Same old

By Boris Mellor
April 18 2011

Liverpool and Arsenal fans were united in showing their respect to the Hillsborough 96, and the passing of Danny Fiszman. The Arsenal faithful applauded the Liverpool fans call for Justice for the 96, and the Scousers kept an immaculate silence during the one minute silence.

Respect

Later when Carragher was stretchered off with a head injury the entire stadium applauded him. Makes a change from some of the filth we have to put up with from Birmingham and Stoke fans. Arsenal and Liverpool fans have class and showed it in spades once again today.

The Match

Some neutrals claim it was entertaining, I fail to see that. Arsenal looked incapable of breaking down the Merseysiders defence; all credit to their makeshift defence. However most Arsenal fans had given up on seeing a goal in open play, but the announcement of 8 minutes injury time gave some hope, and sure enough with two minutes to go Fabregas was fouled in the area. RvP scored a great penalty sending Reina the wrong way. Arsenal lacked creativity, pace, and, for the most part, determination. Poor performances like this leave a team at the mercy of a referee’s decision.

Panic

Arsenal fans celebrated their good fortune, but within seconds the defence was panicking and failing to clear the ball, it led to a free kick and then a penalty. Arguments over the added time are meaningless, the game is played to the whistle, and the ref can add extra time during injury time. Whatever,   it was poor defending; and Eboue acted naively to put it mildly to concede a penalty, and the one goal lead was thrown away.

Fans were angry and bitter, accusations of panic were hurled at the team, some put it more strongly suggesting that the team had soiled their breeches in the last 90 seconds.

Change has got to come

This felt like Groundhog Day – how many times have Arsenal thrown away a lead this season? Newcastle, Spurs, and Birmingham in the final to name but a few. It’s also the third draw in a row at home. The team has contrived to go out of three cups, and lose out on winning the title in less than two months. Seventeen points have been dropped at home compared to Man U’s 2!

It is noticeable that the Wenger song was not sung once during the game. After the game the whole crowd was one huge debating society, no chants of Red Army on the way out, but arguments over what is wrong, and if and what kind of change is required.

In the Bank of Friendship afterwards supporters were clearly disgruntled, quite a few were openly saying that it was time for Wenger to go, others didn’t want him to go but did want him to change things around. My feeling is that hostility to daring to question the great man is not as fierce as it was only a few weeks ago.

It cannot be denied that, whatever the reasons, a situation where the team heads towards the end of the season involved in several trophies and then implodes cannot be allowed to continue season after season. Something has to change and it’s not enough for fans to be asked what would they do? Fans are not paid £6 million a year, they pay a large percentage of their earnings to be entertained and see a winning team. They expect answers from those who are drawing the big salaries.

A change has got to come I suggest the management come up with a constructive strategy for improvement before some of the crowd come up with a less positive solution. Because the claim that whatever the result we see beautiful football is no longer true. The number of times I have seen the Arsenal play well at home this season I can count on the fingers of one hand