By Myles Palmer
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Spurs 1 Arsenal 1
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Patrick Vieira was the best footballer on the field on Monday night.
He was head and shoulders above the rest long before he headed that Silvinho corner past Neil Sullivan in the 89th minute.
He was the best player even though only played 30 minutes.
He got his mate Thierry Henry out of jail. TH14 had missed four good chances. Including a one-on-one from ten yards with his right foot.
Vieira did more in 30 minutes than Roy Keane did in 94 minutes against Liverpool on Saturday.
Now I’m as guilty as anyone else of fuelling the myth of the black super-athlete. I have done that again and again in the stuff I’ve written here.
But it has to be repeated : Patrick Vieira is the finest footballer in England.
He is a giant gladiator with magnificent skills.
Even when he hasn’t trained for nine days he can come on and make a huge difference.
Of course we didn’t know that Vieira had not trained for nine days until Arsene Wenger admitted it after the game.
It was a big gamble that paid off.The gamble could have gone the other way. Arsenal could have lost 1-0 and Vieira could have re-injured his hamstring.
Vieira was magnificent,different class. Tim Sherwood could not get the ball off him.Half the time Sherwood couldn’t even get near enough to foul him.
Before the game somebody said, “We need ten Vieiras.” That is just silly.There ain’t ten Vieiras in the whole world.
Patrick Vieira is a real man and a real footballer and we are very, very lucky to have him playing for Arsenal.He is so competitive, so inspirational, and so honest.
Our press box position at Spurs is a terrible one, low down just behind the home bench.
I watched Vieira and Bergkamp warming up with mounting anticipation.They were wearing big navy jackets and tight-fitting track suit trousers and they jogged and jiggled up to the corner flag and back.
At 9.21 p.m., with 62 minutes on the clock, Vieira unzipped his jacket and took it off to reveal his red shirt.He was about seven yards from me at that moment.
Patrick took his pants off and I saw that he was wearing long, white undershorts, elasticated, like cycling shorts, under his regular shorts.
PV and DB10, two Rolls Royce players, came on for Pires and Grimandi.
They gave Arsenal a huge injection of power and brains.The game changed instantly and totally : Arsenal attacked constantly from then on.
Overall, Spurs defended well.Neil Sullivan, with good saves from Henry’s shot across him and Bergkamp’s rifled cross-shot, looked, for one night, a better keeper than Seaman or Manninger.
But Sullivan should have come for a punch when Silvinho’s fatal corner swung onto Vieira’s head.
Replays showed that Vieira fouled Ferdinand, who was marking him. He suddenly tugged Ferdinand’s shirt sleeve, sending him cartwheeling forward and down, like the victim of a judo throw. Patrick then had a free header to equalise.
That’s football. If Rebrov’s goal was a goal, then so was Vieira’s.
Because Sherwood and Ferdinand were offside when Anderton shot and Manninger parried the ball out.
But give credit to Rebrov, a great reflex striker. He was the only player on the field who could have scored from that chance. He plunged forward and sent a bouncing header into the net after 31 minutes.
Kanu, Pires or Henry would NOT have got to that rebound. Ljungberg would have connected but not scored.
It was good to see Rebrov, whose feet are lightning fast.As quick as Di Canio’s feet.
Rebrov is a quality striker rather than a quantity striker. He doesn’t do much but what he does is world class.
Yes, it was really good fun to be back at the Lane for the first time since 3rd January, when Liverpool played the football and Spurs got the goal.
The two girls in the refurbished press bar welcomed yours truly like a long lost mariner. And handed me a big glass of mulled wine.
So I sipped that and scoffed five small mince pies and chatted to the BBC’s Nigel Bidmead, to jolly Philippe from France Football(who said,“Thanks for your e-mails!”),and to Lambros and Knowledge, who had been at a reserve game and spoken to Bora Primorac,Wenger’s assistant.They said Bora told them on Friday that Patrick was never gonna play more than 20 minutes.
Knowledge said he remembered seeing Steve Carr play for Arsenal Under-15s.
I missed Alan Sugar by five minutes.The chairman had come into the press lounge for a brief address confirming the sale of his 40% shareholding. He had informed the Stock Exchange that morning that he was actively seeking a buyer.
By the time the game started I was in a good mood.A very fine drizzle was falling, the PA announcer was naming the substitutes, Silvinho’s gold boots gleamed in the floodlights, and the Lane was packed and throbbing.
I was expecting vicious, provocative gamesmanship by Spurs.But I was wrong about that.I need not have worried. The game was fast and furious, but clean.
It was robust sporting entertainment, with plenty of players knocked over, but little that was malicious. The contact was all body to body rather than boot to leg.
The most savage fouls in the game were by Clemence and Keown.
Clemence was a disgrace in last year’s game and here he aimed a boot which slammed high up on Henry’s thigh, near his hip, a shocking tackle which would have been a yellow card in most games.
But referee Jeff Winter realised he had to tread a fine line. If he let too much go, it could get out of hand. And if he flashed a fistful of yellows in the first half he would be making a problem for himself later on
Keown carelessly kicked Les Ferdinand on the head. He tugged him down by the shoulder as the ball arrived, so that Ferdinand’s head fell between his right boot and the ball. Then Keown kicked him on the back of the head!
Keown gets away with this stuff because he is known to be clumsy.He has a B.A.(Hons) in accidental intimidation.
On this occasion Keown certainly WAS watching the ball and in slightly different circumstances he might have claimed not to know Ferdinand’s head was there. But since he had pushed down hard on Les’s shoulder, so that he fell down, Keown knew Ferdinand was there.
The video revealed a huge lump on the striker’s head! Half an hour later Ferdinand could be seen running around with a lump the size of a pheasant’s egg on the back of his bonce!
But apart from those two assaults the match was good fun. Not quite peace and love and God rest ye merry gentlemen, but a rough,tough,fast, exciting game of professional football with tackles,saves, skilful moves and lots of mistakes.
I had to agree with George, who said it was nice to see a competitive match where players picked each other up in a sportsmanlike manner.
19th December 2000.