By Myles Palmer
CAPELLO rested Tomassi and Cafu and Totti and Delvecchio in Serie A on Sunday.
And the other players took the day off as well, by the sound of it. Roma lost 3-0 at Parma.
Roma are mid-table and nine points adrift of AC Milan.
They draw a lot of games.
Since most Gooners would take a draw on Wednesday night, there’s a tempation to say this one will be a very tight,scrappy 1-1 draw.
Arsene is big mates with Capello, whose Milan training he visited regularly when Capello was winning four scudettos in five seasons.
Years ago I met Capello the day before Milan played at Highbury in the Super Cup.
He was asked how seriously Milan would take the game.He said they take everything very seriously because of the history of the club and because they had fans all over the world.
He’s a lovely guy, Capello, but he was deeply serious that day.
Brian Glanville told me that Capello was a jolly character as a player and that we were seeing the ROLE,the responsibility, rather than the MAN that day.
ROMA are struggling a bit, paranoid about the Milan/Juventus domination, paranoid about referees.
So this might be a good time to play them.
Having said that, I’m NOT predicting a win.
Mini-leagues never work out as neatly as I expect.
In the first mini-league Arsenal won their first three, then lost two and drew one.
Newcastle lost their first three but still qualified.
FELT SORRY for Pascal Cygan on Saturday.
Cygan played well for 44 minutes and then gave away a freekick from which James Beattie blasted the equaliser.
Edu should not be charging down freekicks.
It always amazes me when managers,and keepers, get that wrong.
When Arsenal played Man United in the League Cup one night, the first goal was a Lee Sharpe free-kick and Limpar was the charger and the Swede jumped out of the way.
The ball flashed in for the first goal and Arsenal lost 6-1.
Timid players should not be chargers.
United use Scholes,a brave charger. Arsenal should use Ashley Cole, who is quick over five yards and has bottle.
CYGAN was also culpable on the second and third goals.He made a major ricket on the second, failing to clear the ball and allowing Delgado to break away.
On the third goal he tugged Beattie’s shirt and conceded another freekick from which Southampton scored again.
Seaman should have come for that free-kick.
I think Shaaban would have punched that ball away.It was only three yards from the goal.
TOURE was like a deer frozen in headlights as that ball came towards him.He headed it towards his own net and it went in off Delgado’s arm, according to Chris Kamara’s Sky replays this morning.
Rob Hughes castigates Arsene for sour grapes in today’s Sunday Times.
Having seen Arsene on Sky – saying, “Durkin is Durkin – what can we do about him?” – I agree with Rob.
Arsene is better than that, bigger than that,more sporting than that. Sure, he had the hump. He is always angry when his team loses.
Durkin WAS well of the pace, but on this occasion his decision was correct.
Sol Campbell almost made the recovery tackle of the decade. But he caught Delgado hip to hip as he made an honest left footed lunge for the ball.
But Sol missed the ball. If he had toed the ball and it had gone out for a corner, Durkin might have given a corner, given him the benefit of the doubt.
Delgado was about to shoot.He didn’t think Sol could have made up so much ground so quickly.
And Sol might even have had time to take another stride and tackle with his right foot, that’s how close he got.
If Sol had been coming in from a slighty different angle he could have got the ball without touching the player first.
But it’s history now. And Sol will miss the Man United game in two weeks time.
NEWCASTLE’S DEFENDING was the worst I have ever seen in the Premiership on Saturday when United beat them 5-3.
Given is not the same keeper as he was last season. Andy O’Brien was awful. The midfield was wide open and Solano should have started.
But United looked superb without Veron, playing busy, workmanlike, sensible football and using the whole width of the pitch and scoring goals from crosses, just as the did all through the 90s.
QUINTON FORTUNE was a revelation in central midfield, tidy pinpoint passes pinged everywhere, so refreshing after recent giveaway habits which I criticised last week.
FORLAN was abysmal, dire beyond belief, but it didn’t matter because the bionic SILVERSTRE was world class and RYAN GIGS set the tone in the first ten minutes.
At 4-2 the crafty, vicious SOLSKJAER ran into Aron Hughes and flattened him, giving himself a clear run in on goal to make it 5-2.
Was the linesman blind?
WHAT A BLATANT FOUL! Incredible.
That was in the 54th minute.
At 4-2 Newcastle still had time to score two late goals.At 5-2 it was over.
OK, United would probably have won anyway but that is no reason to allow such an obviously illegal goal.
VERON will not be there next season.
He came on after 79, for Forlan, not for a midfield player. A telling point, methinks.
Talking to Ian Grant today I said I fancied doing a half-term report on the squad this week, rather than at Xmas, which would be more obvious.If I do it now,or soon,I don’t have to do it later.
MONTHS ago I promised to review THE FRENCH REVOLUTION, a book about Cantona and all the French players and managers in England.
I may be able to write that soon. At the time I was reading Keith Richards, An Unauthorized Biography, by Victor Bokris.
Had to stop reading that to read Mick McCarthy’s World Cup Diary, before interviewing Mick.
Then I decided to read Roy Keane’s autobiography, to get his side of the story before writing the Mick piece for Time Out.
Then I went back to finish Keith .I thought I knew all the significant facts about the Stones,but I was wrong.
The Bokris book is brilliant and I read it very slowly, savouring every page.
But now I’ve read 110 pages of The French Revolution, so I will review that soon.
Have a good week!
24th November 2002