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Pick of the draws: West Ham were heavily beaten at Aston Villa last Saturday but they are a different proposition at home and tipped to share the spoils with Bolton. Promoted Millwall have got off to a real flyer in the Championship - top of the table, two wins out of two, seven goals scored and none conceded - but Leeds, who were also promoted, can check their progress at Elland Road.
In League One, Oldham have won their opening two matches under their new manager Paul Dickov, which should give them the confidence to get something at Charlton, who have also started with a couple of victories. By contrast, Notts County are struggling - two defeats, no goals scored and six conceded - but they can stop the rot at home to Dagenham & Redbridge.
Away days: Tottenham deserved better than a goalless draw against Manchester City last Saturday when only England keeper Joe Hart stood between them and a handsome victory. And despite Tottenham's sloppy display against Young Boys of Berne in the Champions League, I suspect that they will have too much for Stoke, who were disappointing in defeat at Wolves. Bristol Rovers are fancied to win at Exeter, who are reeling from the tragic death from bowel cancer of their striker Adam Stansfield. Also in League One, Bournemouth, who put five past Peterborough last Saturday, should keep up the good work at Tranmere.
Homes sweet homes: Have a flutter on Bristol City, making light of Steve Coppell's sudden departure as manager, to beat Barnsley. Norwich returned to winning ways with a last-minute goal against Scunthorpe last Saturday and can collect another three points against Swansea, who are often meek on their travels. Play-off losers Nottingham Forest have made a stuttering start to the season and Reading look a good bet to add to their problems. Brian McDermott's side expect to be promotion contenders.
Treble chance (home teams): West Bromwich, West Ham, Leeds, Preston, Charlton, Notts County, Yeovil, Bury, St Johnstone, Morton.
Best draws: West Ham, Leeds, Preston, Charlton, Notts County.
Aways: Manchester United, Tottenham, Chelsea, Bristol Rovers, Bournemouth.
Homes: Arsenal, Everton, Bristol City, Norwich, Queens Park Rangers, Reading, Southampton, Accrington, Chesterfield.
Pick of the draws: The start of the Premier League season has given us a mouth-watering fixture in Liverpool v Arsenal at Anfield on Sunday. Liverpool have been boosted by the arrival of a new manager, Roy Hodgson, and the signing of Joe Cole as well as Steven Gerrard and Fernando Torres deciding to stay at the club. Arsenal, however, have also enjoyed a good pre-season and can share the points.
Promoted Millwall had the best result of last weekend by winning 3-0 at Bristol City but may find Hull, who also won, sterner opposition at the New Den. Staying in the Championship, Watford and Coventry recorded opening-day victories and there will be little separating them at Vicarage Road. Barnet's drawn matches at Underhill last season went into double figures and another stalemate is on the cards when they host Burton.
Away days: Everton finished last season strongly and can carry on the good work by winning at Blackburn. Crystal Palace, buoyed by their narrow escape from relegation, are a fair bet to take maximum points at Barnsley while Norwich can recover from their opening-day defeat with victory over Scunthorpe. Queens Park Rangers (at Sheffield United) and Peterborough (at Bournemouth) are also worth a flutter.
Homes sweet homes: Sunderland look to have too much for Birmingham and the same can be said for Derby, who face cash-strapped Cardiff. Nottingham Forest are tipped to leave Leeds pointless for the second weekend in a row. It is hard to see Carlisle getting anything from their long journey to Plymouth, who were victorious at Southampton last Saturday. Ditto Stevenage, who travel to Bradford, conquerors of Nottingham Forest in the Carling Cup.
Treble chance (home teams): Bolton, Liverpool, Wolves, Ipswich, Millwall, Watford, Barnet, Cheltenham, Aberdeen, Motherwell.
Best draws: Bolton, Liverpool, Millwall, Watford, Barnet.
Aways: Everton, Crystal Palace, Norwich, Queens Park Rangers, Peterborough.
Homes: Chelsea, Sunderland, Derby, Nottingham Forest, Brighton, Oldham, Plymouth, Aldershot, Bradford City.
Pick of the draws: Hull, relegated from the Premier League and now with a new manager, Nigel Pearson, could have had easier visitors than Swansea for their opening game back in the Championship, so don't be surprised if they drop two points. Middlesbrough, the bookmakers' favourites for promotion, may not have things all their own way against Ipswich, who, like their manager Roy Keane, have much to prove after a mediocre season. Notts County, last season's League Two champions, will surely find life more difficult against Huddersfield in League One, while two relegated clubs, Southend and Stockport, face each other in League Two.
