I’m writing to you from the comfort of a first class carriage on the East Midlands rail service to Derby. May I take this opportunity to inform you that Virgin trains are much better. Kudos to Sir Richard Branson – your trains and broadband are the bollocks. I shall be spending the next two days at Pride Park, home of Derby County Football Club. Sadly, my job has nothing to do with football and so my visit involves massaging the egos of a few senior finance professionals within the NHS. The journey up is a pleasant one, passing through endless, beautiful English countryside and munching on my Pret chicken and avocado sandwich. Who’d have thought, chicken and avocado, together. Genius.
Despite losing at TopGolf to my jungle friend, Katharine, my weekend was far more tolerable than most in recent times. That’s right, Arsenal won. For most football fans, the smug satisfaction of seeing your team win on a Saturday afternoon sets the weekend up rather nicely. And this is exactly what happened – a pleasant change.
Arsenal were home to Bolton Wanderers on Saturday and historically this has been a tough fixture for us. Under Owen Coyle Bolton appear to be slightly less physical than the teams of the past led by Fat Sam Allardyce. God I hate Allardyce, the obese walrus. Quite frankly, Bolton’s form this year has been woeful hence their position at the foot of the table. I must admit, all week I thought this would be a score-draw. Only with the unexpected omission of both Kevin Davies and Gary Cahill from their starting line up (the latter perhaps having a medical in time for his January transfer), I became more confident and so predicted a 3-0 home win – much to the amazement of fellow fans.
You never really know which Arsenal will turn up to games these days. Similar to Blackburn last week, we saw the good and the bad Arsenal and fortunately for us, we missed out on the ugly. The first half was dire. Szczesny produced a magnificent save in the opening minutes to deny Bolton an early lead and we struggled to get going. Lacking sharpness the players looked flat with wayward passes and as far as I can remember, we couldn’t manage a single shot on target. An extremely small minority met the half-time whistle with boos – something which disgusts me and evidently my friend, Dimi, who made his feelings known in no uncertain terms, ‘Don’t f*cking boo the players you useless c*nts!!’. Haha.
My 3-0 prediction seemed highly unlikely at the interval and as the Gunners stormed out on to the pitch early for the second half, I felt confident again. Marching out earlier than required sent out a message to the fans and to the opponents that we had a point to prove. We flew out of the blocks, with two sharp challenges from Rambo and Arteta. Quickly controlling possession we played the ball to RVP who danced across the box before ramming home Arsenal’s first, beating Jussi Jaaskelainen at his near post. His second – touched home after a low cross from the excellent Theo Walcott – put paid to Bolton. To make things worse for our opponents, Bolton were reduced to ten for a clumsy last-man challenge by David Wheater on Walcott.
Only when Alex Song curled home a gorgeous third in the final minute were we able to relax. RVP went off to a standing ovation and the Dutchman celebrates 100 goals for Arsenal Football Club. My personal favourite would be the incredible volley at Charlton – that strike will last in my memory forever. I was disappointed to hear Alan Hansen decry Robin Van Persie as our captain and leader, claiming that ‘he doesn’t lead by example’. Err… Mr. Hansen, RVP has scored 26 goals in his last 31 appearances for Arsenal and apart from Tommy V, he is the first player that you can imagine trying to knock the shite out of the opposition:
What more do you want a captain to do, sleep with players’ wives (Terry), or bash up people in bars (Gerard), or fight with team-mates (Barton)? Meh.
This week sees us pit our wits against Greek champions, Olympiacos. If we repeat our performance of the second half against Bolton, I think we’ll be OK. It’s important we build on our result in Germany and pick up three points. And then, it’s the big one. The North London Derby. There are so many reasons why I hate Tottenham. Their twat of a manager, arrogant and obnoxious fans, dump of a ground and now… Adebayor. If I’m being honest, I think I’d take a draw as we’d have played two big games by Sunday and the twitch-master would have been able to rest their lot for their giant Europa clash against some part-time farmers from the Faroe Islands on ITV7+2. All that I ask from my Arsenal is a performance based on passion and pride. Spurs: forever in our shadows.
Finally, I was pleased to be part of the 47,000 that turned up to watch us beat Shrewsbury in the Carling Cup last week, courtesy of my friend, Joanne Foster - some coverage of both of us on SkySports:
I’ve seen a lot of promising youngsters in my time but last Tuesday night I saw two players that made me feel the same tingle I felt when I first saw Fabregas in his no. 57 shirt. Ryo Miyaichi (31) and Alex ‘The Ox’ Chamberlain (15) look the part, the former will be electric. Mark my words.
Much love x
