Premier League Match 23 - Southampton 2 Arsenal 2

King Hypocrite Complains about the 865th Unjust Red Card of his Arsenal Reign.

It had only been three days since the last game so no real chance for any further incident like anyone punching anyone, anyone resigning, anyone taking over as Chairman, St Mary’s burning down or that annoying bald half time bloke being arrested for being annoying and bald.  So, no more meltdown to report as we face Arsenal at St Mary’s, that’s top of the league Arsenal to be exact who have been grinding out win after win. 

The endless winning has not stopped Arsene Wenger being football’s biggest hypocrite.  Now Sir Alex has gone he’s more or less got the entire thing sewn up but his recent bellyaching about Chelsea strengthening rivals was good even by his own spectacularly high standards.  Chelsea sold Juan Mata who was a reserve for them this season to Man United who are nowhere this year.  In Wenger’s eyes this was worse than Arsenal selling Van Persie to United or Clichy and Nasri to Man City who subsequently won the title in their first seasons at their new clubs.  He usually starts coming out with this sort of guff when Arsenal’s season has just started to implode but he’s getting it in early this year as they’re still top and still in three competitions.  Just wait until the end of March.  Chelsea, who he is moaning about are of course managed by the only real contender to Arsene’s King Hypocrite crown.  Expect petty namecalling to resume soon, along the lines of Mourinho calling him a voyeur like he did a few years ago.

Regardless of this, Arsenal are a massive club and a very entertaining one to watch and so I have relented on my ‘not on a school night’ rule and my 9 year old son is present.  Despite me expecting some spectacular whingeing as we walked across the Itchen Bridge in the wind and rain – there was none and here we are in the family centre which is shorn of lots of kids for tonight’s game.  This is ironic given we were all sent letters reminding us of the family centre rules of having to have a kid with you.  One thing it didn’t say in the letter as it really didn’t need to was ‘don’t give your fucking ticket to a fucking opposition fan, especially if they’re an annoying twat’.  I feel that as I’m in the family centre, my ability to give them a mouthful has been compromised somewhat.  It’s amusing that today’s Arsenal fan in the wrong end is one row behind me, two seats to the right – exactly where the Chuckle Brothers were in the Kingsland.

Bugger – Sir Rickie is out injured but Mauricio has gone like for like and Sam Gallagher makes his debut.  How cool is it that he has the choice of an Academy kid or Guly and he’s gone with the kid.  That aside it’s as you’d expect with King Artur in goal, Calum Chambers at right back, Maya Yoshida in for Dejan Lovren and Big Vic being fit enough to return to the bench.  It’s worth mentioning here that we have 7 British players (5 English, 1 Irish, and Gallagher who though a Scotland U19 international was born in Devon) and Arsenal have none, zero, zip, not one.  The starting XI is all foreign.  On the bench we have another 4 Brits (3 English, 1 Welsh) whereas Arsenal have 3, one of which of course is Alex Chamberlain who was one of ours and one is Carl Jenkinson who was from Finland once upon a time.  Contenders to win the English Premier League – my arse!

There’s a Saints fan behind me who is always listening to the radio and gives us regular updates on how other teams who I don’t care about are doing.  She’s crapping on about Arsenal arriving 45 minutes late as they got stuck in the traffic etc and this may explain the start as Saints are all over them.  It’s quite startling to see Morgan and Corky at 100mph and Arteta and Flamini limping around like two fat blokes who have been out on the piss all day.  We’re trying to work out who the 3^rd Arsenal central midfielder is and it takes five minutes to realise that it’s Ozil.

Big Sam is putting himself about straight away and showing no nerves and he has the first chance as the ball breaks to him on the edge of the box and he lashes it on target and Chesney turns it away.  I tell you now that I’m not even going to try and spell it correctly as it’s got too many Z’s in it and not enough vowels.

Another area we are dominating is down the right where Steve Davis and Calum Chambers are up against the non-defending Cazorla and the not-very-good Monreal.  We’re so on top it’s unbelievable but we haven’t created another clear cut chance until J-Rod gets knocked over by Mertesacker and we get given a somewhat fortuitous free kick.  It’s knocked short to Shaw who delivers to the back post where Jose Fonte gets above Monreal who isn’t strong enough in the slightest and I don’t know what Chesney was doing but it beat him at the near post.  It was a goal received rapturously by the supporters because of the goalscorer and what happened with The Prick in training last week.  It also goes to emphasize why one player will be regarded as a club hero or legend and one will in all likelihood be regarded as a wanker.

