Arsenal Football Club is the only football team in England that has a very annoying habit. Letting you down when you need them the MOST. Today, they’ll make you feel as if you’re the only fan in the World, tomorrow they’ll leave you in tears and agony, next tomorrow they won’t atone for “yesterday’s” agony by giving you more heartbreak, in four days time they’ll give a match of the season contender.
We came up against a side that was 13th in the league. A side that hadn’t recorded any away point of any sort in 2011. A side that had conceded 25 goals in the last 7 home league games we’ve played against them. A side whose goalie has amazing goals conceded ratio against us. A side that is the modern day definition of footballing shite.
AW the Alchemist told the media Vultures few days back that he wanted us to play simultaneously with Man Utd in our last 3 games. It was an indirect way of saying that his boys couldn’t handle the pressure of expectancy. Yesterday’s game against Blackburn proved it.
Man Utd played first and beat high flying West Ham in their home turf in a game Hugh Giggs Hefner played at left back. At the start of yesterday’s game, we were 8 fucking points behind the Red Hell Owners so the task we had at hand was simple, win Blackburn and keep the pace.
The man with the whistle was Phil Dowd. He hasn’t been on my good books after that Newcastle game so I feared for the worst. The lineup we fielded against Blackburn was the strongest we had fielded in recent weeks. The only player missing was El Capitan. Nasri was more than able to handle the Mr. Creativity role himself.
rVp linked with Song and Walcott early on but Song’s shot was blocked by a sack of potatoes present in Blackburn’s defense.
Another nice ball was swung in for Walcott. His cross was almost sent into Blackburn’s goal by some hefty bloke present in the defense but the Blackburn defense tidied up admirably.
Arshavin then cut into Blackburn’s defense and fed a nice little ball to Walcott, The angle was really tight but the pacey winger still let one rip. Robinsinus made himself big and pushed it out for a corner.
Arsenal kept launching waves and waves of attacks on Blackburn but the middle table outfit exposed us on the counter. When their full back crossed a ball into our danger area, I was scared shitless because I knew that our goalie was a man bereft of confidence. He showed good handling by catching the ball.
The next noteworthy highlight was a cold blooded tackle on Sagna by some bloke. They both stayed on the ground for a while but Sagna came out unscathed. In as much as I’m a big fan of African cult hero Farmer Eboue, I didn’t want him to be drafted back into the squad on such a circumstance.
Another nice build up which saw old Salgado lie flat on his ass saw Clichy receive the ball on the left hand side. His cross was headed by Nasri but that Oceanian hefty bloke used his hammer head of horror to hit Nasri on his head in the follow up. That blow made Nasri have a swelling the size of a man’s nutsac on his head. He was plastered up by the medical team.
I wanted us to attack Blackburn from start to finish because I was uncertain about our goalie. Clichy gave him a simple back pass. With the forward rushing unto Almunia, my heart was somewhere close to my throat. Instead of shooting the ball immediately, he trapped it and cleared it just in the nick of time. The heart came back to its normal position after that.
Sagna and Nasri did well to tee up AA23 at the edge of the box but instead of shooting the type of ball that confused Scott Carson, he chose to pass it. I guess that the Arsenal in him was bigger than the Arshavin in the World. In the days of old, Rosicky fired 4 shots from 5 passes; now TR7 passes the ball 4 more times. The Arsenal in him has taken over completely.
Few minutes after that we had the chance to go 1 up on a platter of a fucking Leprechaun’s gold. Wilshere started the move and sent a pass to captain of the day rVp. The glassboned chap fed Nasri and ran into the box. Nasri’s low drilled cross somehow found Wilshere in the 6-yard box but Wilshere chose to have that Yakubu Aiyegbeni moment by spurning the golden chance. The commentator said that the missing ingredient in Wilshere’s game was his inability to score goals. He has scored two goals this season. The first was an impudent chip in our 5-1 demolition of Shakhtar while the second was a simple header from 2 yards out. Even my granny would have scored that. Wilshere should also remember that if he scores again he’ll have more goals than Mikel “LSC” Obi. Trust me; you wouldn’t want to know what LSC means. Hint: L stands for Low and C is more or less a count. Feel free to assume anything as your S.
