By Myles Palmer
CHELSEA hammered Newcastle 5-0. No Shearer.
Earlier, Man United won 2-1 at Anfield, a dull game which Sir Alex described as “fantastic”.
Fergie picked a midfield of hatchet men, so you knew it would be 0-0 at half-time.
Both goals by Ryan Giggs, who isn’t as good as Damien Duff.
ARSENAL beat Spurs 2-1 but were too tired to play their beautiful game on Saturday.
Spurs battled well and Pleat’s Spurs are better than Hoddle’s team.
The early goal by Darren Anderton rocked Arsenal.
Rocked me as well. I did not think he would score.
But, funnily enough, before the game I was thinking about the interviews I used to do with Darren.
He told me that one of his favourite goals was at Highbury and said (in his modest, laconic way) something like, “When Jason Dozell put me through and I ran from the halfway line and put it past David Seaman.”
LAUREN had a shocker.An absolute shocker.
He kicked the ball against a Spurs player and it rebounded across the box for Anderton to poach a neat goal in 5 minutes.
Then Lauren played a kamikaze back-pass to Postiga, who has not played since August and is a flaccid novice in this league.
Then Lauren played another crazy back-pass.
Either back-pass could have finished the contest. But Lehmann saved twice.
Postiga’s boot whacked the keeper on the thigh, more careless than malicious.
The German took exception and shoved the striker, a rash thing to do.
Players are sent off for less every week. But I like that aggression. It’s good to see JL signal that he won’t allow any nonsense.
PIRES equalised when Henry’s shot rebounded off Keller, after a run that looked offside, but wasn’t because Carr was playing him on.
Henry was released by a pass from skipper Ray Parlour.
PIRES HAS BEEN GOOD IN THE LAST TWO GAMES.
The bottom line was that Arsenal were poor. But they were better than Spurs. Even when they were losing 1-0, they were better than Spurs.
BUT ARSENAL WERE LUCKY TO WIN with a shot by Freddie which hit Carr’s boot and looped cruelly over Keller.
Freddie looked better when he was cutting in from the left for ten minutes – and that’s where the goal came from.
If I was a genius I would have predicted that Freddie would score a deflected goal before he scored a clean goal.
TWO THINGS about the game were interesting: Vieira and Bergkamp.
Arsenal have not lost while Vieira has been out, but they miss him.
They miss his keep-ball, his composure, his expertise in holding the ball and making the pass at the right moment.
Sol’s passing has been bad in the last two games.
Mainly because Sol misses Patrick more than anybody. He likes to feed short passes to Patrick, who knows this and stays in contact with him almost all the time.
Pat did that a lot when Sol first arrived, to help him out, give him a safe option for a short pass.
By the time Sol bedded in, and became more confident, that link had become a big part of the way Arsenal play in their own half, so they kept it going. It’s a natural thing for a centreback and an anchorman to do anyway.
Bergkamp came on in MIDFIELD with Parlour when Gilberto was taken off.
That improved things a lot. As he did when he played midfield in that spell against Kiev.
He doesn’t have the sharpness, the spurt over five yards, where he used to glide away from defenders and shoot.
Dennis can’t do that now.But he still has vision and strength and he can give shape to people around him by slowing a game down, or speeding it up, as required.
Whether he can still juggle the ball and play a magical short pass, like the one that gave Freddie the final goal in the 3-1 win against Juventus, I now doubt.
After 15 minutes with Parlour and Bergkamp in midfield, which changed the game, Arsene then brought Edu on and put Bergkamp up front.They did not play as well after that.
But Arsenal are still top of the table.
Remember only this : they got out of jail against Spurs, just as they got out of jail against Kiev.
Last season they played brilliant,fluid football.
This season they are scrapping to win games by one goal. And that is fine. It’s a good sequence now.
Interesting that all the English clubs won in the Champions League in midweek, and all three won their next domestic game. That’s not easy.
AC Milan could only draw 0-0 at Parma.
Real Madrid had a nightmare in Seville, going 3-0 down in the first 14 minutes and losing 4-1.
Since Roberto Carlos pulled that thigh muscle in Belgrade, Madrid have been a shambles.
But the best team in Europe showed why they are the best today.
JUVENTUS missed a penalty and went a goal down to Udinese and then came back to win 4-1.
Beat that, Mr Ranieri !
9th November 2003