By Myles Palmer
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FOUR QUARTER-FINALS, three home wins.
AC Milan 4 Deportivo La Coruna 1
Porto 2 Lyon 0
Real Madrid 4 Monaco 2
Chelsea 1 Arsenal 1
Some said it was boring because Arsenal and Chelsea cancelled each other out in the first leg.
I thought Arsenal copied Chelsea and Chelsea copied Arsenal.
Chelsea played without a centre forward and without crosses and Arsenal kept everything very tight and played 4-2-4 with Ljungberg wide in a Gronkjaer-winger role.
I often enjoy a tactical match, but not this time.
Arsenal have a better club, a better team, a better manager, and they went into the game with three 2-1 victories under their belt.
I expected them to win the game.
But, on the night, Chelsea were superior.
Pires,Edu and Toure were fantastic, but Chelsea were the better side.
BOTH GOALS WERE INTERESTING.
After 53, Lampard hit a smart, probing ball that Lehmann had to come for and Gudjohnsen got lucky as he charged down Lehmann’s clearance to score a tidy goal, left-footed from a tight angle
But Sol stopped running. He should have chased back to cover the line, in case that happened.
Sol stopped, then started to run again – but it was too late.
Then Kolo intercepted a dangerous low cross, conceding a right wing corner, Terry and Desailly came up for it, Lehmann grabbed the ball as if came over, Desailly nudged him, then ran in front of him, then Mutu ran in front of Lehmann as well, to prevent him throwing the ball out to start a counter-attack.
For 57 minutes we had hardly seen the real Lampard, then he hit Mutu with a ball down the left and Mutu cutely backheeled inside Toure to give Lamps a sidefoot shot which Lehmann saved – and Duff followed up to smack the rebound against the keeper’s chest.
Then Arsenal raised their game and built a calm move, Toure to Edu to Vieira to Cole, and his cross from the corner of the box found the head of Pires beyond the penalty spot, ghosting in like Martin Peters to nod the equaliser perfectly inside the post.
Robbie’s 16th goal of the season – and his most vital.
What was Henry doing at that moment?
While Pires and Ljungberg were running into the penalty area, Henry was walking out of it, strangely detached, remote, uninvolved, switched off.
I’VE SAID THAT THIERRY has improved this season since his new contract and his marriage.
But he bottled a Champions League quarter-final first leg at Stamford Bridge.
TRUE, the players and managers knew each other too well and worked to stop the danger men.
When have we ever seen Freddie Ljungberg wholly nailed to the right touchline?
The Swede was like a dog-track rabbit on a rail – but a straight rail, not a circular rail.
Freddie was up and down the flank, tackling Duff and Bridge, again and again and again, right back into his own box, right back to the corner flag.
He was thinking : Am I a right back? Am I Lee Dixon?
As you know, Freddie’s value to Arsenal is in his diagonal runs into the box and his goalscoring.
FREDDIE LJUNGBERG is not a great dribbler or a great crosser or a great assister.
He is a deadly jack-in-the-box who has fire and bottle and intelligence and doesn’t mind the keeper clattering him after he has stabbed the ball in.
At that moment, he is so high he doesn’t feel it – he just scrambles to his feet and runs away with a grin on his face.
Freddie could not do that against Chelsea. He only had seven minutes to do that.
When Arsene took Dennis off in 71 and put Gilberto on, Freddie switched to Dennis’s position and made a run across Terry in 76, as he would usually do.
But then Arsene took him off in 78 and put Reyes on.
So the game was a brutal one for Freddie, as it was for Frank Lampard, whose game is also about making bursts into the box and having shots.
It was just hard graft for Freddie, a lot of running back towards his own goal.
I remember Darren Anderton talking to me about this, talking about playing against Blackburn when they were flying, when Graeme Le Saux was always racing down the flank.
Darren said it was really no fun, chasing after Le Saux all through the game, as he bombed down the left wing again and again.
That was the exact opposite of what Darren wanted to be doing in a football match, just as this Chelsea game showed us everything that Freddie did not want to be doing.
And Wayne Bridge,like Le Saux, is a very fit boy.
IN A PREVIOUS PREVIEW of a Chelsea game,I’d said that Bridge was a big danger to Arsenal, that his crosses, even his diagonal crosses, are a threat.
And Damien Duff is a one-man army, a player with speed, stamina and flair, a powerhouse who keeps coming at you and keeps coming at you, from all angles.
The second leg will be different.
And it’s more of a second half than a second leg because Chelsea v Arsenal is really four games, not five games,so this is only half-time.
This quarter-final is a game of two halves and in the second half it wont be Crespo or Mutu or Gudjohnsen who scores the first goal.
BUT IT’S NOT OVER.
IT’S NOT NOT NOT OVER !
Tuesday April 6 will be dramatic.
But Arsenal are champions and champions should beat runners-up.
It’s important for next season too, psychologically.
When Reyes nudged a Lauren pass into Vieira’s run, Desailly brought PV4 down and got a second yellow.
The great Marcel will miss Highbury.
That ball from Reyes, in 82, was the kind of crafty short pass Henry should have been making all game.
Where was he?
CHELSEA: Ambrosio; Gallas, Desailly, Terry, Bridge;Parker(J Cole, 71), Lampard, Makelele, Duff; Mutu (Crespo, 71), Gudjohnsen (Melchiot, 86).
Subs not used: Sullivan (gk), Gronkjaer, Huth, Geremi.
ARSENAL : Lehmann; Lauren, Touré, Campbell, A Cole; Ljungberg(Reyes, 78), Vieira, Edu, Pires; Bergkamp (Gilberto,71), Henry.
Subs not used: Stack (gk), Cygan, Keown, Kanu, Clichy.
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MEANWHILE, ARSENAL will do another double.
They will beat Man United in a Villa Park semi that is really the FA Cup Final.
And they will warm up for that on Sunday with a Premiership game that would normally be a six-pointer, if Arsenal were not 12 delicious points clear of of the Red Devils, who will be devilish, for sure, at Highbury.
Watch Louis Saha carefully. He takes his shots very early and catches keepers out.
And,for my money, that double is really a treble for Arsene.
The title, the FA Cup and not buying Rustu, the Turkish keeper we all thought he should sign, is a treble
At Barcelona, Rustu has been a disaster. He has hardly played.
Good decision, Arsene !
26th March 2004.