Arsene’s army of ‘foreign’ players triumphed over a downtrodden Liverpool yesterday afternoon, as Henry scored a brace to gun down the scousers.
It took an incredible through ball from Steven Gerrard to set up Thierry Henry to bag the winner. Thats right folks, from Steven ‘Can Do No Wrong’ Gerrard. Comedy.
The game was jam packed with incidents and talking points, not least the sending off of Liverpool midfielder, Xabi Alonso. Alonso was dismissed for two yellow card offences, the second of which has been strongly contested by the Liverpool manager, players, fans, pretty much everyone really.
However this Gooner thinks differently. You’ll probably think this biased of me, and maybe I do see this through red and white tinted windows, but I’m positive there was a little bit of follow through on Alonso’s ‘slip’. However, seen as the tackle on Cesc Fabregas, that brought his first yellow could have been a straight red, coupled with the slap on the head he gave Eboue, Xabi was lucky to still be on the pitch to ‘slip’.
Enough of that, it’s taking too much away from a game that brought many positives.
Such Henry’s 2 great finishes, Cesc Fabregas showing the older lads how to do it, finally passing and moving again, and last but not least……..Freddie’s new hat.
WTF WAS THAT ALL ABOUT??
He looked like he had a full blown adult sheep in slumber on his noggin’. Still it brought some humour into all our lives.
Back to the match.
An early chance for the ever improving Adebayor ironically saw him blaze over from close range, but what was to follow was a footballing master class from Cesc and Thierry.
Fabregas picked up the ball near the halfway line, kept composed, had a quick butchers around, and saw Henry making his move. The pass was sublime, taking out four Scousers, including Jamie Carragher’s desparing last ditch attempt to clear the ball to safety. With Henry in full flow, everyone knew what would happen. Henry would take a touch, open his body and curl the ball home into the keeper’s left hand post. He’s done it so many times, it could be considered Henry’s trademark finish. Renia knew exactly what he would do, but was powerless to stop him.
Crouch went, what could be considered close for him, with a header, but really should have done better. But lets face it, we all had a good chuckle didn’t we.
For the rest of the half Arsenal stroked the ball around sweetly, and began to look a little like their old selves, but should have been more clinical with the finishing.
The second half was pretty much the same, with Arsenal dominating, but when Stevie G smashed a speculative effort goal bound from 30 yards, Jens Lehmann made probably his first mistake of the season. Instead of catching or palming the ball out for a corner, the German stopper elected to punch, but with disasterous consequences. The ball span straight up in the air. With Mad Jens in no mans land, Luis Garcia amazingly out jumped Kolo Toure to head into an empty net.
The Spaniard ran away with his thumb in his mouth. Little did he know he would be crying like a baby come the final whistle.
The next major incident was the already disscussed Alonso sending off, swiftly followed by a re-enactment of Gerrard’s Euro 2004 horror show. The Liverpool skipper found himself 30 yards from his own goal with little to aim at, and without looking, decided the best course of action was to let his keeper have a touch.
However this story still had a twist in it’s tale, Gerrard did not anticipate the cheeky Henry hiding behind Hyypia, but as soon as the ball was played Titi appeared and Gerrards head fell into his hands. Giving a player of Henry’s quality such a chance is as good as ramming the ball home yourself. 2-1. Just desserts.
Henry almost had his hat-rick moments later when Henry’s freekick almost crept in at the near post, and Le Bob smashed a simple one against the post when Henry unselfishly laid one on a plate for him. No harm done. A great victory see’s Arsenal now possibly picking up a bit of momentum.
Up the Gunners.
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