In The Middle Of The Night.

It seems like a decent amount of time has passed since Arsenal's season finished and I think I can now attempt to start a review of the season 2008/09. If I was to do it all in one go I think this would be a mammoth post and I would need to take a day off work to complete it. As a result I will deal with it a little at a time starting today with my disappointments from the season gone by.

My biggest disappointment was the 4-4 home draw against The Spuds when we were 4-2 up with a few minutes to play. It epitomised our team in a lot of ways. We were very good going forward but we showed a very soft centre at the back and we were niave in the way we tried to push for a 5th goal when all we had to do was see the game out like any truly professional team. I could not understand how a team who is 4-2 up can be caught on the break in the final minutes of a game but that is what happened that night.

Funnily enough the Champions league semi final defeat to Manure wasn't too big a disappointment as we were never really in either game and the best team won easily in the end. I was never really overly hopeful of us winning the semi final despite all my posturing beforehand and to be honest most Arsenal fans went into that semi final in hope and not in belief of us reaching the final.

The FA Cup semi final was an entirely different matter altogether as that was the one trophy I thought we could actually win but unfortunately, in my opinion, the manager got it all wrong on the day and we were beaten by a pretty poor Chelsea team after taking a lead early on. I know I have harped on about this ever since but if the manager wanted to get the doubting fans back onside an appearance at Wembley and a shot of a trophy would have worked wonders. It would also have been a great experience for his young team and something on which they could have built for the future. Instead the manager decided that he would chase 3rd place in the league and automatic qualification for the group stages of the Champions league and I can understand why he did it. However we ended up in 4th place and we will now have to pre qualify in an open draw which could leave us with a very tricky task.

There were other disappointments on a more personal level for me with Arsenal as I journeyed over to The Emirates twice last season. The first match was our 1-0 victory against Wigan in early December and the infamous booing of Eboue after he was substituted when he came on as a substitute himself. I didn't partake in the booing but I did understand it as he didn't seem to try at all and even tackled his own player at one stage. What disappointed me about that game was our performance as we were absolutely dismal and it was like watching Liverpool or Chelsea playing at their worst. I then ventured over in late February for the league game against Fulham and that ended in a 0-0 draw. To be honest that game was even worse than the Wigan game and I couldn't believe the fare I was being served up by my beloved Arsenal. After that things got a lot better as Arshavin's influence began to take hold and the team turned things around and found their missing flair at last. The goals started to flow and 4th place was secured with ease in the end.

I suppose the disappointments started in August when we didn't sign the players we needed and I wrote the season off with only the hope of the FA Cup as a major trophy. Finally for today my last dissappointment was that I couldn't get to The Emirates at the same time as Lady Arse & RedandWhiteDynamite and enjoy their company at an Arsenal match. I plan to remedy that at the nearest oppurtunity next season and I will be booking my ticket as soon as the fixtures are announced and the TV schedules are made out providing that my 2 fellow Gooners are available on the day in question. That's it for today but I suppose I could have mentioned some of our dafeats against poor teams in our dreadful start to the season but to be honest even though we lost 5 of our first 14 matches we weren't too far off the pace as the other teams weren't great and we drew very few games. It was the succession of draws in and around January & February that did for our league ambitions(if we had any) in the end.

Here's a clip of a game that cheered me up no end on a drunken Paddy's night.

LINK

And to finish here's today's title track from Madness which comes from the fact that when I travel to The Emirates I have to get up in the middle of the night to make the trip(but it's worth it).

Link

See You Tomorrow.

ps I'm re posting this to get it to show up again(hopefully).