The expected Arsenal onslaught didn’t happen apart from a two minute burst of intent after they kicked off and Lallana took the chance to impress the watching Roy Hodgson by being unplayable for the Arsenal midfield as he turned them inside out and had a shot deflected wide.  The frustration was showing for Arsenal and Giroud showed why he’s a forward and not anything else with a shit sliding tackle which was only ever going to get him booked and it duly did.

The next big chance fell to Saints courtesy of Monreal who had time to clear but delayed long enough to see his punt up the wing cannon into Steve Davis and fly across the box.  Big Sam had an open goal from six yards as the ball flew to him but sadly his snapshot was shinned wide. It’s a bad miss to be honest and not the sort of thing you can afford to be doing against anyone, let alone Arsenal.  Fair play to Big Sam though as he didn’t let it get to him and was straight away running the channels and holding the ball up despite getting battered by Mertesacker and Koscielny.

I dunno if anyone else had noticed but in every aerial challenge, the Arsenal player involved seemed to foul the Saints player in the air.  Referee Mason wasn’t giving any of it but I can’t have been the only one who wondered what was about to happen as Giroud launched himself into Shaw in the air, without even looking at where the ball was.  

They really hadn’t had a peep but it would be just like Arsenal to pinch a goal and they nearly did as Koscielny met an Ozil corner and I already had a ‘fuck it’ about to come out of my mouth as King Artur reacted to push it away off the line.  So, half time and a brilliant performance.  The one worry was that it was certain that Arsenal would not be that bad in the second half and we could have really done with a 2-0 cushion. 

The Gooner behind me had been quiet as befits a man whose team have not had a kick so I had no reason to get annoyed with him.  That all changed in the first 6 minutes of the second half.  We actually started again quite well and Shaw broke down the left and his cross missed everyone and ended up over on the Arsenal left.  Three passes later and Cazorla has crossed into the vacant left back area.  J-Rod has got back but he waited for the ball allowing Sagna to get ahead of him and cross into the middle where Giroud cleverly turned it in.  Shit!

Next attack and it all went to shit as Ozil ran down our left, crossed into the middle and Cazorla picked it up before slicing a shot off his left boot into the bottom corner.  King Artur may feel that he should have stopped that one but fuck, 2-1 down and I have a Gooner behind me who can’t keep his gob shut who I desperately want to tell to shut the fuck up.  I give him the death stare and hope he notices but he doesn’t.  Bastard.

I am feeling that we are now going to get battered about 4-1 but before the negative vibe can really take over then J-Rod is straight down the left, cutting out the centre backs with his cross and Adam Lallana steams in to smash it under Chesney to make it 2-2. You’re not fucking singing any more are you sonny!

So, it’s all gone end to end and it continues this way.  Morgan has a curled effort cleared from in front of the keeper and Ozil goes on a mazy past about 4 players before seeing his shot deflected up onto the bar by a sliding Jose Fonte Baby.  There’s a delay as Arsenal continue their ‘foul in the air’ policy with Sagna nutting Shaw and them both needing treatment.

In the 70^th minute, both teams bring on a player from our Academy as JWP comes on for a tired looking Sam Gallagher and Alec Chamberlain comes on for Serge Gnabry who has done nothing either in attack or defence.  Arsenal create a really good chance down our right but luckily it breaks to Monreal who lashes wide of the near post when he really should have fired it at the far post.  Later replays and pictures show why King Artur is a legend as not only has he mastered the star jump but he’s also managed the backward-handstand-back-onto-your-feet gymnastic manoeuvre.

With 10 to go it’s looking like it’s next goal wins and Lallana creates an opportunity with a clever chip over the top.  J-Rod looks favourite for a second but fair play to Chesney who is off his line in a flash and beats him to it.  Morgan then takes the piss in midfield with a run past three players and Flamini can’t handle this and jumps in two footed like a twat.  You can tell by the way that every nearby player reacts that it’s a red card all day long and referee Mason gets it right and off he goes.

Because of the calibre of opposition we are playing I’m still thinking in terms of ‘I’ll be pissed off if we lose to 10 men’ but Wenger is not thinking about winning the game as he settles for a draw with 5 minutes to go and introduces Gibbs in place of Cazorla.  I’m sure that there will now be some sort of internal club investigation as Arsenal now have two English players on the pitch.

