The commentator’s curse struck this week as we dropped two valuable points at home to Fulham on Saturday. I wrote in my last update that we were now faced with an attractive run-in to Christmas. In all honesty, I thought we’d beat the Cottagers but our recent run of 9 wins from 10 had obviously caught up with us. You could tell that the players were lacking energy following the disposal of Borussia Dortmund earlier in the week. The first half may as well have not occurred – dire as it was. And despite starting the second half brightly, Fulham took the lead against the run of play, courtesy of Tommy V’s own goal. We tried to get back into the game and Arsene gambled by replacing the BFG (big fucking german) with a BFUO (big fucking useless object) that is, Abou Diaby. We stepped up the pace a little and it was eventually Tommy V who nodded in our equaliser from Theo’s cross. Alas, it was too late to rescue the three points.
On Tuesday night we hosted Manchester City in the Carling Cup Quarter-Final. An almost full-house at the Emirates - the majority of whom were newbies. One fan even asked me to sit down during a corner. What is the world coming to? I wonder if I will have to ask permission to sing next time!
At one point, the line-ups were as follows:
15 Oxlade-Chamberlain (11.2m) 28 K Toure (16m)
26 Frimpong (free) 11 Johnson (11m)
30 Benayoun (loan) 19 Nasri (24m)
39 Coquelin (free) 20 Hargreaves (free)
09 Park Chu-Young (1.5m) 34 De Jong (15.8m)
Arsenal total = £29.8m City total = £149.5m
Before the game, you would have been forgiven for predicting an away win. For me, it was a case of damage limitation – I would have been happy to avoid embarrassment. As it happens, we were marvellous. It was an energetic performance, full of spirit and desire. The only thing missing from our game was a bit of maturity and concentration – something which cost us dearly in the end. As we played our corner and lost possession, we switched off defensively and failed to track Dzeko as he played in the impressive Adam Johnson down the wing. With a pirouette, Johnson laid the ball into the path of oncoming Sergio Aguero who tucked it away neatly to send the Blue Moon brigade mental. When you think of Nasri/Aguero/Dzeko leading the line for City and Benayoun/Park/Chamakh leading ours - this was the difference in the end.. you get what you pay for.
The game marked Samir Nasri’s first return to the Emirates as a City player and as expected, he was greeted with angry boos. I must be honest, it felt weird booing him. Don't get me wrong, I was so angry when he left us but let’s get one thing straight... If someone offers to treble your salary and you refuse to move, then quite frankly, you are mad. Greed, my friends, is within us all and human nature is to always want more. Bottom line, I’d have done the same. He has no allegiance to Arsenal so expecting him to stay was unreasonable. I have pleasant memories of him in the red shirt, always trying his best, fighting for the team and leading by example – just cast your minds back to his performances against Barcelona (H), Man United (H), City (A), Porto (H) and even Fulham (H). Almost unplayable at times. Credit to him, he even played well against Liverpool earlier this season knowing full well that he was off.
Tomorrow sees us travel to Wigan. The usual suspects will be back in our starting line-up following a rest this week and so we should be OK for the three points. I've been to Wigan twice now and both occasions seen dire draws, the most recent of which game last season - Seb Squillaci's bullet header own goal. Let's hope for a change tomorrow!
And finally, let’s all laugh at Man United (Palace of Dreams) and the Spuds, humiliated at home in the Europa. Redneck says they can now concentrate on winning the league. Hilarious.
