Ian Grant reported the Hull game on ANR.
Four readers then criticised Myles for not praising RVP enough !!!!
Ian can’t win. Neither can I.
Jay writes :
I was patiently waiting for your review of the Hull vs Arsenal game, hoping yet sceptical, that you would reserve some praise for van Persie but ah well……
How come you never mention Diaby’s ability to constantly lose the ball? 90% of the time he has the ball, he loses it either because he didn’t think fast enough or his pass found an opponent. Why doesn’t Vela make the starting line-up? Is Adebayor really more effective than Bendtner. Yyou really should check out Diaby and give RVP a break.
Myles writes :
I don’t enjoy telling you things you already know.
I prefer to contradict things you think you know.
Just to keep you awake.
I thought Saturday’s big games were good.They all went to the wire.
Late goals and more late goals.
Berbatov scored in 90 at the Reebok to put Man Utd on top of the table.
Belletti scored in 88 and Lampard got the second in 94 and Chelsea won 2-1.
Chelsea played much better without Drogba, I thought.
But my favourite goal was the Rory Delap strike on 60 minutes. Beattie played him in and his run took him inside Ashley Cole and Cech went down early and Delap delayed, a bit like Bergkamp, and clipped it over the keeper’s body. A very nice goal as well as a shocker.
Arsenal won 3-1 at Hull with two goals in the last 18 minutes by Nasri and, again, Bendtner.
Aston Villa won 2-1 with goals by Milner and a Barry penalty. Milner was tripped and knocked the ball in with his hand and Agbonlahor was fouled inches outside box and fell inside it. Both those goals, although a bit dubious, were deserved on the play.
Gooners will want tonight’s game, Liverpool-Everton, to be a draw because Arsenal’s next league game is Everton at Goodison.
If tonight is a draw, and Arsenal lose at Everton on Wednesday 28, Arsenal will still be two points above Everton.
At the KC, Djourou got himself into trouble carrying the ball towards his near post. Almunia should have come out and grabbed the ball. If he didn’t want to shout, “My ball!” he should have shouted “Man on!” or “clear it!” What happened was comical, very unprofessional, and typical of an Arsene Wenger “defence”, where players do not have good habits drilled into them. Djourou allowed lone striker Cousin to get his foot to the ball and almost take the ball off him. But he got away with it, as defenders often do.
Three other things to say:
1. When Fabregas was injured, somebody had to step up to the plate. Van Persie and Nasri have done that.
Nasri scored a goal that no other player on the field could have scored. he is a good little player who is doing a bit. Apparently, he is a bit touchy and temperamental, very conscious of his reputation, like Thierry, reads every word written about him. Van Persie has been a selfish player but now he is making goals. He needs to keep doing that in the next 16 games. At Hull, he had three assists, which is fantastic for any player. RVP has two big games coming up against Roma. let’s see what he does in those two games.
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2. Clichy should not have backed off right winger Bernard Mendy.
As Mendy got the ball, Clichy should have moved towards him. When I saw Clichy back off I immediately thought : What is he doing? Mendy crossed, Clichy got his right foot up to block, and the ball hit his toe and squirted over Djourou and looped up to give Daniel Cousin a running header that he could not miss and it was 1-1. Bad defending gave Hull a lifeline. But they lost 3-1 anyway.
3. The way Hull played was self-defeating.
It was a different Hull and a different Phil Brown. In September, Hull were on a high and playing with joie de vivre against an Arsenal team that was top of the table. They were not scared and Arsenal did not respect them because they saw Hull as a Championship side who were having a good run, not as rivals who might beat them on a ground where Arsenal had lost only one previous league game. In September, Hull were on the way up but by January they were on the way down. They lacked the confidence and momentum they had before. So they sat back and left Cousin unsupported. That was the wrong way to get something from the game. It meant that Geovanni never got a kick and Hull had only 38% possession.
It’s not that Phil Brown has become stupid. It’s just that, as I’ve been saying here since 1998, football is a game of sequences. Arsenal are unbeaten in eight games.
Clichy will be suspended for Cardiff next Sunday.
At most clubs, Injuries and absences will be crucial in the games that remain. Rooney will missing at least four games, Joe Cole is out for the season with a cruciate.
Berbatov and Tevez are the oddest couple since Phil Spector produced Leonard Cohen in 1977.
Berbatov the Bulgarian is languid artistry, Tevez the Argentinian is aggressive artistry. No strike-partners could be more different. Those two are more different than Ian Wright and Dennis Bergkamp, which I didn’t think was possible.
Berbatov knows he has the technical composure to score goals late in any game, while Tevez doesn’t even know it’s late in the game. He just keeps working, keeps concentrating, trying to pinch a ball, beat a man, pinch a yard, grab a goal, be a winner, do his job. Here Tevez bamboozled two defenders who went for the same ball and put the goal on a plate for the Bulgarian, who headed in from seven yards