I had a dream – and it was about the FA Cup
Published: 13 January, 2011
ARSENAL
OH Andrey! Where have those impossibly brilliant goals and shush-it victory gestures gone? I miss the shush-it, the fingers pushed against a smiling lips ordering thousands of opposing fans to be quiet in one clean swipe.
It’s the most simple but effective celebration in the Premiership and yet I haven’t seen it in ages. We want those goals and shush-its back. I thought there would be shush-its galore against lower league Leeds and Ipswich. Got none.
The mystery of Andrey Arshavin’s lack of shush-its is baffling. He passes when you want him to shoot, he shoots when he has little chance of scoring. He had one-on-ones in both cup games this week and missed both.
And then there were the embarrassing moment in the match against Leeds when the substitutes board went up. Without looking he trundled over to the sidelines assuming he was being withdrawn, only to see somebody else was being substituted. This happened twice.
It was like he was desperate to leave the field, that he had convinced himself that there was little prospect of him getting to do a shush-it.
Trouble is, if he’s not careful, the next shush-it he does will be towards his own fans. They are turning. There are grumbles and groans about his recent lack of shush-its. “He’s not interested” is the charge. What a shame if that’s true. With individual moments of brilliance Arshavin has every now and then lit up the league.
RICHARD OSLEY
TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR
WHEN I was a boy my friends and I dreamed of playing in the FA Cup.
We were the giant killers.
The minnows that beat the odds: and on that Cup Final day in May, no matter who was playing, we’d get up in the morning, take our sitting room VIP seats and watch the drama unfold.
Admittedly, the older I got the less I wanted to play for the smaller teams and so it went until I’d only watch if I specifically wanted a team to lose or Spurs got to the final. Oh dear, I can hear the uninitiated smirking already.
However, it seems the FA Cup has got its Mojo back.
Apart from Manchester United’s controversial 1-0 win against Liverpool and Cesc ‘I’m a Catalan get me out of here’ Fabregas’s last-gasp penalty that earnt Arsenal a 1-1 draw at home to Leeds, most of the other results were palatable.
Theo Walcott admitted to diving in this game and Arsene Wenger laughed!
What is the footballing world coming to?
Tottenham romped to a 3-0 home win against Charlton and, to be honest, it was like a cat playing with a mouse: the outcome was inevitable.
Ugh! Did I sound arrogant or smug?
I honestly didn’t mean too but it’s actually nice to feel that it would be more of a shock to lose this type of game to lower league opposition rather than the possibility that we could.
TONY DALLAS