(Nothing from Beaker yet..)

"The Beautiful Game ?" (Priesty)

Not normally being the possessor of the gift of foreseeing the future, I had nevertheless had the depressing feeling that the only outcome of this match would be "nool points". If this was The Beautiful Game then we should all pack up now and start following darts or badminton.

You'd think, wouldn't you, that with 20-odd continental players plus two gifted continental managers you'd get a free-flowing, passing game that would excite ? Forget it. Admittedly, there was some excitement, but for the wrong reasons. I actually felt sorry for Ray Parlour when he was getting seven shades of shit kicked out of him during the first half...

From the start it was obvious that there'd be no room for Chelsea to play their usual flowing, passing game. The Arsenal players knew exactly what to do, namely to allow them precisely no time on the ball. Luckily there are only 2 or 3 teams in the Premiership that are capable of successfully smothering Chelsea's creativity, but when they do, it makes us look very ordinary. Far too ordinary to win the championship on merit, anyway.

The other difference was Arsenal's defence. Say what you like about Arsenal, their defence is solid, and no more so than yesterday. Every time the ball was threaded through to Vialli or Hughes, (which wasn't often) there seemed to be a solid line of at least five defenders. I don't know how Arsenal did it, the organisation was phenomenal. Smothering Chelsea's midfield AND packing the defence, while still keeping up a credible attack, was no mean feat. Although it pains me to admit it, Arsenal were better organised and more resourceful than Chelsea. Maybe home advantage helped, maybe not. We'll see in the Coca-Cola 2nd round leg at the Bridge. (You can't count their victory in the league at the Bridge, it was a fluke result) All I know is that Chelsea will have a match on their hands if Arsenal play anything like they did last night.

The game itself was played in the usual spirit of sportsmanship (yeah, right), and within five minutes Leboeuf had been skinned by Anelka, attempted to push the ball back to Land, missed, Land made an excellent save at Anelka's feet, the ball skidded towards the goal, was cleared off the line by Charvet straight to Steven Hughes who banged it back in. 1-0. Great. God I hate Arsenal.

Five minutes later, the pivotal point of the match. Petit back headed the ball straight to Vialli, who had nobody between him and the goal. Steve Bould decided to stop Vialli before he could shoot, which he did by attempting to remove Vialli's shirt with his head still in it, kicking him in the face as he went down for good measure. The rulebook clearly says Bould gets sent off. Dermot Gallagher, an otherwise above average referee, decided to book him instead. His reason was that he thought one of the other Arsenal defenders "could conceivably have got back to tackle Vialli." Yeah, right. If he was Linford bloody Christie, he might have. God I hate Arsenal.

Needless to say, it got very nasty after that. Steve Bould was mouthing off big time because the Chelsea players were asking Gallagher why he wasn't sending Bould off, as if he wouldn't have shouted just as loud if the situation had been reversed. You could see the anger on the Chelsea players' faces, and so could Arsenal, who proceeded to bait them at every opportunity. That really sealed the game. Dennis Wise and Mark Hughes started showing their studs to anybody who got in their way, even Vialli was putting the boot in, with predictable results. Vialli and Wise got booked, which meant in effect that they both had to stop tackling. That sewed up the midfield for Arsenal, particularly after Leboeuf, and later Di Matteo had joined them in the book.

After that, things just went on the way they had before it all went off, Arsenal were harrying our midfielders off the ball, but couldn't penetrate our defence in turn. It was all tackle, recover, tackle recover in midfield; Incredibly frustrating and boring. Three minutes from half time, things got a whole lot worse, with Eddie Newton giving away a free kick on the edge of the area. Bergkamp floated the ball over the defence to the far post, where Donkey had arrived having lumbered over in his spare time. Nobody followed him. It was Charvet's job, and he blew it. (otherwise he'd had a good game). Anyway, Donkey nodded the ball across the goal, everybody flapped except Steven Hughes, who calmly headed it over the line. Any lingering hope of a revival disappeared after that. God I hate Arsenal.

Ruud tried to regroup by changing to a back three after the break, and Danny Granville subbed Petrescu, who had looked spaced out, frankly. It didn't work, needless to say. If anything, Chelsea looked even less likely to score than they had before. So much so that Zola came on for Vialli, and Flo replaced Eddie Newton with half an hour to go, to no great avail. To top off a depressing afternoon Mark Hughes and Bob Di Matteo got booked, and deserved it, and Graeme Le Saux had his usual tiff, this time with his England mate Lee Dixon. It was handbag stuff, really, but it gave the gooner mob their chance to boo Le Saux even more than they had already been doing. God I hate Arsenal.

To sum up, I'd say that things could easily have gone differently had a certain decision not gone against us, but basically Arsenal were better than us and deserved to win. The only crumb of comfort is that we're still clinging to the second spot in the league, the rest of the chasers having also lost, and Moan U dropped two points at their place.

God I hate Arsenal.