First D.J.: Okay, campers, rise and shine, and don't forget your booties 'cause it's cooooold out there today.
Second D.J.: It's coooold out there every day. What is this, Miami Beach?
First D.J.: Not hardly. And you know, you can expect hazardous travel later today with that, you know, that, uh, that blizzard thing.
Second D.J.: [mockingly] That blizzard - thing. That blizzard - thing. Oh, well, here's the report! The National Weather Service is calling for a "big blizzard thing!"
First D.J.: Yessss, they are. But you know, there's another reason why today is especially exciting.
Second D.J.: Especially cold!
First D.J.: Especially cold, okay, but the big question on everybody's lips...
Second D.J.: - On their chapped lips...
First D.J.: - On their chapped lips, right: Do ya think Phil is gonna come out and see his shadow?
Second D.J.: Punxsutawney Phil!
First D.J.: Thats right, woodchuck-chuckers - it's
[in unison]
First D.J.: GROUNDHOG DAY!
Second D.J.: GROUNDHOG DAY!
The above is what Bill Murray's character woke up to every morning (which was the same morning), over and over until he gets his shit together and successfully wins Andie MacDowell. For our part, we wake up the morning after a match to consider how many times this club has to be burned by complacency, fear and the inability to defend simple set pieces before the lesson sinks in. What happened on Saturday morning could just as easily have happened at the end of the Everton match - the team gets out to a 2-0 lead, and decides that they don't have to play anymore. It's fucking disgraceful is what it is. Everything I said after the West Brom match holds true once again, right down to the lack of guts, fortitude and mental strength.
I honestly don't know at this point if it's the players, the manager or both. Something has to change, though.
It all started out brightly enough. For whatever reason, the scum came out of the blocks with trepidation, and the Arsenal tore into them with a ferocity rarely seen from this lot. Within 9 minutes, they had a deserved lead. A wonderful killer ball from Cesc Fabregas was initially mis-controlled by Samir Nasri. He still got it around the dive of Gomes though, but at the time I thought he had left himself with too much to do. However, he managed to dink it back towards goal from the most acute of angles, and it somehow dribbled over the line before Benoit Assou-Ekotto could get back (for his part, Gomes had shamefully given up on the play...he had an outside chance of getting back in time if he had hustled). As you'd imagine, we all went mental - you can't ask for a better start against the auld enemy than that.
As bad as Spurs were before the goal, they were infinitely worse after it. Arsenal had just about all of the ball, and they moved forward with venom in their veins on every attack. Of course, for the most part, it was undone by poor passing and indecision in the final third of the field. Still, there was a moment in the 19th where it looked like Arsenal would double their lead...Gomes at fault once again. A free kick from Fabregas was curled to the back post, and Gomes' wild flap caught nothing but a mixture of hydrogen, oxygen, and trace amounts of other gases. Unfortunately, the diabolical Marouane Chamakh (easily his worst performance in an Arsenal shirt) not only couldn't get on the end of it but was offside to boot. A few minutes later, Fabregas worked a one-two with Alex Song to get some space, but could only fire wide.
It didn't matter though, as the second goal came shortly thereafter. A rare sortie upfield by the scum was dealt with, and Arsenal counter-attacked quickly in a fashion not often seen since the glory days of Thierry Henry, Robert Pires and Dennis Bergkamp. Nasri's pass found Andrei Arshavin, whose low cross was deflected in by Chamakh. I know I said that Chamakh had a mare, and I stand by that. The goal was well-taken, but as we'll see later, that was his only worthwhile contribution to the match. Even his hold-up play was nowhere near his recent standard.
That took us to the break with a solid lead against demoralized opponents. With any other club that has title pretensions, that would usually signify the end of any serious resistance. They'll keep it tight early in the second half, deflect any token offense coming out of the halftime team talk, and then pounce when the other side starts to hang their heads. With Arsenal, that means our problems are just beginning.
Sure enough, the lead was halved just 5 minutes after the interval. The dreadful Laurent Koscielny - who was mystifyingly installed back into the starting XI in place of the on-form Johan Djourou - was beaten on a header by halftime substitute Jermain Defoe. It bounced to Rafael van der Vaart, who connected with the onrushing Gareth Bale. Bale's low finish left Lukasz Fabianski with no chance, and the momentum was now with the white half of London. The worst part about this goal is that it came off the counter from an Arsenal set piece...I forget if it was a corner or a free kick. The problem was that both center-halves came up, and were glacially slow getting back once Spurs broke out on the counter. With a 2-0 lead in a must-win match, why risk so much by having both defenders so far up the field? This is exactly the sort of tactical naivety that costs us game after game, season after season.
First D.J.: Thats right, woodchuck-chuckers - it's
[in unison]
First D.J.: GROUNDHOG DAY!
Second D.J.: GROUNDHOG DAY!
