By Myles Palmer
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Arsenal 1 Auxerre 2
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Kapo 8, Fadiga 27, Kanu 53
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It’s a team game and Auxerre’s teamwork was far better than Arsenal’s teamwork.
They deserved to win by more than 2-1.
Failure is often more interesting than success, so Tuesday was an interesting night.
On his 53rd birthday, Arsene Wenger saw an Auxerre team who were younger, tougher, better organised, more passionate and more capable of improvisation than his team.
It was a massive game for Auxerre and they rose to the occasion.
Like Everton, they started at a high tempo that Arsenal failed to match.
The Everton game was balanced at 1-1 till the 90th minute, when Wayne Rooney scored.
Tuesday was different: Auxerre were 2-0 up in 27 minutes.
They were 1-0 up after eight, so Arsenal,stunned by a wondergoal at Goodison, must have thought: Another wonder-goal!Here we go again !
Those are 27 minutes that Paddy Vieira will want to forget.
Nutmegged by Kapo for the first goal, he started the move for the second goal by passing to centreback Boumsong on the halfway line.
How did that come about?
Well, Henry chased back and flicked the ball to Vieira off Tainia’s toe.(Tainia plays behind Litmanen in the Finnish team.)
At that point Henry was level with Vieira, and Ljungberg was five yards BEHIND Vieira.
There was not much on. So he tried a risky pass forward to Kanu, and it went to Boumsong.
He cruised forward twenty yards, the ball broke wide after Ashley Cole tackled, and Fadiga jumped forward to volley in the loose ball for 2-0.
In a normal game Patrick would have kept that ball and passed it sideways. Maybe he was nervous because of what had happened on the first goal.
I*m sure Guy Roux read Vieira’s interview in France-Football : we all play for Thierry.
So Auxerre sat deep, blocked off the angles and blotted out Thierry. He only had two runs, both on the RIGHT flank.
I reckon Arsene wants to play the beautiful game in every match, but Guy Roux was not gonna allow that.
Oddly, Arsenal created chances BEFORE they made it 2-1, but not after.
Kanu had two shots wide when they were 1-0 down, both from outside the box
At 2-0 down Kanu missed a great chance when Wiltord flicked Lauren’s pass to him in the box. He pulled his shot across the goal from a great position.
Henry was having a nightmare. He took a bad free-kick, keeper Cool slapped it out for a corner, which Henry then lofted over everyone and out of play.
Then when Mexes tackled him strongly, and both men
fell,Henry flicked out petulantly with his foot, kicking Mexes in the face.
A lucky boy to get away with a foul the ref did not see. Players are sent off for less every week.
After Kanu made it 2-1, Auxerre defended brilliantly and denied them further chances, forcing them to hit long balls.
Why so many long balls? No linkman, no half-striker moving into cute positions to receive the ball.
After half an hour, Arsenal were missing a brain.
In a tight, fast, difficult game like this, they missed Dennis. They need him back, quickly.
In the first two games, Arsenal scored six goals with Bergkamp playing. In the next two games, without DB10, they only scored twice.
Many factors influence a game, but Dennis is needed. Without him it’s almost 4-2-4
Bringing on a sub gave Arsene a problem.He didnt have much on the bench-Luzhny, Pennant, no Bergkamp or Jeffers.
He didn’t want to take off a goalscorer, so he brought on Pires for Gilberto, then Toure for Lauren in the last ten.Neither made a difference.
If Toure had come on sooner he might have given Arsenal more of what Auxerre had: pace,iniative and whirlwind energy, something to break up the pattern, which was being dictated by the visitors..
This Auxerre victory was no fluke. Mexes and Boumsong are kids, but good kids, better centrebacks than Cygan on this showing.
Santini’s French team is changing. Only four players have started all four games since the World Cup : Makelele, Zidane, Silvestre and Thuram.
Kapo, 22, born in the Ivory Coast, won his first cap in Cyprus.
He has capped Cheyrou twice as a sub.
France have bags of talent.And the Slovenia game at the Stade de France was a 77,000 sell-out
DID YOU SEE NEWCASTLE beat Juventus 1-0?
A really gutsy effort where Bobby’s Robson’s boys showed more passion than skill.
Robert played a short corner, and right back Andy Griffin zipped along the byline and blasted a low shot which went in off Buffon’s elbow as two Newcastle players raced into scoring positions.Great goal, great moment.
I watched the Newcastle game, not Man United.I never watch United if van Nistelrooy’s not playing.
I’m told they went 2-0 up, took Giggs and Beckham off,Olympiakos pulled back to 2-2 and then Scholes hit the winner.
So Liverpool won away, United won away, Newcastle won at home, and Arsenal lost at home to a team from a town of 40,000 people.
Still, Arsenal are still top of their group and doing a lot better than Bayern Munich, who lost 2-1 in Milan.
Inzaghi scores so many goals they now call him SuperPippo.
And Shevchenko hasn’t kicked ball in the Champions League yet. Which means he could be sold and play for another big team.
Would Berlusconi sanction that?
I wouldn’t, since I think Shevchenko is the most exciting player in Europe and his dipping thunderbolt cross-shot against Juventus remains my favourite goal of the last five years.
Arsenal v Blackburn ?
It was 3-3 last season and Damien Duff had a good World Cup, so he will now fear no-one.
Maybe Arsenal will have to score first.
Kapo’s early thunderbolt reminded Arsenal of Rooney’s rocket at the end of the previous game.
Those two traumas were too close together.Only eight minute of playing time separated them.
If Damien Duff does a Kapo, Arsenal might struggle again.A third trauma might be too much.
So there it is.
Humpty Dumpty has fallen off the wall. Can The Professor put Humpty Dumpty back together again quickly?
Of course he can. It’s only a blip. The real Arsenal is the one that beat PSV 4-0 and Leeds 4-1.
He only had one day to prepare for Everton, one day for Auxerre.
Arsene gave them Wednesday off. So they will have two days to prepare for Blackburn.
Blackburn are useful in attack and midfield, but thin in defence, where Craig Short still features at centreback.
I used to do phone interviews with guys like Craig Short for 90 Minutes, a now defunct IPC weekly.
I’d get on to Ray Wilkins, Chris Waddle, Darren Anderton, Dean Sunders, Steve Bould, Lee Dixon, Mark Draper, Gary Charles, Brian Deane, dozens of them, and knock out 600 or 800 words and fax it to Paul Hawksbee .
Craig reads Kerrang and loves hard rock.
He used to go to Rock City, a club in Nottingham. He was into Z.Z.Top, Whitesnake, Bon Jovi and Guns ‘n’Roses.
Craig told me that the best player in the air, that he ever faced, was Alan Smith of Arsenal. He said that Smudger was quite quick when he got going.
Craig’s still playing! Well done, mate. Good on yer!
24th October 2002.