By Myles Palmer
What stuck out a mile in the Chelsea-Spurs semi was the partnership.
I love strike partners who stay in the middle of the field, get the ball to feet and look for each other, make runs off each other, dummy the pass and sprint for a ball behind the defence.
Who have a rapport, an understanding that creates openings.
Hasselbaink and Gudjohnsen are fantastic. Both strong, brave boys, both can score goals and find each other with sharp passes.
The first goal, when Gudjohnsen played a perfect ball through for Hasselbaink, was a classic.
Les Ferdinand equalised and then JFH blasted the winner with a swerving 30 yard free-kick.
Man United don’t play like that.They don’t have a regular front two these days.
Arsenal don’t – their two goalscorers often start their runs from wide positions : Henry and Ljungberg.
Those two play a different game, not passing to each other that much. Instead, they make runs for Kanu’s passes and Pires’s passes.
Spurs don’t play with twin strikers.
Leeds now do, with Viduka and Fowler, but they lack pace, so they are not as formidable as Jimmy Floyd and Eidur G.
Liverpool don’t play that way either because Heskey goes wide a lot
So one of the key questions is : Can Anelka support Owen in the same way that Gudjohnsen supports Hasselbaink?
When Anelka first arrived as a 17-year old, Arsene thought he was more of a half-striker, more of a deputy for Bergkamp, not a spearhead, an understudy for Ian Wright.
We won’t know till Sunday whether Michael Owen is 100% fit.
He has missed the last two games with an ankle injury. He will want to play because he hated losing to Arsenal’s ten men at Anfield 21 days ago. So I think Owen will play whether he is fit or not.
Southampton deserved their 2-0 win on Wednesday night because Liverpool were so negative and boring.
They are a deeply unattractive team who depend far too much on Owen.
They have too many players who want to do a bit on the ball before passing. Too many inside forwards – Smicer, Berger, Murphy, Litmanen,McAllister even – make their style a bit laborious
Gerrard and Hamann are half backs who mostly win in and give it, rather than run with it.
But all the others are inside forwards and none is as canny or accurate as Robert Pires, who is like a quicker John Robertson, the Forest genius who was a wide playmaker, an inside forward foxing people by creating mayhem from the touchline.
So Liverpool’s style is not as refined as Arsenal’s, not as original, not as specific, not as attractive or penetrating.
But Liverpool’s dour style has other qualities.They defend so ruggedly that they can keep clean sheets, or could until recently.
They have Henchoz, a defender who is apparently bombproof. He can handle the ball, or bring people down in the box, and it’s never a penalty.
At Southampton it was a shame for sub John Arne Riise to head an own goal with his first touch.
Riise is a terrific little player who will trouble Arsenal on Sunday.
How will Gooners react to seeing Anelka play against them?
I think most Arsenal fans hate him and will give him a hard time.
My guess is that Anelka will be booed as he has never been booed before and he won’t be able to handle the abuse.
He made a stupid, greedy, premature move to Real Madrid, soon got suspended for 45 days from training – and then phoned up Arsene to ask for advice! What gall!
But who can forget Anelka’s first goal at Highbury, that stunning shot past Schmeichel?
Gary Neville backed off and – bang! A rocket inside the near post! What skill! What power!
The tastiest goal I ever saw him score was for France in Moscow. A nice little pass from Zidane, cruises into the left side of the box and clips the ball, left-footed, over the keeper’s body.
A goal of incredible class for a kid. I thought : If he can do that, he can do anything,
But I was disgusted by the way he treated Arsene Wenger. His selfish behaviour demonstrated a degree of ingratitude that I previously thought existed only in musicians, not footballers.
I especially hated the way Anelka signed a new five-year contract to get a pay rise, but had no intention of honouring that contract.
I was so glad when he was eventually sold. Anelka was an Arsenal player for 29 months, arriving in March 1997 and leaving in August 1999.
But he was sold so late in the summer, on August 1st, that he wrecked the following season, as I explained in The Professor.
In the book, The Season of Anelka takes up pages 125 to 178. It is the second-longest of ten chapters.
Now he’s back and I don’t want to write about him again. It’s too soon.For me, 2022 would be too soon to write about Anelka again.
I expect Arsenal to beat Liverpool on Sunday, perhaps handsomely.They will win, even without Cole and Parlour.
It’s a great time to play Liverpool, when they are struggling with one win in their last seven games.
And I DON’T expect Anelka to score. Certainly, if he does as much as Petit did for Chelsea at Highbury, we will not know he is on the pitch.(If Ranieri had played Dalla Bona that day Chelsea would probably have drawn instead of losing.)
Liverpool keeper Jerzy Dudek probably knows that Arsenal have had more shots than any other team.
They’ve had 296 shots in 20 games – an average of 14 shots a game.
The Pole is the best keeper in the Premiership right now, as good as Cudicini.
Dudek may be required to prove that on Sunday. He might have 12 or 15 shots aimed at him with six or seven on target.
If Dudek has a blinder, and wins the game for Liverpool, or even draws it, Gooners will wish he had signed for Arsenal, which he wanted to do.
What exactly happened between AFC and PSV Eindhoven? We don’t know – yet.
Yellow cards might be important on Sunday. Vieira now has seven yellows, Pires four, Keown four.
If Vieira gets booked again he will miss the Liverpool FA Cup game and the Blackburn game on the 30th.
10th January 2002.
P.S. The Professor is sold out in some shops but will be reprinted by Virgin next week.
I hope they will be re-stocking it in W.H. Smith in Brent Cross. My daughter regularly reports its absence from that key retail outlet in the heart of Goonerland.
But the boys on the matchday stall in Avenell Road are still selling it for £15.
And I’ve had appreciative messages from Brazil and LA this week, which is nice. Global game, global club, global book….