Since this match review started I’ve been writing about my fears for Almunia. Every doubt of his shaken ability became a reality when some chap fired a shot from distance. Almunia moved down to anticipate the ball then put his hands on it but it somehow evaded him and went out for a corner. If Almunia was in the middle of the post, it would’ve been 1-0 for Blackburn.
Seconds after that blunder my Twitter notification appeared on my BlackBerry device. The first tweet I saw was from the famous football pundit John Cross.
“@Johncrossmirror: Almunia’s first nervy moment. A real let off. The camera pans to Lehmann then Bob Wilson. Just what you need for confidence.”
As they always say, “you can take the man of the streets but you can’t take the streets from the man”. Big Sam brought that Bolton physical approach to Blackburn. That’s something Mr. Kean can’t take away from his playing lot. When you have beasts like Samba, Nelsen, N’ Zonzi and the Jones boys in one pitch, what can you expect? Blackburn became very physical and tackles were flying all over the place.
Blackburn launched another counter attack thereby exposing Clichy on his wing. Up stepped Arshavin out to the blue to deflect the ball out for a corner. I guess peeps can shut their pile holes a bit when they want to talk about Arshavin and work rate. The resulting corner was caught by Almunia and for once he did something meaningful. Almunia quickly launched a counter attack by feeding the ball to the confident winger known as Walcott. With the blistering speed he was running with the ball, there was no way his teammates could keep up so he fired his shot wide. This is a player that was too bloody fast for the linesman in the game against Wolves.
Blackburn had another counter but Koscielny did well to nod the cross out of danger because there was a predator lurking behind him.
Almunia had another nervy moment late on. Robinsinus launched one of his trademark free kicks from his area to Arsenal’s 18-yard box. N’ Zonzi and Almunia went for the ball but as expected, Almunia was 2nd best. The bloke’s header went wide.
Nasri had another chance that was blocked by more potatoes in the Blackburn defense. The last chance of the half fell to Sagna but he killed a hawk with his effort.
At half time, we were 7 points behind United but the performance was encouraging enough. At the pace, I felt that Blackburn wasn’t going to keep up.
The second half started brightly with rVp floating a nice corner that wasn’t converted by anyone wearing red. Nasri activated his Harry Potter mode and decided to do some magic tricks on the pitch. The end product was zero.
With the lot not doing enough to get that all-important goal, AW the Alchemist decided that it was time to unleash Super Fab to Mother Emirates Earth. AA23 was sacrificed to the gods for Fabregas’ entry.
A Blackburn chap decided to make a fool of himself in our box but Phil Dowd told him to get his ass up and continue with the game. This was the same Dowd that gave two soft penalties against us in Newcastle. This just goes to say that in football you get some and you don’t get some. Man Utd fans shouldn’t fret, Mr. Atkinson will give you that Zhirkov equivalent in the near future but I hope it won’t be in the Emirates. I’ll kill him with words in the next post.
rVp had a weak shot that was saved. The next noteworthy moment was a scary one for us wearing the Red and White. Jack Wilshere and some bloke went in for a challenge but seconds after that Wilshere started holding his shoulder because he landed awkwardly. After some treatment from our physio the strong young daddy-to-be got up and started moving as if nothing happened to him. I think we need to do another MRI scan on that bloke. If you go to “Wikipedia” and hit the word “Gunners aged 19” his picture is not supposed to be there.
AW the Alchemist decided that Walcott’s time was up so he brought on Chamakh for our winger. I thought that we would change our formative shape but AW the Alchemist decided that rVp would assume the role of a left winger. A tactical mistake if you ask me.
On the 75th minute, the beast called N’ Zonzi lounged hard into Koscielny leaving Mr. Dowd no choice but to brandish Arsenal’s jersey on him. I mean the red card. This meant that Arsenal had 15 more minutes to get 1 past Blackburn knowing that the numerical advantage was with them.
Fabregas did well to send Wilshere through but the Arsenal in him took over again. He chose to pass instead of shoot.
