from the factory floor
Brittania Stadium
Referee: Chris Foy
Stoke City 1-1 Arsenal 28 April 2012
Crouch [9] Van Persie [15]
Knowing that none of the other
"big" sides have come away from the Brittania with anything more than
a single point, and that the Arsenal have only ever got full value there at the
very high cost of Aaron Ramsey's leg, you could say this trip to the Factory
came with some anxiety mixed in with the usual excited anticipation. A
change to the subway schedule lost me an extra 15 minutes and served to rumble
my nerves that much more, despite the attempt at soothing it with delicious,
football-gods-appeasing bacon.
The angst of my late arrival was calmed
somewhat by the discovery that our spanking new NY Gooner flag was making its debut
on the main level. I sidled up to the bar underneath it to find Tin Lid, TJ, Kaiser and a
one-nil scoreline to the towel boys courtesy of a Peter Crouch header. Ed and the Captain would join moments later. Apparently
Chris Foy had already booked Dean Whitehead for a studs first tackle in the
first five minutes, but it still looked to me that Stoke were going to put in
another shift of overstepping the margins of fair play.
There was just enough time to suss out
who was on the pitch for us before a ball floated over to the left and Yossi
did extremely well first to hold off Shotton, then to find the overlapping
Rosicky with a clever flick. The Czech shaped to go baseline then cut it back
and threaded a chip between two closing defenders toward the back post. Van Persie
side-footed a chocolate volley underneath Begovic and we were level. It was a
near carbon copy of an earlier chance when RVP forced a good save with a
header, and both bore a distinct resemblance to the free kick chance from Theo
versus Chelsea last week.
It was a fine response to going down
early, and it was consistent with the performance we were putting in. Back in
the autumn I felt this team was developing some grit, and it was that newfound
character that kept me from overly worrying about this match in the build-up. It's not the first time we've responded to conceding in six minutes' time. That said, it is still disappointing that we have come out cold to start the
last three consecutive matches, and our powers of recovery in that recent run
while admirable, appear to be taking a toll on our run-in. So while we stood up
admirably to the physical nature of this match, we didn’t have the remaining
resources to really apply pressure.
Still, we crafted openings. Ramsey
narrowly missed a left footed shot from the edge of the box, and while not
hiding from the ball, wasn’t pulling up trees either. That in itself is worthy
of praise given the fuckwits in the crowd abusing him for having the temerity
to snap his leg on Shawcross’ boot two years ago, but it doesn’t win you
football matches. Neither, at the moment, does Gervinho despite being offered presentable
chances.
His wayward shooting was a source of
frustration, exemplified by the inability to get his giant noggin on the end of
a lovely cross from Sagna. To be fair, the gravity field produced by the sheer
mass of the Ivorian’s head must have affected the flight of the ball. One would
think this beneficial. It really should attract the ball like a tractor beam
but instead it seemed to be repelled. I thought Gervinho’s Arsenal career started
brightly, but as is its custom the African Cup of Nations took a toll on his
form. He needs to practice his finishing and as Tin Lid suggested, another
pre-season with the full squad.
Not much else of note happened, largely
because the ball was rarely actually in play. It’s kind of amazing how a set of
football supporters and the players they back can be such a pack of
mouth-breathing knuckle draggers on the one hand, but be so obsessed with good
housekeeping as to remove the slightest speck of dirt or moisture from the ball
every time it goes out of play. Then again, logic probably wasn’t a strong
point for Cro-Magnon man either. And for such proponents of the physical game
and experts at aerial tactics they sure do find gravity quite the challenge
whenever they end up in the channels say, thirty yards away from our goal.
With these two charming features of
Stoke ‘football’ in mind, there were plenty of stoppages in which to discuss
the form [jammy] and character [cunty] of Chelsea, and even a kind word for
Frank Lampard, who aside from being fat, has done little to be tarred with the same
brush as the rest of his teammates. What? I love fat people. I mean, some of my best friends are fat.
There was equal time to relish the
goal-fest going on at the DW, where Wigan were summarily dismantling the barcodes
[Shoes off! If your’e getting spanked*]. We spared a thought for the Geordies
downstairs, whom we find quite a bit more tolerable now that they’ve been
deprived of that fucking drum. Like the double holiday for the kids of divorce,
this is definitely one of the blessings of the shift from Nevada’s.
Speaking of NYC football bar culture,
the Captain regaled us with the news that the spudlings have been ejected from
Floyd’s on Atlantic Avenue and are homeless once again. La da dee la dee da. They’ll
have to sing for a new bar, I guess. Hopefully One Man Army has forewarned them
of Tourette’s wrath. Although it would be pretty amusing to witness it again,
especially as he deemed Deep Breath to be a parody of itself, despite
invitations for it to appear on this blog. [Personally I think there’s room for
it on the podcast
too].
