Preview : Why Arsenal will edge a 50/50 final against Chelsea
Most FA Cup Finals are 50/50 games and Cardiff will be no exception.
Ranieri’s Blues are a flair team with tons of firepower.
They have experience in key positions and a goalkeeper, Carlo Cudicini, who could make as many saves as Henchoz and Westerveld did last year.
However, Arsenal are superior mentally,and maybe athletically.
Wenger’s heroes have been playing cup finals twice a week and have handled the pressure very well.
And their main pressure has been the title race, not Cardiff, although the FA Cup Final is always a nice game to win.
There will be THOUSANDS of previews of this game. It’s difficult to write anything original about it, so I’ll just type a few lines off the top of my head. (Don’t I always?)
Two questions stand out, really.Tony Adams and Thierry Henry.
Will Arsene play Adams-Campbell or Keown-Campbell?
Personally, I’d play Keown because he can handle Hasselbaink, in as much as anybody can handle a striker as explosive as Hasselbaink.
Keown made some GREAT tackles on Owen last year.
Also, Sol is better on the left side and he plays right side when Tony is there.
Three weeks ago I wondered whether Thierry Henry might bottle it again.
Last year’s final scarred the Arsenal players and it must have scarred Henry more than the others. He might feel he is returning to the scene of an accident. He shouldn’t, but he might.
Clearly,Henry wants to make it up to the club and the fans.He missed sitters last year.He knows he blew it. If he blew it again and Arsenal lost he might never be the same player because he takes these things to heart.
The team misses Robert Pires a lot, but they have played remarkably well since he was injured. Henry misses Pires because those two pass to each other a lot and make runs for each other.
So, for Henry, each game without Pires is a hard game. He has done some good things lately but he has not scored in his last four games.
Last year he was upstaged by Michael Owen. This year he might be upstaged by Hasselbaink or Gudjohnsen.
So, for Thierry Henry, this is a MASSIVE game. Its bigger for him than it is for the other players. He does not want to let people down, or let the manager down.
Henry badly wants to produce a performance on Saturday. He badly wants to score.He will be nervous.
Overall, the advantage is with Arsenal. They were there last year and lost, undeservedly. They want to make up for that.
They are in form with 11 straight Premiership wins, an amazing record
They are very hungry and very determined and they are facing a Chelsea team that is schizophrenic, that blows hot and cold.
Arsenal want this one. They want it, I think, a lot more than Chelsea, for that reason. To set the record straight, to right a wrong.
For me, this situation is a bit like the semi-finals against Spurs at Wembley.
Having lost the first one to Gazza’s free-kick in 1991 there was no way on this earth that Arsenal were gonna lose the second one in 1993.
BUT REMEMBER THIS : THE PREMIERSHIP IS MORE IMPORTANT.
And the FA Cup Final is draining. Win or lose, it is a very draining game.
The wrong preparation for a visit to Old Trafford on Wednesday night. Even if you don’t pick up any new knocks.
In sum, a fascinating contest, but not one I can preview tactically, since we do not know who is playing. But Cudicini will make saves from Ljungberg. How many, how good, nobody knows.
But I’m empty-headed tonight. No ideas, no spark.If I have any further thoughts I will write them tomorrow.
If not, enjoy the event. It should be an entertaining battle with both sides trying to play football.
It’s a great day in the English way of life, as former Chelsea boss Dave Sexton once said.
My life is measured out in Cup Finals, but that’s another story….
2nd May 2002.
Match report : Chelsea make Arsenal work hard for their eighth FA Cup
___________________
Arsenal 2 Chelsea 0
____________________
Parlour 70, Ljungberg 79
_________________________
Fantastic opportunism and a magnificent back five won an eighth FA Cup for Arsenal at Cardiff this afternoon.
Against the run of play, Ray Parlour broke down the middle and found there was no pass on for him. So he had a pop and scored from 22 yards.
Midfield?Arsenal were outplayed.
Attack? Henry and Wiltord were underhitting passes and
Bergkamp had to come very deep to get the ball.
Ranieri got Chelsea to play like an Italian club, pushing up,closing down, giving nothing away in midfield.
They pressed fiercely throughout, with Lampard doing
remarkably well against Vieira, whose passing was shabby.
