FA Cup 4th Round: Arsenal 4 – Middlesborough 1

Posted by Pierre Igot in: Football
January 24th, 2004 • 3:04 am

Swines. Stupid Canadian broadcaster Sportsnet changed their minds at the last minute and decided to show a Scottish Cup game instead!

So I ended up following the game online with the text feed provided by the official club site Arsenal.com. It’s a bloody Java application and it doesn’t work too well, but it worked well enough for me to see the game evolve into the now familiar thumping. (I also tried to use the live score feed provided by the Guardian web site, which is a simple web page reloading at regular intervals. But they mysteriously stopped updating it after 68 minutes.)

Obviously Thierry Henry’s absence (Wenger is resting him) didn’t hurt too much, which is a very good sign. (We’ll still need him for the big games, though!) Even Arsenal youngster David Bentley got on the score sheet — and all that Middlesborough got for their efforts is one goal, three yellow cards, and a red card. Who said Arsenal has disciplinary problems?

Oh well, it was disappointing not to be able to see the game after all, especially since it sounds like it was quite entertaining.

Now it remains to be seen whether the inexperienced team fielded by Arsène Wenger in the Carling Cup can reverse the 0-1 defeat of last Tuesday and qualify for the final just the same.


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