Other topics of discussion included a
game of “I’d rather” with respect to the title-deciding Manchester derby on
Monday. To be honest, if offered I’d rather starve given the options of a Man
Shitty sandwich or a Dive-arrhea soup [see what I did there Messrs Rooney and
Young?]. Such is the time afforded for distraction when facing Stoke, and the
half ended somewhat amusingly while one of the orcs was wiping the ball and
wheeling out the catapult for a throw-in.
The second half started, like so often
of late, just like the first with us slow out the gate and immediately
conceding possession to a game of volley ball. There was no fluency at all and
this of course suited the hosts down to the floor [how’s that for an ironic turn
of phrase]. There’s plenty to hate a team like Stoke for, but chief amongst the
many reasons is the fact that I look forward to the football all bloody week
and with 45 minutes left to play I just wanted this game to end.
I don’t recall the exact incident that
prompted it, but I observed that Peter Crouch is dirty. TJ rightly pointed out
that according to me anyone not in an Arsenal kit is dirty. I fail to see
anything contentious about that statement. Tin Lid backed me up when describing
Crouch’s penchant for climbing all over his marker; despite being the tallest man
on the pitch, he is compelled to push his opponent down whenever the ball is in
the air.
Two Ray’s point is well taken though,
that of all the underhanded tactics in use up and down the league, and not
least of all from this particular opponent, excessive hand-jockeying on aerial
balls doesn’t push the limits of dirtiness by any stretch of the imagination.
Then the gangly twat crumpled under no pressure in the box and appealed for a penalty
and Steven called him a filthy bastard or something to that effect. In a
microcosm you have our ability, like an old married couple, to totally disagree
with each other and to both still be completely right. NY Gooners, we get along
by not getting along.**
At least no more x-rated tackles would arrive
after the early booking. Still, Whitehead was allowed to foul repeatedly
without punishment for the duration of the match. Foy wouldn’t give him a
second yellow because on merit none of the umpteen fouls deserved one in
singularity. But there were umpteen of them! Every foul in the second half was
another petty disruptive tactic that went unpunished, and they all seemed to
come from Whitehead. So the early yellow for a bad tackle had all the effect of
a late one for time wasting. That is to say, absolutely none.
And that was pretty much it. Hang on, I
must be missing something. Oh yeah the obligatory penalty shout [or shouts if
you count the Shawcross handball, but that one was just outside the area and
came very close to the ball-to-hand variety]. We worked the ball down our right
wing into RVP who held it up for Yossi’s run into the box. As the ball arrived
he tumbled under pressure from the defender, who seemed to hip check him at
just the right moment to knock him off balance. There were sniffs of the heel
clipping thing you can get away with by running behind but the referee wasn’t
having it, and as TJ wisely pointed out, we’d be livid if it was given against
us.
Alan Hansen said on Match of Day afterwards
it was a call we’d get at home, completely ignoring the fact that we haven’t
been awarded a single penalty at the Grove, and only 3 in the league all
season. What bothers me about the no-call is that QPR had a man sent off for
far less contact in the first 5 minutes of their visit to Old Trafford. But one
can hardly expect a referee to be consistent with calls from another match and
official entirely. I mean, it’s not like these guys are professionals or
anything.
What you can bank on though, is that
the refs are good enough to make the same judgment on the same infraction within the 90 minutes over which they govern. With that in mind I was fully expecting
Whitehead to finally get his second yellow for diving at the end of stoppage
time when he tumbled after a careless whisper from Koscielny. The same guy who
put in a reducer on Song in the first five minutes to ‘let ‘em know they’re in
a fight’ dropped to his knees at the slightest touch in the last five minutes
to buy some time.
Stoke, despite the big macho ethos they
project, are a bunch of pussies. A bunch of non-footballing, can’t out jump anyone without climbing
all over them despite being the tallest on the pitch, naked head-butting in the
locker room, drunk driving into stationary objects, crying mommy’s got to pick me up
because I gave someone else a big owie, time-wasting, throw-ball, towel-boy bitches.
So we ended the game much like we
started it, with Wenger being mocked by the home support and with our
bedraggled team limping over the line. We can be proud of the effort and the
character on display, and we still control our destiny in the competition for
third place, so all in all a decent result. Wins by Chelsea and Spurs on Sunday
tightened things up a bit, but with Norwich at home and West Brom away we have
two matches we really should win.
As Kaiser correctly points out, being in this position despite our start doesn't hide the fact that we set ourselves up for that start. We have to finish the job. We're constantly told by our players and managers that we've learned lessons, all of these games are cup finals, etc. But the results aren't bearing out. Two points from nine is no way to finish the season. Much like this game, there is too much talk and not enough football. Let's change that over these last two matches shall we?
*That’s one’s for you, Rashida.
** Bonus reading, if you haven’t
already. See Steven’s new and
improved NY Gooners recap on the FB page.
Follow @11cannons
Follow @11cannons
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