We was Robbed - Arsenal enter record books.
celbration
By Boris Mellor
June 5 2005
On a 119 minutes the tannoy announced that Wayne Rooney was Man of the Match, I don’t know about the players but I found that rather intrusive.
Fortunately it did not disturb the Arsenals players concentration as much as I feared. The Gunners stuck to their task of not conceding.
At 45 minutes I feared a Man U goal, at 90, at 105 and finally at 120 we denied Man U a goal; and Man U are famous for last minute goals, but it was not their day. So how did they know who was Man of the Match when all was still to be played for.
When it came to the penalty shoot out we finally robbed Man U of the Cup; they were the better team, but no Arsenal fan cares. And it was Lehmann that made sure that the Gunners did just that. Lehmann had a brilliant match and was a major reason we won the cup. I say major reason, because Senderos and Kolo were able assistants, and Ljungberg made an incredible save on the line when it looked certain Man U would score.
We was Robbed
But Lehmann was the true man of the match, sure Rooney played well, but he never beat Lehmann, Ronaldo perhaps even better. But it was Lehmann who was the match winner - so we were robbed of MOM, but I don’t grudge that one bit, I prefer the booty we stole any day.
Thus Arsenal won the first ever Cup Final to go to a penalty shootout, another entry in the record books.
Our attack never really got into gear, but I would not put that solely down to Henry’s absence, rather Wenger used a 4-3-3 that proved disastrous against Bayern. It meant that effectively Bergkamp was the only striker up front. Reyes was ineffectual behind him and Cesc was unable to link up with Lauren. But if we never attacked well, we certainly defended well. Sure we had some luck, but would the Arsenal of four months ago have withstood this onslaught – well those of us at Highbury for the 4-2 defeat know the answer to that.
Pundits have argued that Arsenal are incapable of a Plan B. George Graham has often said that this Arsenal can never depend on holding the opposition to zero. His Arsenal won many trophies 1-0. Wenger has just beat him by winning zero zero. Yes it wasn’t pretty, but was Chelsea pretty all season? Was Liverpool’s magnificent defeat of Chelsea pretty?
Wenger was under siege, the vultures were looking forward to declaring him a failure, Man U had the evil eye on Arsenal, the Gunners lacked mental toughness, and they would wilt. Man U always won, stats were dragged out that showed we had failed to win for 9 games, including meaningless Lager Cup games with our third string, but omitting the Community Shield. But none of this matters now for Arsenal showed character, team spirit and mental toughness. Arsenal fans will not worry about the fact we didn’t score in open play. Neither did RVN, Rooney or Ronaldo, our defence has plugged the gaps. We can overcome Man U in a competitive match, we finished higher than they did, and we did it without strikers that cost as much as our whole squad.
Man U were fresher than us because they were able to rest players, its clear that Sir Alex had given up on winning second place a few weeks ago. Thus he rotated players giving them a rest in turns. But Arsenal were determined to win 2nd place with Wenger even insisting on 3 points at Brum – it didn’t work. The Birmingham game demonstrated the team was running out of steam. But memory and team spirit kept them going to the very end.
Man U robbed us of reaching 50 unbeaten – how sweet it was to rob them of the only trophy this overpriced, overpaid team could win. In the end our only defeat of them was the most important victory. It will show in the record books for 2004 –5, for Man U another blank page.