"Handbags at ten paces"

Oliver Holt in this morning's Times:
"Arsene Wenger, the Arsenal coach, said his team owed their share of a dour Stamford Bridge draw to 'the traditional old Arsenal spirit' last night. Presumably he meant the regression to the habit of getting a man sent off in every game..."

I can't think of a better way to sum up the game than that. It goes a long way to disproving my theory that most sports journalists are visually-challenged, ignorant morons. I salute you.

Speaking of visually-challenged morons, good morning Mr S. Lodge of Barnsley, last night's "referee". I hope you slept well, and that you'll enjoy reading about what a nitwit you are in this morning's papers. I didn't see ANY point in you being on the pitch, other than to impress us punters in the crowd with a seamless display of ineptitude. The lack of control of the game that you displayed was breathtaking in its scope, the end result being a bad-tempered, scrappy game that failed to deliver what could so easily have been a great game. Thanks a lot.

All the ingredients were there - more talent than you could shake a shitty stick at, a passionate derby atmosphere, a flawless pitch, nice bogs, the lot. There was only one thing that could possibly have spoilt it, and that was what we got: a useless ref.

Within five minutes of the kickoff, Gigi Casiraghi and the neanderthal Martin Keown were having a stand-up, complete with ear-pulling and slapping of faces (I kid you not!) that was completely ignored by both referee and linesman. Realising that he'd got away with it, Keown decided to exact his revenge a minute later by attempting to take Casiraghi's leg off at the knee with one of the latest and worst tackles I've seen in ages. It was a miracle Casiraghi came out of it relatively uninjured, and Keown duly went into the book. His look of feigned surprise should either have got him an Oscar or a red card, preferably both. It was taking the piss.

The match then settled into a frustrating pattern where Arsenal's defensive qualities cancelled out Chelsea's attacking style, enlivened only by bursts of the sort of sporadic violence normally associated with places like Beirut and Sarajevo. The highlight of the first half was Zola's 20-yard curled shot that Seaman just managed to tip over the bar. Apart from a mis-hit bicycle kick from Lambourde, there wasn't much else on offer. Casiraghi looked busy and sharp, as did Zola. Their work rate is astounding, and will pay dividends eventually when they develop the understanding that is so essential to an attacking partnership.

The second half was ridiculously one-sided; I only remember two or three occasions when Arsenal had the ball in our half. The rest of the time they were behind the ball, doing what they do best: boring the crap out of everyone in the place. To be fair, their defence is effective. It's just very frustrating to watch.

After 20 minutes or so of this torture, Laudrup, who'd had a fairly quiet game (probably due to his lack of fitness), was substituted by Fred Flintstone (Gus Poyet), to general acclaim. Minutes later Le Saux and Petit clashed, resulting in Le Saux treading on the prone Petit's head. It happened at the opposite end of the pitch from where we were, so it wouldn't be fair of me to say whether he did it on purpose or not, but having seen the slo-mo replay on TV I didn't think it was malicious. Unfortunately Petit took it rather badly, and was glaring and gesticulating at poor old Soxy in a typically Gallic way, plenty of shoulder-shrugging and fists beaten into palms, etc. If he'd had a handbag, he'd have been swinging it round his head, cheese-eating surrender-monkey that he is..

Equally unfortunately, Lee Dixon, who has had a running feud with Le Saux for years, decided to take upon himself the role of judge, jury, and, spectacularly, executioner. He waited until Le Saux went past him towards the byeline, and scythed into a wild tackle that upended the hapless Le Saux. As he lay there, Dixon said something to him along the lines of: "That'll teach thee to booger about with my mate", pushed his stetson up with the barrel of his smoking six-shooter, and turned to remount his horse, just in time to be yellow-carded by the ref for the second time. How we laughed. There was a bit more argy-bargy before he left, involving what appeared to be a spurned offer to shake Le Saux's broken thumb, then he trudged disconsolately off the park, to the accompaniment of derision and the theme tune from "Bonanza".

Arsehole Wenger immediately replaced Undermars, who'd been so anonymous I hadn't even noticed that he was playing, with a defender, I can't remember who. There was a frisson of excitement round the Chelsea fans as they realised we were playing against ten men, but nothing really came of it. The way Bumnal reorganised their defence was miraculous - you have to hand it to them. The worst insomniac in the world would get a restful night's sleep watching that lot.

Predictably, Chelsea were unable to take advantage, and the match frustratingly ended goalless. Bergkamp had one shot before he was subbed, typically it was the only shot De Goey had to deal with all night, and it nearly went in. De Goey seemed surprised, as well he might, and could only save by wildly flailing at the ball with his leg. Fortunately it went straight to a Chelsea player.

Of our lot, Le Saux was allowed to continually overlap down the left side of the pitch, and produced some dangerous crosses, Duberry had a solid game, as did Leboeuf and Desailly. I thought Lambourde looked a bit rusty, but he got better as the game went on. We missed Den, as usual, but generally I thought Chelsea did well. The passing and holding of the ball was good, and the movement off the ball always looked dangerous. Arsenal were bloody lucky really, emphasised by an incident late on, where the ref turned down a glaring penalty as Casiraghi was upended by Vieiri. Oh well, you know the saying: Win some, draw some.