Sunderland 1 Arsenal Reserves 1: a great victory « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager

When a draw is a win, when a draw is a defeat

By Tony Attwood

You know the feeling: you score in the last minute to get a draw and it feels like a win.  You concede after having taken the lead and it feels like a defeat.

You miss a penalty and it feels like the end of the world, then they score: disaster.  You score a fluke goal and it’s wild celebrations.  One of your defenders tries to clear the ball, it hits a colleague, bounces to the opposition who can’t miss – disaster.

How many of these have I seen over the years?  Several trillion probably.  Arsenal v Bolton in the double season 2-2 and the guy next to me said “We going to win nothing this year”.  Leicester City 1 Arsenal 1 when Cole was sent off and Gilberto scored.  I think that was in the double season too – and there was an Arsenal fan we passed outside the stadium repeatedly kicking a lamppost.   We wanted to rescue him from the encroaching ranks of the police (and in case you don’t know, you do NOT mess with the Force in Leicester).   But none of us were brave enough to approach him.  He’s probably still doing time.

Draws feel like defeat when victory is snatched, and when the build up says we ought to win.   The KGB in Fulham win every game, so should we.  We can’t drop points against crap teams – it just shows we are not going to win anything.  Just like 2-2 with Bolton run by the Slug.

Well, as Evelyn Waugh said, “Up to a point”.

Sunderland came at us like they had the cavalry up their collective backsides (now that is a simile to consider).  It was relentless, and we struggled to have an answer.  I have not seen such vigour, vim and gusto from a lesser team taking on a top side for years.   Must be a Steve Bruce thing.  Extra steak and chips prior to the game or something (and is it me or has Mr Bruce put on some more weight?)

The problem with the approach is twofold. First you can get caught up the wrong end of the pitch and you can run out of steam.  In this case it was the latter.

But without Bendtner, Van Persie, Cesc for much of the game, Song for a bit of the game, Ramsey, Vermaelen, Diaby, Arshavin for a bit of the game and Theo (did I miss anyone?) we were very close to making it happen.  And with a penalty loss at the same time.

The plus side of this game is terrific.

1.  We can play with a reserve side out and still put up a fight.  This has certainly not been the case in the past.

2.  Another tactic has been tried and we have stood up against it

3.  We are unbeaten, having played Blackburn, Liverpool and Sunderland away – something I am not sure would have happened in any of the recent seasons.

4.  We’re riding our luck.

5.  At some stage some of those injured players will come back and play some football.

The question is, has a team started off the season like the KGB and then just carried on and stayed top all season.  I am writing this away from home, so no recourse to all the reference books, and I have a nasty feeling maybe we did it (but we weren’t top from the very start in the Unbeaten Season were we?).   If it has not happened before then we might take some solace from that, and consider, that the KGB will slip up sometime along the way.

As for us, this is not a disaster, far from it.  Nor do I agree in the slightest that Mr Wenger is getting it wrong.  Again far from it.  What he says and does is a carefully planned strategy sending out messages to players, refs and the EPL in an attempt to edge issues our way.

Of course like everyone I was down as that goal in the 148th minute went in, but I have to say that before the game I would have settled for a draw with a decent display and that is what we got.

Next week’s little game to the local amateur team will involve us putting out a very different XI (although for the life of me I can’t quite work out what team – but I am hoping for a 90 minutes from Vela, and a good bash from Lansbury, Sun and JET, plus a welcome return of Eastmond.  But more of that anon.)

So far this is ok.  Three away games in which we could have come unstuck and we got a win and to draws.  I’ll go with that.  Especially after what I saw last wednesday.