Up For Grabs Now

A not-so-instant response to this one, and for that I apologise, but it was a busy busy afternoon.

Arsenal vs Bolton Wanderers, 10 January 2009 will go down in history as the first time, since the creation of this blog, that Grabs and myself attended a home game a deux. Some of you have speculated that we’re the same person, others that we’re more than just good friends, but without going into too much detail it’s important for you to know that we are, and always well be, Arsenal fans first.

It was far from a thrilling game, I think we can all agree, and the relief on my face (cherubic, no less) after the whistle blew was only slightly qualified by the loss of my wager on Arsenal to win 3-1 with Nasri to score first. What was I thinking? Who can tell?

That we somewhat lacked for penetration was no surprise, given that Megson’s Merry Morons arrived and from the get-go only wanted to park ten men in front of the ball. The first half was mostly an example of the traditional game of ‘box-dodging’, otherwise known as the ‘Islington Shuffle’ whereby ten of the world’s best outfield football players, and Manuel the Spanish waiter goalkeeper attempt to pass the ball to each other for as long as possible without ever letting it drift into the opposition’s penalty area.

Arsenal are one of the finest exponents of this ancient art, and during the 45 minutes in question they moved the ball around very effectively, despite many challenges from Bolton players and the duplicitous touchline urgings of their assistant manager Patrick Rice. There was one unfortunate incident when Robin van Persie got in the way of Samir Nasri’s valiant attempt to kick the ball out of play, and in his panic deftly collected it before realising his error and blazing it over the bar, thus minimising the penalty points incurred, but other than that the Shufflers had much to be proud of.

In the second half, Manager Arsene Wenger had a word with the team and reminded them that during the second half they were obliged not to play Islington Shuffle any longer, and instead encouraged them not only to move the ball inside the opposition area but then to try and kick it into the conveniently positioned net. They left it a while, but eventually a tall Danish man arrived to toe-poke the game’s only goal, and though we did our best to give Bolton a great chance immediately afterwards they were too incompetent to take it, and instead we had to take the three points.

From our perspective the match was not without further incident. We visited the Armoury beforehand, with its fine range of merchandise. Finest of this range was, undoubtedly, the fragrance and deodorant ‘Arsenal’. ‘Arsenal’ was advertised by a moody picture of Alex Song clutching a bottle of the aforementioned scent whilst topless, with a pair of provocatively cannon-labelled white briefs poking suggestively from his low-slung jeans. One can only imagine the paroxysms of lust this has sent the womenfolk of North London into:

‘Darling, what’s that you smell of?’

‘Arsenal’

‘But my, you smell so incompetent…yet oddly irresistible’

‘Yes. I know. The fragrance is worn by Alex Song. He wears it when he meets Arsene.’

‘Tackle me, right now’

‘My darling, I’m afraid I’m a little out of position.’

‘You’re still irresistible.’

‘It’s a burden I’ll bear’.

Anyway, we also bore the burden of a couple of absolute idiots sitting behind us. Sample conversation (after Denilson mishit an outrageously ambitious volley of a looping ball outside the box):

Note, for full enjoyment of this imagine for a minute the voice of a young, screechier Barbara Windsor. Amy Winehouse, perhaps, only without the tonal nuance.

‘Deniiwwsan yoar such a shi brazilian. Why int you as good as Kaka?’

There was much more where this came from. It was unfair that they were so irritating, as the blokes in front of us didn’t seem bothered by our own conversation, particularly with regards to Bendtner:

Grabber: ‘Bendtner why are you so shit?’

Bendtner scores, crowd goes wild.

Grabber: ‘I knew it, he always had my full backing. I think he’s a wonderful footballer’

Grabs: ‘You’re a moron’.

Anyway that’s all twaddle. The real lessons from the game were:

1)    It’s great playing with an actual central defender. As Grabs’ correctly pointed out before I’d even so much as sat down, it’s Djourou who does all the talking at the back, just as Campbell used always to tell Kolo what to do (regardless of Kolo’s temporary captaincy). He also makes us about a billion times stronger in the air and defending set-pieces. You’ve got to wonder if part of the problem when Gallas and Toure play together is that Toure doesn’t think Gallas has any idea of what to say. Gallas, through his career, has almost always played best alongside strong and vocal defenders. One to think about.

2)    Nasri looks a very promising creative substitute for Cesc. He’s not quite the finished product – I for one think he should be a bit more direct, but he has more energy and vision than anyone else on our park at the minute, and clearly relishes in being the one making things happen in the middle. This must be a Good Thing.

3)    Vela sort of ditto. He should be getting way more time on the pitch. As soon as he came on we looked much more dangerous – he runs at people, he wants to get in the box, and he can make the awkward transition from ‘Islington Shuffle’ to ‘football’ better than most of the rest of our team.

4)    Diaby’s getting better, fingers crossed it carries on.

Other than that I think we can be happy with the win. Not our most beautiful game, but Bolton have given us problems in the past (although they looked pretty dire at times today), and we’re notching up a nice little run of unbeaten games. If we can bring in some creativity, and Diaby/Denilson show they can work against the better teams, then we’re certainly getting there as a team.

Arsene knows, remember – and just think how much more of a threat we’d pose were Walcott, Cesc and Rosicky fit…

Nobody could have banked on those injuries so specifically to our most incisive players, and even so we’re really not far off the mark. An Arshavin here or there might make all the difference.

My, what a long blog. Have a good Sunday.

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