By Myles Palmer
On the way home from Highbury I wondered about the ten minutes between the Bayern goals.
What had Arsenal done in those ten minutes?
My video post-mortem told the story. I studied those ten minutes in forensic detail and confirmed that Arsenal gave the ball away repeatedly for….. ten minutes.
Henry tried to find Ljungberg with a pass into the box which was yards short (1), Vieira gently bumped Effenberg, who played for a free-kick because he was boxed in by the touchline (2), Manninger punted the ball to Kuffour (3), Grimandi won a loose ball in the centre circle but could
only push it through to Linke (4), Kanu headed Manninger’s punt through to Kahn (5),Cole volleyed Adams’s header to a Bayern midfielder(6),a Cole clearance again found Linke(7), Pires made a good run, Effenberg tackled and Pires won the throw (8), Pires then lost the ball to Scholl, but at least he was trying to slow the game down and keep the ball (9).
Then Jeremies tanked down the left wing and crossed blind. Keown headed the ball out.
Sforza volleyed it forward to Elber, then ran for a one-two that was never going to happen because Elber’s flick was too far ahead of him. So Sforza brushed Ljungberg and tumbled just outside the box, claiming a shirt-tug.
It was a blatant dive.The replay showed only minimal contact on Sforza’s elbow.
Referee Stefano Braschi should have waved play on. But he gave a free-kick, a crucial errror.
Arsenal had not put two passes together for ten minutes. Now they had conceded a free-kick in a dangerous area.
The wall lined up, Scholl dummied, Ljungberg encroached, Scholl appealed, Tarnat smacked the free-kick into the wall, and Braschi booked Ljungberg and ordered a re-take.
Fair enough. Dummying a free kick is a legitimate tactic because encroachment is so common.
Manninger did not read Scholl’s intent as he placed the ball.Tarnat stood aside.
It always looked as if Scholl would take the free-kick. The player who takes the free-kick is usually the one who places the ball. In 49 cases out of 50 the placer is the kicker.
Then Scholl whipped a fast floater over the tallest player in the wall, Adams. Although the shot was fairly straight, only swerving by a yard,Manninger did not dive and the score was 2-2.
If Lee Dixon had been on the line the ball would have gone over his head.But he might have distracted Scholl and made him aim at the other side
So Arsenal lost two points due to a soft free-kick award. Due to a clever dive by Sforza, who admitted the next day that he had handled a shot in the first half.
That’s football, I guess.
Bayern played more normally in the second half, but they saved the game by diving.
A goal down, they changed their team at half-time, changed their attitude, raised their tempo – and promptly went 2-0 down. So that did not work. That proved that playing Arsenal at their own game was suicide.
So the Germans redoubled their diving efforts.And at 2-2 the Bayern players carried on diving in the same sickening manner.
Maybe they believe that, having been unluckily beaten by Manchester United’s late goals in the Champions League Final, they are somehow entitled to dive their way into another final, or at least another crack at Man Utd.
Arsenal are bottom of Group C with one point from the first two games, but February 13th will be here soon and their Champions League fate is still in their own hands.
They can beat Lyon twice, and beat Spartak Moscow too, if they can learn to use more than two gears.
At the moment Arsenal play football in top gear and overdrive. They lack the ability to slow a game down, speed it up, and slow it down again.
Football has three principles : possession, support and penetration. A better balance between the three principles is needed.
The team’s biggest fault going into 2001 is exactly the same as their biggest fault when it was peaking in 1998 : they concentrate too much on penetration at the expense of possession and support.
Whether Arsene Wenger wants to adjust the emphasis, or can do so without a left-footed ball-holder who can slow the game down, I don’t know.
My guess is that Arsene knows exactly what the problem is and he knew it two years ago.
But that type of player does not grow on trees.If you have one you don’t sell him.
I remember talking to Paul Dickov once and he said Stefan Schwarz was great because he could slow the game down.
Startled by Paul’s comment at the time, I gradually came to see that it was a perceptive remark.
Arsenal need a Paul Davis, a Schwarz, to give the team more composure and balance and creativity. And soon.
All we want for Christmas is an Edu.
I have predicted for months that Edu will sign and be the missing piece of the jigsaw. The latest noises suggest this is the case.
8th December 2000.