Betalogue

Good Lord. What a painful game to watch. The Gunners were utterly ineffectual. The referee had a horrible game, and that includes the penalty kick decisions, although I thought the second one looked more convincing.

And what a penalty kick it was. Robert Pires had taken the first one so beautifully. It was obvious to me that Thierry Henry should have taken the second one. Instead, they tried this really, really stupid thing. And they screwed it up. Big time. The Guardian call it “Le cock-up” and they are generous. It’s the kind of thing you only try when you are 5-0 up and in demonstration mode.

Based on what transpired after the game, it was Thierry Henry’s idea. Well, after his mid-week exploits in the Champions’ League and the new club scoring record, I am sure he disappointed a lot of people today. It was unnecessary. It was idiotic. It was arrogant. It was everything that Thierry doesn’t need to be, and obviously can still be on occasion. It was, in a word, embarrassing. (And on top of this he has the gall to claim that, from now on, he’ll be taking the penalties. If memory serves me right, he has never been such a good penalty taker. And if it was his idea, then there’s no point in blaming Pires for anything. Pires could have refused to participate in this, but Thierry is the captain now, so he makes decisions. He has to do so in a responsible fashion.)

You might argue that one of the great aspects of this Arsenal side is that they do try to entertain us. And, in a way, this was part of an approach that emphasizes the playfulness of the game, which is intrinsically a good approach. But surely the benefits of such an approach have to be weighed against the obvious dangers. The Gunners were only 1-0 up, and had been far from impressive. Manchester City could easily have got an equalizer, and in fact they did later on, although they were denied by a debatable off-side decision.

The only good news in all this, of course, is that our league position is starting to look a bit better, as we’re only three points behind second-placed Charlton Athletic. (Let’s not mention Chelsea’s run today.) But it’s hard to imagine a more disappointing way of achieving this. And let’s not forget that, amazingly, Wigan Athletic is still ahead of us—and so are our opponents for next week, Tottenham Hotspur, who did well at Old Trafford and who will surely be tough to beat at home at White Hart Lane.

I think that next week’s game will be a defining moment in our season. It’s a big derby game against eternal rivals. Either we can get our heads and our playing together, or we continue to screw up and then, surely, Tottenham will punish us.

This entry was posted by Pierre Igot on Saturday, October 22nd, 2005 at 10:22 pm and is filed under Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.