Trophies or Todgers? We’ll Be Running Around Chelsea With One Or T’Other Hanging Out

Hi folks

I meant to send this out yesterday but ended up wasting most of the day in a fruitless search for the car key. I was in a total panic because apart from not being able to use the car, with a game here tonight, it would have cost us a fifty pound parking ticket if the car wasn't moved in time.

After turning the flat upside down, all to no avail, I eventually gave up, deciding that I must have dropped the key when walking back from the car on Sunday evening, with my hands full of carrier bags, after stopping at the supermarket in my way back from Chelsea. How to cap a miserable weekend!!

I'd already spent time walking the dog up and down the street, peering in the gutter for the missing key and was just about to head off to my Ma's in Edgware to pick up a spare, wondering how we were going to find the spare key for the krooklock and how we were going to cope with the alarm (as there's no clicker gadget on the spare key), when I noticed something on the windscreen.

It turned out to be a note from a good samaritan neighbour, who had seen some kids hanging around the car and as a result, had noticed that the key was hanging out of the lock to the boot. A quick phone call to the number on the note and all our problems were solved (well actually they are still blowing each other up in Iraq and it doesn't sound like much fun in Israel, but at least I won't be getting a parking ticket tonight)

Mind you that wasn't then end of this particular story. Most of you will already know that with both cars registered to my Ma's address (as we've had two stolen from outside here and the insurance premium would be much higher), we don't have matchday parking permits for either vehicle. Up until last season I was able to move them just to the other side of Green Lanes, the borough of Hackney. That was until they introduced a resident's parking scheme over there. There remained one street over half a mile away on the other side of Clissold Park which didn't have resident's parking bays and this was our refuge last season.

However to my horror I discovered last night that this street has also been marked off with parking bays and so now we are well and truly buggered!! After driving around for about half an hour I eventually found a tiny side street, but as I parked the car and walked away I became terrified that it is private property and I might end up being clamped. And as I walked back to fetch the other car, I discovered a notice at the end of the street I was using last season which says that the parking scheme doesn't begin until 30th August.

So we have a short reprieve. Up until now I have been whinging that we have a game this evening and then no Arsenal matches until 10th September, but now I am over the moon as it gives me at least a couple of weeks to try and find a solution for the rest of the season to our parking problems. Although I still have to go back to retrieve the Peugeot from the side street and the way my luck's going recently, I won't be surprised to either find it clamped, or broken into!! No where did I put that number for the Samaritans :-)

Peace & love
Bernard

PS. Those of you on the Arsenal mailing list might have read my moans on there about the fact that season ticket holders in the Clock End are going to be moved to the other end of the new stadium, in order to save the club ALL the adminsitrative aggravation of having to move them for the half dozen (at most) cup games every season. As a result, not only will these poor buggers be left with choosing from all the inferior seats that remain after everyone else has had their pick, but it also means that the area behind the goal in the new stadium will only be for general sale seats, which could be handing a substantial advantage (for a number of reasons) to our visitors

Also I was advised that the famous Clock from the Clock End is going to end up over the entrance to the Club Level seating at the new stadium, which seems somewhat criminal that such a historical landmark is going to be restricted to the privileged few. I've been assured by someone who works for the club, marketing the new stadium, that this is not the case and that they are hoping it might be some sort of meeting point but at the moment they still have to surmount a health and safety issue. It remains to be seen if this is the case, but I am saving all these whinges about our marvellous new stadium for another piece
_________________________________________________

Trophies or Todgers? We’ll Be Running Around Chelsea
With One Or T’Other Hanging Out



The great thing about football is that the Arsenal will be preparing to play Fulham by the time these words appear in the Arena on Wednesday. With a bit of luck, we’ll get last weekend's game right out of our system by sticking it to the Cottagers.

When we walked out of Stamford Bridge on Sunday, Spurs were top of the table (the sort of aberration which is an infallible reminder why we never used to have league tables for the first few games of the season), we'd just been beaten by the Blues and if that wasn't depressing enough, on route home I turned on the radio in the car to hear Alan Green droning on during some sort of Ryan Giggs review, just as he was describing the climax of Man Utd's astonishing European Cup comeback. Oh the ignominy of it all! Needless to say I couldn't hit the off switch quick enough.

On meeting my mate Nell after the match to give him a lift back to home turf, my first words were "When does the transfer window close?" But I wouldn't go holding your breath if you're hoping that in the meantime our manager is off on yet another Mission Impossible to unearth a young unknown prodigy for peanuts. After losing out on Baptista, not for the first time Arsène is being accused of not having a Plan B, as it would seem that he was totally focused on signing the Brazilian this summer, without a single 'maybe' as a possible back-up.

Even after an indelible dose of reality, when he was forced to throw Flamini into the fray to counter Mourinho's 70 million quid's worth of fresh legs, Wenger was still singing from the same song sheet. Don't get me wrong, I remain convinced that on our day this rip-roaring Gunners side can be a tour de force against any team. Although everywhere I turn, we are being told that the loss of a talismanic behemoth like Paddy must take its toll. And yet we coped quite admirably with our former captain playing well below par for much of the past couple of seasons. So perhaps it’ll be the psychological significance of our former captain forsaking the Arsenal for Juve which might prove to be a problem, not his physical absence. What’s more it might not be just the players who are mourning his loss.

Every time Arsène is interviewed he takes great pains to try to persuade us that he has total confidence in his current squad's ability to compete for the title. It's as if merely by intoning this mantra enough times, Wenger feels it’ll work its magic. However the more frequently I hear it, the more I wonder if he's actually trying to convince himself. Moreover to date our manager doesn’t appear to have been successful in selling this particular pup to his players.

