Arsenal v Portsmouth is third v fourth, so it will be a tight game.
The game sees the return of Kanu, Sol Campbell and Tony Adams, who is assistant manager to Harry Redknapp.
Many football journalists and sports editors are West Ham fans who love Harry Redknapp, the most extraordinary barrow boy football has ever seen.
He has worked his alchemy on an assortment of misfits and rejects, and turned David James back into the best goalkeeper in England. Most of his team have a prayer meeting before every game and Pompey keep accumulating points. The Christian story was one I wrote on ANR two weeks before Sky did a feature on it.
Arsene Wenger has switched to a more realistic style of play, and started to rest key players before the Xmas fixtures. Having dug out three results at Porto, Chelsea and Wigan, he now needs a home win to maintain momentum.
Recently, when Portsmouth played Everton, journos had a short chat with Harry in a little corridor after the game.The conversation went something like this.
Rob Hughes : “Harry, how d’you do it ?”
Harry Redknapp : “I don’t do nuffink more than except tell ’em all they’re great. Every fuckin’ day I tell ’em that.”
Rob : “Do you believe it?”
Harry : “Do I fuck ! I’m from West ‘Am ! I just said to Kanu, I dunno what that geezer at Arsenal was telling you, you’re the greatest player, still !”
Harry is Harry and the hacks all know what he’s like. He’s not like anybody else, so they don’t expect him to be like other managers. He’s a barrow boy with more front than Harrods and he went on like that for about five minutes.
“Harry, how old is Kanu ?”
” I dunno, put 40 and you won’t be far out. He’s worth every penny I paid for him…..and I didn’t pay a penny, did I ?”
So Arsenal v Portsmouth is an interesting game.
Kanu will want to score and Sol will want to keep a clean sheet and David James has days when he stops everything. And Tony Adams knows how Arsenal train and play.
A few years ago there was a punch-up at West Ham’s training ground and Harry was asked about it.He laughed and said, “It was nuffink. I’ve seen better fights at a wedding.”
LAST NIGHT I went to see a rock group www.arsenalnewsreview.co.uk/index.php whose lead singer is the cousin of an on-loan Arsenal player.