Tuesday, March 13th, 2012 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade

Arsenal had 23 goal attempts in the match against Newcastle, according to the official stats.  Newcastle had four.  That figure is something that tends to have been lost a little – but it is an indication of where the entertainment came from.

Arsenal gave us drama, Newcastle gave us time wasting.  (There’s an interesting thread growing in terms of time-wasting-denial from Newcastle fans.  By way of explanation, it relates to the amount of time taken for a keeper to retrieve the ball, put it down, and take the goal kick, and the number of seconds that the keeper holds the ball for before releasing it.  The fact that the issue is commonplace in football at some levels does not excuse its existence).

Arsenal laid siege to the Newcastle goal, and Newcastle dug themselves in, and sadly gave us a quick reminder of the tricks laid down by teams like Bolton and Blackburn in the olden days.

Krul certainly had learned the lessons of the old days well – start the time wasting in the first half so the ref gets used to it, the crowd just accept it, and the keeper gets away with it.  And… this new revived Arsenal crowd didn’t let that happen.  We jeered.  We booed.  We whistled.  We did everything short of running on the pitch grabbing hold of the ref and then pointing him at the keeper while shouting the seconds in his ear. (I thought of doing that, but well, you know, I’d just had fish and chips and it is a long way down to the lower levels).

But after our winning goal according to the press we had “A mêlée”.  (You can tell the upmarket papers because they put the circumflex and acute accents in – and get them in the right place.  They also call our manager Arsène (nor Arsene) which shows a not attention to detail.  Perhaps that is Newcastle’s problem.  Not enough accents.  They have Tioté but, not many others.)

But they do have Pardew.

I have often wondered what it would take after a lifetime with Arsenal to make me step back from the club, give up the writing and just walk away.   Not many things would do that, although I suspect Pardew – a man with all the grace of an mad hyenia on heat – could

Way back in 2003 he was described on TV as being a “dangerous and distant animal”  and I think that is about it.  West Ham, when he was there, was forced to employ a whole army of PR people to cover him in a blanket and stop him talking to the fans, the media, the lady who worked in the shop – just about everyone.  And I think, blimey, if the West Ham fans didn’t like him, there must be something bad.

He is of course the man who in 2006 criticised Arsenal for failing to play any English players in a game.   I think our manager pointed out that there were no English women in his marriage (a reference to the fact that his wife is Swedish).    And there was that video made while he was manager at WHU where he makes the most disgusting and disgraceful comments about WHU fans.

But above all I wanted to add something about the stadium and the atmosphere.  The atmosphere against Tottenham was great – of course it was. If we don’t have an atmosphere against those delightful people who have not won the league in 51 years then when do we have it?

Then we had it again against Milan.

And although not quite so 1000000000000% against Newcastle.

Actually I was trying to work out how long ago it was that Newcastle won the league.  Most of my reference works don’t go back that far so it is hard to say but I think it was 85 years ago.  So, not quite as good as Tottenham then.

Final, final thing for the moment on Newcastle, before we come to the ref review, that awfully sweet Kenny Dalgleish has called on the FA to investigate Arsène Wenger’s alleged  claim which Mr Dalgleish says he did not hear that  that Luis Suárez dived to win a penalty.  Mr D said ” I am sure the FA will look into that and take him to task for it. If you can’t comment on the position of England manager, then you can’t comment on someone else’s player, can you?”

Which is interesting – because if managers can now report each other to the FA, the FA are going to be very busy indeed.  Mr D also said that he should not be judged by the club’s league position alone and that kit deals are as important as victories.

So there you are.  All those jibes about not winning anything at the Ems – it didn’t really matter if the kit deal was right.

Liverpool last won the league 22 years ago.