Well its been a while hasn’t it? I hope you have enjoyed my Alex Ferguson/David Beckham spoof, don’t worry there is an end to it, I have just been kinda busy. Anyhow a lot has happened since my last serious column in the world of Arsenal football club. We have signed hardly anyone while our rivals have made several world class signings, Pires and Vieria are leaving us for nothing and the club is essentially bankrupt and will be homeless any day now. Oh wait, im sorry, im not typing from my notes at all, I have accidently been quoting The Sun! Nice to see we finally have signed a goalie and in my opinion a top one at that! If his dodgy temperament turns out to be over exaggerated then with him, Taylor and the returning Rami things look very good for us in the No.1 department.
Pre season is well underway and after a slow start the first team squad is starting to show some quality. Remember how Bergkamp’s form transformed in 2001 when he signed a new contract? Well it looks like he has responded to a new deal in the same way and is getting rave reviews from his pre-season games. Next week sees Arsenal play the Glasgow giants of Celtic and Rangers. The French players should return in some form for these games and lets hope for two good performances to set us up for the community shield. But there was another pre-season game which probably will not get much mention in the press. For today Arsenal sent an XI to play Ryman League St Albans City. Why on earth am I mentioning this? Well thats because yours truely was in attendance! So sit back, get your hot coco and enjoy my tale of rumours, dodgy annoucers and top notch finishing!
I first heard about the game in March when a friend of mine at work mentioned she worked with her husband at St Albans City part time. I enquired about whether Arsenal were sending a team and she confirmed this was true. Sure it wasn’t going to be our first team, heck it may not even have any first team squad members in it, but when you aren’t a season ticket holder or club member then you have to take all chances you can to watch your team. Oh and of course our youth team is supposed to be rather tasty. So I paid my tenner and waited for the day to come. Flash forward to this morning. As I enter the building I am greeted by my friend who is waving a piece of paper in her hand. “Look who is playing she says!”. I look at the piece of paper and it says Cygan, Kanu, Parlour and Edu should all figure tonight. Fantastic! What an unexpected bonus. But it gets better!
See her husband phoned her to say that the lady from Arsenal had indicated that Thierry Henry may be making a non playing appearance!
YES! OH GOD YES! What an evening this shall be!
We arrive at the ground early as they have to set up the bar. I buy a program and this is the announced squad:
1. Stuart Taylor
2. David Bently
3. Edu
4. Guillaume Warmuz
5. Igors Stephanovs
6. Jermemie Aliadiere
7. Justin Hoyte
8. Kolo Toure
9. Kanu
10. Moritz Volz
11. Phillipe Senderos
12. Rami Shaban
14. Ryan Garry
15. Sebastian Svard
16. Stathis Tavlaridis
17. Pascal Cygan
18. Ray Parlour
Now, understandably a couple of things caught my eye here. I know we apparently have no depth in our defensive squad, but did we really have to re-sign our 4th choice goalie to play centre back?! Also Senderos and Shabban were supposed to be injured so I was not expecting to see them. However inside the program, Pennant Wiltord, Henry and Bergkamp were all supposed to be here! This was getting interesting.
We get inside the ground for about 7:10pm and stand behind the end where St Albans are warming up. I look down the ground to the Arsenal end and look for my heros. As I see no 6’5 dreadlocked black man I assume that Kanu didn’t make it. And Taylor in goal looks different than on television. Hmmm. A bald headed bloke with a bit of a paunch walks by in the distance and I think it is Cygan. Then someone kicks the ball at him and he controls its, rolls it along the inside of his calf, flicks it up and delivers and inch perfect 50 yard pass to someone at the other end of the ground. Nope its not Pascal then. By now im starting to feel cheated. How could they get my hopes up!! I don’t know any of these guys! Well at least from a distance anyway. But them I see it. I look up and am greeted by a receding ginger hairline. A quick once over and he is clearly tall and gangly. ITS IGOR!!! MAYBE TITI IS HERE AFTERALL!! Or maybe not.
The teams come out a few minutes later and the obvious is confirmed. Igor is the only first team squad player. Of the twenty named I only recognise about half, but at least I know nearly all the starting eleven. Arsenal start the game off at a frantic pace and from the off one thing becomes obvious: they are here to play football. Seriously if you squint a bit and ignore the smell of urine coming from the toliets, you could think this was the first team. Jerome Thomas immediately makes an impact with his pace and trickery. However as we would find throughout this game, he has a tendancy to try and do it all on his own. However his tenacity wins Arsenal a corner. The ball is whipped in and Igor risesunchallenged with a free header from six yards! Its … its … ITS!!!! Gone about 5 feet over the bar and nearly out the stadium. Great! St Albans start to come back and force a good save from our keeper. However Arsenal fight back and for a moment I think Vieria is on the pitch because Sebastian Svard is completely controlling the game. Everything he does is pure magic, be it his impeccable control, his sublime touch or his pin point passing. Then the breakthrough. The ball falls to Volz just outside their box on the right hand side. He controls it, takes a touch and cuts across the ball causing it to swerve viciously from left to right whilst it is also dipping, and the ball comes off the inside post and into the net. GOAL!! The strike of the ball was sensational and the opposition goalie did not even move. Arsenal continue to dominate with Svard, Thomas and Volz running St Albans ragged. However the Saints keep in the game when Stephanovs twice does ridiculous back passes to Gordon in the Arsenal goal and as a result the goalie slices his kick on both occasions. Despite surviving these, induvidual errors (mainly by Igor) threaten to let St Albans back in it. With half time approaching though Arsenal look like they are going to hold onto this lead comfortably.
