By Myles Palmer
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ARSENAL were rubbish for the first 37 minutes, then good for 10 minutes, into stoppage time.
They didn’t beat Ajax and didn’t score – but they didn’t lose.
0-0 was always possible, even likely.
My tip on the team was wrong -Fabregas did not start.
Bright runs by Lauren and Senderos lifted the end of the first half but by then Ian Grant and I were gasping for a cup of tea, so we went downstairs to a kiosk where they sell smoked salmon bagels and watched the action on a flatscreen TV on the corridor wall.
Eboue won a corner on the right and Reyes took it and Ajax could not clear and the ball came back to Reyes and he took the ball into the box on the right side and Galasek lunged and missed it and Reyes went down.
It didn’t look like a penalty.
On the replay, it looked like a dive.
HENRY took the penalty and stroked it wide.
My Golden Rule : Soft penalties are missed or saved 9 times out of 10.
Henry has missed 8 out of 30 penalties for Arsenal.
SECOND HALF, Quincy was better.
Van Persie came on to huge cheers.The crowd love him now.
He played well and soon zigzagged preposterously into a shooting position and hit the keeper’s leg.
That ignited the crowd.
But, mostly, there was no atmosphere.
Most of the noise came from the Ajax fans.
A damp night, easily forgotten.
Much ado about 0-0.
Two clubs who had already qualified. What did you expect?
It wasn’t a real game and was never gonna be a real game.
Very disappointed with Wesley Sneijder ! Would not have known he was playing. I expected a two-footed display of class from Wesley but instead I got the invisible man.
BUT THE 0-0 was not the bad news.
The bad news was Benfica 2 Man United 1.
That means Man United will now focus on finishing second in the Premiership.
But the issue there is not what United focus on.
The issue is : Are they good enough?
Is Man United’s midfield good enough?
No !
Roy Keane was right.
Everything Roy said was right.
It’s a team with too many Rolex-wearing and under-motivated playboys and I always imagine room-mates Rooney and Rio, playing computer games and giggling the night away.
STILL, ARSENAL can finish second if they buy experience in the window.
The kids were raw last night, even against young opponents.
The gap between academy football and real football is huge. It’s massive.
They should be eased into the team one at a time.
Quincy was comically immature in the first half. The other kids were immature too.
In sum, AW loves his young players too much.
They are not ready yet.
But without a strong No 2 telling him that we need experience, he might NOT buy experience in January.
He doesn’t like stopgaps.
He likes his grand vision of development.
And he doesn’t want the promising boys in his £12 million kindergarten to have new arrivals putting their noses out of joint.
It’s now up to Arsene to be realistic.
He has decisions to make and if he fudges it, like last January, he will have to live with the consequences.
As of this moment, on a damp Thursday morning, I’m not betting on Arsene Wenger being realistic.
He needs a centreback, a left back and a hard man who can pass the ball.
He needs three players in their mid-twenties or late twenties. Players who can do a job now.
But I don’t think he will buy them because that is not his way.
Therefore I will not be commenting on every transfer story here.
I’LL BELIEVE IT WHEN IT HAPPENS.
If it happens.
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ARSENAL (4-5-1): Almunia; Eboue, Touré, Senderos, Lauren (Gilbert, 75); Owusu-Abeyie, Larsson, Flamini, Hleb (Fabregas, 62), Reyes (Van Persie, 65); Henry.
Subs not used: Poom (keeper), Cygan, Djourou, Lupoli.
AJAX (4-3-3): Stekelenburg; Heitinga, Grygera (Trabelsi, 15), Vermaelen, Juanfran; Maduro (De Jong, 29), Galasek, Sneijder; Pienaar, Rosenberg, Boukhari (Babel, 80).
Subs not used: Lobont (keeper), Rosales, Anastasiou, Lindenbergh.
Referee: E Iturralde Gonzalez (Spain).
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Maybe Friday night’s World Cup draw will be exciting.
Sven will use his first team in that competition, so England will not play any 0-0s in Germany.
That is my first World Cup prediction : no nil nils for Engerland.
December 8th 2005.