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Arsenal: Seaman, Dixon, Keown,
Grimandi, Silvinho, Ljungberg, Vieira,
Petit, Malz (Kanu 63), Suker, Henry.
Subs Not Used: Winterburn, Manninger,
Luzhny, Hughes.
Booked: Petit, Keown, Silvinho, Ljungberg,
Suker.
Leicester: Arphexad, Sinclair, Taggart,
Walsh, Eadie, Lennon (Marshall 63),
Zagorakis (Campbell 73), Oakes, Savage,
Heskey, Elliott.
Subs Not Used: Gunnlaugsson, Gilchrist,
Hodges.
Booked: Sinclair, Heskey, Eadie, Savage.
Att: 35,710
Ref: M Riley
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F.A. Cup Round Four. 9th. January, 2000.
Arsenal 0 Leicester
City 0
Arsenal Fail To Come Up With
The Goods
Peter Gilbert. 9.1.00
It's all right for Arsenal ;all they had to do was fall out of
bed around Sunday lunch time and turn up for a game of football,
whereas we had to cobble a side together and then make sure
that each and every player was fully 'O'Neilled' before
kick off.
And anyway Arsenal are not in as many competitions as us, we're
still in contention in all of them . They have had their little
sojourn into European Football, and failed.....again whereas
we are playing for a place in Europe on three fronts as well
as playing for a new stadium and a new world altogether. Oh yeah
it's all right for Arsenal.
Before the game the bookies had us 7-1 against for winning this
game, and when you consider we had only one shot to save, which
was done admirably by Peguy Arphexad, and we had our best players
either missing or below par, you have to say that Arsenal were
damn lucky to get away with their lives.
However we haven't won an FA Cup game in London for 26 years.
Ah yes I remember it well Joe Waters stuck two past QPR in the
smoke, he was sold to Grimsby a few weeks later. 7-1 against
turned out to be quite ridiculous odds.
We started with Elliott(centre back) and Heskey(flu victim) and
this deadly duo turned out to be quite a handful both physically
and mentally and it wasn't long before the Arsenal centre backs
were booked for hideous attacks on our double act. Eventually
though the ref (Old Mother Riley) had booked most people
including Heskey who was wrestled to the ground by a couple of
Froggies and was booked for having the impertinence of getting
in their way. In fact the ref tried every trick in the book to
deflect publicity away from horrendous howlers committed by colleagues
of his the day before at Prenton Park and Hillsborough. In desperation
he sent Darren Eadie off for 'no apparent' reason but even that
couldn't eclipse his colleagues' antics yesterday, and this was
despite the fact he had Mike Reid (game for a laugh?) as
4th official.
The tone of the game was set early on, a dogged Leicester Team
waited for an inept Arsenal Team to do something interesting.
It was a fruitless wait and it wasn't until the 71st minute that
they managed to get a shot on target when Suker latched on to
a loose ball and sent it goalwards, Peguy Arphexad was more than
equal to the task and he made sure the ball flew into the morally
bankrupt crowd for a corner.
This was to be Arsenal's big day, but the tenacious City lads
made sure their dreams would not come true.
After an hour the 'will he won't he' boy Kanu came on,
but apart from receiving a rap on the shins from Robbie Savage
he never caught the eye. In fact the same can be said about the
whole Arsenal team; very pretty approach work but it never really
amounted to much.
Eadie looked very promising at left back, but he lacked ideas
in the opposition's half. Lennon struggled through 70 mins of
play but was subbed off as was Zagorakis.
When Eadie was sent off after 81 mins. Leicester totally re-organised
with Heskey going to left back in what was basically an 8 - 1
formation with only Marshall left up front.
Hopefully we'll have out team together for the replay and I also
hope the odds are 7-1 against us winning, it's well worth a bet.
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