We All Took The Red Pill, Now We're Dodging Bullets

from the factory floor

BARCLAYS PREMIER LEAGUE

Ashburton Grove

Referee:  Anthony Taylor

Arsenal 3-3 Norwich City         5 May 2012
Benayoun [2]           Hoolahan [12]
Van Persie [72,80]   Holt [27]

                                     Morison [85]

Now I know that in the twittersphere and other places of cyber-angst the build-up to this last home match revealed some proper jangling nerves, and on evidence of the ground atmosphere at the Grove and the flat performance on the pitch, that anxiety was very much alive in the physical Gooner plane,  if not just a little worse. When I arrived at the Factory after another lovely unannounced subway diversion it was 2-1 Norwich, prompting me to quote Rashida from earlier in the week as my greeting to Steven, Ed, and the Captain, already seated at the lower level bar: What in the actual fuck?

Apparently Benayoun scored a pearl of a goal from the dressing room and we felt the job was done. That early score belied our recent trend of coming out in the last handful of games flatter than an old white man’s ass. As if to make up for that, in the following fifteen minutes we conspired to gift the visitors two goals and with it the deficit that we apparently need to stir us from our perennial late season torpor. The Captain explained that while we deserved to be behind, the goals still had that special jammy quality that only the Arsenal concede. As to make up for that unique talent, we seem to do it with alarming regularity. This whole improvement of the hospitality at the stadium on match days is going just a bit too far.