By Myles Palmer
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It has been a helluva week for the top four.
Helluva week for Londons big two.
The new champions stuffed the third team.
And the second team massacred the fourth team.
Manchester United 1 Chelsea 3
Arsenal 7 Everton 0
Then an ugly bearded Yank in a baseball cap grabbed 71% of Man United shares.
MALCOLM GLAZER will take football somewhere it does not want to go.
Can fans/FA/govt fight him off?
UNITED had to do a lap of honour after the Chelsea game having lost 3-1 to a superior side and with 80% of the crowd having gone home.
On a Saturday afternoon fewer fans would have left early, obviously.
It was Uniteds only home defeat of the season.
The fans who stayed behind were the real football fans, not the yuppie brand-slaves.
The real fans gave Chelsea a sporting reception when they came out through the guard of honour, while rabid idiots booed them.
At the end the real fans chanted “Argentina ! Argentina!”
They recognised Uniteds best player this season.
In spring of 2004 word went out to Sir Alexs scouts : the only way we can compete with Arsenal is by having athletic gladiators, power players.
And he signed Argentinas Stuart Pearce, who has been a fantastic.
Big, fast, determined, durable, great in the air, Heinze is a top class footballer like Rooney and Ronaldo.
SIR ALEX has to make hard decisions about Giggs, Keane, Scholes. Hes touchy about the goalkeeping problem, refusing to see there is a problem.
If Sir Alex doesnt wanna grapple with those big decisions he could use Glazer as an excuse to walk.
The board must have known the Coolmore mafia would sell their shares to Glazer.
John Magnier and J.P. McManus had big corporate governance issues with United so after that kerfuffle the board must have known that either (1) they were now on board or (2) they were sellers.
I wondered if the Irishmen were hiding in Barbados today, But a friend just told me they are at York races and asked about Glazer they said (something like ) “You buy, you sell. Lets talk about horses.”
I have not seen or heard their exact quote.
ON WEDNESDAY NIGHT ARSENAL PLAYED the best football in the world on the best pitch in the world in unique circumstances.
The Everton game was an exhibition with the pressure off, with Evertons minds on Europe, a farewell to Edu, a welcome back for Sol, a lot of circumstances which will never recur.
Every football match is different, as you know.
This was ten guys helping Denis Bergkamp give a masterclass in modern football.
8 m 1-0 – VAN PERSIE from Bergkamps pass
12m 2-0 PIRES header
37m 3-0 VIEIRA dinks over Richard Wright
50m 4-0 PIRES after ball comes to him off Carsley
68m 5-0 EDU penalty after TH14 kicks ball at an arm
77m 6-0 BERGKAMP Reyes heads, DB10 blocks Weir
85m 7-0 FLAMINI agile volley after Reyes flick.
IT WAS ARSENALS biggest Premiership victory.
Senderos was moved to right centreback.
He needed a compass and set square to figure out his new angles.
Sol should have been man enough to play right side.
Sol wants to face Rooney again. Soon.
Yes, a helluva week.
That was a week that was.
Arsenal win 7-0 and the ManUtdMegastore is bought by a Yank who has never been to Old Trafford
And with that, on a windy day in north London, your online pundit went out for a bracing walk in a green green park under a blue blue sky
Friday 13th May, 2005
PS
My apostrophe s not working.
But never mind. I never liked it anyway.