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“It Was The Perfect Goal”

Ally

Active Member
Arsenal's goal haul last season makes for impressive viewing by any standards – from Henry's free-kick that took an awkward bounce in front of Nico Vaessen, all the way through to Ljungberg's powerful charge down the middle of Sunderland's abject defence and his hooked, low finish into the far corner.

And if asked to select the best of the lot, well, that's a nice problem. Henry's measured, clinical canonball at Upton Park? Cole's twist n' slam against WBA? Bergkamp's fluid, almost balletic but yet utterly vicious 'swing and a hit' against Southampton? There's too many. I haven't even mentioned the most obvious there. Partly because if you want individualism, you'd struggle to single out one. Henry against the Spuds is of course the obvious answer. But then you have Pires v Southampton (3), Henry again with his turn past Cudicini, or maybe even Sylvain Wiltord's wonderful little flick past Brown to set up that obscenely relaxed sweep past Barthez.

Of course, in my infuriating and pedantic way, I happen to think the 'perfect' goal from last season is totally obscure. You might well find it rather laughable when you hear my choice. But, hey! Hear me out.

It's an own goal.

Yup, an OG. A slice into his own net. An inadvertant poke with his wrong foot in at the near post. So what in God's name am I doing writing a column on this? Simple – because the build-up was pure, utter perfection. And that, after all is the criteria I've decided on.

Stamford Bridge, 25th March. Hasselbaink misses a sitter and thuds his header straight into the ground from 6 yards. Taylor has to tip over a humming free-kick. You're generally being given a right good seeing-to. And then suddenly, you break away for the first time and before you know it you're one-nil up, and it's essentially a farce because you really don't deserve it, but you don't care and are bouncing around and have given no thought to how the goal was worked. In any case, Lauren's belter to seal the game stole all the limelight, and the celebration is a classic, so you have no particular need to recall in precise detail John Terry losing his balance and colliding with his near post.

It's worth it though. Speaking generally, the Arsenal counter attack is swift, lethal and can skim over the length of the pitch, end-to-end, all the way from goalkeeper throw-out from under his own crossbar to the back of the net a hundred yards away in, maybe 10 seconds, possibly less. You, of course, know all about this. But time and again, opposition fail to take adequate precautions when attacking us (Especially via. corners), and it remains a mystifyingly underratted occurance, drawing shrugs and vague praise about 'that's just lovely play from Arsenal' now and again.

It happened here. And it would happen nine minutes later as well. But as spectacular as ths second was, I love the first as a flawless execution of a textbook theory.

A Chelsea attack broke down, and Jody Morris' cross was headed clear by Sol Campbell. Not a particularly solid header, nor one which cleared the danger as it went up in the air. But then something I don't quite understand happened – the four Chelsea midfielders were pushed up so much (It had to be complacency, or maybe tactical naivety – actually, it was probably the latter, because they were lined up well inside our half, presumably briefed to pump balls into the box and get the first goal) that the ball came down straight to Edu, in plenty of space. Petit was starting to close him down, so there was little time to take the ball down and play a pass to feet. Instead, he flicked it on, past the entire Chelsea midfield, and Wiltord took it on a diagonal run to the far side of the pitch where Terry and Gallas were disasterously exposed – Melchiot looked to have Pires under watch on the left wing, but the right back position looked strangely empty, As it turned out, that space would be used immaculately, while Pires would have no part in the goal.

Then, nearing the penalty box, two things happened similtaneously. Wiltord was obviously looking for a pass, but any ball to Jeffers would have surely been cut out by Gallas. The number 9 saw exactly what was going on, chose his moment, and made a sublime run across the back of Gallas and Terry. This made the goal. It worked twofold – firstly, Terry took his eye off Wiltord and was slow to realise what was going on behind him as Jeffers positioned himself across the edge of the penalty area for a cross. This gave Wiltord a split-second more to measure his pass out to Vieira, who was chugging in on the overlap. Secondly, as the ball was eventually released, Terry panicked and started to run out towards Vieira to intercept the pass, even though Gallas was already out there and he should have been dealing with the men making through-runs behind him.

The timing of the release was simply immaculate. Vieira took the ball on with one touch (It looked like he had over-run it), reached it before a desperate dive from Gallas did, and simply thumped a reverse ball straight across the face of goal.

The confusion that Jeffers had created by veering off behind the two centre-backs now paid off. Terry was far too wide and basically left two men completely clear on the penalty spot, Wiltord having run on and towards the cut back.

Cudicini didn't seem to know what was going on, either. He kept his eyes fixed on Vieira and the ball, as all goalkeeping textbooks would tell you, but the goal wasn't his fault; he had been left hopelessly exposed. He might well have seen the cross late as it had gone around Gallas on the way, and made a dive out antipating a claim or parry out on the six yard box. He wouldn't have reached it even if it had come through.

Instead, John Terry staggered back, practically ran over the ball and decided to go for it with his wrong foot.You know the rest. If he had missed it, I don't think Wiltord would have scored, as he had timed his run in very slightly too early. Even if he had missed it too, Jeffers would have had a tap-in. Even Pires has drawn off from Melchiot by this stage, and could even have run in and scored himself.

And all this happened, from Campbell's header out to the ball zipping into the net, in 12 seconds. And that's the best bit. In 12 seconds, two world class centre backs had been completely torn apart. They had not even done a whole lot wrong. How are you supposed to defend against something like this? Terry couldn't have cleared the centre such was it's power – it was more a ricochet off him. He was helpless.

A perfect goal? Well, yes. In it's own way. Individualist goals are perfect in their own way. But for me, team goals, when something like this happens, take some beating.

Let's get something straight here. I'm not making a claim that it's "THE GREATEST GOAL OF ALL TIME AND IS BETTER THAN ANYTHING, EVER!!! YEAHHH!!!" I'm saying that it was a beautiful, beautiful goal.

Welcome to the world of Arsenal.

Ally Winford
 
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