By Myles Palmer
A fit, remotivated Thierry Henry might be the man to take the Dutchmen apart on matchday 6
He did it in Eindhoven and he can do it again, if Saturdays whirlwind performance is any indication.
Thierry was flying against Newcastle, showing a huge appetite for the game again.
He was mentally and physically drained by the Slovenia and Malta games.
Nightmare World Cup, new manager, team needed to bond again with Paris crowd, needed points badly, needed to restore pride, a big double header for France, big tension, big exhaustion, contributing to four Arsenal defeats after that.
And maybe Thierry’s been reading what we’ve all been saying about him and decided to pull his finger out.
Interestingly, Wenger’s formation was different.
It was 4-2-3-1, like Deportivo.
He had his big warriors in front of the back four,and his three inside forwards in front of them: Wiltord, Bergkamp and Ljungberg.
And Henry didn’t stay in one position.Wide right,left, picking the ball up in the centre circle, he was everywhere.
OK, he didn’t score but he’s got his form back for the first time since he signed that £9m deal with Nike.
Seaman has a groin injury so Shaaban will play. If the Swede does well he might face Spurs.
Incidentally, I can categorically confirm that Arsene phoned PSV every day last summer about Van Bommel.
But PSV wouldn’t budge from their price of £15 million.
And Arsene knew he could sign Gilberto for £4.5 million.
Van Bommel is a 21st century Souness, a steely distributor with skill and pace.
We saw that in the first game, and in the Holland-Austria where he partnered Cocu in a 3-0 win that could have been 12-0.
ROY KEANE was right about Man United being in the comfort zone.
They were hopeless against Man City and and if they dont improve by 50% on Sunday they won’t win at West Ham.
It was fantastic fun to watch United being pulverised at Maine Road in Saturday’s Sky lunchtime game .
Anelka made van Nistelroy look like a pub player!
I COULD NOT BELIEVE HOW INEPT RVN WAS !
After four minutes Anelka destroyed rusty Rio Ferdinand,
passed to Goater and then knocked in the rebound when Barthez spilled Goater’s shot.
I was ecstatic for the next four minutes until Solsjkaer made it 1-1 from a Giggs cross. A deadly cross into a deadly area and a deadly finish.
While van Nistelrooy fiddled and dived and failed to trap one ball properly, Solsjkaer was excellent throughout.
United dominated until Gary Neville’s howler let Goater rob him on the touchline and make it 2-1.
I’m an atheist, but every time Gary Neville makes a colossal ricket like that, I shout, “Hallelujah!There IS a God!”
Anelka then missed a one-on-one for 3-1, allowing Barthez to arry when I was sure he would bury it in the bottom corner.
United were appalling, as bad as I’ve seen them for ten years. It was like watching a Big Ron team on an off-night.
What will happen to United now?
Fergie looks a busted flush.I think he’s gone. I said it here months ago and I’m saying it again.
I’m not listening to all the million dimwits who say : Don’t write off Man United, he’s won eight titles, blah blah blah.
Bollocks! Its over!
United won eight titles with a certain ethic, a fierce competitive character. That has diluted and dwindled and that’s why Roy Keane was so angry last spring and summer.
Roy is a crock, so he cannot come back and put the team on his back and carry it as he did before.
The task of lifting Man United is mega-massive.
Spending £28 million on Veron to win the European Cup a second time, beating Sir Matt Busby, was absolutely idiotic.
I’m reminded of Sir Lou Grade’s comment on his failed blockbuster, Raise The Titanic.
Lou said,”It would have been cheaper to lower the Atlantic.”
United need a new manager to sell the Nevilles, Barthez, even Scholes, and start again.
Where are the 19-year olds? Fergie should have his own Defoe, his own David Dunn, his own Robbie Keane, his own Stevie Carr.
Where are they? What’s going on?
Let’s face it, United’s stars should annihilate Man City’s team of rejects nine times out of ten.
Why didn’t they? Because they didn’t match City’s energetic commitment. Because they defended far too deep. Because they missed Butt,Keane and Beckham.
But, most of all, because van Nistelroy was useless.
And because Veron is Harlem Globetrotter who would rather showboat than win the game.
The way Veron stepped out of that 50-50, giving City the ball to score,was amazingly lax.
It was unreal, even for a poser like him!
I read a lifestyle feature on Veron once that said he has framed action photos of himself in almost every room of his house.
What a tart!
RE : YOUR EMAILS : I like feedback, even when I’m accused of pandering to Liverpool supporters.
I’m not pandering to Liverpool supporters. I don’t care if they read ANR or not.
I don’t care if they paste my stuff into their chatsites.Cyberspace is mayhem and that’s why it’s fun, or can be.
For me, most websites are too conventional, too much like online newspapers.
It’s a new medium used in an old way,enslaved by a dull formula. They should be more of an alternative to mainstream media, more like fanzines
As someone who reviewed the same Van Morrison album for Oz and The Times, I’m still quite happy to have a foot in both camps.
I can write straight stuff within a narrow formula, or rambling whacky stuff, going where the sentence takes me, and where the mood takes me.
That way some good stuff comes out, stuff that’s a bit more original.
I write some paragraphs about other teams, like Liverpool, because Arsenal do not exist in isolation from other clubs. they play other clubs, sell to other clubs, buy from other clubs.
I SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT THAT WAS OBVIOUS.
If Liverpool are top of that league and Arsenal are second then I look at Liverpool and wonder what they will do in their next 10 game so compared to what Arsenal might do in their next 10 games.
AT TIMES I occasionally (very occasionally) wonder if I know what I’m talking about.
I’m sure readers realise that if I suffered from self-doubt I couldn’t write this stuff. Nobody could
But I enjoy a bit of confirmation from time to time.
Three days ago I did what I do every Saturday morning.I read Paul Hawyward’s column in The Telegraph.
This week Paul said what I’ve been saying about Sven for a long time on ANR
I have always reckoned that Sven decided not to pass the ball because our players are not skilful enough.
He does not trust them because he can see that they lack the craftsmanship, the shuffles, the bits and pieces of two-footed finesse that allowed his Lazio/Roma/Benfica players to keep the ball.
I figured this out long ago by looking at what Sven did, not at what he said.
Hayward wrote as follows :
Eriksson’s big aberration was to give up on the idea that anEngland side could be made to pass like Holland or France,and revert instead to the long-ball game with which they opened their World Cup.
Basically, Sven looked at what he had and saw we were technically far inferior to Veron and Conceicao, guys he worked with every day, so he decided to cut his cloth and defend,copying Liverpool.
Venables and Hoddle played continental football and tried to beat foreigners at their own game.
Sven the civilised, Latinised Swede, took us backwards into English football because he did not trust Owen,Scholes and Heskey to win games by good passing.
As I said during and after Korea-Japan 2002, Sven has to choose between playing football and playing Heskey.
He still plays Heskey. End of debate. That tells you EVERYTHING. He still plays Heskey!
But Sven’s pretty bright, pretty pragmatic.
He knows that style won’t work against Turkey.
If Arsenal can’t beat Galatsasaray by playing power football,with Overmars playing well, then I’m bloody sure Engerland can’t beat Turkey home or away with Sven-Goran Houllier’s tactics.
Turkey are better than Germany even of Germany were 2nd in and Turkey 3rd in Japan.
Time now for Part 2 of The Project(a two-nighter about the viciousness of New Labour on BBC1)
Goodnight!
11th November 2002