Away days: Brentford acquitted themselves well in League One last season and have a winnable match at Carlisle. Aldershot, who reached the play-offs, are fancied to start on a winning note at Accrington and Bradford City, who finished the last campaign with a flourish, can beat Shrewsbury.
Homes sweet homes: David James, Bristol City's new goalkeeper, should be on the winning side against promoted Millwall. Another promoted team, Leeds, will probably be too strong for Derby. Crewe, who play Hereford, are due a change of fortune at home after some terrible results at Gresty Road last season, and Stevenage can celebrate their first match in the League with victory over Macclesfield.
Treble chance (home teams): Hull, Middlesbrough, Notts County, Swindon, Walsall, Bury, Southend, Torquay, Livingston, Annan.
Best draws: Hull, Middlesbrough, Notts County, Swindon, Southend.
Aways: Brentford, Oldham, Aldershot, Bradford City, Ross.
Homes: Bristol City, Crystal Palace, Leeds, Charlton, Peterborough, Southampton, Burton, Crewe, Stevenage.
The following article was published in the March 2010 issue of Gunflash - The Official Arsenal Supporters' Club Fanzine. The latest issue for May 2010 is out now.
Like thousands of others, my favourite Arsenal moment from the past 55 years was that last-minute goal by Michael Thomas at Anfield which clinched the league title for the Gunners in 1989 as well as wrenching it from Liverpool’s grasp. My favourite Arsenal moment from the past 55 years at Highbury was when the final whistle went to end a gripping European Fairs Cup final, second leg between Arsenal and those Belgian high-flyers Anderlecht. It is incredible to think that we are celebrating its 40th anniversary because the memories of that euphoric evening are still fresh. The Gunners had to overturn a 3-1 deficit from the first leg when they were outplayed. They accomplished it in real style, running out 3-0 winners to claim their first major trophy since 1953 - a gap of 17 years. It was the first major trophy I had seen them win, so the date on which it happened, April 28 1970, will always be special to me. It was one of those magical nights when you were thrilled to say, “I was there.”
After years of disappointments, anti-climaxes and living in the shadow of the great Tottenham team of the early Sixties, featuring famous names such as Danny Blanchflower, Dave Mackay, Jimmy Greaves, John White and Cliff Jones, it was as if a big black cloud had suddenly lifted from Highbury. Arsenal, managed by Bertie Mee and coached by Don Howe, were entitled to feel proud of themselves again and there was a feeling that the balance of power in north London was shifting from one end of the Seven Sisters Road to the other. This was confirmed the following season (1970-71) when Arsenal became only the second club in the 20th century to win the League and FA double. Spurs were the first 10 years earlier and it must have been gut-wrenching for their supporters to watch Arsenal clinch the first leg of their double before a packed house at White Hart Lane in the final league match of the season on a memorable Monday night in May. The FA Cup triumph over Bill Shankly’s Liverpool followed five days later.
The European Fairs Cup breakthrough made Arsenal players and supporters believe that the club could go on to greater triumphs. This is why it was one of the most important victories in Arsenal’s history. Before April 28 1970 Arsenal players were used to being compared unfavourably to the marvellous footballers of the Thirties when Arsenal won the League Championship five times and the FA Cup twice. This was hardly surprising because in 17 long, lean years between 1953 and 1970 Arsenal never finished higher than third in the old First Division and failed to progress beyond the sixth round of the FA Cup. But once the Fairs Cup had been won, the names of such Highbury legends as Alex James, Cliff Bastin, Eddie Hapgood, David Jack, Joe Hulme and Ted Drake weren’t heard quite so often from the club’s older supporters. Those players from 1970 had made their own history and the following year they achieved something which was even beyond the great Arsenal side of the Thirties - the Double.
Arsenal had begun catching up with Spurs by the late Sixties and reached consecutive League Cup finals at Wembley in 1968 and 1969. Leeds, one of the best teams of that era, beat them 1-0 in 1968. There was no disgrace in that, but it was a different story a year later when Swindon, then of the Third Division, beat the Gunners 3-1 in one of the biggest upsets of the decade. The strange thing is that Arsenal did not play badly. It was just their misfortune to come up against a goalkeeper, Peter Downsborough, who played out of his skin. Because of Downsborough’s heroics, the match went into extra time with the score at 1-1 and Arsenal, handicapped by a dreadful pitch and weakened by an outbreak of flu earlier in the week, succumbed to two goals by the highly rated Don Rogers.
