Man United 2 Arsenal 1
Arshavin 40, Rooney penalty 58, Diaby o.g 64
Arsenal should have won the big game but they lost it.
They let a feeble Man United side off the hook.
They threw the game away by conceding two goals in six mad minutes in the second half.
Two stupid goals were conceded by two stupid players.
And Wenger made the defeat controversial to cover up the stupidity of Almunia, a clown he has touted for England, and Diaby, a giant athlete who rarely knows where he is on a football pitch.
When Arsenal’s late equaliser was correctly disallowed, for offside against Gallas, Wenger kicked a water bottle, a ridiculously officious fourth official over-reacted, Mike Dean tried to send Wenger off with 30 seconds of injury time remaining, and the result of that was a farce.
Wenger’s reaction to Arsenal’s first defeat of the season, coming at a time when they do not have another game for two weeks, was to make incendiary comments to distract attention from the incompetence of the players who lost him the points.
Robin van Passenger was hopeless for 98% of that game. He is not a centre forward in a 4-3-3.
Eboue proved that he is not a forward, having already proved that he is not a right back or a right winger or a central midfielder.
Almunia panicked when Rooney switched to turbo and got in front of him. A proper keeper would have come out three yards to cover his near post and then stopped. Rooney was going so fast he could not have scored from there. Maradona himself could not have scored from there.
Wenger accused United of anti-football and fingered Darren Fletcher as the chief hatchet-man in a campaign of systematic fouling.
So the headlines for the last three days have been all about that. As we have seen for a decade and more, this manager’s command of the media is amazing. When Arsenal lose, Wenger is often the story. It’s remarkable how often that has happened.
Please note : Man United have a long history of hatchet-men and their names would fill a book. Nobby Stiles, Jim Holton, Kevin Moran, Norman Whiteside, Remi Moses, Bryan Robson, Nicky Butt and Paul Scholes are just a few. Roy Keane, Vidic.
Darren Fletcher is Mahatma Gandhi compared to those masters of karate and other black arts.
As you know, Sir Alex’s Rangers nickname was “Razor Elbows”, In an aside to pressmen two years ago, he admiringly said of his six foot four Serb, “He’s such an animal! He even hurts the buggers in training.”
Fletcher is just an Eighties up-and-downer whose clumsy enthusiasm caused him to make a midfielder’s crash-tackle on Arshavin in the box. On the half-way line that tackle is a yellow card but at Old Trafford, if it’s in the penalty area, it’s often NOT a penalty.
That Fletcher was Sir Alex’s best midfielder on Saturday tells us that United are in trouble.
This is the most patchy, pedestrian team Sir Alex has had since before he signed Cantona. Carlo Ancelotti must look at them and be convinced that Chelsea can beat United twice.
However, this controversy, orchestrated by the greatest spin-doctor in football, put a smokescreen over the game and the way the three goals were scored.
Our tabloid-led media prefer a Punch & Judy show to analysis, so Wenger lost the game but won the aftermath when refs chief Keith Hackett ruled that he deserves a written apology.
The game was interesting and there’s lots to say about the team and the immediate future. I’m busy this week, and my brother Neil is visiting from Colorado. But I think I can write here every day.
We have time to look at September as well as what this game tells us. There are 12 days till Arsenal’s next match at Eastlands.
The transfer window closes this afternoon.
As predicted, larseminute.com are again looking for bargains in the last two hours of the transfer window.