So it was a tight, tense, tactical game.
Arsenal had 40 yards of green, green grass to attack behind Desailly and his thick blue line.
Where Liverpool had defended the box last year, and allowed Arsenal the space to pulverise them with slick, stylish passing moves, Chelsea defended the halfway line and squeezed Bergkamp out of the holes and channels he uses to play his match-winning passes.
Ranieri knew that Bergkamp and Ljungberg were the biggest threats, and this was the best way to stop them.
There was a huge area that should have been exploited by well-timed runs. But Wiltord and Henry can’t do that, so the attack was stifled, castrated, nullified.
Arsenal only got behind the Chelsea defence twice in the whole game.
Once, after 15 minutes, Vieira picked out Bergkamp’s run with a superb diagonal pass from the halfway line but his header floated over Cudicini, who came and stopped.
It was an inviting chance and DB should have scored.He headed the ball pretty straight(looping up, but straight) but he was almost level with the far post.
The goal is 24 feet wide and he must have thought he was within the width of the goal. So his header drifted two feet wide of the post with Cudicini in no-mans land.
Second time was Freddie’s goal.
He picked the ball up inside his own half, spurted forward with immense drive and optimism, beyond the blue line and into the green, green acres, holding off sub John Terry, a guy twice his size, stumbled, recovered and then Bergkamped it : he hit his shot with the inside of his right foot and it curled round the keeper and into the net for 2-0.
An incredibly gutsy effort from the little man to make his own goal, a real do-it-yourself goal, his 17th of the season, his seventh in his last seven games.
What a player, what a hero !
End of game!
Arsenal are one point away from the first League and Cup double ever to be won Cup-first !
But it was a struggle. Chelsea squeezed that game very well and that was why it took 70 minutes to score. Chances were few.
One came after 37 minutes : Wiltord did well on the left side, crossing for Lauren, whose header nicked off Le Saux’s head and just over the bar.
Should have been a corner, but impossible for a ref to see. Hard enough to see after 4 replays.
Nothing unique or novel about Ranieri’s game plan.
We said he would copy Steve McClaren and he did. It was like Middlesbrough, but with technically superior players.
Clearly, Hasselbaink was unfit. So the sparkling one-twos with Gudjohnsen, that can be so devastating, rarely looked possible.
When a good one-two did happen just before half time, the linesman wrongly flagged Gudjohnsen offside. Replays showed him two yards ONSIDE.
My mate Mitch phoned from a coach on the way to Cardiff airport. He said, “I could see that Babayaro blew his groin within four minutes.”
Since Le Saux had been booked so early, putting his boot into Lauren’s ribs as he ducked to head the ball,he could no longer get involved in mifield skirmishes.
It would have made sense for Ranieri to move Le Saux to left back and bring Zenden.Because Chelsea are a power team and Zenden is a power player. He crosses well and shoots hard and has bottle.
Since both teams figured the first goal would win it, Ranieri should have been more positive.
Instead, he brought on Terry at half-time and switched Gallas to left back.
Basically, Chelsea lack a playmaker so they have to play a high-tempo game, have to get it to the strikers early.
They didn’t do that, so they didn’t score. Seaman made only one difficult save, a tipover from Gudjohnsen’s dipper.
Ranieri was quite right to make his team younger, selling Gus Poyet, but they needed a Poyet in Cardiff, somebody make third man runs into the box.
For Arsenal, Manchester beckons on Wednesday night.
Fergie will have United really fired up.
It hurts them to win nothing.
Can Arsenal clinch the title at Old Trafford and rub Fergie’s face in it?
Watch this space.
4th May 2002.
Heroic team performance clinches Double in Manchester
_____________________________
Manchester United 0 Arsenal 1
_____________________________
Wiltord 56
_______________
When I heard that Van Nistelrooy and Nicky Butt were not playing I got my bottle back.
I knew United would not score with Forlan up front, so the game had a good chance of being a 0-0.
And it would have been the greatest 0-0 in Arsenal’s history.
But the second half performance was sensational. Character, calmness, pace, flair, determination, all the qualities of champions were there in abaundance
The Cardiff heroes, Parlour and Ljungberg,created the goal.
Parlour took the ball off Sylvestre, slipped it to Wiltord, who played a nice pass into Ljungberg’s diagonal run from the right.
