You knew going in the Blackburn were going to be rough and dirty hackers, but damn. Led by Robbie Savage, the biggest cunt in world football (Sorry Ruud, we have some nice parting gifts for you), Blackburn played some serious rugby with bits and pieces of football mixed in. They went to the tried and true "how to beat the fragile, fairy, finesse Arsenal by kicking them around, bullying them, and getting them out of rhythm and off their game" playbook. That's the bad news. The good news is that like the Sparta Prague match last week, Arsenal 07-08 showed that they will not go easily into that goodnight this year and teams that think they can rough them up and break them to beat them will find out that this year's bunch is more capable of giving as good as they get and grinding out wins. Which is exactly what Arsenal did yesterday, except that Mad Jens Of North London decided it would be cool to have another "you had to see it to believe it" howler to gift Blackburn 2 points. That being said a draw was probably a fair result given how both teams played, and that Fridel didn't do so well himself on Arsenal's goal, but utterly frustrating nonetheless. If you're scoring at home that's- Arsenal's defense: 0 goals conceded in 3 matches, Mad Jens: 2 schoolboy howler goals conceded in 3 matches.
I guess I'd rather the fuckups in the first 2 EPL matches than the crucial Champions League qualifiers, though.
Still, Arsenal would have lost that match last year, no doubt. They were able to adapt to the overly physical style of play, scored a scrappy goal of their own, weren't intimidated, and tied ugly when they easily could have won ugly. They showed toughness and that they will not be bullied into submission this year. Let's just hope that Arsenal don't finish 1 or 2 points out of something big at the end of the season. ManUtd are off to their worst start since 1992 thanks to a stunning strike from some Brasilian dude for Citeh which defeated United 1-0, leaving ManUtd with only 2 points from their 1st three matches, while Citeh are top of the table with 9 points from 3 matches. Arsenal play Citeh on Saturday and hopefully can hand them their first defeat. Chel$ea and the Pool split the points after a 1-1 draw which saw Rob Stiles give one of the worst penalty decisions you will ever see in your life.
Oh, and back to the biggest cunt in world football, Robbie Savage. To see him yesterday was to see performance art on the most absurd of levels- it was really over the top even for him, which is really saying something. On Sky after the match he of all people on planet Earth had the audacity to say that Blackburn came out and tried to play football while Arsenal tried to slow them up and kick them at every chance. That puts him firmly into the beyond insane and seriously living in an alternate reality group of people with the likes of Ann Coulter. The incomparable Arseblogger summed it up best this morning:
As for Robbie Savage (labelled a histrionic disgrace by The Times), if he could translate 1% of his cuntiness into footballing ability he’d be better than Maradona.
You can't say it any better than that.
4 comments:
"this year's bunch is more capable of giving as good as they get"
Meaning they are just as dirty and physical as Blackburn. :D It seemed like once Arsenal got the lead, they seemed quite too content to waste time. But the important thing is Lehman, Arsenal should definitely start thinking about investing in a young(er) keeper. Arsene of all people should know the damage that could come from keeping an aging keeper a couple years too long.
The massive difference being that Blackburn are a team that set out to be physical first and play football 2nd, and Arsenal play football first and foremost but will no longer allow you to punch them in the mouth and complain about how life isn't fair, they'll hit your ass back and then it's game on. This is something that the vintage Arsenal teams had with the likes of Vieira/Adams/Keown/Parlour/and even Lauren. Cesc and RVP look to fill that role- both are young and fiery with a temper each- they both remind me of PV4 in his first years at Arsenal when he had quite the temper as well. Their tempers are a bit of a liability right now but hopefully in short time they will learn to control them a bit more.
Arsene signed a keeper this summer- Fabianski (sp?), who is starting to supplant Dudek as the Polish #1. Very young and supposedly very talented. I think AW's idea was to bring him in this year, give him some cup games, let Jens finish up with 1 more year, then next year let Fabianski & Almunia battle it out. If Jens keeps it up, it may be a 3 way free for all for the #1 position by the end of the month.
I watched RM-Sevilla on Sunday- verrrry entertaining for us neutrals, although probably not so much for you. I hope Sevilla can keep Alves- I'd love me a 3 or 4 or even 5 way race {throwing in Valencia & maybe Villarreal) way race this year instead of just RM/Barca.
Will Shuster {sp?} wear white linen pants after labor day???
Savage HAS to believe this is the WWE. That's got to be it. He must think he's getting paid to be an obnoxious villain who makes outlandish "who me?" statements to rile the fans. When you're done playing, Robbie, Vince McMahon wants to have a word with you.
Goal of the Week: John Utaka for 'Arry at Pompey. Beating two defenders and the goalkeeper after running half the length of the field all by himself. He also set up your boy Kanu for a goal. Very impressive.
I think Arseblog might be overstating it - I doubt you'd even need 1% of cuntiness to get to Pele talent when it's Savage that we're talking about.
Post a Comment