Up For Grabs Now

Well, that was angry, breathless, and, purely as a football game, a bit bollocks wasn’t it?

You all saw the key incidents, I’m sure.

An explosive goal of rare grace and ingenuity from Van Persie. The sort of goal only he can score. The kind of footballing brilliance where you pretty much punch the ceiling as the net bulges, your mouth hangs open and your guts jump for joy, but part of you can’t help thinking “why can’t he do that all the time?” Probably because it’s really really hard to do – even for him.

Liverpool hit back with their first decent attack of the game - a high-bouncing hoof caught out Djourou as Keane snuck in front of him and finished magnificently. The guy’s a pillock, but what a well taken goal. I won’t blame Djourou or Almunia. Keane hit it so early that there was little they could do from their starting positions, where normally a touch or an extra bounce would have allowed them to recover.

Cesc hobbled off and will be a major concern. The TV cameras showed him holding his shirt to his face and the great man looked very frustrated. Let’s hope it was just a heavy knock and he hasn’t sustained a profound injury. His frustration could simply have been because he knew he wouldn’t be able to play the second half, not necessarily anything longer. Fingers crossed. We need him.

In the first half Arsenal had a surprising amount of joy playing high, direct balls for Adebayor whose knock-downs into the midfield gave us several decent attacking platforms in an advanced area of the pitch. This seemed to dry up in the second half as the reshaped midfield struggled a bit without their injured General.

Adebayor had been looking pretty pissed off all game and put in a really stupid challenge considering he was on a yellow. Of course the Liverpool prat made a meal out of it so big you could have added a few sprouts and called it a Christmas Dinner, and our fans were rightly outraged (as was Arsene). Still, a silly thing for Adebayor to do when he’s on a yellow card. Very silly in such a big game which looked there for the taking with 11 men. The boy needs a rocket up him if you ask me, and fast.

From then on the game got even scrappier, the moronic Howard Webb booking our players at every possible opportunity and Liverpool showing the kind of lack of ambition which could well deny them the title. Pretty much 35 minutes against 10 men missing their captain and heartbeat. A chance, you’d think, to kill off a rival’s fading title hopes and compound their Christmas lead. No attacking substitutions until Babel on 70 minutes and still no real thrust to their attack. !Rafa, no me jodas! Donde esta los cojones?

Finally, a word on the performances of Song and Denilson, two players much maligned who will doubtless have to face all kinds of misguided criticism after this result. Rarely has there been such a gap between Arsene’s belief in a player and the fans’ suspicion of them as there currently is with these two.

Well, I’ve got news for their haters. I’m not saying that they have both been consistently outstanding this season or anything like that, nor am I saying I’d want them in a first-choice midfield every week. But today they played superbly against a vastly more experienced Liverpool midfield and both of them out of their natural position. Where was Stevie G? Song had him. 

For once, let’s just stand up and give them a bit of credit, shall we. Two battling performances (not perfect, by any means) but certainly well worthy of the shirt in my opinion.

What did you think of the match then? Post your views underneath and we’ll have a right old chinwag.

So just one day until our almost-table-topping clash with Liverpool. It’s a big game – big for this season and this team, big as it’s 20 years on from  Anfield ‘89 (”it’s up for grabs now!” and all that), and big as I think most Gooners dislike Liverpool even more than usual right now because of the Champions’ League defeat last season.

Wenger and van Persie didn’t shy away from talking about that defeat, with Wenger re-opening the Babel-penalty debate, insisting it was “a dive” (with apologies for the spoony music on that link). I agree that it was a dive, and that Liverpool always, always get exceptionally lucky with refereeing decisions at critical moments when they’re at home (and often away too), but I also think if Toure hadn’t flailed around quite so much then it would have looked even less like a penalty. It’s much easier for the referee to award a penalty when the accused defender appears to be doing some form of hippopotamus-inspired ballet derivative around the attacker.

Still, no point crying over spilt hopes and dreams, is there? Tomorrow’s game could have a big impact on the league season and Arsene is pulling his best Raging Bull impression. The caption on that photo is incorrect. It should read “Big Bad Wenger-Bull butts that bastard Benitez’s bony Iberian bum bloody hard”. Here’s what he had to say:

I am confident that we can beat anybody. If we played Barcelona tomorrow I’m confident we can beat them. I believe that we were vulnerable at some stage to a different kind of game and we have rectified that. In the time coming up we can show that we can deal with that.

It is firstly a concentration problem and secondly because we face a different style of play; much longer and much more direct. It looks to me the main reasons. I believe we are more vulnerable to that type of play.”

I like the sound of the past-tense in reference to our abysmal showings against the lesser teams (you’re meant to put “so-called lesser teams” there, but come on, this is Arsenal we’re talking about so let’s not beat around the bush of SkySports cliches). “WE HAVE RECTIFIED THAT“. About time too. If he really has then there’s every chance this season could yet come up smelling of roses. And big-eared or golden-crowned trophies too. What do they smell like? Success, probably. What does success smell like? Blood, sweat and cheers? Ribbons?

More worrying was that Arsene said that beating the big teams (like Liverpool) was “compulsory” for our season. It’s one of his favourite media-words and it is almost always a harbinger of doom. “It’s compulsory that we don’t draw loads of games against crap teams 1-1 all the way through February and March… oops.” “It’s compulsory that when we play brilliantly and get ourselves a goal ahead we don’t brain-freeze and end up losing the game… oops.” “It’s compulsory that we keep Flamini.” You get my drift.

Team selection: Assuming Nassers is back, I’d like to see Almunia, Clichy, Djourou, Gallas (who tends to swap sulking for scoring in games like this), Sagna, Nasri, Cesc, Song, Denilson, Ade, RvP.

Yes I did just put Song in midfield and Denilson on the right. Got a problem with that? No it didn’t make me feel good about myself, and yes I’m aware that this isn’t one of our more distinguished midfields but what else was I meant to do? It worked against Chelsea didn’t it?

I suppose other options would include Vela on the left, Nasri on the right and then you’d presumably want Denilson in the middle – call it the Anti-Song selection. It would also have the advantage of pitting Nasri against Dossena who, as discussed on Arseblogger’s superb Arsecast yesterday, is absolutely terrible. I guess you could play around with Eboue, Ramsey, perhaps even young Wilshere, but would you really want to against Liverpool? Really?

Would be great to hear your opinion on tomorrow’s team.

Arsene also said he wants to give Arsenal the “gift” of the Champions’ League. Thanks Arsene, that would be really lovely. How did he know that’s what we always wanted? Has he intercepted our Christmas letters to Santa? Is he Santa? It would certainly account for our poor run of form, and for the fact that so far he hasn’t found any “special” players for us to buy in January. Too busy with his little elves?

What else might we find on the Wenger-sleigh? The quote I am clinging to about January is: “the Board let me do what I want to do. I know how much money I can spend and I will try to do it in a wise way.”

It sounds cool and clinical and calculating, like he’s going to bust open his incredible £400 million chequebook, sign the entire Man Utd team then the Chelsea team, sling them all in the reserves apart from Vidic and Essien, who will be allowed to play having been put through a rigourous anti-bastardising programme involving Bob Wilson and the movie “Fever Pitch”. Sounds like a good solution to me.

In the unlikely event that this doesn’t actually happen, I will of course stand corrected.