Yesterday, I spent the day at office in agony after the terrible news that a doctor had succumbed to Ebola, the deadly viral disease that is ravaging, a neighboring district. Before the day ended, we had got more terrifying news that a senior nurse and a clinical officer had also passed on from the same disease. God bless their souls.
There was no power the whole day so when I went home, I lighted candles and spent some time talking with a few people that had come to my place. We were discussing Ebola.
My place doubles as a bar and a home. There were a few customers taking some drinks. We talked until it was about 10:00pm then I started preparing to switch on my small generator. As I was still preparing, the power came back so I didn’t have to switch on the generator.
Since the beginning of the week, I had set myself to watch the Newcastle game. I was ofcourse a bit apprehensive at the news that Fabregas, Hleb, Flamini all in addition to RVP would be missing from injury.
So I connected my GTV decorder only to see on the screen that “this card is not authorised”. I tried making phone calls, but that deep in the night, I couldn’t get through to anybody. The GTV guys had harshly and unceremoniously cut my connection off yet I had just paid their subscription a few days earlier.
I felt very depressed. I actually noticed that I am not that good at handling disappointment as I quickly became irritable and withdrawn. I failed to eat my supper. I knew without watching this game and, being alone at home, without a friend to keep me together, I was not going to sleep. I was a bit restless.
I decided I would drive to town to see the match, maybe while there, I would get over my anger. When I told my house keeper to eat faster so we go and watch from town, the young man just started laughing. I felt very irritated. He said I can go, I will find him at home when I return.
Shortly, I was on the road to a hotel some distance away. I found Adebayor had already scored (perhaps the goal of the season, as I later saw on replays). I felt the referee was biased against Arsenal, he easily awarded decisions against them and ignored fouls by Newcastle. The most ridiculous came towards the end when Ade was clearly obstructed by a Newcastle defender in a one on one situation.
So much for the standard of refereeing in the EPL, but I felt if Arsenal are to be champions in May, they will not be counting on referees to help them. If anything they will be lucky that these men, do not start awarding controversial penalties against them.
I felt that Adebayor, Sagna, Toure, Gallas and Diarra were fantastic. I felt Rosicky and Eduardo even Bentner when he came on were average. Eboue has to be credited for his involvement in the Adebayor goal but he was probably average on other occasions. Clichy was a bit quiet to me. Gilberto to me didn’t play well. Maybe he has lost form due to being benched for long or he is disgruntled and has lost commitment or he just had a bad day. I felt he committed many fouls in risky positions. Running like a headless chicken is not the Arsenal way.
I think Almunia still needs to convince, he continues to blunder by occasionally leaving his line precariously and I felt he shared in the blame for the goal because he did not cover Taylor very well otherwise he could have touched the ball for a corner before it hit the post. Still you have to credit him for making some saves though I felt he was dramatising a bit on every catch.
Of course Adebayor lost a bit of concentration by passing the ball to Eduardo instead of clearing it to safety. Eduardo who seems to have a lot of potential to become a very entataining player with a load of confidence and trickery in future should have played the ball out for a throw in or something else other than what he attempted to do. Those two probably share the highest blame for the goal.
Still you can’t exonerate the rest because you feel that should Flamini and Fabregas have been in, probably the goal wouldn’t have gone in because the two are more positionally aware and could have covered where Almunia didn’t.
I was thinking of Walcott, but I don’t know why Wenger chose not to bring him on. He probably has his reasons and you can’t criticise him really. I felt the English youngster would have added some pace in front and occupied some newcastle players getting some of them off Adebayor whom they really kicked in the last minutes without any response from the ref.
This side was definitely missing Fabregas, who would have increased their potential upfront as well as provide some cover when needed at the back because he is very positionally aware. Flamini was missed very much and Gilberto proved to all and sundry that Flamini is the man.The trickery of Hleb could eventually come from Eduardo but not yet.
Yesterday’s game proved that this season these four (Flamini, Fabregas, Hleb and RVP) are very massive players and very critical to Arsenal’s fortunes. You can only hope that the team can hang on until they return. Should any three of them return when Arsenal is still on top, the premier league will most likely go to the Emirates in May.
To win the premier league this season, you will have to win your games and not expect another team to drop points. All of Chelsea, Man U, Liverpool and Arsenal are in fantastic form and seem unlikely to easily drop points. No body should expect to be helped or even fairly treated by the referees. The brainless prayers in the lower rungs of the league table are also not going to stop kicking at the flair players. They will not even give them any space to breath as Alan Smith showed against Sagna somewhere during the match when he just run into the latter and even won a free kick from the ref.
Wenger must have thought that a draw is not a terrible result and feared to risk Walcott on this ground where Newcastle was determined to just run (like headless chicken) into any Arsenal player with the ball (Martins did it several times). I will not be surprised if Walcott starts at Boro alongside Adebayor. Bentner could then be on the bench but you never know how Wenger will do it. He is a very patient man and he knows that Eduardo is good despite his current average performances (Ask England).
Ferguson, changing to higher gear in his so called mind games, had earlier claimed that Arsenal will begin to lose points. I think his comments are irrelevant though he will think that this match proved him right. Such comments can only add more steel to this Arsenal side. If he thinks his mind games is what he needs to stop Arsenal this season, he is definitely wrong and he should look elsewhere.
The headless chicken that are kicking into injury our best players are doing better than Ferguson. So are the referees who are letting them get away with it. If Arsenal can contain these headless chicken, then Ferguson’s mind games won’t work. If the big players continue to get injured, then there is real trouble as the likes of Gilberto have shown on more than one occasion that they won’t deliver the goods.
Chelsea will suffer during the African Nations Cup, and should they eventually lose Drogba, they could drop out of the race. Liverpool are in it and in Torres they have one player that could win it single handedly.
Man U also have Ronaldo who could single handedly win it again but they need Arsenal to slip up, which is why Ferguson is desperate with his mind games, starting with the “foreigners” thing then now “they will begin to lose points soon”.
Any positive out of this game? I think yes. Adebayor scored his ninth, I want him to take the golden boot come may. Injured players were not risked so they could be available for more crucial games. The unbeaten run (in the premier league) was preserved which is good psychologically especially against Ferguson. People like Diarra showed good signs and people like Gilberto removed the last doubts on Wenger’s selection mind.
Wenger would also have noted Almunia’s errors and probably added the goalkeeping area to his so called “one area I need to strengthen” because Lehman is a no no.
When I reached office, I called the GTV people and they told me that they had not even seen the payment I made despite making several calls to them before and even faxing the bank slip. After checking they claimed that payment was for November and I would have to pay for December before I am reconnected.
They claimed their grace period of 1 to 10 days had expired!
In the bank, the tellers are putting on gloves, because they think Ebola can go through money. There are just too many people in the lines and I just have to go back later hoping the numbers will have reduced. I was trying to avoid crowds because of Ebola but I am desperate to get the GTV connection back on because there are just too many games this December. Shame on these service monopolies.
