Nightmare in Manchester

The past few weeks were absolute torture for me.  Arsenal, after starting the season in imperious form, looked to continue their dominance with successive trips to Manchester to take on the Champions and the team I now hate Manchester City.  The Citizens heavily recruited and purchased Emmanuel Adebayor and Kolo Toure from Arsenal this past summer for over 41 million pounds.  Personally I was extremely pleased with Arsene Wenger’s shrewd business and welcomed the departure of Adebayor.  After his proposed move to AC Milan last summer fell through, Adebayor was never the same and had a horrendous campaign for the Gunners.  The nearly 25 million we recouped for the gangly African was stroke of genius from Wenger and despite Adebayor’s impressive form this season, I am not sad to see the backside of the Togolese hit man.   Losing Kolo was sad but he was a shade of his former self.  The last member of the fabled Invincibles squad of 2004, Toure was a rock in the Arsenal back line for years and will truly be remembered by the supporters for his class and commitment.  Nevertheless, football has a business side and I had no problem with these transfers over the summer.

Arsenal 1- Manchester United 2

Arsenal’s rivalry with Manchester United is well documented in English football lore with Sir Alex Ferguson’s men getting the better of my beloved Arsenal on multiple occasions.  Encounters with United are always memorable and Arsenal’s past trip to Old Trafford proved to be no different.  The opening exchanges were tense and both sides needed time to settle in to the match.  After 20 minutes or so the encounter began to liven up and both sides played some impressive football.  In a week where Arsenal found themselves on the wrong side of a penalty controversy, this game could not have gone any worse.  The drama began when Russian ace Andrey Arshavin was clearly taken down in the box with no penalty awarded.  Despite this clear missed call, Arsenal kept their composure and Arshavin produced a dazzling strike from outside the area that left Foster stranded, 1-0 to the Arse.

The second half started where it left off and I honestly felt Arsenal were cruising.  Foster provided an amazing save on Van Persie that could have put the Gunners up 2-0 and Diaby saw an effort go agonizingly wide.  Back to the penalty drama, against the run of play Rooney raced toward a long ball and Almunia came out, catching the United forward as he put the ball clear into the stands.  The referee pointed to the spot and I was screaming at the TV in disbelief.  Did Almunia catch Rooney? Yea he def nicked him BUT Rooney’s touch saw the ball go 20 yards into the stands.  He had no chance of scoring regardless of Almunia and the call was absolutely horrendous.  Just like the NFL does not call pass interference when the pass is uncatchable, refs are not supposed to award penalties when there is no chance of the forward scoring.  Recapping the penalty drama we have a clear penalty not called for Arsenal and a ridiculous call against them for United.  Rooney calmly slotted in the penalty and my bitterness was only about to get worse.  The goal sparked Arsenal to life and they continued to dominate.  It still looked like Arsenal had plenty of time to regain the lead and that is when disaster struck.  A harmless corner saw Abou Diaby, who otherwise had an amazing game, inexplicably put the ball in his own net with no one around him.  This moment of madness was shocking as he had no one near him and instead of dominating up 1-0, we find ourselves down 2-1.  After throwing a few things around the apartment and waking up the neighbors (it was 9am on sat. morning), I had to have a drink to calm down.  The match continued to get crazy as Arsenal threw everyone forward looking for the equalizer.  In all fairness United could have sealed the match as Berbatov spurned a sitter one on one with Almunia and Nani had two golden opportunities form within 6 yards to end it.

As the final minutes of stoppage time ticked away the football gods still wanted to play one last cruel joke on me.  A long ball into the United area on literally the last kick of the game saw Gallas head it back to Van Persie who slotted home the equalizer.  I ran around the apartment screaming goal until the linesman ruined my week by flagging  (albeit correctly) Gallas for offside, negating the goal.  The day had one more moment of madness as Wenger kicked a water bottle in disgust at what had happened only to be sent off by the 4^th official.  The match turned into a circus as the steward did not know where to send Wenger and he literally climbed into the stands amongst the United supporters.  Standing on the ledge was my mentor and idol Arsene Wenger with arms extended looking as if he was being crucified.  One thing I love about soccer is that in an intense rivalry, the opposing manager can go into the stands on the road and nothing was thrown at Wenger.  I credit the United supporters for showing real class in an otherwise circus moment of madness of the match.  That image is one that I will never forget in my life.  It took another 5 minutes for everything to be sorted out and the game was over, United stole 3 points from right under our noses.

Part 2 is next with last Saturday’s return trip to Manchester to take on City.