By Myles Palmer
We get some lovely e-mails from ANR readers, but some ask impossible questions.
This one asks SIX impossible questions and makes me ask myself a few things.
Such as : Am I a clairvoyant? Can I predict Arsenal’s next 38 results? Or have I always said that football is a topical pleasure which we should enjoy from game to game?
Have I always said that the games up to Xmas are all pre-season games to sort out the contenders from the also-rans? And that I hate people asking me to predict in August what will happen in May the following year? I mean, really!!!
He might as well ask me :Would you give the Olympics to Paris because Beijing’s human rights record is so bad? Or would you give it to China BECAUSE their human rights record is so bad? Using the Olympics to open up China to more liberal and democratic western ideas?
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Dear Mr. Palmer,
I have always trusted whatever you say about football.
How do you think Arsenal will fare against Manchester United next season? Any trophies for us? Who do you rate higher, Jeffers or Nistelrooy?
Do you think Bronckhorst will be able to fit into English Premiership football (Viduka did) ? Will Spurs fans let Sol Campbell stay on at Arsenal?.
And last but not least, what do you think of the scariest signing of the season, VERON?
Regards and best wishes, Shudhan Kohli.
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Just this once, I’m gonna reply to each of those questions quickly, off the top of my head.
But the first thing to say is this : Don’t trust me too much. I’m a knowledgeable soccer critic, but not the only one, and far from infallible.
MANCHESTER UNITED?
I think Arsenal will beat them home and away. And I hope we play them in the Champions League Final in Glasgow.
Fergie’s fairytale, winning the European Cup in his home town in the last game of an astonishing career, will be wrecked when Dennis Bergkamp scores the winning goal – with a penalty !
TROPHIES?
I think Arsenal will score more goals this season. And concede less. Cannot see them losing 4-0 at Anfield again, or 6-1 at Old Trafford, or 4-1 in Moscow.So I reckon they will win a trophy or two.
JEFFERS OR NISTELROOY?
Ruud Van Nistelrooy is a very good player but not a super- striker like Van Basten or Klinsmann. For PSV the man I will call RVN scored every type of goal : headers, volleys, rebounds, one-on-ones, chips over the keeper from 25 yards out on the right side. He is a really nice guy and a very good all-round forward who can do a bit of everything.
But he is NOT a phenomenal technician like Bergkamp and he has not really proved himself for Holland in a big tournament yet. I would play him up front with Scholes.
Jeffers is a sharpshooter Arsene has long admired, a left- footed Michael Owen, but possibly more skilful than Owen.
He was on very low wages as a kid at Everton and injury stopped him playing the required number of games to move up the club’s pay scale. He was unhappy about that because he had done very well for the first team.
Later on he did not endear himself to Everton fans by making it clear he wanted a move, even when he was injured.
Jeffers is a fiery, spiky character who should put back the aggression Arsenal have lacked in the box since Ian Wright was in his prime.
As I have predicted in previous pieces, Jeffers will score goals because he will get plenty of good passes.
Arsene loves skill but he also loves guts.That’s why he has just given fiery Freddie Ljungberg a new five-year contract. Arsenal need that kind of spirit and determination in every game.
VAN BRONCKHORST?
If Bergkamp says he’s a very good player, that is good enough for me.I’m hoping he will become a reliable piece of the jigsaw before the Champions League starts.Dutch players are very good technically and tactically, so I expect Gio to be able to read Patrick : know where he is at any moment,know where Patrick wants him to be, anticipate correctly within the whirlwind action of Premiership games.
SOL CAMPBELL?
Sol will be a very important defender for Arsenal over the next four years and I do not think a hate campaign by dimwit Spurs supporters will affect him too much.
A million Arsenal fans will be supporting Sol Campbell and that will mean more to him than a few Muppets who want to shout “Judas!
Most Spurs fans probably realise that the problem is that the team has deteriorated over a ten year period. Spurs won no trophies under Ossie Ardiles, Gerry Francis or Christian Gross, so, after winning the Worthington Cup with George Graham in 1999, the club captain wanted to leave and wanted to stay in London and wanted to play in the Champions League. Most good footballers want to play in the Champions league. I would and so would you.
So Spurs fans should look at the recent history of the club, and the quality of the playing staff, rather than just indulge themselves in a emotional, instinctive reaction to Sol’s decision.
VERON IS SCARY?Veron was intimidated by Patrick Vieira when Lazio lost 2-0 at Highbury, a video I watched again last week.He was pushed back and back and lost the ball to Thierry Henry- Kanu across to Bergkamp on the left, header to Ljungberg, volley, 1-0. I’m sure you remember the goal very well.
However, Veron was good in that game.Better than Nesta or Nedved. He covered a lot of ground and showed more bottle than most of the Lazio players, who faded after the first goal.They did not fancy it.
Veron first caught my eye in the Spring 1998 when playing for Argentina in Rio.
A new young playmaker, strolling, composed, very confident, spraying sweet passes long and short, cruising around more stylishly than any South American midfielder since Cerezo, the fabulously gifted Brazilian who caught my eye in the same way in the Spring of 1978.
Manchester United are a very efficient but rather dull side who pass the ball sidweways too much for my taste.I find Arsenal’s style of play much more exciting. Skinhead Roy Keane ALWAYS passes the ball sideways.
Veron will change that because he has vision and composure and a good range of passes. In the Rio game I mentioned he won the game with a 60-yard crossfield pass to Claudio Lopez, who cut into the box past the stumbling centreback and, from a narrow angle,fired a ferocious shot past the keeper – I cannot remember whether it was Taffarel or not. That was the only goal of the game.This guy was class, clearly.
But Veron will take a while to settle in and live up to the hype from Fergie, who is already saying that his £28 million superstar will become an Old Trafford legend.
Personally,I think Fergie is copying Wenger.He has realised what he is doing wrong and he has signed Veron to release Ryan Giggs with longer passes, just as Petit used to release Overmars, and as Pires and Vieira release Henry now.
Veron can mix it up – get the ball off the back four,hold it,cruise forward with it, shuffle with it,slow it down or speed it up.He has a great engine so he can run away from most of the players who try to tackle him.
So he is a superb player, more skilful than Beckham or Giggs or Scholes. But his arrival does not mean that Man United will win every trophy this season.
13th July 2001.
PS Take care on this Friday 13th !