Written by Lindsay Melrose Monday, 22 November 2010 18:16

GunnerTalk Blog

By Lindsay Sheehan

So my nephew David did a blog utilising many of footballs’ clichés. Here’s another one for you, possibly the most famous - sick as a parrot.  Ironically this statement was first used with reference to the North London rivalry. In 1908 Spurs were presented with a parrot by the captain of the ship that transported them on their tour of South America.  The bird lived at WHL for about 11 years till it died on the day Spurs lost their place in the First Division to Arsenal in March 1919. (The Arsenal Miscellany by Adam Gold)

My (Spud) other half asked me what I thought the result would be as I was walking out the door to the match. I was prophetic with my reply “I just don’t know, these days I have absolutely no clue what we are going to get with Arsenal. No result would surprise me.” And inevitably as their 3^rd went in surprise was not one of the many emotions I felt.

I remember cracking up when watching Gooners confidently unfurl their “Old Trafford Champions Section” banner amongst the away support before Wiltord made it truth in 2002.  The “50 years of failure” with arrows pointing down at those horrible, spitting, snarling, thugs below was even funnier. Shame our club doesn’t have as good a sense of humour as its fans and took it down.  Why so serious? (in a Heath Ledger Joker stylie)  On days like these, humour is the only thing keeping me from actually crying like the Milky Bar Yid did during our Carling Cup win.

Saturday saw our entire first choice team and bench on display bar The Verminator. Seriously, can you remember a time when our injury list was so small? I know RVP and Theo have some fitness and sharpness to get back but they were both fucking available which is a miracle in itself! 

The first half was one of the best performances I have seen from the Arsenal as a team this season.  With regards to the supposed weak links - Clichy was superb, Arshavin looked back to form again and Denilson, who still could only go sidewise, at least went sideways with accuracy, strength and desire. We appeared confident, strong, professional and as one. We were closing down, fighting and winning the second ball, playing some beautiful stuff whilst keeping Superman Bale and £35 million quid Aaron Lennon as quiet as Jack Wilshire creeping up his mum and dad’s stairs on a Saturday night, hand in hand with a tart. Everybody did their job.  Simples.  Ian and I took it in turns to shout “CONCENTRATE” as loud as possible at our defence every time the ball was down our end but it proved unnecessary, everyone was alive to potential threats.

At half time Steve and I decided that the only people who could fuck this up for us would be....... us. And we did.  The second half was as poor as the first was inspirational.  For 11 men on the pitch there was not one pair of bollox among them. If the last weeks’ fixture times had been reversed and had Chelski lost in the morning; we’d have fucked up at Goodison Park by the pm.  There is something so brittle and flaky about this Arsenal side it’s scary.  How else can we keep explaining the unexplainable? Last year we should have been dead and buried in the title race by January but the others just kept slipping. We couldn’t haul ourselves over the line and although many questions were asked by our support, especially after the Wigan debacle, I really believed that the devastating injuries throughout the season had taken its toll and we were more than spent by the time we had our chance.

So 2-3 it finished. Yes, a great comeback, yes a never say die attitude from the Spuds, yes some players such as Gallas and Fanny Fart refused to be beat, yes Harry is fabulous if twitchy, yes Bale is real quality,  yes, yes, yes, yes, well done Spurs.  But the truth? And it’s no sour grapes, hard cheese and it’s not excuses. The truth is we are not mentally strong enough. It’s not lack of talent, it’s not lack of depth to the squad, it’s not devastating injuries,  it’s not the goalkeeping issues,  although these can all be factors – bottom line is that we are clearly not right in the head. There is so much evidence for this and not just confined to league form. Look at the away match at Eduardo’s mob. All we had to do at was draw to qualify, one nil up and.............  OOOO THE PRESSURE QUEUE COLLAPSE!!  Personnel have changed this season but the same old lack of hairy balls continues.  Why?

Le Boss is always saying “I believe” but sadly I think now the fans don’t and neither do the players. They let us down again. Simple as. I think they need to take a long hard look at themselves and their careers.  It’s all very well them suggesting they can win trophies elsewhere – well when the opportunity is being given to you to compete for one FUCKING TAKE IT.  It’s becoming a little sickening to hear that players should move on to win honours when these same players are taking the Arsenal’s wages and yet not bringing the trophies back themselves.  What further motivation do you need than being able to beat your local scummy neighbours to go top of the league? £90 odd grand a week? Oh yeah they get that too. Maybe they should spend less time thinking about being slighted by Gallas, sleeping with girls, fighting at night clubs, to shake or not to shake hands, Barcelona, their national teams etc etc and get back to their bread and butter – pleasing us.

The only thing they can do to start to make it up to us is bring back another 3 points from the road on Saturday. It’s the bare minimum. You’d like to think this would spur (pardon the pun) them on to do something really special this year, but I’ve thought that time and time again and been proved wrong. Maybe Audley Harrison was a fitting half time show for the Arsenal after all.

As much as it is painful - it’s not our divine right to beat the Spuds every year in every competition. We are in danger of becoming spoilt brats. We fans have to take in on the chin, get involved with the banter and out of the wallowing pit. After all they have been taking it off us for 17 years, let them have their moment.   I was quite shocked at some of the comments on the various social networking Arsenal sites but I am hoping that is just heat of the moment. Anyone abusing Cesc on twitter cannot be a Gooner. They just can’t be.

We got butt fucked at home by the Spurs. It’s a cunt but shit happens and hopefully from shit roses grow. The last time they beat us at home we went onto win 2 trophies.  Now that’s a good response – I want one of equal value it what we (the fans) deserve.