By Myles Palmer
Three weeks ago the Arsenal team were playing brilliant football, scoring goals, and the manager, unusually, got a bit carried away by his 18-match unbeaten run.
The Professor started talking with his heart, rather than his head.
He started talking about the treble.
He probably regrets that now because deep down he knows that you don’t go from one quarter-final in four years to winning the Champions League.
It’s still a learning curve. Always has been, always will be.
And winning the Champions League was always gonna be impossible unless Jeffers was as good as Anelka and Van Bronckhorst was as good as Petit and Richard Wright was better than the ageing Seaman.
In Turin, Arsene became more realistic.
He heard Deportivo’s teamsheet and guessed what would happen.
So he told Arsenal to play for a draw.That’s how it looked to me.
If Arsenal scored it was a cushion against Juve scoring a goal for a 1-1 draw.
If Deportivo and Leverkusen drew, a draw put Arsenal through. If Leverkusen won, Arsenal could win 4-0 and still go out.
So the game was very,very weird for players who had thumped Juve’s first team 3-1 in a packed Highbury in December.
But, as I always say, every football match is different because the circumstances of every match are different, even if the 22 players are the same, which they never are.
Turin? Juve reserves 1 Arsenal 0 ?
Let’s not dwell on it. A night to forget, especially if you are an ITV executive, an advertiser or sponsor.
Yes, Kanu was completely useless again.
Yes,it was a seriously strange game for Edu to make his first CL start in.
Yes, when you’ve got 3,000 travelling Gooners in a crowd of 8,000, you should put on a far better show for them than that.
Yes, Lauren should have taken that penalty. Yes, Thierry Henry was still outsprinting everyone – their defence and his teammates – and having to shoot from narrow angles.
Yes, I could imagine Tony Adams watching that tedious farce and weeping because it was everything football should not be.Bergkamp, ditto.
Why, at Luton airport at 2.30 am, do they keep passengers onboard the plane that lands behind the team’s plane until after the players have cleared customs?
Why do the club run such a sanitised, overprotected regime where loyal fans cannot even see the players, let alone talk to them?
DESPITE ALL THAT, ARSENAL CAN BE CHAMPIONS NOW.
The Newcastle replay will be very tight, very close.
Middlesbrough the same if Arsenal go through. Chelsea in Cardiff? Very fierce and tough.
Jimmy Floyd and Eidur versus Hyypia and Henchoz will be a compelling contest on Sunday.
I’m told that Houllier and Bignose think that Liverpool will become champions if they beat Chelsea !
I don’t know about that. But beating Roma 2-0 was a helluva result and Litmanen showed Totti how to play in the hole.
And, as I said here weeks ago, Heskey benefits from Houllier coming back more than any other player.
Heskey doesn’t think he is a footballer but Houllier keeps telling him he is, keeps telling him that opponents are scared of him, that he can knock people over, score goals, win matches.
And Houllier’s a very persuasive man.
So Heskey goes away and thinks , “He’s right, I am a player!”
21st March 2002.