Thursday, 28 August 2008

Everyone knows Monday night means wrestling

Well... I for one feel let down – I said 7-0 on aggregate Arsene; not 6-0 ffs, Bentner you're useless with 1 goal and 2 assists, call yourself a footballer! You're 20 years old, we expect more than that – you're having a fucking nightmare!

"C'mon Arsenal, C'mon Arsenal, C'mon Arsenal"

...Ahem...

Also, apart from a few media prompted bell-ends booing Adebayor, the biggest disappointment of the evening was when Liverpool spawned a late goal to effectively add 15 million to their transfer kitty... I wonder who they'll sign, oh actually – that's right, I don't care. Curse you Liverpool – we (myself and PieFace) had just bought a second pint and were gleefully looking forward to a penalty shootout and all the extreme close-ups of angst-ridden scouse faces, in particular the clawing fingers and the slow motion 'Nooooooooooooooooo' back-dropped to the image of a stunned Gerrard falling to his knees as the crucial spot kick skies into row n.

Broken dreams eh... that's Liverpool FC for you!

Still, as we lamented Liverpool's undeserved win – it gave us some conversation as to what the mornings back pages might bring us:

We both agreed that an image of Gerrard/Liverpool would make the back pages where as the Arsenal match would be on the inside.

We came up with the headline "Lucky Liverpool Leave it Late" as a possible contender.

PieFace reckoned that the papers would be scathing of the Liverpool performance where as I reckoned that they wouldn't... except for the Guardian who would probably tell it how it was. We had a bet on how the Sun would play the story, mine was for them to cast Liverpool as the chirpy lovable scousers who managed to show their 'class' against a plucky Belgium lot in a bid to gain some media territory into Merseyside. PieFace reckoned that the knives would be out:
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From: DogFace
Sent: 28 August 2008 10:03
To: PieFace
Subject: RE: Scathing?
Dah – The Sun is my most hated paper… even Everton fans won't buy The Sun after Hillsborough – a close second is the Daily Mail – The Metro is a watered down Evening Standard which is, in turn, a diluted Daily Mail.
Fair play to the Metro though for sticking in a well deserved boot.

The Guardian went with: "Kuyt strikes late to save limp and lucky Liverpool" – didn't think of the 'limp' in addition to 'late' and 'lucky'... I would have gone with 'lack-lustre' though - so we were almost right!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/aug/28/championsleague.liverpool

Their report on the Arsenal match is good too:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2008/aug/28/championsleague.arsenal
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From: PieFace
Sent: 28 August 2008 09:55
To: DogFace
Subject: RE: Scathing?
Your favourite paper the Metro was quite scathing this morning - adjectives like "stuttering" and "misfiring" and acknowledging that Liverpool were lucky to get to extra time.

The Sun report is a disgrace to journalism - you were right - a pathetic pandering to try and win back their scouse readership. Doomed to failure; they might as well have the headline: LIVERPOOOL: W&NKERS. After Hillsborough Liverpool fans will despise The Sun till they die.
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From: DogFace
Sent: 28 August 2008 09:23
To: PieFace
Subject: Scathing?

These were the first two I found:

The back pages read "Gerrard injured and misses England qualifiers"... whatever.
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Anyway – on to last night's match! It was a really good game from an Arsenal perspective – the officials didn't get involved in it much and we seemed to be back in form with the return of Cesc... Walcott looked comfortable on the wing again and scored very pretty goal. Eboue even behaved himself! I did notice that McClaren came with the inspired tactic of all shit teams against Arsenal i.e. "They don't like it up 'em" and there was a lot of unnecessary physicality against a few key players in an attempt to unsettle our flow – in particular RvP who, being Dutch, they recognised and all took turns to kick a lump out of... if truth be told I think that they succeeded in breaking his concentration – take a moment and count to 10 Robin! Cesc, as ever, took it all in his stride and didn't even react to the swipes and barges – this I think wound them up and broke their concentration and they soon left him alone... partly because he has the ability and grace to effortlessly make the physical players look like something from a Sunday league pub team – which is not a great career move when you are out playing and trying to get yourself 'noticed' by the money squads. There was a lot of criticism of Bentner going around... some of it fair I suppose – but the fans were definitely on self-destruct mode with this one – admittedly, at times it looked as if Senderos had grown his hair and had a bit of plastic surgery and thought to himself "I'll have a crack at being a striker this season." – but overall he doesn't need or deserve the shit he got. Bentner is young and he lacks confidence when the spotlight is on him, so telling him that he's shit isn't going to help the situation... he also desperately needs to do some work on his first touch as it makes him look out of his depth as a player when he fucks it up so badly. Nasri, again, looked fantastic... Hleb who? He cracked me up when he scored and ran towards the away section to celebrate before looking up into the humourless faces of 5000 hardcore Dutch and toning it down somewhat – the other corner Nasri you muppet! What a signing he's looking to be – he's only played a few games and already he's left me picking up my jaw... can you imagine a full strength squad firing on all cylinders:

Eduardo Adebayor
Nasri Fabregas Song Walcott
Clichy Gallas Toure Sanga
Almunia

With plenty of other options to suit in RvP, Rosicky, Bentner, Eboue and Denielson and the youth players coming through – I think that the core squad is awesome! So... do we really need another signing and why do I keep hearing from the fans that we need to 'spend big' to win anything? If anything we need some useful utility players who can make up the numbers.

I'm looking forward more to the Newcastle encounter now... and shouting moderate abuse at Owen if he comes near me (as he'll be out to impress with the England qualifiers coming up). Although it is on Sky so I'm expecting some dodgyness – does anyone know who the ref is?

PS - Whoever came up with the "You're going home to have some dinner" chant for the fans leaving early I salute you - very funny.
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