy in the making.

 Diaby.  The type of player we needed.  There’s been an obvious misbalance in our midfield in that we haven’t had a player who can drive the ball forward and put it about.  There’s no point criticizing other midfielders for not being that kind of player, you either are or you aren’t.  I know the press have loved it this season saying that we’ve missed Paddy but (due to injuries as much as anything) we’ve been missing him for a couple of years because there’s absolutely no doubt that in his last couple of seasons at Highbury he wasn’t the player he had been. 

And the biggest of all – Martin Keown.  Now I’m slightly surprised that news of him working at Highbury has only just come out, and I think the timing was deliberate.  Basically, Martin has been there working with the first team since pre-season.  There was a picture on Arsenal.com of pre-season training and there was old boom-boom.  I tried contacting the club at the time but there was no comment, then after the Everton game in September I bumped into him at Marylebone station!  Naturally I had a little chat with him and asked him about the picture.  He said that he had come into pre-season to get fit and that Arsene had asked him to stick around.  This wasn’t the first time I’d talked to him (although I doubt he remembered me!) and as always he came across as a damned nice and thoughtful guy.  Personally I’ve always thought that he’d make a better manager than TA (I know that’s heresy) but when I asked him if he would be the next manager he laughed and said he didn’t think so.

 Got a bit cocky then.  It was just after I’d interviewed Bob Wilson and I told Martin who I was and asked if he’d be interested in giving an interview.  He got a bit cagey then and said he couldn’t because he was only just back at the club and nothing was really official yet (don’t think the ‘independent website’ helped much to be honest).  Although he was still perfectly affable and polite you could see from that moment that he was thinking carefully before speaking, quite suddenly switching from talking to fan to talking to ‘journalist’ mode.  Shame.

 Ok, you’ve got this far – and you’ll notice that I haven’t mentioned collecting freebies!  Well, they haven’t been changing them much so I haven’t really bothered.  In fact I’ve got too many of the bloody things now – so I’m getting rid of some, just for you.  There’s a red Arsenal baseball cap (so you can pretend you’ve applied for an Arsenal credit card), an O2 beanie type hat (so you can pretend you’ve talked to an angel).  George has donated an official Champions League hat and badge from his collection, and we might chuck a few other little bits and bobs in.  All unused.  So what have you got to do to share in these?  Basically, make me laugh.  E-mail me and tell me in under 50 words (no attachments please) what you’d do if you were locked in a room with Robbie Savage and three household objects of your choice (although points will be deducted for any marrow type interventions).  I’ve set up an email for this - GiveMeAFreebie@aol.com - and the closing date is whenever I get home from the Birmingham game.  I’ll contact the winner next Sunday-ish and (depending on content!) have it in my next piece.

  Come on You Red(currants)s!