EPL: Day 34 (Arsenal 5 – Leeds 0)

Posted by Pierre Igot in: Football
April 16th, 2004 • 7:09 am

Well, what can you say? Thierry Henry is a magnificent player, Arsenal can be a magnificent team — but we already know that. Still, I think it’s the first time Thierry scores 4 goals in the same game — and 7 in 8 days!

When I read about Eddie Gray warning Arsenal that Leeds might just be the team to put an end to their unbeaten record by repeating their feat of the last two seasons (winning at Highbury), I just knew that he was going to get into trouble. There is just no way that this year’s Leeds team compares to the team of one or two years ago, and Gray knows it all too well. His attempt to lift the spirits of his side and their supporters might just have piqued the Gunners enough to give Leeds a footballing lesson this time around — which they most certainly did.

It all started with a perfect goal by Pires after barely 5 minutes, and it all went downhill from there for Leeds. First, a nice Thierry Henry goal, and then a penalty against Duberry, transformed of course by (who else?) Thierry Henry, with a very cheeky shot. Two more goals by Thierry Henry in the second half, dodging Leeds’ poor attempts at an off-side trap or the rather weak challenges by their defenders… In fact, on the last goal Thierry could afford to trip on his own leg and still score while he was falling to the ground!

I really do not think that either Chelsea or Manchester have any hope of even threatening to catch up now. On the contrary, if Chelsea slip up again tomorrow, Arsenal might be able to clinch the title even sooner than expected. The challenge now for them will be, of course, to keep their concentration against teams that might be more challenging than Leeds… although Spurs, Leicester and Portsmouth are not exactly looking particularly threatening at this point, either at home or away from home.

The real challenge will be to not only maintain the unbeaten run all season, but also clinch the Golden Boot for Thierry Henry (although this is looking pretty likely at this point) and beat the record for the highest number of points ever in the Premiership. You just have to make up new challenges when you have no real ones left :-).


Comments are closed.

Leave a Reply

Comments are closed.