EVERTON WAS a game where I just didn’t believe Arsenal would score.
Just before half-time I turned to the guy on my right, a thirtysomething gent who was with his wife and young son.
“D’you think they’ll score?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said, smiling.
Eventually, Robin van Persie, Arsenal’s least effective player, took two free-kicks.The first one hit the wall and the second, from a more central position, was blasted in for 1-1.
It WAS a free-kick, by the way. Carsley’s left knee knocked the back of Rosicky’s right thigh as he was dribbling towards the D
VERDICT :
1. Henry was thinking about CSKA Moscow. For him this was the game before the big game.
2. Rosicky was Arsenal’s best player.
3.Arsene Wenger has nobody on the left. He sold Reyes and let Pires go and he knows that Rosicky is wasted on the left so he has stopped putting him there. And he knows that van Persie, while left-footed, is clumsy and awkward in that position. After the goal, RVP moved to the right side and played better. He was more relaxed, passed the ball quicker, kept moves going. He was better on the right and better after the goal.
Van Persie did very well to beat left back Lescott on the line and hang up a cross to the far post which Rosicky headed against Phil Neville’s upper arm. We had a good angle on that and saw Neville move his arm to block the ball three yards from the post.But if a ref does not have that angle he cannot see the handball properly.He is guessing.And if he is guessing, he can’t give a penalty.
4. Everton’s time-wasting was the most cynical I’ve ever seen by an English club. It started in the first half and went on into injury time.
5. Theo Walcott was fantastic. But he came on at right back, so he didn’t have a chance to win the game, which he might have done if he had been deployed further forward. He came on, got a tackle in, looked mature, passed the ball beautifully. And Walcott scared the Everton players, who backed off him.
6. Arsenal get nothing from corners and still concede from corners, as Ian Grant noted.
On the whole, I trust my gut reaction to an event. It’s very easy to write other stuff the next day or the day after that. It’s easy to forget your first reaction and let your thoughts mutate into something else. I do it all the time.
But I’ve learned to go with what I’m thinking as I’m walking up the road thirty seconds after leaving the venue. I reckon that reaction is more real, more true, more honest.
Leaving The Kilburn Tricyle cinema after The History Boys it was, “It’s a celebration of the boys but also a debunking of the system.”
With this Everton game it was, “Arsenal are the REM of football. They’re classy.They do what they do very well. And I respect what they do.But they don’t excite me.”
As you know, a football match means something slightly different to each spectator.
How was it for me? Unsatisfying.
I had the hump when I got home at 6pm and Michael was in the hall, about to go upstairs.
“Thierry Henry was useless, ” I said, “I’d have taken him off at half time.”
Caroline was due home from uni so I went in the lounge and found her watching TV and she stood up and gave me a hug and then I went in the kitchen.
“Are you alright, love?” said Jan.
“I’ll be alright when I’ve seen Rooney’s hat-trick,” I replied.
How was it for you? That’s how it was for me. I’m sorry but that’s how it was for me.I didn’t get off on Arsenal. I could tell they wouldn’t win. I never believed they would win. Indeed, I’d predicted a 1-1 draw on Newstalk 106 on Friday night.
However, watching Manchester United thump Bolton 4-0 was real rock & roll.
Big Vidic headed crosses out of his box, cool Carrick, releasing pace with style, made two killer passes from the halfway line, fireball Rooney scored three goals that Samuel Eto’o would have loved to score. The Red Devils had power, skill, pace, momentum, thrust, penetration. They were thrilling.
So that’s what I thought of Saturday, October 28 : Arsenal are REM and Man United are the Rolling Stones. One excites me, the other doesn’t.
That was my disappointing Saturday. I’ll get over it. It’s one game, one Saturday, one man’s reaction. It’s only one day in a nine-month season.
I’ll have other Saturdays, better Saturdays, and so will you.