We got last night’s Evening Standard at South Kensington, on the way home from the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Headline was: Sloppy and lazy Gunners are undone by familiar weaknesses in 2-0 EFL Cup defeat to Southampton
Arsene Wenger isn’t still at Arsenal to win the EFL Cup but their exit here only heightens the pressure on him to deliver in the competitions that really matter.
Wenger continues to insist that his decision whether to stay at the club beyond the end of the season depends on satisfying both himself and the Gunners fans that he can deliver the biggest prizes.
This trophy does not fall into that category and therefore success or failure will not define the bigger picture but the manner of last night’s defeat against Southampton bore some alarming hallmarks for the challenges that lie ahead…….Losing to Southampton with an understrength side may only increase the “here we go again” feeling this month tends to bring, a concerning mental state given a tricky run of fixtures ahead with trips to West Ham, Everton and Manchester City punctuated by a home game against Stoke
Olley’s piece revealed that Sanogo is still at the club! But he has a calf injury!
YOU COULDN’T MAKE IT UP!!
Today we are told RB Leipzig coach Ralph Hasenhuttl has been sounded out by Arsenal about taking over from Wenger.
This must have been an Arsene brainwave.
Ivan would not be interested in a 49-year old Austrian who’s been around for five minutes.
The V&A show was fun.
Revolution,Records and Rebels 1966-70 triggered a lot of memories.
Meeting Twiggy at Thames TV studios, interviewing Joe Cocker, Country Joe, Jerry Garcia thanking me for reviewing the Dead in The Times.
The Speakeasy was an after-hours club for the music business and my first visit supplied my most vivid memory of that basement in Margaret Street. I was standing by the bar facing the stage as Ten Years After were rocking and happened to glance to my left at the exact moment when Jeff Beck and Jimi Hendrix came in together to check out Alvin Lee, the new guitarist in town.
The 1970 Isle of Wight was my first festival & I had a marvellous time backstage for three days. Up to that point, those were the three most exciting days of my life. Happy and satisfied but very tired, I decided that would be my last festival.
Preferred one-day events like Knebworth or Wembley.
I was the guy who wanted to see three or four good groups and then go home.
The V&A have all the key album sleeves nicely displayed: Otis Blue, Mr Tambourine Man and so on.
Many other LPs are in wooden browsers, like a shop.
A month ago I heard that young people were dancing in the Woodstock room, where the movie plays continuously on triple screens with a very good sound system. Jan had lost me several times but when she heard Jimi’s loud guitar she followed the sound into the Woodstock room and looked around at the people standing up and didn’t see me, so she went out to look elsewhere. Then she came back a second time and eventually “I saw you lying on the floor on a bean bag.”
The Star-Spangled Banner still sounds awesome because Jimi was the King of the electronic guitar.
What have we heard in the last 40 years that’s as powerful as this?