Morning all.
Arsenal players seem to be walking a tightrope all too often. One booking away from a ban. Sokratis Papastathopoulos is currently serving a two match domestic ban for totting up too many yellow cards and he, together with Granit Xhaka and Henrikh Mkhitaryan are in danger of missing our next but one Europa fixture should we come away from Italy with a positive result tomorrow evening. Sokratis would be a huge loss, not just because he’s our best central defender, in my opinion, but other than him, our only two senior centre backs are Koscielny and Mustafi. Mavropanos isn’t even in the squad and in any case, suffered an injury at Watford on Monday night.
I wonder if that plays on players minds. Do they hold back, or just dismiss it totally knowing that the only performance to concern themselves with is the one their playing at the time and if they get booked, so be it. Must be tough because none of them would want to miss a semi-final, especially the home tie. The crucial tie. Mind you, Arsenal are far from being in a semi-final yet. Not even a 2-0 advantage is a big advantage to hold. Especially with our track record away from home.
We have had some cracking results away from home in Europe though. Probably the best being the 2003/04 season when we looked like we wouldn’t even qualify from the group. We needed a win in Italy to stand a chance. Off we headed to the San Siro to face Inter Milan without a hope in heck ‘they said.’ We battered them 5-1 with a performance described as “one of the greatest results in [the club’s] history”. That night was special. Funny enough, we went on to top the group. That should have been the season Arsene Wenger lived out his dream to win the Champions League. Bobby Pires scored a crucial away goal at Stamford Bridge in the quarterfinals and we looked favourites to go through to the semis. The late great Johan Cryuff believed we’d lift the big trophy that year but a late goal at Highbury ruined any chance of that happening. A heart breaking moment.
2005/06. Almost the perfect Champions League season. We won the group and faced Real Madrid. A superb 1-0 victory at The Bernabu followed by a solid home 2nd leg performance saws through to the quarterfinals where Juventus were our next challenge. 2-0 at home followed by 0-0 in Italy meant the Final in Paris was getting closer. 1-0 at Highbury against Villarreal, our last ever European match at the great stadium and the biggest question no doubt was, was one goal enough? It was as it turned out but Jens Lehmann was the hero for saving a late penalty. Ironic really looking back. Another great opportunity for Arsene Wenger to win the big trophy he craved. Another chance spurned. Another night for the officials.
In there are my two favourite winning performances away from home in European football but which are yours? Are there any better than beating Inter and Real Madrid on their own turf? My money is on Cesc Fabregas gets a mention, maybe Hleb too. Two wonderful footballers who left us for Barcelona.
But who knows, perhaps our performance in Napoli tomorrow evening might end up being talked about as one of our best too. Certainly under a Unai Emery. Europa’s Mr been there and done in many times before…
Let’s hope so eh…
See you in the comments good people….
Arsenal v Parma
GK 1 England David Seaman
RB 2 England Lee Dixon
LB 3 England Nigel Winterburn
CM 4 England Paul Davis
CB 5 England Steve Bould
CB 6 England Tony Adams (c) Yellow card 25′
RW 7 England Kevin Campbell Yellow card 78′
CM 8 Northern Ireland Steve Morrow
CF 9 England Alan Smith
LW 10 England Paul Merson Substituted off 86′
CM 11 England Ian Selley Yellow card 51′
Substitutes:
DF 12 England Andy Linighan
GK 13 England Alan Miller
MF 14 Republic of Ireland Eddie McGoldrick Substituted in 86′
MF 15 England Ray Parlour
FW 16 Scotland Paul Dickov
Manager George Graham .
No Wrighty , written off before we left the airport Brolin , Zola , Asprilla ,Benarriva , 1 nil to the Arsenal . My best away performance.
I never knew Parma had such quality in their team. No wonder that result sticks in your memory…
Morning Gooners
Morning Rico, good post, it deserves more input, so here goes…
All those mentioned are up there with some of the best in the clubs history, funnily enough, given Arsenal’s poor record in european competition I can more easily think of our worst performances, but I’ll swerve that…
3-0 in Rome vs AS Roma, Thierry Henry hat trick and all was pretty cool.
How about our 2-3 in Genoa vs Sampdoria, David Seaman penalty heroics and all.
I can still see Lombardo striding up to take the penultimate penalty and his head in his hands moments later. Great memories and bedlam in my frontroom at the time.
There’s plenty of others, but I’ll leave them for my fellow HH’rs to comment on…
Interesting post Rico, got us scratching our heads again. Lol.
Unfortunately, I haven’t the time to add to the post as we’re heading for Costa Blanca tomorrow at “sparrows” and am scrambling a bit.
A bit like the Gunners, clinging on by their fingernails.
Just a thought……Ajax, into the Semis of the European Cup with a team of “youngsters”. Brilliant!
UE needs to remove those in our first team who are barely keeping up and replace them with some youngsters who REALLY have impressed already.
Surely they’ll do better than Mik, Mustafi and Xhaka etc?
I think we’ve just about seen the last of Denis Suarez. According to his agent his loan spell at Arsenal “hasn’t been the best” and it appears that his next destination is likely to be Napoli.
I would wish him well and thank him for his contribution to Arsenal’s chase for top four but he has not made any appreciable impact, other than a negative one to the club’s finances, £850,000 in wages so far.
Memories :- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQDULgLXwBs
Forgot how good a goal that was by Smith !
Selley and Morrow in midfield……………………Ozil would have struggled to get in that team !
😆
Hi Kev, thanks. I gave up in the end and went out for the afternoon.
Thanks Andorra.
Let’s hope City can put a huge dent in the neighbours confidence tonight..,
That was a pretty special goal by Smudger…
City 1-0
Crikey, it’s now 1-2.. ☹️
Can you imagine seeing those arseholes in final? ☹️
Quadruples off then!
Downside, the scum won!
Don’t know which is the better outcome!
No way is scum winning a good thing !………………..I feel physically sick !………………………………..if there is a God then please make it a Ajax Barca final…………………………………….I`d gladly lose CL qualification and get knocked out of EL if it meant Spuds not winning CL, I cant think of anything worse footballwise than them winning CL, seriously feel sick ! 🙁
What a game that was. Worth the subscription on it’s own.
I don’t care that the Spuds are through to the semis, it means that City are not going to get the quad.
Saturday’s game is going to be some contest. City will be all out for revenge, a win for them will put a big dent in Spurs third place ambitions.
Had a dream about a year ago. Saw the scum parading the CL trophy past the Emirates – sick to my stomach I was. Been a supporter since May 1966. This would be my worst ever nightmare. IT COULD HAPPEN.
Morning guys.
New post up now.