Do they? No. Oh hell no. In the 45th minute the ball is whipped him from the left hand side of the touchline and it lands directly into Arsenal’s six yard box. Gordon comes out for the catch but somehow McDonnell gets in in front of him to make it one-one. This was a very bad error from Gordon, but to be fair im not convinced he was not fouled in the build up.
Half time: St Albans 1 Arsenal XI 1
The start of the second half saw Arsenal make changes. Igor thankfully was taken off but sadly seemed to still be walking after the game so it appears that he wasn’t put out of his misery. As for the other changes? Who knows, the announcer seemed to think Larsson was on but really he had no idea. Arsenal went 2-1 up afer a couple of second half minutes with an almost identical goal to the first. Volz this time cut in from the left flank and unleashed a screamer into the bottom right hand corner. They then made it 3-1 moments later when the ball was fizzed across goal when number 4 John Halls tapped it in. This came as somewhat of a surprise to me as Halls was annouced as the Number 6 at the start of the game and had gone off at halftime. Arsenal made more changes at this point and the announcer once agained informed us that Larsson was coming on again. We now had two identical players in our team! The announcer comically quipped, “There are so many changes being made, all I can say is that the replacements are replacing those which are coming off!”
To this we in the crowd comically quipped that the annoucer is a twat. The last 25 minutes of the game where really boring as the substitutions took their toll and the game lost coherency. With the score at 3-1 the final whistle blew and the match was over. The first 60 minutes of the game had been really impressive and I certainly have confidence in our young players. Here is my review of their performances: (Please note: I cannot stress how poor the announcer was, so I have not included the substitutes as he did not say who they were!)
1. Michael Gordon.
A mixed game for this young keeper. He made some decent stops but there were major question marks over his reliability. His kicking was erratic and well off target and he looked to be at fault for the goal. On this performance I can’t see him making the Premiership.
2. Moritz Volz.
Outstanding. He scored two fantastic goals and was in total command of the right flank. He barely put a foot wrong the whole game and looks like he will be a major asset for us.
3. Nicky Nicolau
Had a decent game. Did nothing noteworthy but looked solid throughout.
4. John Halls.
Good performance from Halls. He was strong and composed, commanding and in charge. Dealt with St Albans mid game aerial bombardment exceptionally. Could be a future partner of Sol on this performance.
5. Igor Stephanovs.
Oh dear god. Igor was woeful tonight, how he plays International football I don’t know. I can’t say anymore as I think my brain will melt if I have to think about it.
6. Liam Chilvers
Understated but solid, he looked decent. He didn’t really do enough to catch my eye though.
7. John Spicer
Along with Volz, he dominated the St Albans right flank. He is a neat player with good pace, but I don’t think he will make it at Arsenal. Could make a top notch nationwide player though!
8. Sebastian Svard.
Believe the hype. This guy was SENSATIONAL! His touch was perfect, he tackled, rode challenges and whenever he got the ball the team simply purred! If given first team football this guy could be a huge star. The future looks bright!
9. Paulinho.
Disappointing. He got in good positions but kept shooting when a pass was on, or passing when he had a clear sight of goal. He did nothing too impress me.
10. Jermome Thomas.
Thomas had a really good game but often he would try and to it all on his own. If he can introduce some simplicity into his game he could yet make the first team squad.
11. Alex Bailey.
Didn’t really do much in the game, but didn’t put a foot wrong either.
Man of the Match: Svard and Volz. Couldn’t separate them, they were both excellent.
Donkey of the match: Stephanovs and the ministry of misinformation appointed announcer.
Overall Assement
All in all a good performance by the lads, at least for the first 60 minutes. Take away Stephanovs and their goal and the team barely put a foot wrong. Having watched this game I feel confident about our future, their are two real gems in this youth team and potentially could be a few other useful squad players too. Add in Pennant, Toure, Aliadiere and Senderos and things are looking good in the long term for the club.
Try telling that to the Sun though …
Thats all for now, I should have the end of the trial soon and some other goodies! Till then, this has been Alastair Woodand you have been reading Hot Stuff!