After Fulham a two and a half-week black hole
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By Boris Mellor
August 24 2005
Arsenal fans, and the Arsenal team, will have to make the best of tonight’s match because it’s all there is for two and a half weeks to come. (Yes it’s World Cup qualifier time again, groan.)
The next match will be Middlesboro away on September 10th, not an easy match as the entire squad, bar Dennis, Bobby and Pascal, will have been away for 17 days. I wonder what they will do whilst the rest are away; play keepy uppy with Arsene? Or will Pat get the cones out? Cygan will have to watch out for those set pieces. Of course now the championship is over, and Arsenal has no chance of winning it, the pressure is off, so it could be very entertaining against Fulham. Unfortunately they are under pressure with only one point in the bag. I remember the game two seasons ago when they got a 0-0 draw by putting 11 men behind the ball. We had the usual 25 shots, which hit the bar, the keeper’s bum and so on. Their fans celebrated as if they had won the cup, and I suppose they had in a sort of way. Later that season we celebrated as if we had won the league, and indeed we had. It was Arsenal’s first blank sheet at Highbury in 47 Premiership games, and the main reason wasn’t the 11 men behind the ball, but the magnificent Van De Saar who played out of his skin. That’s why I don’t expect a repeat of that result, because Van the man is now at Old Trafford. So who is the new goalie I hear you ask – be patient I am going to tell you. The replacement is Warner – who? Warner – I don’t know much about him either – except he let in 2 against Blackburn (out of seven shots) on the weekend, and the Guardian reporter gave him 5 out of 10. But no doubt he will raise his game for our benefit. Fulham say they are playing the same team as they did against Blackburn, which is not what Coleman wants, but apparently that’s all he has. Arsenal has no such luxury as Freddy is now injured. Bergkamp will have a fitness test for his back this morning. Reyes should return to the squad as well, Arsene refuses to say where he has been. Having an IQ test perhaps? It will be good to see Hleb having a full run out at home, and hopefully he will cause much mischief. Meanwhile Thierry looks a little fitful, there are possibly two reasons for this 1) He was out of action before the end of the season and started training later than most – so he may be rusty (it happened to horseface at manure, and he wasn’t captain). 2) The curse of record goalscoring. Whenever a striker reaches a record scoring milestone their shooting ability dries up. It certainly happened to Wrighty – he might even be following Tel around glowering at him, whenever he gets a chance, causing him to fluff. But the dam will break, mark my words it will, form is temporary – class is permanent. Will he do it tonight? Probably not, but it could be fun watching him try.