Henry gets cross Arsenal 2 FC Porto 0

Night match
By Boris Mellor
September 27 2006

No I am not talking about the wonderful cross from Eboue, but at those in the crowd who keep yelling “Shoot” at players. Arsenal Times raised it at the weekend, see link to story at bottom of the page.

 Henry  feels that the shoot shouters are being sucked in by the media, that something has got into their head. Thierry called for patience in the match programme, and for fans to get behind the team. Something certainly had got into the head of the bloke behind me, but its time to move on. But Henry is right the crowd should not undermine what the team are trying do. Henry is as much about assists as goals, and what an assist he gave Hleb. And Hleb didn’t waste it with a wonderful controlled pass for the second goal.

 

However the goal that counted was Henry’s header from Eboue’s cross. Now that Henry is endorsing Reebok his campaign makes it clear that all goals are scored using his head. Far more practical than any Nike campaign. Also by only heading goals he may feel some kind of revenge on the idiot behind me yelling shoot all the time.

 

Van Persie shot freely and at will, but I must admit wishing that he would sometimes consider passing, but perhaps that is unfair

 

Porto attacked far more than I expected, and didn’t start diving until after the second goal, far more pleasing than when ole big head ran them. However they were very ineffectual, and Postiga didn’t threaten once, let alone twice. (That’s enough art club movie talk, Ed). The crowd booed Postiga now and then, but he was so anonymous that they forgot about him. However Porto’s manager didn’t forget him and he was substituted quite early on at 65 minutes.

 

At work today everyone, including fans of other teams, could not praise the Gunners football enough. Sublime was a word bandied around quite often.

 

The atmosphere was very good, and the stadium increasingly feels like home; but after 60 minutes a boxing referee would have called the game off as Porto were taking too much punishment. This meant that the game became a bit of a practice match and the crowd lost concentration. Their minds drifted and they chanted for Gary Lewin.

The only other event of any importance was the coming on of Walcott which got a massive cheer. So the crowd went home in a good hearted mood, probably unaware that the only bad news was an injury to Gallas which could keep him out for 3 weeks. The good news is that two of those weeks will be the international break.

Gallas was tremendous again last night, any long term injury loss would be a serious blow to a team now hitting top form.

 

I doubt if we will get a match as easy as this in a long time. So patience will be needed for future games. But we are top of group, and Wenger has four wins in a row for his 10 th Anniversary, and nobody called Gordon will be getting his job. Ten more years, something Blair won’t be hearing.