It took a painfully long time for the Arsenal players and fans to get that result out of their system. The depression carried over into the next season (1969-70), which for the most part was undistinguished. There were four goalless draws at Highbury, the Gunners could finish no higher than 12th and suffered early exits in FA Cup and League Cup. Thankfully, the Fairs Cup results provided a relief from all the gloom. By the spring things were looking much more promising. Dinamo Bacau were beaten 9-1 on aggregate in the quarter-finals, and in the semi-finals Arsenal made surprisingly short work of Ajax, winning 3-1 on aggregate.
Anderlecht proved a major obstacle in the final, especially on their own ground where they were convincing 3-1 winners. Arsenal’s saviour in the first leg was a young Ray Kennedy, who came on for Charlie George towards the end with Anderlecht leading 3-0. Kennedy reduced the arrears with almost his first touch - a header from George Armstrong’s centre - to give Arsenal a fighting chance of rescuing the tie. With away goals counting double in the event of the scores being level on aggregate, Arsenal knew that 2-0 in the second leg at Highbury a week later would be sufficient to prevail. As it happened they went one better.
A crowd of 51,612 saw Arsenal make a tentative start, but the turning point was Eddie Kelly’s opening goal midway through the first half after Anderlecht had failed to clear an Armstrong corner. The Belgians were on the back foot after that and yielded to two Arsenal goals in the 70th and 71st minutes. From my vantage point in the North Bank I had a bird’s-eye view of both of them. John Radford thundered in an unstoppable header from a centre by Bob McNab for 2-0. The Arsenal fans were still jubilating when Jon Sammels scored the third with a shot that went in off the post. The final whistle brought the next wild celebrations. Supporters poured on to the pitch in their thousands as captain Frank McLintock, a winner at last after playing in four losing cup finals at Wembley, showed off the trophy to the adoring masses.
I often wonder what would have happened to Arsenal if they hadn’t risen to the occasion so gloriously that night, and instead lost their third consecutive cup final. How much longer would the players and supporters have had to wait for some silverware? The let-down of an aggregate defeat to Anderlecht would have been so huge that they would surely not have won the Double the season afterwards and those players responsible for the successes of the early Seventies would not be such household names today.
The 11 Arsenal heroes on that memorable April night were (in 4-4-2 formation): Bob Wilson, Peter Storey, Frank McLintock, Peter Simpson, Bob McNab, George Armstrong, Jon Sammels, Eddie Kelly, George Graham, John Radford and Charlie George.
Since 1970 Arsenal have added to their European silverware collection by winning the now defunct Cup Winners’ Cup in Copenhagen in 1994. Since the turn of the century the Gunners have enjoyed some outstanding results in Europe, including winning at Inter Milan, Real Madrid and AC Milan, but the greatest prize of all - the European Cup - eludes them.
There was no disgrace this season in going out at the quarter-final stage to last year’s winners, Barcelona, who have become a very special team featuring a very special player, Lionel Messi. Their first-half performance in the first leg at Ashburton Grove was the best I’ve seen from a visiting team in more than 50 years of attending Arsenal home matches. The word awesome is frequently overused these days but in this instance there was no other way to describe them. Barcelona were the side everybody wanted to avoid in the draw and it was rotten luck for Arsenal that they were handed the short straw. Even worse luck was the fact that Arsenal were away in the second leg. Let’s hope that if the Gunners play Barcelona in next season’s Champions League competition it won’t be before the final.
The following article was published in the March 2010 issue of Gunflash - The Official Arsenal Supporters' Club Fanzine. The latest issue for April 2010 is out now.
Whatever the rest of 2009-2010 has in store for Arsenal, there is the sobering knowledge that Aaron Ramsey will not be part of it. The serious injury to the highly rated young Wales midfielder - he broke his tibia and fibula in the 3-1 victory at Stoke last month - has not only cast a giant shadow over Arsenal’s season but revived memories of similar injuries to Abou Diaby four years ago and Eduardo two years ago.
The good news is that the injury is not career-threatening. The bad news is that Ramsey faces at least eight months out of action and that unless something is done to curb the kind of reckless tackle by Ryan Shawcross which caused the trauma, it is likely that another serious injury will happen sooner rather than later. These sort of challenges are a consequence of too many Premier League managers thinking Arsenal are a soft touch, especially away from home, and encouraging over-aggressive methods to combat the flair and artistry of the Gunners.
