By Myles Palmer
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LIVERPOOL didn’t turn up in the first half. So they lost the first half 2-0.
Senderos was shouting a lot. He shouted at everybody. He even shouted at Vieira on one occasion.
He says,”From my position, you see everything. You must always organise your team. I have to give information. I have to talk. It is part of my job.”
WHAT A GUY !
Since Adams and Dixon retired, there has not been enough shouting.
This is what Arsenal have needed for the last three years : somebody to shout at Vieira.
And Vieira is a great guy with a good sense of humour. So he can see the funny side of it.
ARSENAL HAVE CHANGED the way they play, as I pointed out after the Spurs game.
Without Henry and Campbell and Ljungberg, they have more gears and more width.
It’s now total football, not Thierry football.
Senderos is authoritative. He can hold the ball.
He wants the ball, unlike Campbell, who doesn’t want it, so the whole team is less hasty, less shaky, more leisurely.
The passing can still be very fast, but the style is more continental.
FABREGAS has had some great games on the right, where he looks settled now, although he still does his best work in the middle.
After 14, he hit a terrific shot that beat the post by a ballswidth.
After their big night in the Champions League semi, beating Chelsea, Liverpool had no urgency, no tempo, no concentration, with Hyypia making mistakes.
After Lauren got in and Dudek parried his shot onto the bar, Hyypia made another boob and Pires curved a low shot just past the post.
When Hamann chopped Vieira he got a yellow card and Pires scored with a tasty free-kick over the ball.
24 minutes, 1-0.
After 28, Carragher slipped and Reyes powered into the box and drilled his shot through Dudek for 2-0 at half time.
Possession is the best defence and since Arsenal had the ball most of the time, and Fabregas was playing perceptively from the right side, just as Pires was from the left,
Xabi Alonso could not do anything because his team wasn’t in the game at all and Riise was hopeless.
BENITEZ brought on Cisse and Kewell for Baros and Riise at half-time and in 50 Reyes nudged Xabi Alonso in front of the D.
Hamann touched the ball to Gerrard and his rocket shot clipped Fabregas on the ankle and deflected past the blameless Lehmann.
It was a very hard shot but it was going straight at the keeper before it hit the ankle.
When Luis Garcia, the floating menace, made a clever run beyond Senderos, Ashley Cole made a covering run to block beautifully.
The first half had been sleepy but the second was intense.
Lehmann saved well from Gerrard, Hyypia glanced Gerrards free-kick over the bar.
Then Lauren attacked, passed inside to Bergkamp and he slupped Fabregas in for 3-1 in the 93rd minute.
ARSENAL have not lost in the last 45 Premiership games that Gilberto has played.
But Gilberto had a bad second half here. He left his centrebacks two-on-two four times.
SENDEROS is 20 and looks as if he has been there for years.
He lives in Barnet with Fabregas and a club landlady.
As a kid growing up in Geneva he used to have posters of his favourite players on his bedroom wall : Pires, Henry and Vieira.
Now he shouts at Vieira.
Funny old game, football. I hope Senderos carries on shouting. If he does, Arsenal will carry on winning.
EVERTON and Liverpool should share a new stadium.
Scousers should stop being so sentimental.
They should move on. They should forget about Shankly, Ian St John, Howard Kendall and The Beatles and grow up and get real.
Get 2 new chairmen, new investment, share a new super-stadium and move on.
For younger readers, Ian St John was a creative centre forward in the Sixties.
Scottish, chunky, very skilful, a Liverpool hero, came down from Motherwell.
Outside a Liverpool church there was a poster which asked : What will you do when the Lord comes ?
Somebody had written : Move St. John to inside-left !
DOES MAN UNITED v Chelsea mean a lot at this stage?
Yes, pride is big. Fergie and Jose are fierce rivals and proud men.
I’ll watch tonight if Rooney is playing.
As you know by now, I’m a Wayne fan. I would watch Wayne play snooker
May 10th 2005.