By Myles Palmer
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Arsenal 3 West Ham 1
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Henry pen 13, Defoe 40, Henry 70, Henry 86
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Not the massacre I expected.
But ref Mike Dean ruined the spectacle by sending off Lomas after 13 minutes.
Bergkamp had a superb game, playing seven or eight great passes, starting with a volley through for Pires, who zoomed in front of Lomas, who grabbed his arm, an obvious penalty.
Sending Lomas off looked as if it would finish the game.Henry converted the penalty and we were looking at 77 minutes of one-way traffic, a walkover.
It was David v Goliath anyway and now David had lost one of his legs 13 minutes into the battle.
What followed in the first half was an exhibition of slick interpassing, with Pires everywhere, some showboating, some spells of keep-ball, some missed chances, some tenacious defending by West Ham.
Keeper David James was busy, and in fine form.
At that stage I felt that if Lomas had stayed on, Arsenal would have been more dynamic, and made it 2-0 quite quickly.
Then Edu boobed with a backpass.
He is an unlucky player.
If there is a bananaskin, Edu slips on it. If lightning hits the training ground,it will melt Edu’s car.
Defoe locked onto the backpass like a guided missile and scored the equaliser, a deadly finish.He was looking for the mistake and when it came he was ready, like a natural predator.
If you are gonna make a risky back pass, don’t make it when Defoe is around.
It was 1-1 at half time.
Second half, 70 minutes, Bergkamp fouled Bowyer and got away with it.
Dennis saw Bowyer coming.
He looked up and saw him coming and put his left arm up and caught Bowyer in the gob.
For Dennis to say that he didn’t know Bowyer was there is quite ridiculous.
He looked up and saw him coming.He knew exactly where he was and where his face was.
Myself, I get very, very tired of Arsenal’s disciplinary controversies.
This stuff is so boring, so monotonous that I cannot read about it or talk about it, let alone write about it.
Arsenal are NOT a dirty team and they don’t deserve half the cards they get.
They are punished too often and too severely.But,a lomg time ago, I became disgusted and bored by the furore over their mostly minor indiscretions.
I lost interest in all that the night Vieira cleared his locker, when he was wrongly sent off against Liverpool at Highbury.
Since that night I have basically refused to write about all that stuff.
Vieira quit that night and I quit writing about refs and cards the same night.
Everybody else writes about it sometimes because they have to. But I don’t have to and I don’t choose to.
The Lee Bowyer incident reminded me of when I once asked Dennis if English football had made him more aggressive.
He said, No, but you pick your moments.
For me, that was an honest answer to a straight question.
Football is a rough, tough contact sport and while DB10 is known worldwide for his elegant passes and spectacular goals, he is no saint.
Clearly, Bergkamp is fouled far more often than he fouls back.
He has spent his life being bumped and shoved and held and tripped and obstructed,ever since he got into the Ajax team when he was 17.
He is now 33, so that is a lot of fouls
Occasionally, by picking his moments and riding his luck, he can get away with a foul himself, as he did on Sunday against West Ham.
I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FA WILL MAKE OF IT.
But I certainly won’t be following that “story” on a daily or hourly basis.
Remember this : Dennis got a lot of yellow cards during his purple patch in the autumn of 1997,as I detailed in The Professor.
When Dennis plays brilliantly, as he did against West Ham, he is fired up and when he is fired up he sometimes whacks somebody.
He did something similar against Lyon when he fouled Edmilson as they sprinted into the box together.
Usually, when the striker is dribbling, the defender will play the man first if he cant quite reach the ball and if he thinks he can get away with it.
But, that time, the opposite happened.
Dennis knocked the Brazilian centreback off balance, playing the man before he played the ball, and scored – and the ref gave the goal.
Other refs would have given a free-kick.
But Dennis chose his moment well.If he did the same thing regularly he would become a marked man, get a reputation, and have fouls given against him even when he was innocent.
Obviously, I don’t condone foul play by a gifted striker any more than I condone foul play by unscrupulous defenders.
All I’m saying is that sometimes defenders get a taste of their own medicine.
That’s professional football. The players seek to gain an advantage in any way that they can, a lot of the time, stretching the rules as far as they dare, and as far as the ref will allow.
What Bergkamp did to Bowyer was not karate, but it wasn’t far off karate.
Having decked his opponent with a smack in the face,Dennis turned round and crossed to the far post where Henry headed in for 2-1.
The third goal was a classic late break against ten tired men: Bergkamp to Pires to Henry, closing in on James at high speed, netting neatly, left footed, tumbling over the keeper, as Overmars used to do.
A goal of sensational pace and surgical accuracy.
Man United could not have scored that goal. Chelsea could not have scored that goal.Liverpool could not have scored that goal.
Only Arsenal could have scored that goal.
Now the fans are talking about whether Arsene might play David Bentley against Farnborough.
He won’t. But Bentley will be on the bench.
20th January 2003