With any other club that has title pretensions, this is where they would hold onto the ball for a bit, compose themselves, and then take advantage of the other side pressing more men up the field to carve out chances on the counter. With Arsenal, you have 10 dudes with their hearts in their throats all looking around at the others waiting for someone to take control of the game and get things back on track. However, sadly for us, Tony Adams is not walking through that door. Arsene Wenger can go on and on all he wants about how a team needs to have multiple leaders, but the fucking fact is that such an approach never works. Someone has to stand up and accept responsibility, and there is no one on this squad who is capable of it. I love Fabregas...L-O-V-E Fabregas, but he isn't that guy and never was.
Whereas most top clubs have an undisputed captain who can settle the team in these moments, Fabregas instead gifted the opposition with the penalty that tied the game at 2-2. While the foul that lead up to the initial free kick was soft as hell (and make no mistake, Phil Dowd is a blind, incompetent cunt of a ref), there was no excuse for Fabregas doing his goalkeeper impersonation in the wall that left Dowd with no choice but to point to the spot. If he wanted the No. 1 shirt that badly, he should have done it before Fabianski established himself in the position. The spot-kick saw van der Vaart send Fabianski the wrong way, and all of a sudden it was 2-2 with almost 30 minutes to go. Did anyone, anyone at all, not know what was going to happen here?
First D.J.: Thats right, woodchuck-chuckers - it's
[in unison]
First D.J.: GROUNDHOG DAY!
Second D.J.: GROUNDHOG DAY!
Chamakh was replaced at this point by Robin van Persie, who unsurprisingly contributed nothing to the cause. Still, I'm not sure which was the worse evil at this point - the half-fit perma-injured Dutchman, or the Moroccan who, when put in alone on goal, fucked around in the area long enough to allow two defenders to come back and clear the danger. Chamakh has had a good goal-scoring record this season, and is a brilliant header of the ball. But, when it is at his feet, he is only capable of positive things when he doesn't have time to think. When he does, he seems to be another who cannot accept the responsibility to make a decision and to fucking GO FOR IT. Like too many others on this team, he at times is willing to be a passenger when drivers are required. It's always a pass, always the hope that the responsibility can be shifted to someone else.
Soon after, it looked like Arsenal had - against the run of play - re-taken the lead. Fabregas' free kick was looped into the area, and was side-footed home by Sebastien Squillaci. However, the Frenchman was roughly 23.1 astronomical units offside, rightly called by the linesman. I admit to being apoplectic in real time, but the replay was clear that the lino had made the right decision.
After another half-chance where Cesc blazed over the bar, two of the more indescribably baffling substitutions of the year followed. Nasri and Arshavin - who had provided most of our attacking impetus on the day - were replaced by Theo Walcott and Tomas Rosicky. While I had no problem with Theo coming on, I was amazed that the two best players on the field in red were the ones coming off. Also, if you need to save a game and Rosicky is the answer you come up with, then you're asking the wrong questions.
Despite that, the Gunners' best chances to win the match came right after the substitutions. A rasper from outside the area off the boot of Fabregas was brilliantly tipped away by Gomes. Off the resulting corner, Koscielny was completely unmarked, but his header looped over the bar. At the very least, he should have tested the goalkeeper...a dreadful, dreadful miss.
A few minutes later, the former Lorient man committed the foul that led to the winner. Off the free kick, Younes Kaboul out-jumped Fabregas and Koscielny and sent a fine header low into the bottom corner to Fabianski's right.
First D.J.: Thats right, woodchuck-chuckers - it's
[in unison]
First D.J.: GROUNDHOG DAY!
Second D.J.: GROUNDHOG DAY!
You don't need me to tell you that Arsenal provided absolutely nothing (other than one shot blazed into the Van Allen Belt by Walcott) in response to this? Since we're on a Groundhog Day theme in this report, this is verbatim what I wrote in the West Brom post-mortem:
It says something though that, after five years of trophyless seasons, after countless articles and interviews where for all intents and purposes they've had their desire and even their manhood questioned, after being mentally and physically abused by the top teams, this lot still have the same old fragility. No fight, no drive, no determination, no defiance, no guts, no testicles, no resistance. George Graham is turning over in his grave, and he's not even dead yet.
Take that, multiply that by 1000 due to this being the derby, and apply it here. What the fuck else can you say? I'm tired of saying the same old things about the same players and the same manager season after season after season. As a matter of fact, I have wasted far too many words on this horseshit result, so on to the ratings before I burst a blood vessel.
THE MODERN GOONER RATINGS:
Fabianski 6, Clichy 5, Squillaci 5, Koscielny 3, Sagna 6, Nasri 7 (Rosicky 5), Denilson 5, Fabregas 6, Song 6, Arshavin 7 (Walcott 5), Chamakh 5 (van Persie 5).
