ARSENAL are not good enough to rest Adebayor.
The attack isn’t good enough, the defence isn’t good enough, the midfield isn’t good enough, and the partnerships aren’t good enough.
If something’s happening in your team (and you always hope something is happening), go with it. Don’t bench it. Don’t snuff it out.
By the time Adebayor, the man of the moment, came on, Arsenal were 2-0 down. He soon scored. Then he had a hand in the equaliser by Gilberto. His impact was immediate and huge
But both goals were assists by Walcott on the right flank.And Walcott came on for Ljungberg , who did a hamstring, a bad blow for Arsemal after only five minutes.
ARSENE WENGER apparently believes that all the best athletes come from the same gene pool in West Africa, which was dispersed by the slave trade.
Believing that, he inexplicably “rests” an in-form young powerhouse from Togo in order to start the lightweight Aliadiere, who was pitiful. He was hopeless. To say Aliadiere was anonymous is to exaggerate. He wasn’t that good.
Picking Aliadiere was the worst selection decision since Song came in for Fabregas at Fulham, where Arsenal lost 2-1. You can’t drop a player as good as Fabregas and replace him with a player as bad as Song. And you can’t drop a striker as powerful as Adebayor and replace him with one as feeble as Aliadiere.
Arsenal 2 Portsmouth 2 ????
They needed a win. But the manager picked the wrong team. A shame, but they all do it.
But what a ball from Walcott for Adebayor’s goal ! What a ball that was ! He raced onto Hleb’s pass inside the left back, looked up, and measured a very inviting low cross which gave his centre forward a great chance from ten yards. Cafu could not have done it better.
Then Walcott hooked back an awkward ball on the right side, first time, and Gilberto, anticipating beautifully, started to move for the chance before it was a chance, before the ball even started to go there, and hit his shot low into the far side of the goal.
In the photos Gilberto’s body position was textbook, well balanced, leaning forward, head down, just like Pele. If he had not anticipated so well, Gilberto could have never have got there in time to shoot correctly.
Great goal, skipper.You are giving this team a lot at a time when it needs a lot.
At the moment Arsenal’s league campaign is not being interrupted by internationals or Champions League games but they are still struggling. They have drawn three of their last four games in all competitions.
AN EXCITING weekend of Premiership football ended with Chelsea, now only two points behind Man United, re-installed as title favourites
Chelsea got three goals and three points after being behind twice at Everton. Arteta scored with a supercool penalty after a foul by Boulharouz on teenage striker Amichebe, Ballack hit a terrific free-kick which went in off the post and Tim Howard’s back, Yobo headed a corner to put Everton 2-1 up, Lampard was given room to fire a swerving equaliser, and the winner came via Route 1 : Hilario’s 60-yard kick was headed on by Shevchenko to Drogba, who chested it and blasted a 30-yard Goal of the Month.
MANCHESTER UNITED were beaten 1-0 by Alan Curbishley’s vibrant, muscular West Ham, the unsettled Reo-Coker scoring the winner in 75 minutes. This was the West Ham of last season !
Rooney was ridiculously off-form and the revived Hammers handed Curbs a career-first victory over Man United.
Maybe United were due a game where the limitations of Carrick-Scholes would be shown up. And where the fragility of Giggs-Saha-Rooney-Ronaldo would be shown up. They depend on pace, momentum, and individual moments of brilliance.Their one-touch passing is fabulous when they combine at pace but it did not really click here. When Ronaldo did shoot fiercely from inside the box, Robert Green made an electric save, low down, knocking the shot away with his left wrist.
When United back four lost their shape, sub Teddy Sheringham slotted a crafty pass into Harewood, who outmuscled Rio Ferdinand to play a shor pass across the goal and give Reo-Coker a tap-in. If Green and Reo-Coker carry on playing like this, the Hammers will not be relegated.
And it will be very interesting to see what the on-loan Henrik Larsson, 35, can add to Man United when he joins them in two weeks.
At the moment, Chelsea look super-strimg mentally, physically and tactically.When the Everton game got tough he needed Ballack to deliver, Lampard to deliver, Drogba to deliver, they did.Everything they were supposed to do, they did.
But let’s hope Jose Mourinho walks at the end of the season.Peter Kenyon apparently thinks he might and is said to have put out feelers already.
Mourinho’s nastiness disfigures our league and our football. His raving about an alleged “dive” by Andy Johnson was just horrible. And typical of a thoroughly unpleasant little man. Not to mention his charging out of his technical area to celebrate Drogba’s spectacular winner. Mourinho was never a player, and it shows. Playing the game would have taught him how to win, how to lose, when to celebrate, how to celebrate.
LIVERPOOL won 3-0 at Charlton, predictably.
Months ago I heard that the arrival of Dennis Romedahl on big wages upset the dressing room. Then the arrival of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink on huge wages upset the dressing room even more.
If Hasselbaink walked around, and stood still, while playing for Chelsea four years ago, why would he run around for Charlton? JFH is the laziest striker I’ve ever seen and this was,without a doubt, the most disgraceful performance of his career.But I knew Charlton were doomed many weeks ago.