By Myles Palmer
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SENDEROS is fantastic.
He now looks like a cross between Bobby Moore and Tony Adams.
A cool reader and a big stopper.
Philippe Senderos is the new Bobby Adams.
The ball seems to come to him. Crosses come to him, through balls come to him, shots come to him .He’s a magnet.
What a coup to sign the best teenage defender in Europe !
Another coup to sign Cesc Fabregas, the most mature teenage midfielder in Europe, who is 18 today.
Cesc likes floodlit games. He gets a note from his Mum giving him permission to come home late.
The goals that beat West Brom were a long time coming. For 67 minutes Reyes and van Persie didn’t combine. As soon as they did, it was a goal.
Reyes took the pass form Vieira, shaped to shoot, fizzed the ball across to van Persie, who took two touches and smashed it into the bottom corner of the net.
Edu looked good, like a player Arsenal should keep, so its a shame he’s leaving.
Edu knocked in the second goal in the 93rd minute, off the gloves of the luckless Hoult, who almost saved it.
BUT SENDEROS IS THE BIG NEWS.
A Swiss alp whose composure in the tackle is awesome for a 20-year old.
He got man of the match and his mature interview was better than the match.
But not for what he said, since the man-mountain who speaks more languages than AW can also converse in footiespeak.
By next season, Senderos will be able to speak cockney as well.
WE CAN only admire the sure-footed way Arsene is guiding HMS Arsenal into harbour and into second place ahead of Manchester United.
Sir Alex will be so pissed off at finishing third again.
Senderos will be facing an angry Manchester United team in Cardiff but it won’t bother him too much.
He knows that van Nistelrooy is lame duck without Beckham’s crosses.
Rooney and Ronaldo are the danger men now.
SUNDAY’s Arsenal-Liverpool game will be interesting after last night’s surprise win for Luis Garcia and co against Chelski in the Champions League semi-final at Anfield.
A big ask for Chelsea, without Duff, three days after Bolton and the title.
The weird thing was that the goal in 4 minutes didn’t change things that much.
Chelsea still needed just one goal put them through but Drogba wasn’t up to it and they only had one good shot in two games : a freekick by Frank Lampard in 67 last night.
Two blue shirts in the wall, Tiago behind the wall, moving out of the way, no time for Dudek to see the ball….but he got down and made an electric save.
Dudek did very, very well to see that ball and stop it.
Also, Chelsea had no width. Mourinho dropped his Cafu, Glenn Johnson.
Tonight we will see Milan play PSV with three in midfield, but Cafu giving them width.
LAST WEEK, before the first leg, I thought Chelsea would score, so I lost that bet.
Second leg, I could not call it, so I went for less than two goals. It seemed a good bet. Indeed, it seemed the ONLY bet.
RAFA BENITEZ ?
Top man. Humble man. Top tactician, deploying his thin resources cleverly.
Shame that such a great tactician won’t be in the Champions League next season.
Stevie G worries me.
He doesn’t have a game. He has a big shot, a big tackle, a big pass. But he doesn’t have a game. He should stay and develop a game.
But I don’t think Rafa would be that sad to see the back of him, if he wants to go. Same as Owen
WILL YOU STAY UP to watch the Election results?
I don’t think I will this time.
I prefer to just see the league table in the morning : seats, swings, turnout.
Tony Bliar will get back in with a majority of 60 seats.
I don’t have a major problem with economy, NHS, education, or even with concensus politics, parties occupying the same ground. There is no debate because they all agree, pretty much,
George Galloway calls Iraq the greatest foreign policy calamity of modern times and that’s where I have a problem with Tony Bliar.
I voted for Bliar in 1997 but I didn’t realise I was voting for the privatization of Iraq by George W. Bush’s buddies. It’s not theirs to privatize.
The UK should not be there.
We should NOT be allied to a neo-con Pentagon which says : One superpower, we rule the world, we can do what we like, invade anybody, bully anybody, torture anybody, perpetrate war crimes like Fallujah, bring back the draft if enough working/underclass kids don’t sign up to make big $$$$,$$$,$$$ for the shareholders of the military-industrial complex.
Also, the Iraq war will never be won.
Iraq will not survive as a country.
Labour must stay. But Bliar must go.
And the sooner the better.
May 4th 2005