By Myles Palmer
I was looking for partnerships while I was enjoying Man United 1 Leeds 1 on Saturday morning.
It was a very low-key Saturday at home.
Watched the game, went for a walk in the park with the Mrs, and re-watched The Talented Mr Ripley in the evening.
I noticed the Rio Ferdinand-Nigel Martyn partnership.These two should play for England because they now have an understanding.
In particular, an understanding that allows Martyn to stay at home on low diagonal balls across the box.
He knows Rio has the pace to get there before the striker, so he does not charge out to dive on the ball.
During the World Cup next summer, things like that will be very important to Sven. And to all of us.
United versus Leeds was a fantastic game.
Robbie Keane surprised me by being a lot better than Ruud Van Nistelrooy.
Referee Dermott Gallagher was my man-of-the match for having the commonsense not to send Keane off for that retaliatory shove after Beckham’s assault.Two yellows was the right call.
The only part of Saturday I didn’t enjoy was watching those 15 minutes of Sunderland-Arsenal highlights on ITV at 7pm.
I was not upset that Vieira missed that penalty.
I was upset that he TOOK the penalty when Kanu and Lauren, an experienced scorer of pressure penalties for Cameroon, were on the field.
Stupid!Pointless!Suicidal!
Arsene Wenger has four great players and he dropped three of them for the Sunderland game : Pires, Henry and Bergkamp.
The more you watch Arsenal the more you wonder : Is a lot of it off the cuff? Do they make it up as they go along?
He started Kanu and Wiltord, who both needed a game. And Wiltord gave Kanu a good pass for the goal in 40 minutes.
Kanu bamboozled himself by dribbling straight at keeper Sorensen, lost the ball, regained it and scored with monumental cool.
He also put Ljungberg in when the Swede was tripped and Mike Riley awarded a late penalty.
The Stadium of Light is Vieira’s bogey ground. He was sent off there last year.
This year he miscontrolled a ball around his own box, then juggled it before kicking it out for the Sunderland throw which led to the equaliser.
Keown should have cleared the ball into the box, but he only hoofed it as far as Parlour, who poked the ball across his own penalty area to Stefan Schwarz, who scored with a superb lob which no keeper could have saved.
So it was 1-1 after 54 minutes.
When Vieira was handed the chance to win the game from the spot he shot wide after 74 minutes!
Afterwards he nonchalantly admitted he doesn’t practice penalties.His manner in the interview suggested he is doing AFC a huge favour by playing for them.
If Vieira, the captain, was the designated penalty-taker at Sunderland he should have practiced 20 penalties on Friday morning before going up North.
Clearly, putting Upson at left back had been an option against Mallorca, but Arsene chose to try it in this less important match.
He knows that van Bronckhorst is no left back and anyway he needs him to cement some kind of centrefield partnership with Vieira.
Since we only saw a fragment of the game, and a misleading keyhole-view fragment, we could not see whether Keown-Campbell is becoming a partnership, or whether Vieira-Bronckhorst is becoming a partership.
However, we did see Richard Wright make three bold, brave athletic saves and that was very encouraging.
The first was a stretching tip-away from a Jason McAteer cross. Seaman would not have reached that ball.
The third was a pointblank parry from a Kevin Phillips header.
Wright showed terrific reflexes and fine judgement on this one.He knew he could not reach the ball so he dived to block where the ball would be if Phillips reached it – and Phillips got there.
His header was going into the net. An excellent save!
Those parterships – Vieira/Bronckhorst and Keown/Campbell – are going to be very important this winter.
Wright/Keown/Campbell will also be vital.
Those partnerships are needed to replace other important partnerships which have dissolved, vanished, collapsed, been shelved.
A great team is not eleven footballers, it’s five partnerships – at least five.
If those partnerships develop, Arsenal have a chance of winning something in 2002. If they are interrupted by injury or suspensions, forget it.
28th October 2001.
PS The News of the World had quotes in a story about Vieira being close to signing for five more years.
Let’s hope this is true. Let’s hope it’s not another Anelka scam.
Anelka signed for five years to get a pay rise, had no intention of staying, and left the following summer.
If Vieira does the same he should pay back the difference.