By Myles Palmer
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3-1 down, 5-3 up?
Sounds like the title of a new fanzine.
On this form, Jose Antonio Reyes will terrorise the whole Premiership.
The crowd love him because he is so wholehearted.
REYES never gives a ball up, so he is a defender’s nightmare.
He slaloms past you, and if you have the ball he is in your face in a nanosecond.
Reyes hit the post early on, stabbed Cole’s low cross at Schwarzer from the centre forward position.
In 25, he found Henry with a 60-yard pass which bounced just outside the D, allowing Henry to outpace Colin Cooper and lob sweetly over Schwarzer.
One nil to the Arsenal !
After that, Henry’s passing was slack, shabby, careless.
And Arsenal were facing a Middlesbrough back seven, and mostly passing in front of them.
On 43, left back Franck Queudroue beat Ljungberg and Gilberto, eased past Fabregas, and as Toure came to him he played a one-two with Hasselbaink, then prodded the ball to Job, who scored with a scorching shot which flew high inside the near post.
Every tackle was a yard short as an enterprising left back waltzed through the lot of them !
I thought of Don Howe after a Liverpool game where left Alan Kennedy had scored.
Don said,”I always say to Brian Talbot: tackle him on the halfway line, don’t wait till he gets to the edge of the box ! He knows he can do these things!”
HALF TIME : 1-1.
Cygan is a cultured player who had a good first half but he always makes a mistake.
On 50, Cygan missed a simple ball, allowing Hasselbaink in for a thunderous near-post shot which again gave Lehmann no chance.
From that position, that angle, nobody does it better.
The cannonball kid had put Arsenal 2-1 down and while you were trying to grapple with that fact, Queudroue strolled forward and hammered in a swerving shot for 3-1, Lehmann having shown him three-quarters of the goal.
Some said Queudroue was trying to cross the ball, but you don’t hit a cross that hard.
After 53, Arsenal 1 Middlesbrough 3.
I was thinking I should ask Statto : Are most Arsenal defeats after internationals ?
It was weird to see an Arsenal team that had forgotten how to tackle.
After 54, Boro backed off Bergkamp, who advanced gratefully and drilled a low shot between the cenrebacks and just inside the post.
Three goals in 10 minutes – an exciting second half so far !
In 61, Ljungberg gave way to Pires, who equalised in 64 from Henry’s deflected shot, following a wonderfully easy dribble by Fabrehas, beating three tackles in centrefield.
In 65, REYES then scored the most electrifying of the 8 goals.
Arsenal regained possession straight from the kick-off.
Fabregas pinched the ball, Henry flicked on perceptively to Bergkamp, who slid a pass forward to Reyes, who was rocketing forward on the left, towards the box and one-on-one with Reiziger.
Reyes’s left foot is as quick as a snake’s tongue and he has the balance of a mountain goat.
He flipped the ball inside Reiziger, putting him on his arse, and blazed a right foot shot across Schwarzer and into the far side of the net for 4-3.
AMAZINGLY, ARSENAL fought back with 3 goals in 11 minutes.
Flamini replaced Reyes in 78 and in 91 Bergkamp launched Pires on a left wing raid to set up Henry, who was standing still as he jabbed the ball home for 5-3.
IF JOSE REYES was playing in a one-man team you could put three defenders on him, but you can’t do that against Arsenal, who threaten from all angles.
Sadly, Freddie was awful.
He is being taken off before Dennis now.
As I suggested at the end of last season, he has been left behind as the team has moved on.
He puts his head down where the others get their heads up.
He can’t get away from opponents.
When the ball goes to Fedddie, the momentum of the move is often lost.
It’s a shame because Freddie is an honest warrior who never hides and never bottles a challlenge.
He has been tremendous for Arsenal in the past, a fiery scrapper in big games, a gutsy goalscorer with British grit, an FA Cup Final hero, a mighty atom who demolished Lazio and Juventus.
AUGUST 2004, a great time to be an Arsenal fan.
Fabgregas plays it simple, makes it look easy.
He is a team player who has a great eye and always picks the easy pass, making you wonder why other players don’t pick the easy pass.
With Sol and Patrick back, Arsenal look good enough to beat anybody.
But they still need a right back who can defend and they still need cover at centreback.
With Sol and Patrick back, will Arsene play Senderos?
I think so. But even the manager does not know that yet.
He is just hoping that Toure does not get injured. If that happened, the team would have a problem.
AT THE MOMENT, Reyes and Bergkamp are world class.
Reyes has taken the pressure off Henry, the team has more width than ever and crosses more balls, even if their crosss are often aerial passes to a man, rather than crosses into a zone.
Henry did not pass to Reyes at first, and I did wonder whether they could play together.
I wondered whether the big star could talk to himself and dig into himself and become a great man, accept the Spanish kid, work with him and share the glory.
And Henry has done that.
Reyes reports that they are great mates and that Thierry has helped him a lot off the field.
So it’s all looking good.
As I say, a great time to be a Gooner.
Nobody has ever seen a team as thrilling as this.
August 23rd 2004.