Bellend: Not a Good Day
I usually watch the FA Cup final out of habit but this year
there was a bit of purpose to watching it as Saints of course, needed Arsenal
to win so we qualified for the Europa League.
Fans of the big clubs (and Fucking Spurs) may not think this is a big deal
but it is to us. Well, it is to me
anyway. I want to qualify for Europe and
despite this years flirtation with the top 4, this is the highest graded
competition that we’re ever going to get the chance to play in, in all
likelihood….. so I want it.
As a kid, the season after we won the FA Cup ourselves, I
remember cramming into The Dell to watch us play against Marseille (we won 4-0)
and then against Anderlecht in what was the Cup Winners Cup. We won the game against the Belgians as well
by 2-1 but having lost 2-0 in the away leg, we went out. It was brilliant as a kid and it was
different and we need that again. We’ve
had a few excursions since and many will remember the 2003 defeat to Steaua
Bucharest as that campaign was over before it really got started.
Anyway, before we can worry about all that, Arsenal have to
win against the Villa side that we battered 6-1 a few weeks back when they were
truly shocking. Arsenal warmed up by
smashing West Brom 4-1 and Villa lost at home so all the signs are good. There was just the nagging fear that Captain
Bellend might inspire a performance out of his desperately average Villa side
or that Arsenal could choke as they have been known to do on the big occasion.
In the build up we had to endure a horrible ‘Gooner for a
day’ love in and another hamfisted attempt by Calum Chambers to endear himself
to Saints fans as he was filmed signing something from Saints and saying that
they’d win it for both of us. Well you won’t, will you mate as it's hard to make a difference from a seat in the crowd. For all the help you'll be, you might as well be watching it on TV with me.
The Villa line up was more or less as it was at SMS. Sadly, Hutton was not at left back but
Bellend had switched him to right back and left out the attack minded Bacuna
which suggested to me he was going to try and choke the shit out of the game
and hope for a Benteke header from a set piece.
Arsenal had gone with the pace of Walcott up front, possibly having seen
how Sadio Mané and Shane Long tore new arseholes for Vlaar and Okore
respectively, a couple of weeks back.
For the first half an hour it was going to plan except that
Arsenal couldn’t fucking score.
Koscielny’s header brought a decent save from Given and Richardson
blocked a certain goal as he threw himself in the way of Walcott’s shot. Villa were basically just trying to
disrupt. Benteke should have been booked
in the 2nd minute for a crude hack on Sanchez but got away with it
but eventually the cards started flowing, usually for cynically stopping
attacks by grabbing someone once they’d gone by. Delph had two goes at this before he
eventually got carded.
Goooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaal! Theeeeeeeo!
A cross into the box, Sanchez heads down and Theo Walcott smashes it
first time past Given. Get the fuck
in. Villa respond by getting completely
penned in. It’s like Paul Lambert never
left and it’s the 9-0-fifty yards-Benteke formation all over again. The defence isn’t playing as a unit either –
there’s a lot of tackles going in but no cohesive effort at all, just panic
mode. On the rare occasions they get
into Arsenal’s half, the one tactic which is throw it into the mixer from miles
out, is being negated by Chesney coming for everything and punching everything
before Benteke gets near him…. And Jack Grealish is having a mare – it’s all
good.
Half time and if Arsenal get one more then this is
done. What happened next was not only a goal
for Arsenal but a fantastic goal as Sanchez picked it up on the left, cut
inside and then just mullered it into the roof of the net from about 30
yards. You would normally criticise the
keeper for getting beaten from there but he didn’t have a hope in hell.
The rest of the game was a procession. It was 3-0 when Merteasckofshit moved two
yards and Benteke couldn’t be arsed to move with him and the big German
shouldered it past Given from a corner.
A quite dreadful goal. Arsenal
could have scored as many as they wanted in the last 20 minutes but they were
on the beach at that point. It was left
for the fresh legs of Chamberlain to beat Hutton (who had been switched to the
left at this point) and square for Giroud to tap into the net in almost apologetic
fashion.
One of the things that’s stayed with me since 2003 was there
being more Saints fans than Arsenal fans in the stadium when the FA Cup got
presented. We lost but we stayed to eek the most out of the day out. There’s no worry about that
today as the Villa fans had all fucked off, along with the usual percentage of
Arsenal fans. I despair at fans like
this.
The amusing thing about the celebrations was seeing all the
Arsenal squad players doing the full John Terry and having their kit on. One of them was Calum Chambers who, as regular readers will know, I have a
problem with. In the Academy for 10
years learning his trade, 20 games for the first team and then fucks off as
soon as he could. Now he’s Arsenal’s 3rd
choice right back and 5th choice centre back and doesn’t make the
bench. I’m sure Saints could have got
you a ticket to watch the final and you might have played some more games this
season and next, you twat. Arsenal were
short of defenders at the start of the season so he played 20 odd games but
they’re not now and more will arrive in the summer so it’ll be interesting to
see how many times he plays next year. I
wonder if he feels just a little bit of a fraud bouncing around celebrating the
win when he’s hardly played since the FA Cup started.
The Arsenal players who were out on the pitch were very very
good and totally deserved to win in the easy fashion that they did. Walcott, Cazorla, Ozil and Sanchez were
different class and then they still had Giroud, Wilshere and Chamberlain to
bring on off the bench. It was
predictable and sometimes it’s nice for the predictable result to happen
without any alarms. As for Villa – well
Sherwood came out afterwards and blamed the players which was fair enough as
they were shit but he did what he did at SMS and just sat there as it all went
to ratshit in front of him. Maybe he’s
not the messiah after all. Just a
thought. They went to the FA Cup Final
and basically lied down and didn’t even have a go.
So - We’re all going on a European Tour!
Now here’s the thing – The Europa League wasn’t on my radar
when I booked the family holiday this year so I will be away for both legs of
our 3rd Qualifying Round fixture so all I want right now is for us
still to be in the bloody competition when I get back!
As an aside – the best resource I’ve found with info about
the Europa League is good old Wikipedia
When Neil Ashton and Ben Smith sat down with Cortese last summer and took it up the arse - they could hardly have envisaged that their MELTDOWN stories would have been so incredibly wide of the mark. It is a great achievement for a team like Saints to qualify for Europe and it matters not how you do it (unless it's through the fair play route which is just shite). We've finished 7th and we've qualified and that's all that matters. I saw some real petty sniping on Twitter from the other end of the M27, unbelievably referring to when they qualified which had more merit apparently. No mention of the players they couldn't afford etc etc etc when they won the FA Cup. Who cares what they think anyway. It's extra games but I'm sure we'll manage and the people who matter at the club aren't stupid enough to think we don't need reinforcements.
So in case Neil, Ben and anyone else hasn't worked it out yet.... We March On!
Love this blog. Especially when you rant about Fucking Liverpool and Fucking Spurs.
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