Van the Man has the Best Moment Arsenal 3 Blkbn 0

Savage
By Boris Mellor
December 8 2005

Not a mobile rang as 38,000 football fans observed an impeccable minute’s silence for the passing of a legend. It was a winter’s day typical of those that Best had strutted his wonderful stuff some 30 years ago.

 The major difference was that the pitch looked like a bowling green. George performed his miracles in the deep mud of winter, when all pitches including Arsenal’s turned into a mud bath in minutes.

The grey beards amongst us hoped to see to a match that would be worthy of the Belfast wizard. Younger fans wondered what the fuss was about, after all many of Arsenal’s players have died, very few got this kind of send off. But if they watch the grainy videos they might get a small idea why, but these are often sound bites, short clips without context.

However it would be an exaggeration to claim that this game lived up to the legend's standards, but, and it’s a big but, there were three wonderful wonderful goals. And the best of all (pun intended) was the wonderful third goal by van Persie. If Best was looking down he would have laughed his head off as the Dutchman incredibly kept the ball in play inches from the touchline whilst being harried by two defenders. He kept his feet and pushed on through them, he then went from 0 to 60 in 5 seconds appearing in the penalty area.

Van Persie having arrived in the area Wenger thought, at first, that he should have passed, but RvP had other ideas. From a very tight angle he bent the ball around and beyond Friedel, and it went in off the post. The crowd went into raptures. It has to be candidate for goal of the season. How many fans get to see goals of this quality game after game?

The game was barely three minutes old when Fabregas scored a beautiful goal from outside the area. This seemed to remove any sense of urgency from the Arsenal ranks, and Blackburn showed more attacking thrust. Arsenal for the most part defended adequately, and the Rovers treated errors kindly. Lehmann dominated his area, giving a classic display of how a goalkeeping sweeper should play. But Arsenal were always dangerous on the break, and also passed the ball around well

Then on 45 minutes Pires delivered an inch perfect pass to Henry bearing down on goal. One touch, and then with the second Henry placed it beyond Friedel. It was simplicity personified, but it was Henry’s 100 Th goal at Highbury. The crowd rose to salute him. Henry claimed afterwards that he had not known he had broken yet another record until he saw it on the big screen.

In the second half Arsenal played like it was a practice match. Blackburn continued to press, but you could sense that their belief was not quite as strong as it had been after the first goal.

With ten minutes to go Wenger decided to freshen up the team with van Persie. Fabregas had scored at the very beginning, Henry at exactly half time and van Persie on 90 minutes. What more can you want? In the pub afterwards the only "more" fans discussed was that the Gunners keep on producing those silky moves and wonder goals week after week.