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has seen it all before. The tackle by Martin Taylor at Birmingham which caused so much distress to Eduardo, not to mention his team-mates, and the even worse foul by Sunderland’s Dan Smith on Diaby at the Stadium of Light which was made near the touchline and came about 30 seconds from the end of a game in which Arsenal were winning 3-0. In a season when Arsenal have been suffering from an abnormal amount of injuries, this was the cruellest blow of all. Full marks to the Arsenal players who, having been visibly dismayed by Ramsey’s injury, had the character to go on and win the match with two goals in stoppage time. Their resolve, togetherness and fighting spirit bodes well for the rest of the season.
Apologists for Shawcross point out that he did not mean to hurt Ramsey and that in a contact sport like football accidents will sometimes occur. On the first point I’m sure they are right, but the unnecessary force of the Stoke’s defender’s challenge ensured that it was an accident waiting to happen. The announcement of Shawcross’s promotion to the England squad for the game against Egypt only minutes after the Stoke-Arsenal match had finished was particularly unfortunate timing.
The Ramsey February horror story highlights the lost art of tackling. Too many of today’s players seem unable to distinguish between fair and hard and foul and dangerous. Don’t get me wrong, there were dirty players 20 and 30 years ago and most clubs had their “enforcer” or “hard man”. But I can’t remember any of them committing the sort of challenges we are seeing all too often these days - fouls which endanger players’ livelihoods.
Tackling is as much part of football as shooting, passing, dribbling and heading. Long may it remain so, for I would hate to see the game become a non-contact sport. However, there is a proper and improper way of executing it. Sol Campbell gave an example of the former only last month when his brilliantly timed tackle thwarted Porto striker Falcao as he was about to shoot from close range. However, youngsters would be well advised not to follow the example of Birmingham centre-back Liam Ridgewell. His spiteful two-footed lunge at Wigan teenager James McCarthy last month took out the player and also the corner flag which flew up into the face of a linesman, who was unable to continue and replaced in the second half by the fourth official. Incredibly, Ridgewell was not punished by the referee and the FA, perhaps more incredibly, dismissed reports that they would act retrospectively. Ridgewell was also involved in an incident at the Emirates last October when his shuddering challenge led to Theo Walcott hobbling off. He also got off scot-free on that occasion, so he’s riding his luck. It’s time that Birmingham manager Alex McLeish had a quiet word with the former Aston Villa defender and told him to calm down.
The importance of firm but clean tackling cannot be overstated. If you get a shot, pass or header wrong at least you don’t risk causing damage to somebody else, but if you tackle without, in Wenger’s words, due care and attention then the result, as we have seen recently, can be disastrous. In some cases the punishment does not fit the crime. Alex Song missed Arsenal’s recent matches against Burnley and Hull because of an accumulation of bookings, yet this was only one game fewer than Shawcross was banned for his tackle on Ramsey, for which he was sent off. Incidentally, Song’s yellow card against Stoke was harsh.
Ironically, Robbie Savage, now plying his trade with Derby in the Championship, was the innocent party to one of the worst assaults I’ve seen in many years. Ironic because Savage has had more than his fair share of run-ins with referees in a long, turbulent career. The guilty man this time was Gorka Pintardo, of Swansea, in the match at Pride Park last month. Pintardo’s wretched two-footed tackle thankfully missed his target and predictably provoked a mass brawl. That man of many clubs, Steve Claridge, commenting on The Football League show, rightly suggested that a suspension of three months would have been far more appropriate than three weeks for a challenge that could have inflicted grave damage.
Kieran Gibbs must be cursing the fact that his broken metatarsal has ruled him out for the rest of the season just when England manager Fabio Capello has a problem with finding a World Cup replacement at left-back for the injured ex-Gunner Ashley Cole. With Manchester City’s Wayne Bridge reluctant to play in the same team as John Terry, Aston Villa’s Stephen Warnock unconvincing in the League Cup final defeat by Manchester United and Everton’s Leighton Baines only average when gaining his first cap against Egypt, Gibbs, had he been fit, may well have called into the squad.
It’s touch and go whether Walcott, Arsenal’s only other World Cup candidate, will make the party to South Africa. His hat-trick in England’s 4-1 win over Croatia in World Cup qualifying in the autumn of 2008 seems a long time ago now. Since then a succession of injuries and the lack of a regular 90 minutes at Arsenal have drained his confidence and belief. After his performance at Wembley against Egypt when he was too often on the periphery, one fears Walcott has fallen behind in the pecking order to Shaun Wright-Phillips, Aaron Lennon and David Beckham. The Arsenal supporters are willing him to show some of the form that persuaded Wenger to buy him from Southampton for £5 million four years ago and there were signs in the home victory over Burnley - not least a terrific individual goal - that he is at last emerging from his trough.
