By Myles Palmer
SATURDAY’S 4-1 WIN at Leeds was like all Arsenal’s four goal games: a massacre.
At home to Bayer Leverkusen, they blew them away with three goals in the first half hour.
In Eindhoven last season they scored in 22 seconds and won 4-0.
The following game was at Elland Road, where they sliced Leeds to ribbons and won 4-1.
In these games they terrified the opposition with quick forward passing and electric pace.
Most of the time it’s Henry flying down the left and he Thierrifies them.
On Saturday Arsenal scored from a corner, a Leeds corner.
Cole played a 40-yard lofted pass that released Henry from near the halfway line and he headed the ball on, touched it sweetly once, zoomed towards Paul Robinson and slotted home the first goal in eight minutes.
So the match only lasted eight minutes.
Freddie’s low pass into the box eluded Gilberto, but Pires slotted from a narrow angle at the far post.
Bergkamp’s shot hit the post, Henry hit the rebound for 3-0.
Pires played a crafty pass low across the box, where Gilberto converted for 4-0.
Alan Smith touched in a late consolation.
So Arsenal had scored four times before Leeds scored once.
DYNAMO KIEV will not fall for those sucker punches.
Kiev will defend deep at times, push up at other times, block the channels and raid on the flank every 10 or 15 minutes.
Collectively, Kiev have a good team, an effective and intelligent style.
That’s why I fancy Kiev and Stuttgart as the ambush teams of the Champions League this season.
FOR SIX YEARS I’VE PREDICTED WINS in these games, but I’ve been re-reading what I wrote about early CL games in The Professor.
To refresh my fading memory and attempt to understand fully where Arsenal have gone wrong in Europe.
Away to Fiorentina on Matchday 1 in 1999, Arsenal dominated the game and almost won. Toldo brought down Freddie, then saved Kanu’s penalty.
In the Nou Camp, I actually thought Arsenal could win.
Reading page 204 just now, about how Kanu outshone the brilliant Rivaldo that night, it seems a long time ago.
Vieira did something truly idiotic and gave Luis Enrique a gift-wrapped goal.
Then Arsenal were doing well in the second half, but Grimandi elbowed Guardiola as they were both on the deck. So Grimandi was sent off.
But Kanu made it 1-1 a minute later.
What drama! What excitement!
At that moment, Gooners had big hopes for the future.
In 1999-2000 I thought and wrote optimistically, talked about the learning curve, taking three years to get the hang of difficult challenges against the world’s best teams.
LAST SEASON Arsenal seemed to be making use of what they had learned, winning the first group stage with 10 points and doing half-decently before elimination in the second group stage with seven points.
But the first Ajax game told me the dream was over for another year.
I saw nothing that night to convince me they could win in Amsterdam – and they didn’t.
BY THE SUMMER OF 2003, Arsenal needed a striker to replace Bergkamp.
A Kewell, a Zlatan. But they could not afford the right player.
So the Champions League was always going to be much harder this year.
Now Arsenal are without a win in three games. They need a miracle. They need to win their next three games.
Is that possible? No.
Can they beat Kiev? Yes, but don’t put money on it.
The pressure is on, big time.
The Arsenal players will be scared. They will be nervous before the game and they will continue to be nervous until they score the first goal.
If they draw or lose then my gut feeling on Matchday 1 was exactly right.
Arsenal were 2-0 down to Inter Milan when Freddie won a penalty and Toldo saved from Thierry.
That was after 31 minutes and I immediately thought: short campaign.
Shortest campaign of the six: it’s a 31-minute Champions League campaign.
Wish I could be more optimistic. But results have made me a Euro-sceptic.
I used to believe that Arsenal would learn and improve, but they are further away from achieving Arsene’s Holy Grail, the European Cup, than they were in 1999, when Toldo saved that penalty.
You can’t blow Ajax away, you can’t blow Valencia away, you can’t blow Deportivo away, and you can’t blow Kiev away.
They are all too smart to allow you to blow them away.
THERE is a piece in The Guardian today about Arsene being a romantic coach who will always attack.
He IS the greatest attacking coach since Johann Cruyff.
I was at Wembley when JC’s Barca beat Sampdoria 1-0 with a Ronald Koeman free-kick through the wall.
When you boil it down, it is simple. It is obvious.
To win 1-0 you have to keep a clean sheet and Arsenal rarely keep a clean sheet in the Champions League.
Their poor record is a conundrum. You could debate it all night. It’s about attack, but it’s also about defence.
Despite what I have just said, I see most of Arsenal’s CL disappointments as failures of attack rather than failures of defence : they don’t score enough goals because they don’t have enough ways of scoring goals.
They rarely score from crosses.
Their heading is so pitiful that I don’t believe they practice attacking headers.
I believe that heading the ball in the box – headers at goal and winning knockdowns -is about 20% of football.
Clearly,Arsene does not believe that, or he would have long ago signed a striker who can head the ball.
YES, THE PROFESSOR is an auteur.
He has his own vision of the game and he has created his own collective style, which is exciting, audacious and unique.
But that style has failed in the Champions League because it depends on attacking early and scoring first.
So I won’t be too disappointed if it fails again.
I hope Arsenal win, I hope they keep it going for another match, but my gut feeling remains.
This season’s Euro-effort was over in 31 minutes.
November 4th 2003.