By Myles Palmer
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Arsenal 5 WBA 2
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Cole 3, Lauren 21, Wiltord 24, Dobie 51,Wiltord 77, Roberts 87, Aliadiere 90.
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We had a lot of fun last night and I should have written it up when I got home at 10.30 pm.
But my mind wasn’t clear enough to write, so I watched the Man United 5 Zala 0 video as far as Beckham’s freekick for 2-0.Then I crashed out.
Where did this Sylvain Wiltord come from? Was the other guy a lookalike?
He must have been a lookalike because that player was nothing like this player.
This Wiltord is super-confident, skilful, intelligent and scores in every game.
The way he took that third goal was fantastic.
He kills Henry’s pass beautifully, keeper’s almost on top of him, he clips his shot perfectly past Hault and skips over him.
It’s 24 minutes on the clock and 3-0. End of contest.
ASHLEY COLE took down Kanu’s crafty long pass, beat his man and buried a bullet shot .
Then LAUREN turned on Kanu’s cross and fired home for 2-0.
Arsenal’s first two goals had been scored by their left back and their right back.Has that every happened before?
Just before the interval, when Seaman was beaten, some last ditch defending kept the ball out. Brilliant stuff!
So Arsenal came out for the second half with a different head on and conceded a silly goal when COLE let the ball hit him and bounce to SCOTT DOBIE, who buried it.
Was COLE expecting Seaman to claim that ball? I was.
After that they got an attack of the jitters and KEOWN was being beaten far too easily.
But why did the whole team get the jitters when they were 3-1 ahead?
If it had been 3-2 I could have undertstood it. Woulkdnt have happened if Adams or Dixon had been playing.
Then Cole’s cross his the defender’s shin and broke for WILTORD, who scored a good reflex goal, cheekily, to make it 4-1.
I had been waiting for JASON ROBERTS, an impish striker, to nip in and score and eventually he did.
He took Keown apart and smashed his angled drive in off Seaman for 4-2.
Earlier Keown had been lucky to stay on the field when he held DOBIE, who recovered and shot, Seaman tipping over, perhaps his best save of the season so far.
TOURE had come on and played with whirlwind energy, dribbling at speed, tackling ferociously. At 21, an exciting prospect.
Then Henry picked out nimble sub ALIADIERE, who poached a sweet goal from one yard.
That’s the kind of goal I love. If he scores 100 goals for Arsenal.I will say : I remember his first.
This kid is the kind of goalpoacher who can make a good team great.
The manager will be worried by KEOWN’S shaky form with
Chelsea coming up on Sunday.
Hasselbaink and Keown don’t send each other Xmas cards.
Especially after that headbutt by Jimbo, where JFH would have touched the back of his own head with his hand if it had been accidental.
Keown is a power player and maybe he needs time to get into top gear.
One of my theories is that power players need two months to find their touch and touch players need two months to find their power.
So power players, like Bryan Robson and Ray Parlour, are never great in pre-season or August/Septemvber
Oddly, West Brom had one more shot than Arsenal. And one more shot on target.
I cant remember that ever happening under Arsene. If they lose 4-2 the opposition have six shots and four go in.
And I don’t remember Thierry Henry having a shot.
I’ve NEVER seen an Arsenal game, certainly not a home game, where he didn’t have a shot.
He MUST have had a shot, surely? Did anybody see him have one?
EDU gives deft short passes, good long passes, runs marathons in every game, and sticks his foot in.
I wonder whether, one of these days, Edu is gonna stretch for a fast tackle and miss the ball.
The opponent is gonna fly up in the air and the ref will have his red card out before the guy has landed.
It hasn’t happened yet, and I hope it never does- but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Still, that is how we want Edu to be. Effective when Arsenalhave the ball and effective when they don’t have it.
GILBERTO has settled in very quickly. He shows HUGE potential. There is a lot more to come from him.
And the team will need his athleticism and tight technique because there are some defensive holes that were not there in March, April and May.
Arsenal cannot go on conceding two goals in every game.
The defence must tighten up before September 13, when the Champions League starts.
I will remember this game because I had a chance to watch it with the kids, who are Gooners.
For us it was like an extra day of carnival, which we had been to the day before, but not together.
I had come back from Wycombe 4 QPR 1 (four red cards!) and gone down to Ladbroke Grove, leaned on a wall of a church, ate some Chinese food, listened to some reggae .
The DJ was pretty hip, stopping the music so that the dancers parted briefly to allow the ambulance through, no siren, no lights flashing, the driver’s partner signalling his thanks with a laconic wave to the DJ.
Caroline had been with her school pals, failing to rendezvous with some friends, finding others unexpectedly.
Michael had been with his mates and came home after we had all gone to bed.He went out to work early, so we had not seen him.
On the tube, going to Highbury, we compared notes.
I said that everybody was very nice, and every person who bumped into me, from big rude boys to tiny Alicia Keys clones, said : Sorry!
And Michael said,”Yeah, it was such a friendly crowd. I saw two guys try to start a fight but 15 people pulled them apart straight away and nothing happened.”
For us, last night was a one-off.Michael will be back in Sheffield soon, so Caroline relished the chance to sit between the two fellas in her life and applaud the scintillating football that ripped West Brom to ribbons in 24 minutes.
Bang!Bang!Bang!
Three nil to the Arsenal.
For us beating West Brom 5-2 was festive, a celebration, like a continuation of the Notting Hill Carnival.Football you could dance to.
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ARSENAL: Seaman, Cole, Keown, Campbell, Lauren, Wiltord (Aliadiere 82), Vieira (Toure 79), Silva, Edu, Henry, Kanu (Parlour 67).
Subs Not Used: Taylor, Luzhny.
Yellow cards: Edu, Keown, Campbell.
WEST BROM: Hoult, Clement, Moore, Gilchrist, Sigurdsson, Balis,McInnes (Marshall 62), Johnson, Gregan, Roberts, Dobie.
Subs Not Used: Wallwork, Dichio, Taylor, Jensen.
Yellow cards: McInnes, Clement.
Ref: Paul Durkin.
29 August 2002.
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PS
DAVID DUNN of Blackburn should have been in Sven’s World Cup squad.
Dunn scored one and made on in the 2-2 draw with Liverpool.