No Teddy Teddy at Arsenal – Palace preview 2

By Boris Mellor
February 13 2005

For Arsenal supporters this has been one of the most boring weekends in a long while. It’s not even International week that is to blame, but rather the demands of Sky TV that has seen each of the top three start on a different day; and not one of them kicked off at 3 PM.

What a way to organise a Championship race, it was hard to tell if Saturday was a league or major cup round day, as the number of cup replays almost outnumbered the desultory number of Premiership games.

Chelsea ground out a victory against 10 man Everton, and are now the 1-0 champs. No I am not deriding them; it’s just that the much derided Graham was ahead of his time. Back then fans and the press used to deride such tactics, now its evidence of a great continental maturity of tactics. Well according to Moanrhino it is. Mind you George did it on a tenth of the budget, and the players on even less.

As I write it is still not known who Arsenal will face in the FA Cup next Saturday, as West Ham battle ten man Sheffield United (oh no it’s one-one). Meanwhile the powers that be are considering moving the FA Cup final to a weekday for the World Cup year. Well that should put a further shine on the grand old trophy.

Palace manager Iain Dowie believes that Arsenal have a soft centre with Campbell out of the team (good grief what makes him think that), and he hopes that Palace can exploit it. This raises an interesting question, Toure is available but should he automatically come back in? I thought Cygan and Senderos were well organised against Villa, true the Brummies were not the most stringent of tests. (Oh no its extra time at Bramall Lane, groan.)

However against Manchester United Cygan was probably our best defender, Campbell did not have a good game. And in spite of Reyes cruel comment, on Spanish radio, that there "are some bald people in the dressing room" Pascal assures Arsenal Times he bears no grudges. However, joking apart, there does seem to be something slightly off key about Toure’s tactical nous these days. Pascal always get the blame, but it does seem that Toure fails to cover for him, whereas Senderos was more astute and was always the last man back(oh no its still One One at half time of extra time).

Eboue had a good game for the Ivory Coast this week, so it seems that competition for the back four places is intensifying). That can only be a good thing. However Arsenal should make sure that they dominate the midfield tomorrow night and then whatever the combination at the back will not matter (oh no its gone to penalties, I will never get this article to bed).

Penalties Sheff U 3 West Ham 1

Sheffield United: One Nil, Bad Tonge as he misses One Nil it stays, Sheffield miss next penalty. Sheffield score next and its 2-1. Goaaaal! 3-1

West Ham United: Sherringham penalty saaaaved! Ha ha ha. One Nil it stays, West Ham has second penalty saved. Noble scores its One One. Fletcher misses its still 2-1. Sheffield score its 3-1 and the Hammers are hammered.

Arsenal fans will be gutted – no Teddy Teddy at Saturday’s cup match, as once again he wins feck all.