Arsenal Win 5-1 Wenger Blames Fans

Only seemed like a week ago that Simon68, Syd the Cabby and me met in the greasy spoon opposite the stadium. It took us by surprise when Syd ordered Shepherd’s Pie for a change; they had to bring out smelling salts to revive the café owner who already had his chicken shish ready and waiting.You wait for ages these days for a home match and then three come along all at once, with Liverpool next Wednesday. We all agreed that Arsenal would win, so we got down to the real debate as to who would replace David Attenborough. Simon argued he would never die, so not to upset him we just talked about who his sub should be. Ray Mears was rejected, and Simon proposed Brian Cox, I pointed out he was an astronomer but Simon said he would learn quickly.

Then some West Ham ladies sat down at the opposite table and asked Syd what was the Plat de Jour, of course he recommended the Chicken Shish. To make them feel at home we gave them some East End banter. I asked them if they knew the  “1-0 to the Arsenal Barber Shop in Canning Town, they didn’t.  They had got the use of a Cypriot Arsenal fan’s season ticket, I read his name it was the “1-0 to the Arsenal Barber”.

We reminisced over the old days down the East End, when bananas were rare, everyone worked down the docks, and granddad was a boxer who blew all his wages coming home drunk every night to beat up the family. Simon and Syd protested that wasn’t fair, they were from Islington and their granddads had been boxers who blew all their wages, got drunk and, beat up the family, that wasn’t specially ethnic to the East End. I didn’t like to mention that my Granddad was a cane chair artisan who had been a boxer who blew all his wages, got drunk came home every night and beat up the family.

It was time for the usually less entertaining part of the evening, so we wished them well,  Syd warned them not to stand up if the Hammers scored. They said they wouldn’t, but one was a toughie and said she would, but I told her not to worry because if they scored I would eat my hat. Which is why it felt even colder coming back. We were all pretty cocky and expected a win, mainly because the Hammers are rubbish.

When I got into the ground I was faced with an awful dilemma of whether to buy a bag of Malteasers or not, it wasn’t the £3 price but the calories that concerned me, there are 700 of them in an Arsenal jumbo bag and I had already had 2000 for the day. Fortunately I remembered the lesson of Scott of the Antarctic, one reason for his death was that he only had 7000 cals a day in winter, and in very cold weather you are allowed 10000 cals a day, in fact it’s essential to survival. So I bought two bags.

As I took my seat the ground was half empty and after 15 minutes there were still about 10,000 missing. Later I discovered that a good few of them prefer to drink downstairs as usually they don’t miss much, and they certainly didn’t in the first half.

Tippy Tappy Time

Arsenal had lots of possession and West Ham were for the taking, but the team was too convoluted in the last third, and timid about shooting. So of course no surprise that West Ham went ahead on 18 minutes, having scored a month’s worth of away goals, but only 4 minutes later Podolski equalized.  So it was 1-1 at half time, nothing very special and no indication to what was about to happen.

Half Time Briefing

Simon pointed out we would have been four nil up if Bergkamp was playing, I agreed but I forgot to add that these days he would probably be on the wing so not to count on it. Having had a good moan we both headed back, but I was delayed struggling to get by the demi monde  still  queuing for burgers and beer, none of them seemed worried about getting back for the restart, and there was lots of them. Before I left I assuaged my conscience by offloading as many Malteasers on Simon as possible. After half a bag he turned green and refused to have anymore; and I just didn’t have time to explain the Scott of the Antarctic theory and that it would be for his own good.

Ten minutes explosion

I just got back in time for Walcott’s corner which was met by Giroud who came from the blind side to volley into the net. Fantastic goal and the crowd was in raptures. In the next ten minutes three more went in. It was an explosion of goals, four in ten minutes. Of which Cazorla’s was the most spectacular, but Poldolski had three assists to his name. Ramsey also had a good game playing in a more suited deep role. West Ham capitulated even more abjectly than Newcastle or Southampton, we should have had ten.

The dampener

 We were all hoping for many more goals, but a combination of substitutions and the dreadful injury to Potts took the tempo out of the game. Indeed Wenger was right to rest his strikers with three games next week, and he had no strikers left on the bench. Thus the Ox and Santos came on for Podolski and Giroud, “he drives how he wants” sang the crowd churlishly refusing to join in my superior song “he eats when he wants”, and it showed.

After Potts injury the game didn’t restart until after the normal finishing time, and so there was 20 minutes left to play in what became an increasingly subdued atmosphere, which was a pity as earlier Gooners had celebrated  informing Hammers where they could put their bubbles. Now spectators flooded out to get away in time for last trains, those remaining serenaded Jacky as he was the last to leave the pitch, wearing only his vest in 0.5 and in no hurry to go back down the tunnel. Ah can you see those Frenchies doing that Pardew?

It had been a fun night with some great goals, and the faithful had enjoyed watching Sam Allardarci the maestro who had learnt how to defeat Wenger before it came common place, or so Sam had told us, suffer a hammering.

A fun fun night to be enjoyed but I will leave the last words toMapleleafgooner, a regular poster on this site.

“Great result but I won't celebrate too much just yet. After the last great game where Arsenal beat Newcastle 7-3, Arsenal went on a string of poor results at Southampton, Swansea, $iteh and Chel$ki. And before that after a great win against Spuds, Arsenal drew at Villa, at Everton, lost to Swansea and Olympiacos. And before that, after a good away win at West Ham, Arsenal lost to Norwich and Schalke 04 while narrowly beating QPR.

Let see how this team performs against Brighton, Liverpool, Stoke and Sunderland coming up. It has been a very inconsistent team this season performance and results wise.”

Indeed