What a difference a fortnight makes
No Savage
By Henry Hansen
March 1 2007
The Arsenal Times preview of this match, with tongue in cheek, warned that:"Poll will be refereeing tomorrow so look out for revenge from the referees union. No doubt the Gunners will be kicked all over the park and woe betide anyone who retaliates (Arsenal that is)."
I forgot to mention that Arsenal will not be getting any more penalties this season.
Hughes and Jewell argue that referees favour big clubs, well if they do could they please stop doing it, the Gunners can’t afford it anymore. Remember how ape shit Jewell went when the slender Heskey was brutally knocked over by a tap on the shoulder from that heavy weight Flamini. I thought Wenger was quite calm over the crap decisions last night, but then he expects nothing less from Poll.
Now it’s true that Freddy is not the player he was but I was surprised to read on an Arsenal website "Bottom line, Freddie can't get beyond people any more. He runs into defenders to get free-kicks and throws." Well that might be part of his game, it also might be defenders are now waiting for him. But lets be specific and not change the facts to fit a theory over the not given penalty, Freddy was past every defender, Emerton was behind him, he pushed and tripped Ljungberg from behind. There was no advantage for Freddy to get blocked. Now perhaps the theory should be that Freddy can’t score anymore, but then he scored a corker against Bolton.
After that game the same website declared "But the way he took that extra-time goal against Bolton last night was pure Freddie : the timing of the run, the right foot touch, the left foot shot angled to perfection. Scoring goals is often about pinching a yard from the defender, or half a yard, just enough space to get in a shot. And Freddie Ljungberg does that very well." Obviously Freddy has gone downhill very rapidly over the last 14 days. Mind you there was no warning of his immediate decline in that article.
However the penalty decisions are not the reason Arsenal lost, the main reason was the Gunners inability to score. The iron law of football states that if you don’t take your chances the other side, however poor, and Blackburn is poor, will eventually score. I think Wenger made two mistakes, one putting Senderos at right back, he should have moved Gallas there. Secondly he should have brought Walcott on earlier; it was clear after 50 minutes that neither front man would score.
Striker problems
I would argue that Aliadiere was worse than Baptista, at least the Beast unleashed two good shots, and several poor ones. Ali didn’t have a shot all night. The two were wooden all night, they never linked up together, and they rarely searched out the ball, they often wasted good passes.
However the argument that Wenger has neglected the striker position is nonsense. He has three quality strikers, Henry, Adebayor and RvP – could he really predict that all three would be unavailable? How well would Chelsea do without Drogba? Just one striker short would undermine them. That is not a criticism, Drogba does great job, and you play your best players. How well would Man U do without Saha, Larsson and Rooney?
Arsenal have scored more goals than Chelsea this season, a few weeks ago they put nine past Liverpool, three past Bolton, two past Blackburn, five past Spurs and so on. I don’t remember too many people complaining at the time, and even if they were, how many top class strikers can one team maintain? If Chelsea can only afford two can Arsenal afford four?
Get behind Wenger – Five dead shite
After the match Wenger was more interested in attacking the linesman who allegedly saw Adebayor punch Lampard. Lampard denies any such thing, so now the FA say that he aimed a punch at Lampard but didn’t connect (spot the fancy footwork?). So did anyone see him aim a punch at Frank? Well done Arsene for sticking up for your player, but of course the BBC is in uproar, especially Five Dead Shite. For the good of the game Wenger must be hung drawn and quartered. How dare he question the FA’s honesty. Just because a linesman lied, and he is backed up by the FA that doesn’t mean the FA is dishonest – oh no. That will teach Arsenal to beat the Radio 5 Liverpool Mafia’s favourite team 6-3 using only reserves.Of course when Jewell did it, and Hughes did it, they were hailed as national heroes, but then they are not French.
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