By Myles Palmer
I’m thinking about soft news and hard news this morning.
I want hard news and there is no hard news until 2.30 pm.
Soft news is trivia and gossip and speculation. Soft news is opinions.Soft news is stats of previous Souhampton games.
Soft news is Hold The Back Page.
Last night David Lacey, Ian Ridley and Paul Hayward, a thoughtful,articulate panel who did not interrupt each other as if it was a pub conversation, slaughtered Chelsea and Middlebrough, praised Ipswich and expressed faith in an Arsenal revival.
Hard news is the teamsheet and goals and assists. Hard news is injuries and red cards.
Arsenal have just lost three games in a row under Arsene Wenger. They have never done that before. That is hard news.
Tony Adams has hurt his toe and misses the game. He damaged his toe in a tackle with Bergkamp in training. So he misses Southampton. That is also hard news.
Soft news is me saying : Will he play Upson ? Will he move Grimandi back to centreback? Or Luzhny?
Soft news is me saying : Hoddle is a good tactician who might outsmart his mentor today.
Soft news is me saying : I love Pahars. I think Pahars is better than Overmars because he is braver and because he can score dribble-and-shoot goals and also score goals by getting on the end of crosses.
But previews suggest Pahars will not start. Why not? Is Hoddle selling him to his friend Wenger? I hope so!
I’ve gone off soft news because I got it wrong last weekend. I thought Bergkamp would play and Vieira would still be injured. But Bergkamp was ill and Vieira started.
So the teamsheet is hard news. After that the next hard news is the first goal.
I was lying in bed this morning thinking : Don’t write a preview of the game. You got it wrong last week. Be patient. Go to the game and get the teamsheet handed to you and sit down and watch the game and see who scores the first goal. Don’t tear yourslef apart in public by writing a
preview of a drama when you dont know who the actors are.
Wenger said on Sky last night that he does not have sleepless nights because he still has a deep belief in his team. He said that since Kanu,Bergkamp and Wiltord will never be great headers of the ball, we don’t play that way. Fair enough.That is what I said in my e-Myles Replies piece.
Wenger has said he is not resting anybody. Not saving anybody for Bayern Munich on Tuesday. He will play his strongest team today.
So I’m waiting until 2.30.I want that teamsheet. I want to know his strongest team and I shall resist writing down here what I consider to be his strongest team. It is hard to resist naming the side I would select to play Southampton.I shall write it in my notebook on the tube train on the way to the game.
I’m only there to watch and report and analyse and ask a question after the game.
It is a sunny day. A sunny Saturday morning like a million other sunny Saturday mornings before a football match.My life is measured out in Saturday mornings just like this, but only a few have felt as pivotal as this.When Saturday comes. When Saturday comes, we need a win. Professional football is about winning
I’m glad that I discovered football and I’m glad that I’m a journalist and I’m glad that my kids can grow up supporting a well-run club. If they lived in another part of London and had other parents they might be supporting a badly-run club, of which there are several in this city.
Basically, I’m looking forward to Arsenal v Southampton.I‘m not nervous about it because I think Arsenal will win. I hope Henry and Manninger have good games. I hope the ref has a good game.
But if Arsenal were to lose I would be nervous for the next three days before Bayern Munich.
So this feels like a day when the true Arsenal supporters will understand the feelings of the players, who cannot wait for the match to start, so that they can banish the bad memories of black November and five games without a win.
I will just go and watch and see if some of my theories are correct
Like the Bergkamp-Parlour theory.
Afer Leeds I started thinking about Bergkamp again and it boiled down to two things.
Henry misses Bergkamp. And Parlour misses Bergkamp. Henry misses Bergkamp’s vision and Parlour misses Bergkamp’s positioning.
Bergkamp is a strategic talent who give shape to the players around him.
By taking up certain positions, and looking to make passes from certain angles, he makes up Henry’s mind for him. And that is valuable because Henry does not make as many perceptive runs as he should.
And Bergkamp has played very well with Parlour for the last three years. After playing together for a couple of seasons, they clicked.
Parlour gets the ball and looks for Bergkamp and plays the ball forward and infield about 15 yards, and breaks forward to get it back.
That simple move, with variations, is a big part of Arsenal’s shape, a big part of their momentum. Parlour and Bergkamp read each other well and can be very dynamic together.
But only when Parlour is playing wide right and coming infield to join the midfield skirmishes. NOT when he is playing in Grimandi’s central midfield position.
Does Wenger still see it that way? Or is he is now committed to his two French strikers? We do not know. That’s why I need the teamsheet.
Because his teamsheet will tell me 50 times more than all the soft news I hear between games.
2nd December 2000.