It’s all us now but it just won’t go in.  The closest we get top a goal is another run and cross from Shaw which flicks off of Sagna and Chesney claws it out from under the cross bar.  JWP’s corner is met by Jose but his cushioned volley is again turned aside and the final chance wasn’t really a chance as Chambers ball into the box wouldn’t drop for Corky who got crowded out as he tried to dig the ball out.  If he had got a shot away it would have of course ended up in the car park.  Guly got a couple of minutes for the industrious but knackered Steve Davis but not enough time to make a legend of himself and so it ended 2-2.

Hmmmm, how do I feel about that one? Two points dropped or one gained.  Well, you can never really sniff at a point against Arsenal but we really deserved to win tonight.  We dominated the first half and probably just shaded the second.  Arsenal had their purple patch when it looked like they might score loads but other than that there was no portion of the game where they were really on top.  The red card gave us a great chance to win but we couldn’t really create a clear chance to actually win it.  Chesney made a few saves but he would have been disappointed to let any of those in.

There were some great individual performances tonight with all the back 4 having really good games.  Luke Shaw was a bit missing on both of the goals like Calum Chambers was at Sunderland but the way we play relies on the full backs bombing on.  The key is the players who fill in when they do get forward and how they fill the gap.  J-Rod did brilliantly to get back in position for the first goal but he’s no left back and so got shown up horribly when trying to defend against Sagna.  So, both full backs were outstanding going forward and defensively I was particularly impressed with Maya Yoshida who when he keeps his game simple and doesn’t try too hard to get involved with passing the ball forwards, can be a very good defender. 

The best players for me though were the central midfield pairing or Corky and Morgan who were both magnificent who totally eclipsed Flamini and Arteta who at times looked positively pedestrian by comparison.  Whether is was the very large looming shadow of the returning Big Vic on the bench or not that made his play that well or not, Corky proved what a good player he is and he surely cannot be left out if playing at that level.  Sam Gallagher looked like we knew he would – he has great potential but is as raw as you’d expect.  Don’t forget that he’s playing against two experienced international players and he still had his chances.  He’ll know he should have scored from the chance before half time but he’ll learn from that and next time it’ll fly in.  At least he was available and on the pitch in order to get the chance, unlike that prick Osvaldo.  Adam Lallana again proved how good he is with a performance that left Arsenal resorting to the kind of strong-arm tactics that King Hypocrite spends so much time moaning about when it happens against his side.

King Hypocrite acknowledged that we were by far the better side in the first half, praised the Arsenal comeback but then ruined it by trying to defend the tackle by Flamini.  There’s no point in getting annoyed about this really, it’s just sad that he can’t see it or won’t admit it. OK, Morgan didn’t get injured but that’s totally down to luck when you jump in two footed like that.  I’m sure that Wenger remembers Shawcross on Ramsay and Taylor on Eduardo where his player ended up injured due to a reckless challenges.  This is no different aside from luck dictating a better outcome.  I also remember a game against Wenger’s Arsenal in 2004-ish when we lost 2-0 and Chris Marsden Football Genius got sent off in similar fashion when he jumped at Vieira.  On that occasion he didn’t touch the player or the ball as he thought he could jump five yards and only managed three... but he still walked for it.

The general feeling from the Saints camp was one of being disappointed not to win.  It was a great performance overall and there’s no doubt we deserved to get three points though I for one would have snapped your hand off for the draw we got before the game.  The watching England manager must have been delighted.  A recent injury to Glenn Johnson has raised hopes of Nathaniel Clyne playing for England but why not Calum Chambers who was brilliant today.  I bet he’s promoted from the U19s to the U21’s at least for the March friendlies.  Adam Lallana and Luke Shaw must have impressed and is there a better English defensive midfielder than Jack Cork?  Still, I expect he was looking at all the Arsenal players.  I can imagine his notes reading ‘Chamberlain was cwap, Gibbs was wubbish’.

So, from a game where I had low expectations to one where I expect us to win away at Fulham.  There are rumours kicking about that Fulham will have two ‘big’ deadline day signings playing but hopefully they’ll still have Senderos and Sidwell playing.  Maybe Berbatov will bother picking up his man at corners this time but probably not.  Let’s hope he’s got another arrogant amusing t-shirt on this time and that he doesn’t get the chance to show it to anyone.  As for us, well hopefully we’ll have sold The Prick and you never know, we may have brought a new striker in.  If not and Sir Rickie is not fit, I hope Mauricio goes with Big Sam up front again, he tortures Senderos all game and scores a hat-trick in a comprehensive 4-0 win.  Easy.

Come on You Reds!!!