Arsenal Match Report

Diamond Encrusted Breast Sheaf
model: Mr Webb

Oh well, it looks to have been a bit of an expensive week for Everton, two reasonably winnable home games, 1 point. Some of us go on sardonically about which Everton will turn up week on week, it feels like we've had a bit of everything this week in weird little patches spread over 180 minutes, more of the 'Shite Everton' as it happens.

I've always had a bit of a soft spot for Arsenal in years gone by, you know, a bit like Everton...founder of the football league, traditional family club, lovely old ground (before they moved to 'The Grove'...oh do fuck off), not to mention giving me the dearly held memory of an 8 year old me watching in utter delight my elder brother and dad wind-milling around our living room when it was ''up for grabs now'' at Anfield that memorable evening in '89. Fuck off McMahon.

But for anything up to 10 years now, they have become harder and harder to stomach due to a continental knack of being dead easy on the eye when stroking the ball about to each other, but unfortunately it comes at a price, theirs being that they're a bunch of time wasting, cryarsing, ref baiting bell wipes. Dont get me started on their fans either, the wacky japesters that they are, their repetoire of anti scouse bile seems to grow season on season.

Ultimately, Everton werent very good against Arsenal, we had a chance to comfortably move up the table a few places with a win, maybe more realistically though, a point would of been nice and certainly not outside the realms of possibility against a team who we have had some favourable results against of late. As it was, the first half ebbed away with very little momentum or incident from Evertons point of view, there was a niggly little snide off between Heitinga and Fabregas to see who might get sent off first, maybe a bit of leftovers from the World Cup? Who cares really. Maybe Howard Webb did? I'll get to him in a minute, the bad baldy fraud. 

Everton's best and only real chance of the opening exchanges came from that man again Seamus Coleman, he is starting to embarrass some of his more experienced team mates with his commitment and attitude whenever and where ever he is asked to play, surprisingly, this isn’t a slant on Bily, far from it, it’s the likes of Arteta and Saha who need to start doing the basics right, how that orange headed get managed to avoid being dropped after his Bolton display is a question only Moyes seems to have the answer to...anyhoo I digress....he took the ball from his own half and ran full pelt with it, outstripped a sprinting Fabregas in the process, cut back a near perfect cross, then Cahill seemed to uncharacteristically mistime his jump and head over, the biff, all he does is score and miss open goals you know.

Arsenal seemed to grow in confidence after that and used a mixture of possession, time wasting and moaning at the ref to take the wind out of Everton's limp makeshift sails. The impressive Samir Nasri had a shot parried by Tim Howard, who pushed the ball away to his left, the only person awake to it was Arshavin, who cut a ball back to Sagna who smashed it past Jagielka and Distin in their p.j.'s sipping Ovaltine, sloppy.

It would have been nice to see a spirited fightback from Everton after they came out in the second half, as it turned out though, they just seemed prepared to let Arsenal tire them out and carry on doing what they had been doing in the first half. Rodwell came on for Heitinga for what looked like a positive move by Moyes, even though the dutchman had been promising, he was treading a fine line with the overly officious, fussy, look at me and my atheletic yet bald physique ex-south yorkshire police man(just saying like!), is this phoney genuinely the best this country has to offer? He always panders to the monied champions league monsters of footballing rock, consistently get's all the big decisions wrong in games and pretty much ruined the world cup final singlehandedly by lacking any understanding for the occasion, it's a cliché like but he's a typical rozzer, look in the dictionary under ''here y'are sir, have 3 penalty points...'' and his smug kipper will look right back at you.

Fabregas too, as good as he can be, is reprehensible at times, he looks like the kid in school who had it all, clobber, footy ability, girls but was thick as mince. The sooner he fucks Arsenal off and joins that other gang of crying tarts at Barcelona, the better. Anyway, he swept in what turned out to be the winner, when he finished off an impressive passage of play for Arsenal who tikky takky'd it around a load of flat footed helmets dressed in Royal Blue.

Moyes reacted by throwing on two centre forwards, ''is right Moysie'' we all thought, he then took off Neville and Arteta. Which in regards to Mikel Arteta probably looked the right decision at the time, Neville though? Weird. They lost shape and it completely unsettled what little balance we had in the side beforehand, Coleman, our most potent threat probably all season, never mind on the day, was pushed backwards into the defence, which left Saha, Yakubu and Beckford all wandering about trying out confuse each other about what their roles and/or positions should be. 

The Fightback materialised, as it usually does, where Cahill reacted first and grabbed a consolation in the dying moments of the game, stabbing home the ball after Saha nodded back Pienaar's cross. Fabianski made a couple of half decent saves after the goal most notably from Saha, but in all honesty, it felt like it was beyond Everton all afternoon. 

The season continues to rumble on and we still languish in the bottom half. It's a bloody weird league this year as quite literally everybody seems to be beating each other left right and centre, results that are unexpected but heartening nonetheless basically still leave us with a chance to get our shit together and get a run going and maybe even...whisper it quietly...do something this season, dont hold your breath though lids, lods and ladesses. 

Sunderland away up next, who at the time of writing have just snotted Chelsea off the park at Stamford Bridge, so does this run begin against them or the Baggies the week after? Fuck knows...

Juice Terry