No doubting Tomas – Henry’s Giggsy moment

Celebrate
By Boris Mellor
January 7 2007

Hardly any pundit, apart from Ian Wright, gawd bless him, gave Arsenal any chance at Anfield. Here is one example from the weekend Guardian:

"No club entertains with quite the style of the London club but flakiness is part of the fun. Last month's rollicking 6-2 success over Blackburn Rovers actually saw Mark Hughes' team in contention until the closing minutes. Arsenal captivate, in part, because the beauty is so brittle and with Cesc Fábregas and Robin van Persie suspended, their FA Cup campaign is likely to shatter at Anfield. Kevin McCarra in the Guardian."

Ironically it might have been the suspension of Fabregas that made this such a vigorous performance by Arsenal, for his replacement Flamini was tenacious in his support of Gilberto. I was worried about Fabs absence, but I also worry that Fab, Ros and Hleb are a little bit too much of a muchness in the midfield together, perhaps Arsene should perm any two from the three of them, and keep Flamini as a constant factor (at least away from home).

One reason that the pundits were so sure that Liverpool would win was that they haven’t lost at home for 10 months and have started scoring recently. And of course McCarra is not wrong in saying that there is a brittleness about Arsenal. But the brittleness has been against small clubs, not the big boys. Also there is the problem that it’s only rarely that Arsene has been able to play the same defence on a regular basis. Clichy and Senderos have been criticised in some quarters, but Clichy was out for nearly a year, now his form is returning.

Centre halves also need quite a lot of games before they get on the pace, fans should think back to the days when Adams or Keown returned after a long lay off, they always made a lot of mistakes the first few weeks. If the defence can settle in, and it is beginning to, then this team will go places, forgive the pun.

The only unsettled part, now, is the right side, the left side now looks solid. But on the right Eboue did not play that well, and some of his antics are a distraction, but can Hoyte hack it? Or will Lauren return?

The first 30 minutes of the game was a phoney war, very little happened, mainly because the Gunners didn’t allow it to. But the truce was brutally broken when in the final eight minutes Rosicky destroyed Liverpool with two brilliantly taken goals.

The first was preceded by a wonderful one two between Hleb and Rosicky, the final pass went to Tomas who controlled the ball immediately and curled it into the top corner. Thirty-seven minutes and 1-0 up. The first opposition goal at Anfield since October. Most Gunners would have settled for that at half time, but not Tomas, on 45 minutes he went off on a magical mystery tour of the Liverpool final third. When he finally unleashed the ball from the edge of the area there were at least seven Liverpool players in close proximity; but not one moved as his shot went low and wide of Dudek. Perhaps they were entranced by Rosicky’s skills, I know I was.

Some Liverpool fans at work on Friday had boasted that no team scores at Anfield, without the benefit of hindsight, I replied, but you haven’t played any teams with attackers of Arsenal’s quality, and I wasn’t even thinking of Tomas.

As the second half commenced Arsenal fans were hoping for a quick goal to put the tie beyond the Scousers reach, but the Gunners never do anything the easy way, and the next 30 minutes was all one way traffic as Liverpool made attack after attack. But stout Arsenal defending and Liverpool under elaboration meant that most of it was wind and fury with little substance.

No Bookends

But a much improved Liverpool, since Arsenal last beat them, were not going to give up the cup without a fight; also they had a dream of being the first winners at Wembley. Having robbed Arsenal of winning the first final at Cardiff they now had a double of their own in view. (By the way those Scousers ringing in on 606 calling Arsenal cheats, I know you are too young to have seen the 2001 final but get the DVD out – you will see some real cheating there. Look out for the Harlem Globe Trotters in the Liverpool shirts.)

So it was hardly surprising that they threw themselves so hard at Arsenal, but very little of it had real affect. Only five of their shots were on target all match, Arsenal also had five on target. But on 72 minutes it became squeaky bum time as Kuyt headed in. Liverpool pressed on even more determined, the neutrals must have loved it, but Liverpool and Gunner fans were living on their nerves. However Senderos and Toure were magnificent, and cross after cross was headed out by big Phil, but even so the clock was running down far too slowly, I could swear my watch was running backwards.

The risk of an equaliser was mounting, however on 84 minutes Henry broke the Liverpool resistance, even though he appeared exhausted when he won the ball just outside the Liverpool half, passed to himself and accelerated to 19.6 miles per hour to run on and on into the area. Pushing past Carragher and then beating several defenders he made sure he was well placed before he passed the ball beyond Dudek. This was Henry’s Giggs’ moment, but even greater, for Giggs had come on as a sub in that semi-final, and no Arsenal defender even tried to stop him. At least Carragher tried to push Henry off the ball. I hope we have to watch replays of the goal as many times as we had the Giggs goal inflicted on us.

It is one of the great individual goals of the 21 st Century, not because of the finish, but the build up, and distance covered, by a player who was almost running on empty. It also came at a crucial time when Arsenal’s valiant defence needed relief from a Liverpool a bombardment that appeared to be about to break through. Even with four minutes added time Henry had put the game beyond Liverpool. He had done what a captain should do, he had made the game safe for Arsenal. It was his last act of any importance as Walcott came on to give him a well-earned rest.

Not a good captain? Doesn’t deliver in big games? Not trying? Doesn’t care? You’re having a larf. Sorry I must not get obsessed with Mr Moany my nearby neighbour in the North Bank.

Liverpool fans are to be congratulated on their organised greeting of the television cameras with a wall of sound protesting over slurs on fans' behaviour at Hillsborough, recently re-aired by the odious Kelvin MacKenzie, editor of the Sun at the time of the original accusations. The sound was deafening and non – stop for the whole six minutes.

If you were watching on TV the slogans were filtered so it was hard to hear what the slogans were, but you could see the anti-Sun placards The display lasted six minutes into the game to coincide with the tragic time when the 1989 FA Cup semi-final was abandoned. It does show that if fans organise they can get some control over events usually trivialised by the owners, and commentators, of the beautiful game.

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