Arsenal 2 Newcastle 0
In a team game, it’s teamwork and team spirit that makes you successful.We are seeing that clearly this season
Arsenal are top of the table because their teamwork is much more fluent than that of Manchester United, Liverpool and Manchester City.
Their rhythmic pass-and-move style makes attacking football look easy and their confidence makes winning look inevitable.The first team plays like that, the Carling Cup team plays the same, and reports suggest the Under-18 team is just as good.
It’s one man’s vision, one man’s attacking philosophy, one man’s vast knowledge, and one man’s unbelievable stubbornness which has produced this harvest of total football and promises to give us, post-Bosman, a French club that plays like Ajax did in the Seventies. It’s Ajax with Brazilians, Africans and Spaniards as well as Frenchmen.
Can Arsenal win three European Cups as Ajax did? Well, let’s win one first.
When Arsene’s team was stuttering I was always the first to say : he needs a No.2, he doesn’t delegate, he doesn’t teach defence, the set-pieces are rubbish, he needs a six foot four centreback, and so on. I doubted whether last season was, as they say, “one in the bank”.
But when it’s working, it’s a winning formula.
In the Carling Cup last night, Newcastle could not compete and lost 2-0 at the Emirates as late goals by Bendtner and Denilson put Arsenal into Saturday’s draw.
A remarkable game in which Song played well at centreback, Diarra made a handsome debut, Fabianski showed that he can be as good as Lehmann, and Traore was astounding at left back, producing a superb cross for Bendtner to head the first goal.
Denilson made his sixth start for Arsenal in last year’s Carling Cup Final in Cardiff and six months later he finished off Newcastle with a stunning shot into the top corner. He hit the postage stamp and gave Shay Given no chance.
Diarra caught my eye as soon as he played for Chelsea, a really class player, a compact, skilful, tenacious athlete who can time his tackles and use the ball in tight positions. As Brian Clough always said, the sign of a class player is the ability to pass under pressure.
Diarra can be Makelele with pace. Mourinho rated him very highly and wanted to keep him. Kenyon wanted to flog him but not to Arsenal. But Avram Grant, a decent man who knows footballers, said, “Look the lad doesn’t want play for us, he wants to join Arsenal, let him go.” So Chelsea sold a terrific player for a price Wenger now says was £2 million !
Lassana Diarra has left a dysfunctional, political club, and a bitterly divided dressing room, and now thinks he’s in paradise.
Arsenal will beat West Ham late in the game if they don’t beat them early in the game. They now score three types of goals that they rarely scored last year. they score with shots from outside the box. They score with headers. And they score little goals from three yards and five yards.
At Spurs, Daniel Levy destroyed the team and Martin Jol when he sold Michael Carrick to Manchester United for £18 million.
Jol was building his team around Carrick. And Levy now has to again deny that Jol is about to be sacked. And he even denied that Damien Comolli was watching Barcelona v Sevilla. Comolli is the guy who bought Zokora and said he was better than Carrick ! How ridiculous ! Levy said Comolli was watching Southampton v Barnsley ! Why? Have the Saints got another player as good as Gareth Bale?
In the meantime, Chelsea go to Hull City tonight in the carling Cup. Abramovich is taking 10 bodyguards to protect him from Chelsea fans ! How ridiculous is that ?
(Plenty more needs saying about Arsenal – I’ll answer some questions about Adebayor and RVP tomorrow and then do a piece about the Big Four finding it harder this season)
ARSENAL(4-4-2): Fabianski; Justin Hoyte, Song, Senderos, Traoré; Eboué (Diaby, 65), Diarra, Denilson, Walcott; Eduardo (Merida, 90), Bendtner. Subs not used: Lansbury, Mannone (gk), Gavin Hoyte.
NEWCASTLE (4-5-1): Given; Beye, Taylor, Rozehnal, Enrique; Milner (Butt, 69) , Alan Smith, Faye, N’Zogbia, Amoebi (Emre, 60); Martins. Subs not used: Geremi, Edgar, Forster (gk).
Referee: Howard Webb (West Yorkshire).