Arsenal 0 City 0: Painfully dull
I ARRIVED at the Emirates still traumatised after the capitulation of the JJB.
I left the Emirates thoroughly sedated after as dull a 90 minutes as I can remember.
Lions share of the blame must go to City I think. All those gazillions spent so you can go to a half strength, confidence shot with little to play for Arsenal side and turn in one of the most negative performances ever. I’m not even sure Silvestre or Fabianski were even given the chance to make a mistake.
Obviously, I don’t want Spurs to get fourth but if I remove my north London hat for a second then really they do appear the only ones who merit it in any way. Liverpool have been just plain atrocious, Villa predictably woeful after Xmas and City have managed to lose fewer games than their Mancunian rivals and yet still trail them by 16 points.
I suppose I’d better go back to the game. One early thought was how despite apparently being injured Wayne Bridge had Theo Walcott totally in his pocket. Another thought was what a pedantic little shit Mike Dean was, slowing down an already pedestrian encounter by insisting innocuous free-kicks at either end were taken from the precisely the right spot.
Team wise, it was good to see RVP start. He looked a little rusty mind and equally was up against about five banks of five defenders. Gael Clichy offered the zip and energy that reminds us that however nightmareish his post injury form was and however poor his crossing is, he remains a fine, fine left-back who is exactly the kind of character we need.
Another is Sol Campbell. Credit to Arsene for bringing him back but for passing on dear old Paddy Vieira. Sol must stay. The man is just a behemoth. Paddy probably came out second too an off form Abou Diaby, which says it all really. While we’re on the subject of geriatrics, credit too to Silvestre, who played well.
The half-time highlights on the big screen included an RVP cross that sailed around a foot both above and to the side of Samir Nasri’s head before bouncing harmlessly out of play.
Then we got Adebayor. You know what, even our beef with him is second rate. At least Ashley Cole really was once a Gooner. At least we won some stuff with him.
Adebayor? I honestly wasn’t that bothered. Some people were. One chant questioning who the self gratifier leaning against the post was was funny, another sung by a few would have had to be really, really clever to get away with being offensive. It wasn’t.
Even with him on, they still looked unbelievably defensive. With five minutes to go we had a free-kick that was going to be crossed in and they had every single man back in the box to defend it. Firstly, have they seen us from set-pieces? Secondly, have they seen some of the counter attack goals we’ve conceded this season?
Presumably not.
And so the announcement of eight minutes injury time was met with a collective “do we really have to?”. If I’d been wearing a heart monitor I suspect it would have detected a slight rise in activity when Paddy strode into our box and Sol nicked it off him before the break and also when RVP’s free-kick drifted a football’s width wide.
And that really was it. There’s not a lot more to say really. Arguably we weren’t that far off full strength but trying to draw too many footballistic analysis from this would probably be a mistake.
The crowd, I should say, were very upbeat I thought given events the previous weekend. Silly mistakes frayed the odd nerve presumably shortened by a day’s drinking in the sun but really on the whole everyone was quite positive.
I’ve got a fair bit to say about the season but it can wait for a couple of days. Next up it’s Blackburn, where Big Sam will presumably have a sweepstake going on how many of our players’ dreams of going to the World Cup they can end. I reckon Samir Nasri could be a target: firstly for being French, secondly for being small, thirdly for chewing gum, fourthly for having tight control (apparently that’s a sure fire way to get your leg broken I’m told by the “he ain’t that type of player brigade”) and fifthly again for being French.
PS, Before anyone starts having a go, I realise how very fortunate I am to get to see Arsenal live and I don’t doubt many of you would gladly relieve me of such a burden. All I’m saying is that whether you followed this in the stadium, on TV, on the radio, on Twitter, via text or not at all, as far as Premier League football matches go, this was dull.
I was there at Emirates, i have to say it was the most painful game ever.. Grrrr