Up(ish) for the cup…

There’s a bloke who sits across from me at work who drives me mad. His constant humming, the shit tinny music emanating from his headphones, his endless coffee slurping and picking food from his teeth drives me regularly to the point of wanting to jump out of my twelfth-floor-office window.

This morning, about 10 o’clock, he laid down his McDonald’s sausage and egg McMuffin and said: “What you got planned for the weekend?”

“Not much,” I said.

Then it struck me. On Sunday my team will take to the Wembley turf to contest a Cup Final. I’d forgotten. That certainly says something about the quality of the League Cup, and the standing of cup football in general.

When I was a kid, a cup final – any cup final – meant weeks of build-up and anticipation. It was a time when footballers didn’t enjoy the media exposure they do today, yet the seven days leading up to the game would see endless cup-related programmes - charting the ‘road to Wembley’ and showing players from both sides introducing us to their team-mates’ stupid nicknames. “That’s Phil Parks. We call him Parksy” etc etc. The playground was full of talk of nothing else. The cup took over. The ‘magic of the cup’.

Cup-final day itself would start at 7am, with reports from the team hotel and cameras tracking the team buses on their journey to the stadium. A presenter – a genuinely knowledgeable presenter rather than an ex-footballer - would stand outside the ground, waiting for a celebrity fan to come by for a quick word.

There’d be programmes from the clubs’ local factories to show us what it means to the ordinary man. Someone whose granddad played for one of the teams 176 years ago would show us his medal or some old shirt he wore in the game. Away from the TV, the local butcher would dress a pig carcass in his team’s colours and put it in the window. The Co-op would be empty. The roads were as empty as Christmas morning. Mums would have to do their shopping in the morning so dad could watch the match in the afternoon. It never rained. It was always glorious weather. And there was always drama. ‘Killer’ Kilkline with the diving header, Mabbutt with the glorious own goal, United back from two down only for Brady to swing it over for Sunderland to win it in the last minute, Beasant with the first ever penalty save in a cup final.

All of this was reward for a long, long road to Wembley – sometimes involving as many as three replays in one tie alone. How things have changed. We played four games to get there on Sunday – and three of those were against Newcastle, Wigan and Ipswich.

I’ve said many times in this blog that the league Cup is pretty worthless. That only the Premier league and the Champions League are really worth winning or a genuine test of a team.

I stand by that. If we win on Sunday, will anyone really say Wenger’s project is complete because his team of young stars - assembled on a limited budget - has now won silverware? Or will they say ‘you’ve still only won a shit cup’.

Don’t get me wrong. I want us to win on Sunday. I really do. And I think a win could be a pivotal moment for this team. It could convince some key players with half an eye on a move to the Barcelonas of this world that this team is on the verge of more significant success. It might also go some way to repairing the so-called ‘psychological weakness’ that is rumoured to be stopping us winning the title and the Champions League. It might well get some of the critics of Wenger’s back. And it will definitely be enjoyable watching the highlights when I get in.

But it won’t be much more than that.

One proud night in N5

Shortly after Bernie Ecclestone split from his wife some years ago, a friend called up to ask how he was doing.

“Things are better,” he said from his new multi-million pound bachelor pad. “Now, when I wake in the morning and it’s raining, I no longer get the blame.”

There are times when Wenger must have felt like he’s solely responsible for the world’s faults. The press have hardly been kind to him, pointing the finger his way for the shortcomings of the English national team, while his fellow managers have accused him of everything from cheating and lying to conning referees this season.

However, last night’s game went a long way to earning us some love.

The whole event oozed class. Before kick off we learned the club finally knows how to put on a show. The flags on the seats, the giant banners paraded around the stadium at kick off (and again when we scored), along with the spotlights and the dramatic music created a scene to rival European nights at Anfield, the San Siro and Barcelona. Now all we need is a proper club song. Elvis to leave the building, as it were.

Yet it was on the pitch that the club set about silencing even its sternest of critics. Wenger refused to betray his philosophy in favour of kicking Barca off the park. The players refused to drop their heads in the face of endless ball chasing and disheartening spells of no possession. They should be proud of the spirit they showed in pulling a victory out of what could have been a mauling. And the club as a whole should be heralded for beating what is, now by general consensus, the best team in the world – and in style.