FREDDIE beat Blanc and shot before Wes Brown could block.
Barthez saved low down, the rebound broke for Wiltord and he hit a solid sidefoot past Barthez.
I thought he would miss on his left foot…. but he scored !
Sylvain Wiltord hit it sweetly and firmly and low and it went in and made history : 1-0 to the Arsenal !
HISTORY !
HISTORY !!
HISTORY !!!!
Wiltord scored from almost the same spot at Old Trafford that Overmars scored in 1998.
And he scored 31 years to the day after Charlie George clinched the double against Liverpool at Wembley on May 8th 1971 !
WHAT A MOMENT !
Two years into the millennium and it might be another thousand years before Arsenal win the title at Old Trafford.
FIRST HALF HOUR WAS BRUTAL – but Arsenal kept their cool,kept their heads, despite the intimidation.
After 20 minutes, a typically late two-footed lunge hy Scholes into Edu.Yellow card !
Scholes won’t last 20 minutes in the World Cup.That will be a red card in Japan, I’m sure.
After 22, a vicious, scything foul by Phil Neville on Wiltord. What a mean, mean little man you are, Mr Neville. Abject cowardice by Paul Durkin for not sending Neville off.Only a yellow.
None of Arsenal’s red cards this season, none of the 40something reds under Wenger, has been for a foul as malicious as these two assualts.
After 26, Roy Keane comes sailing in with his boot chest high on Vieira, misses his body but smacks an elbow into his face.
Classic karate, as practiced by Bryan Robson and Norman Whiteside.
By now my Gooner daughter Caroline, 16, is utterly disgusted.
She says, “I’d be ashamed if Arsenal ever put in a performance like this. It’s just so despicable!”.
After 28, Scholes hacks Vieira again, less obviously.
By now the whole the UK, or 99% of neutrals, will want Arsenal to score. It’s just psychotic aggression, nothing to do with football.
Edu makes a late tackle on Solskjaer. A clear foul but not as bad as those just mentioned.
Kanu is losing the ball again and again and again. If United had been trying to play football they could have profited from that squandered possession. Edu gets a yelow for a bodycheck, fair enough. Keane has a shot straight as Seaman. Solskjaer fouls Vieira.
It’s 0-0 at half-time.
After 52 minutes, Martin Tyler says,”There have been no 0-0 draws here for three and a half years.”
After 53, Barthez miskicks the ball straight to Wiltord, who cannot control it.
Wish I had £50 for every time I’ve heard a Gooner say, “He couldn’t trap a bag of cement.”
BUT THIS CAN STILL BE 0-0, THE BIGGEST 0-0 DRAW IN ARSENAL HISTORY.
Then Sylvestre goes up the left, hesitates, loses the ball to Parlour, who passes short to Wiltord, who finds the diagonal run of Ljungberg. Beats Blanc in the box, shoots,Barthez saves, rebound to Wiltord – BANG!!!!!!!!!
The double-winning goal.
Ruud Van Nistelrooy is on as a sub now and he dives, infuriating Keown and Campbell.
He pushes Keown in the chest as they go for the ball, then collapses, looking for a penalty. Pathetic.
Freddie is scissored down by Blanc, yellow card.
Freddie races into the box surrounde by three red shirts and treads on the ball and trips over- sheer fatigue.
He’d had three days to recover from the FA Cup Final while United had eight days to recover from Leverkusen.
Freddie is punched in the groin by Van Nistelrooy. Thanks Ruud, see you next season !
Final whistle!
TWELVE – count them!- 12 STRAIGHT PREMIERSHIP WINS !
The best team in England has won the double in a World Cup year. Again !
My son Michael phones from a student pub in Sheffield. He’s manic. I’ve never heard Michael like this. He is normally so laidback.
Two Man U fans have bought him two pints, so he’s happy. It’s a good, friendly atmosphere in the boozer. He is with Ajay. They’ve been there since 6 pm to get seats right in front of the big screen.
Jan talks to him for a while, then Caroline.
After that Jan says, “I think they might come down on Sunday for the celebrations in Islington.”
It’s half past midnight and I’m half past exhausted and can’t think straight enough to write anything sensible, let alone anything original.
G’nite, Gooners!
9th May 2002.