Tag Archive for 'gallas'

Poor old Kevin Keegan; Eduardo

Newcastle fans must be very glad they wont be facing again Manchester United this season.  Aggregate score in the league is 11-1 and Newcastle still havn’t won under Kevin Keegan.  Even the most ardent Keegan fans must surely be wondering if they havn’t made a mistake in getting rid of Sam Allerdice.   Comfortably midtable to relegation candidates in two short months.   I almost hope they don’t go down so we can have another two easy wins next season.

United were a little bit indifferent but Ronaldo and Rooney were clinical and Newcastle’s defending were woeful.  Fletcher was given a deserved start in the midfield with Carrick and perhaps our weakest midfield combination was more than enough for Newcastle.   Ronaldo and Rooney got two apiece and Saha popped up from the injury list to get his first goal for quite a while.

Speaking of injuries, my thoughts go to Eduardo and his horrific injury against Birminham City.  Having seen the replays on Match of the Day, you just hope that he’ll play again.  Arsene Wenger said the Birmingham player, Martin Taylor “should never play again” but later retracted that statement just as I was wondering if there was something seriously wrong with him.  Good of him to change his mind as the challenge was bad and poor, but didn’t look malicious, just badly timed.  Arsenal dropped two points after a late penalty decision that had Arsenal captain William Gallas react most oddly.   Sitting down on the pitch long after the final whilst is no way for a captain to behave.  Wenger had to come back out onto the pitch as if to treat Gallas as a toddler “get inside now, you’re an embarrassment”.

The result was that the lead is back down to three points and Arsenal are clearly wobbling whilst United are back to full force.

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Manchester United 4 Arsenal 0

This one will live long in the memory even if it was watched from a hotel bedroom. I managed to get to the hotel just in time, but spent ages checking in, getting into the room and trying to find the on switch for the TV. Got it turned on and it was still 0-0, United had a corner and bang 1-0 up, the perfect start.

The perfect start led to a brilliant game where United totally dominated Arsenal in a way that only usually happens in your dreams. If United had put away all their chances … 10-0 ? Probably not, but that was such the dominance we had. Oddly, Arsenal were completely inept in defence. Rooney is not the best target man in the world, but United would play a simple long ball up to him and it would case absolute havoc in the Arsenal defence.

United rested Ronaldo, Tevez, Giggs, Scholes and Hargreaves but Arsenal did rest some of their players too, notably Adebayor, their main player. They offered nothing up front, lacked any passion in midfield and were abject in defence. I can’t see that carrying on onto their next league game.

Darren Fletcher had a superb game and should be given more opportunities based on his performance, and if it proved anything, we rely totally on Wayne Rooney at the moment, not Ronaldo. 4 days on from the game and without taking any notes during the game, I don’t want to comment anymore on United. They responded to the defeat against City really well and should push Arsenal all the way until the end of the season.

I will add one thing about Arsenal, however. The horror tackle from Eboue that saw him get a red was just one of a number of incidents in the second half from the Arsenal side that was downright nasty and shows once again that Wenger cannot control his players, or perhaps even encourages it. Gallas and others on Nani was particularly disgusting. Nani showed great skill, that was a little bit in the way of a showboat, but it was a very clever way of using skill to evade his marker. His reward from an Arsenal team that is supposed to be about the “beautiful game” was a lunging tackle and minutes later a blatant kick off the ball, that should have resulted in a red card, or a suspension for Gallas using video evidence. Once again, the Premier League took no action.

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