It was, of course, a game of two teams. Barcelona were just as big a part of the spectacle. The stat being bandied around that Barcelona passed the ball 800 times – when the average in a Premier League game is about 250 for both teams combined – is alone a symbol of the quality of this match. This is how football should be played, and I hope that sticks firmly in the mind next time some lazy commentator praises Stoke or Bolton for launching a throw-in into the six-yard box so some six-foot meat-head can bundle it over the line. This was total football.

It’s true the game isn’t over. For all the positives – that Pique will miss the next leg, that Nasri will be fit enough to defend as well as attack, that we can fail to score and still go through, that Messi has three weeks to get injured – there remain a few concerns: namely, that if we let Barca have the level of control in the second leg that they enjoyed in the first, we will be crucified.

But whatever happens in the Camp Nou, Arsenal have already proved a lot of people wrong. Those that said we couldn’t hope to beat Barca at their own game were wrong. While those who have berated Wenger’s approach, philosophy and stubbornness, can now see why he refuses to change - because he has built a team that can compete with the best, while playing the best kind of football, in a stadium that could, one day, also be the best – and with a 19-year-old Englishmen at its heart.

Makes you proud to support the Arsenal.



Cometh the hour…

Barcelona. Despite what Freddie Mercury said, it’s not the first time that we’ve met. And today wasn’t the first time I’ve picked up a paper to read one of the 22 players who will take to the field tomorrow night mouthing off about how their team can win, how Barcelona aren’t invincible, how Messi can be stopped or how Arsenal are stronger than the last time the sides met.

It’s not entirely the fault of the players. They’re forced to sit through endless press conferences in the lead up to the game and, when asked “Can you win the game?”, their answer of “it’ll be hard but of course we can win it” becomes a double-page ‘exclusive’ entitled “Fabregas: We can thrash Barca” or something equally as provocative.

All the papers have pinpointed their potential match-winner. The general consensus, of course, is that Messi and Iniesta will run the show but that any of Walcott, Nasri, Fabregas and Wilshere has the potential to turn it in Arsenal’s favour. Loosely translated: a flair player might do something attacking. Not exactly rocket science is it.

However, in order for our attacking play to be as it usually is – as electric as a racehorse at Newbury – we may depend on another player altogether. You see, having the ball and spreading it around means having the ball in the first place. For the first 20 minutes of last year’s home game we couldn’t get it. And while I thought I might never say this about a player who was once not good enough to keep Charlton in the Premier League, our key man tomorrow night could well be Alexander Song.

Although Song is still about as consistent as a London tube line, he is of growing importance to the Arsenal team. As well as having the ability to win the ball, his partnership with Jack Wilshere – who can also tackle - means Fabregas can get further forward without worrying about the kind of counter attack Man U and Chelsea killed us off with in the past.

We’ve lost two Champions League games this season: away at Shaktar Donetsk and away at Braga. Song missed both games. If he doesn’t ‘go missing’ tomorrow, the trend of Arsenal winning when Song plays in Europe may well continue.

Cometh the man.

Twelve hours is a long time in politics…

There’s an argument that today’s politicians lack industry experience, that - because most of them are well educated, go straight into Government after University and work as Government advisers before becoming junior ministers and, eventually, ministers - they never actually experience what it’s like to work in education or banking or whatever it is they oversee as ministers.

What’s worse though is when they do that Ali G thing and try to get the common man to be a politician, because they think he will connect with the people…

Wednesday 9 February at 18:30, TalkSport broadcast the following exchange between Adrian Durham and Darren Gough:

Darren Gough: “It annoys me that I’m not allowed to say ‘innit’. Why do I have to say ‘isn’t it’ when it’s quicker to say ‘innit’. It’s like when I’m on Twitter and I don’t put a comma in, or when I put ‘their’ instead of ‘there’. People always pick you up on it and I think the spelling police are so annoying out there. Chill out. What’s the big deal?”

Adrian Durham: “It’s important because you should set an example to your kids. It’s important that they can spell properly.”

