By Myles Palmer
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ON REFLECTION, a draw would be a decent result for Arsenal.
Yes, Arsenal are good enough to score first, but Chelsea might be good enough to come back and win.
If Chelsea score first, who knows?
When an attacking team plays away to a counter-attacking team, it might be very bad news if the counter-attacking team scores first
When Arsenal scored first at Highbury, Chelsea equalised, Arsenal scored again, controversially, and Chelsea equalised again and it ended 2-2.
There is not much between these teams in one 90-minute match.
DROGBA was the difference in Cardiff, scoring twice when Senderos had a shaky game without Gilberto’s protection.
Drogba is a late developer who is still developing.
He mucked about in the French lower leagues, had one great season for Marseilles, came to Chelsea, looked great in some games, sloppy in others.
Drogba plays in a very balanced team, with a logical manager who finds it easy to explain why he needs Essien to complete his squad.
But when Drogba is playing, Lampard cannot make the runs into scoring positions that he makes when he has Robben, Duff and Gudjohnsen to play him into those positions.
ON FRIDAY, Arsene talked about having to leave good players on the bench, which has already caused rumblings from Carvallho and Robben in the Chelsea camp.
Arsene said, “One of the greatest difficulties of our job is we create eleven unemployed people every Friday and on Monday we employ them again, and act as if nothing happened. On Friday you say to eleven people, ‘Listen, you have worked very hard, but you will not be employed over the weekend.’ “
SUMMING UP, Chelsea v Arsenal is not a six-pointer.
Arsenal’s next seven Premierhip games are Fulham, Middlesbrough, Everton, West Ham, Birmingham, West Brom and Man City.
Given the right bounce of the ball, and luck with injuries, Arsenal can win those seven games.
But can they beat Chelsea? It’s a tough one.
I see it as a 1-1.
FOUR MONTHS AGO in Manchester my friend Doug met a music business colleague, who is an Arsenal fan.
The guy said that he reads ANR.
Doug did not let on that he knew me.
“Oh, you don’t read THAT, do you?”
“Yeah, his predictions haven’t been very good this season.”
IT IS UNDENIABLE that four or five times I said Arsenal would win. And they didn’t.
That was because the team did not play as well as I expected.
What can I say? That’s football.
LAST WEEK I said Manchester United would keep clean sheets with Edwin van der Sar. Now Sir Alex has admitted he should have signed Edwin six years ago.
Aston Villa were grim today but United could not break them down because van Nistelrooy was plumbing new depths of clumsiness.
Then they brought on Cristiano Ronaldo and Heinze to crank up the tempo.
In 66, Rio Ferdinand broke downfield, Ronaldo crossed, the ball flicked off a defender’s head, and Van Nistelrooy poked it in at the far post.
Without momentum, Man United are rubbish.
With momentum, they look dangerous.
Many of their games will be as dull as this because Sir Alex now knows that in most games he will only need to score once.
So he will say : “You’ve got 90 minutes to score the goal. So don’t panic, just keep playing, and the goal will come.”
THIS WEEK I’ve struggled to keep up with the football news because England, for the first time ever, played on my birthday.
By the time we came indoors from the barbecue the England game was over and we watched the second half of France 3 Ivory Coast 0, flicking over to get the Copenhagen score, which we eventually saw on Sky Sports News : Denmark 4 England 1.
Thursday I was in Brighton, Friday afternoon I was out, but I eventually managed to see all of the France game, plus the Denmark highlights.
Defoe was disappointing in a “team” of slackadaisical multi-millionaires.
Apart from Rooney and Beckham, none of them could be arsed.
IN MONTPELLIER, Vieira dropped out during the warm-up with a pain in his thigh.
ZIDANE was magnificent.
A strong, cunning leader, very creative, taking pressure off others, oozing disguise and two-footed craft. He quit because he wasn’t enjoying it but now that he is back, France will qualify.
The difference between France and Ivory Coast was like the difference between Chelsea and Wigan : finishing.
France scored two goals from corners, Gallas and Zidane, then Henry raced beyond the last defender onto a wicked pass by Dhorasoo, held off the foul, regained his balance, waltzed round the keeper, slotted sweetly from a narrow angle – a very good goal.
I think John Terry respects Thierry.
JT knows that Thierry can score goals like that at any time.
August 21st 2005