In the past Paul Merson's inarticulate explanation of Arsène's secret, was his ability to instil "unbelievable belief" in his players". Yet he hardly sent out the right signals on Sunday, starting with Henry as a solitary striker. I’m old enough and ugly enough to take an Arsenal defeat on the chin. It was the timid manner of our demise that I found so depressing. Especially when seen through my redcurrant specs, where, despite Chelsea creating the best chances, I thought our 50 per cent of possession was far more entertaining fare.

I guess Blues fans were just grateful for their first win in 20 league games over the last decade. But after spending SO much money, one might've thought them capable of a little more, than merely winning ugly. Then it seems that there are some incumbents at the Bridge who definitely don't deserve to be entertained. I can't possibly imagine returning for the first home game subsequent to securing their only title in half a century, only to dish out so much stick to Drogba, that their striker felt obliged to dedicate his goal to this barmy Blue backbiter?

Most often you hear the "wooooh....hoof" chant when the opposition keeper takes a goal-kick. I am not sure a fifty yard diagonal ball from Del Horno right onto Robben's big toe actually counts as a hoof. But there was a period during the first-half when we were singing "wooooh...." ad infinitum, as Chelsea passed the ball across the back. Doubtless it was my imagination, but it was as if we were daring them to hit it long and the Blues were retaining possession just to spite us. Eventually I turned to the adjacent stranger and suggested that if we weren't careful, we'd force them into actually playing some footie!

All the pundits seem to suggest that the Arsenal lacked penetration and that our opponents are finding it easier to snuff out our attacking threat. Truth is that in recent matches we've played to Chelsea strengths, trying to plough our way through the most impenetrable area of the pitch. Not that the home side's unadventurous approach afforded us much opportunity to play to our strengths, but Kolo's single charge forwards aside, I can't recall a counter-attack which didn't include a sideways or backwards pass, or that crucial moment's hesitation which allowed them sufficient time to get everyone back behind the ball.

However to maintain the momentum of this sort of move, two or three midfielders are required to bomb forward into the area. But on the rare occasions we made any inroads, Henry or Van Persie was left waiting for an RSVP to their invitation to join them. Come the final whistle the two teams were only separated by the fact that we couldn't force their central defence into any errors, while left to deal with Drogba alone, Senderos' lapse in concentration saw the ball bobbling in off the striker's shin.

Meeting so early in the season, neither team wanted to risk losing this game and most Gooners would have gladly settled for a point long before the goal. Personally I felt that we blew it big time by arriving at the Bridge with such limited ambitions. Instead of loosening the bolts to the wheels of Mourinho's bandwagon (after Wigan, Carvalho and Robben handed over the wheel-brace) and attempting to expose the cracks which might give everyone else a glimmer of hope, we've tightened the nuts and restored their sense of superiority. Although with Lampard looking a little less ravenous, Robben and Duff both relatively ineffective and Joe Cole not even warming the bench at the start to a World Cup season, I've yet to be convinced Chelsea is quite the happy camp it was. In all of the marvellous 500 matches we've enjoyed under the management of Arsène, he's never seen fit to publicly tear strips off a player, as Mourinho did with Carvalho in his matchday programme notes.

So I've checked to ensure I still have the number stored but while there's still hope the Samaritans won't be hearing from me. The worst thing on Sunday was the temptation to walk out with 10 still to go. Time was when this gallant Gooner would wait until the last for the fat lady.

I felt sorry for Thierry. It was as if the responsibility for stemming the tide of Abramovich's millions rested squarely on his shoulders and they'd begun to buckle before the afternoon was out. Not only has he virtually carried the club for the past couple of seasons, now we are expecting him to lift his teammates as well. Watching him standing forlornly on the halfway line, somewhat detached from the others was as convincing an argument as I've seen of our need for a captain at the heart of this Arsenal side, whose unshakeable belief can inspire the likes of Titi to keep me glued to my seat with an eternal glimmer of hope for a last gasp goal.

It was a hollow victory but at least we gave a good account of ourselves off the pitch. Mourinho appears to have made a bit of a ricket. Apparently he didn't enjoy the away fans directly behind him, having a dig everytime he stepped out of the dugout. As a result, instead of spreading us thinly along the length of the East Lower, where songs fade a long time before those at either end join in, away fans are now amassed in Chelsea's Shed End behind the goal. It was the loudest we've been at Chelsea and we didn't hear a peep from the home fans until they took the lead. You know you've got a big problem with the atmosphere when we Gooners start singing "worst support we've ever seen!"

Unlike the streaker who appeared for the second successive week, to prance around the Bridge with his todger hanging out, our song for the day was "We'll be running round Chelsea with out trophies hanging out, we've got 11 more than you". I might've had the best view at the Bridge since they were really sh*t and we stood on their vast empty terraces lighting fires to stay warm, but it's nearly as long since I last witnessed an Arsenal performance where we looked less like winning.

We've given up Rona's away ticket scheme membership and it was weird going to a game at the Bridge without the missus. After suffering one of the worst views in the Premiership for so many years, Murphy's Law ensured that she missed out on the first decent pitch in the corner of the upper tier. Although she wasn't nearly so annoyed as the horrified bloke beside me whose hand I grabbed for, every time our goal was threatened. Mind you if we’d have won and his mitts weren’t quite so clammy, I might've accepted his invitation for a second date!!