Darren Gough: “Absolute rubbish. What rubbish. I spend £13,000 a term in school fees to make sure my kids can spell. Why should I have to teach them as well? I educate them in other ways. I educate them in life. The biggest education in life is the education of life… You don’t need to spell any more. Most people have got a job these days on a computer and it has a spell check. You don’t need it. When I write a letter I just write it like a text. I don’t bother with all them capitals and stuff and spelling. I just get straight to the point… I hate all these spelling police. I’m not interested what people say about my spelling.”

Thursday morning, the Telegraph [and numerous other papers] reports:

David Cameron has asked Darren Gough, the former England cricketer, to stand as a Conservative MP. He has been asked to stand in the constituency of Barnsley which has until now been a Labour safe seat.

The Prime Minster called Gough, 40, personally to broach the idea but the sportsman initially thought it was a prank phone call and hung up, according to reports. Another Tory MP called him back to say that the offer to take part in the March 3 by-election was real.

However the former Yorkshire and England star, who won TV's Strictly Come Dancing in 2005, decided that his other commitments made him too busy to be an MP. Instead he will campaign for the Conservatives in the March 3 by-election in Barnsley Central, triggered by the resignation of former Labour MP Eric Illsley, who faces sentencing today for fiddling parliamentary expenses.

I sugest thay make im educashon minster, innit.

We give you what you want… and you just abuse it

Funny how you don’t hear so much about Arsenal killing the England team anymore.

The rise of Theo Walcott, Kieran Gibbs and Jack Wilshere has put to bed the ridiculous claim that because we don’t pay way over the odds for established English players, we are solely responsible for England not being able to beat teams ranked 18th (USA) and 55th (Algeria) at the World Cup.

Wenger has long said he can buy players just as good as their English counterparts from overseas, and at far cheaper rates.

He’s right. I’d take Robin van Persie over Andy Carroll, Darren Bent or Peter Crouch every day of the week. I’d take Fabregas and Nasri over any midfielders in the Premier League right now. And while our centre backs might not be as strong and secure as, say, Ferdinand (£30m), I wouldn’t swap Djourou or Vermaelen for Upson, Dawson, King, Carragher or any of the other English centre backs.

That said, now we have grown our own Englishmen, I will at least have reason to watch England. And I don’t mean that because I’m from the “England don’t matter to me because they have no Arsenal players” brigade. I say it because until now, watching England has been about as much fun as chewing batteries and the type of players we produce have the style, ability and flair to help change England from the one-dimensional, pedestrian, dull side that went to the World Cup. Wilshere, Walcott and Gibbs are all fast, attacking and full of creativity – which is what I want to see.

Of course, the biggest critics of Wenger’s foreign regime have been the tabloids and the talk radio stations – with that prick Adrian Durham saying recently: “England fans should be annoyed with Wenger for robbing the national team of potentially good players over the past ten years.” Well I’m annoyed with TalkSport for robbing me of intellectual football conversation and reasoned debate over the past ten years, instead making me listen to sensationalist, controversy-seeking pricks who spend their spare time dogging or sharing their favourite porn sites on their laptops. But I don’t go on about it…

Still, now we have a crop of English Arsenal players – and a load more likely to follow over the next few years - the press can at last get behind Arsenal and start talking up their English youths.

You’d think. Unfortunately, that’s not quite the case. Having spent years calling for Arsene Wenger to resurrect the national team by producing a few English kids, instead of getting behind them and encouraging them to success – as they do with Rooney, Gerrard, Lampard and Ferdinand – TalkSport’s response to Wilshere’s emergence in the England fold is to release this article entitled ‘Warning to Wilshere’. [Click here to read in full].

It outlines a selection of the most famous one-game wonders and “players who never lived up to the hype”, and carries the warning: “[Wilshere] would do well to heed the cautionary tale of half-a-dozen young starlets who turned out to be more hype than hope…”

Seriously. Here’s a radio station that spends 24 hours a day slagging off other nations, defending the likes of Rooney and Shearer because “you wouldn’t want to take that competitive edge out of their game” and calling for Wenger to supply the next crop of English players. When he does, they go out of their way to undermine them.

Well fuck ‘em. If I was at TalkSport and working as a presenter, I’d spend a little less time worrying about Wilshere’s performance and a little more time worrying about my own – in light of the fact that the two big bully boys from Sky have just walked through the door and eyeing the best presenting slots.

“Would you smash it?”