Nasri fed his captain but another bird was sacrificed to Mother Emirates Earth by Fabregas. That was Nasri’s last contribution because he was replaced by our Wald Bezt B52.
rVp showed some lovely footwork to feed Wilshere inside the box. Wilshere looked up and saw Chamakh free in the area. As soon as the ball got to Chamakh’s path I expected the net to rattle but when you’re a striker that has scored 1 goal in your last 18 games or so, your goal scoring confidence levels won’t be that high. I expected Chamakh to rattle the roof of the net with a fierce shot but the Moroccan decided to side foot the ball which was duly blocked by some last ditch defending by a sack of potatoes wearing a Blackburn jersey. rVp, Nasri, Fabregas, Arshavin or even Bendtner would have converted that chance. rVp was meant to be our center forward but his deployment on the left wing meant that the chance he would have converted went to someone else that’s why I called his left wing role a tactical mistake.
Left winger rVp crossed a ball into Blackburn’s danger area but B52 headed wide. Sagna sent a delicious cross that wanted someone wearing the Red and White to pounce on but rVp missed his header by a lick of paint. We then had a free kick at the edge of the area but Super Fab hit the wall.
The 4th official raised his board and I realized that Arsenal had only 4 minutes to make me jump high enough to make my ceiling fan cut my hand again in celebration.
Last season, the man of the moment for giving us vital late goals was Nicklas Bendtner. One of my happiest moments as an Arsenal fan was watching Bendtner score that late late late header against Wolves in the 94th minute. The elation on the bench was equal to the elation at the Emirates. It was also equal to the elation felt by Arsenal fans watching all over the globe.
If there was one player I needed to be in the Blackburn box in the 93rd minute, it would have been Bendtner but Bendtner turned provider when he crossed a lovely ball into the box. Up stepped our Flying Dutchman rVp to nod it……over the fucking bar.
When the final whistle was blown, AW the Alchemist was the first to show his disappointment by shaking his head before shaking Blackburn’s boss. The fans showered boos towards the players because they knew that another chance to close the ever increasing gap had been squandered by the players they paid money to watch.
When we draw or lose games, it’s very easy to point our fingers and give flimsy excuses but yesterday’s game was a lot different.
In the draw against Sunderland, it was Rosicky’s missed penalty that was the talking point. In the loss to West Brom, it was Almunia’s sheer stupidity. In the loss to Chelsea, it was Koscielny’s poor header which he missed early on. In the loss to Newcastle, it was Fabianski’s inability to jump higher than WWE’s Edge. In the painful defeat to our bitter rivals Twitch FC, it was our self destruct mode that was activated. In the narrow loss to Man Utd, it was Wong Fei-Hong’s lucky goal. In the draw against Wigan, it was the Squisha’s embarrassing own goal. In the draw against Man City, it was Hearty Joey’s heroics. In the embarrassing 4-4 draw against Newcastle, it was Diaby’s foolishness and our poor defensive coordination. In the stalemate against Sunderland, it was their goalie’s heroics and in the last week’s draw against West Brom, it was Almunia’s stupidity.
No fingers can be pointed in yesterday’s draw. We were poor and flat. We had 22 shots but only a meager 5 were on target. If Almunia let that shot slip through his hands we would have been on the end of a narrow 1-0 defeat.
West Ham’s resurgence and a 2-0 lead weren’t still enough for the unstoppable force known as Man Utd. When the chips were down, the £250,000 per week man RooThug stepped up his game and paid his dues with a superb hattrick.
“@Arsenalopinion: United’s side is one of their poorest in years. This is the cheapest title they’ll even win, yet no one deserves it more than them”
This tweet was posted in my BlackBerry Arsenal group Team Goonerdaily by @Davicky1.
We are 7 points behind Man U with a game in hand against our rivals Twitch FC. Mathematically, it’s impossible for us to win the league. We have to be reliant on Chelsea and Liverpool one more time.
Alfred Molina said in Pink Panther 2 that if Inspector Jacque Clouseau solves the case, he’ll wear a tutu. If Arsenal wins the Premier League, I’ll have a bath in the streets outside my house.
Even if I’m mad, I won’t even think of doing such a thing but our chances of winning the Premier League are slim to none.
In other news, loud mouthed Jose Moaninho has finally lost his incredible home record by losing yesterday to Sporting Gijon. He had gone 151 home games without losing from 2002 till yesterday night. Everyone thought that the impregnable home record would be ended by the BarcAliens. Nobody ever thought the Wolves would be the team that would end Man Utd’s impressive unbeaten record.
That’s a wrap for today.
Sorry for the lateness of this post. I went out with my old man.
Arsenal Football Club
Shame on you.
Sayonara
