Rafa Needs A Pacemaker

Arsenal 2 - 1 Liverpool

1 - 0 Henry (21)
1 - 1 Garcia (76)
2 - 1 Henry (83)

Another day at THOF begins with Gilberto informing Radio 5Live that he thinks that Henry is unsettled by the speculation about his future, Internazionale becoming the latest in the queue of suitors, although he believes the Frenchman will re-sign. Simply solution is for Titi to sign, or state his intention to leave. This is becoming more tiresome than the summers spent listening to Vieira dithering about whether he wanted to live in London or Madrid. Robert Pires also makes the point that Arsenal need him, or experienced players like him, to bring through the next generation of youngsters. Unfortunately for Robert, he and his more experienced colleagues have not set themselves up as shining beacons this season with the manner of the away defeats being particularly galling. Perhaps that is why Wenger did not discount signing Beckham if he were to come onto the market. Pires looks likely to leave as the club is refusing to offer a two year contract - Pires needs to reassess his worth; if a one year contract was good enough for Bergkamp for several years, it is good enough for Hopalong.

Opponents Liverpool are in similar bad shape, with rumour control seemingly intent on getting Fat Ronnie to Anfield alongside Peter Crouch and Michael Owen. Which I guess is Rafa Benitez's way of ingratiating himself to the Real Madrid hierarchy. It takes care of one interview question, "How do we know you care about Real?", "I took Ronaldo off of your hands....".

Still, onto to todays' game - dominated by Arsenal, overall possession stats were roughly 75% - 25% in The Gunners favour with Liverpool seemingly unable to string two passes together for most of the match. I cannot recall seeing a Liverpool team play so many wayward passes in one ninety minute session. That Liverpool could have salvaged a point by equalising inside the last fifteen minutes is barely creditable and a suitable admonishment of poor finishing by Arsenal and poor decision making by the Assistant Referees in both halves of the pitch. Henry missed half a dozen gilt edged chances, Adebayour did absolutely nothing all game whilst Liverpool's forward line of Crouch and Garcia spent more time giving away free - kicks than they did winning possession. Indeed at the moment they cannot even find the banjo to swing at the cow's arse let alone attempt to hit it. Pires replaced Ljungberg after the first fifteen minutes but did not sparkle until the second half, including hitting the post when it seemed easier to score. Well that's how it looked from my armchair where it seemed to take more time to come to him than Robert had on the pitch. Man of the match had to be Cesc Fabregas who made the multi-capped midfield of the visitors look positively journeyman, including splitting two defenders with a wonderful pass for Henry to run onto and curl the opening goal past Reina.

The match turned on it's head with fifteen minutes to go - Fabregas was fouled by Alonso before Gerrard hit a superb shot from thirty yards that Lehmann did well to get fists to although he probably wished he hadn't when Garcia outjumped Toure to head home the equaliser. Within two minutes Liverpool were down to ten men when Alonso, who had been booked moments before, slid needlessly into Flamini after the ball had gone. The inevitable Red Card followed and Alonso will no doubt have increased his ban by one game for refusing to leave the field. Five minutes later, Gerrard played the ball back to Reina without seeing Henry who made up for his misses by slotting home comfortably.

Wenger and his men will no doubt thank Benitez for the substitution of Hamann with Fowler. Having started warming up in the fiftieth minute, Fowler finally rolled onto the pitch on seventy minutes being the lucky winner of a twenty minute tactical talk from Rafa that left him looking totally bemused. Obviously the bit about not letting Gerrard have the ball facing his own net got lost in translation.

The upshot of it all is that Manure are now certain to finish second, whilst the Tiny Tots are firmly in Arsenal's sights in fourth and still to visit THOF.

Todays Tunes are from Phaze:

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