Arsenal vs Leeds. 04/02/97 (FA Cup)

Arsenal (0) 0 - 1 (1) Leeds United

Highbury, Tuesday 4th February 1997

FA Cup 4th round

Scorers:
    Wallace (12)

Arsenal:
    Seaman Dixon Keown Adams Bould Morrow
          Vieira  Parlour Hughes (Hartson h-t)
             Merson  Wright

Coming away from this match I found myself muttering about how shit and boring and lucky Leeds had been. We all knew as soon as George Graham left Highbury that he'd be back to out-Arsenal us like this one day. But so soon! Leeds got a slightly jammy early goal and defended resolutely for the rest of the match despite being under siege for long spells.

The goal came after Wallace did well to get to a through ball just before the out-rushing Seaman and poke the ball towards goal. It bounced onto the post and the covering Keown over ran the ball, or was fooled by the bounce off the post, or something, and Wallace recovered quickly to slam the ball home.

After that we had a good many chances in the first half and seemed certain to score. Merson hit a powerful long-distance free-kick just over the bar. Wright had at least a couple of decent chances, one of which he skied. The other came from a corner headed back towards Wrightabout 8 yards out but his clear header was too close to Martyn. On tonight's evidence you couldn't really dispute the Leeds fans chants of "England's number one", but only because Martyn was forced to make several excellent saves whereas Seaman had hardly anything to do.

Martyn made a good stop from Wright, running into the middle of the box. When the ball rebounded to Wright he fell over under pressure from 2 defenders but did well to poke the ball through to Merson, clear on the right hand side of the area but Martyn made a great save with his right hand.

Hartson came on for Hughes in the second half, and things didn't improve. For much of the second half we were just punting the ball forward. Still we had the best of it, and were kept out by Martyn and the woodwork - a header hitting the post and a great effort from distance by Vieira clipping the top of the bar. Arsenal kept slogging away but as the second half went on and desperation crept in, our players all went off the boil and started making a lot of mistakes. Adams went up front at the end, and we had a succession of corners and half-chances which all went begging.

There's a report on Ceefax that says that Leeds deserved their victory and that the closest we came was Vieira's shot. I think this is a little unjust, not only on Arsenal who were easily the better side, but on Martyn who had a lot more to do than watch a shot that no keeper would have stopped fly over. But it's hard to begrudge Leeds their victory. Sometimes the "lesser" side wins through determination and riding their luck, and we've all enjoyed Arsenal winning as a "lesser side" in these terms enough times in the past! Mostly under Graham. So fair play to them, and to the Leeds fans who were in good voice and leapt around like lunatics for the whole of the half-time break. I hope Portsmouth beat them though.

With Man Utd going out too to Wimbledon tonight, the big clubs left in the FA cup are looking a bit thin on the ground. In fact both cup competitions have an unusually high number of smaller clubs left in them. So there are no domestic competitions left to distract us, or our rivals for the Premiership. So I guess we'll just have to wish Liverpool and Man Utd luck in Europe, and look forward to the double over Tottenham....

Result : Arsenal               (0) 0   Leeds                   (1) 1
Scorer:                                Wallace 12

Arsenal: Seaman, Dixon, Adams, Keown, Bould, Morrow, Parlour,
         Hughes, Vieira, Merson, Wright
         Subs: Hartson (Hughes h-t), Rose, Lukic
         Booked: Hughes, Merson, Hartson

Leeds: Martyn, Kelly, Dorigo, Halle, Molenaar, Harte, Palmer,
       Bowyer, Jackson, Wallace, Deane
       Subs: Wetherall (Bowyer 64), Rush (Wallace 78), Beeney
       Booked: Halle

Att: 38115
Ref: P Durkin (Portland)

Arsenal's dismal form in the FA Cup since 1993 continued last night in a game of frustration as Leeds fluked an early goal and then succeeded in smothering the Gunners' efforts to equalise for the remainder of the match. Arsenal did hit two patches, midway through the first half and early in the 2nd which, if not quite purple, on another day might have won them the tie. However, they were denied by a series of superb saves and bad luck, and thereafter resorted to the tactic of hitting long hopeful balls forward which the Leeds defence for the most part dealt comfortably with.

It was a fairly promising start. In the first couple of minutes Dixon and Parlour combined well on the right, the latter's cross was dummied over by Hughes for Wright to try a difficult waist high volley from the edge of the box which sailed safely over the bar. Soon afterwards Wright had a goalbound header from a Merson cross blocked on the 6yd line by Palmer.

With just over 10 minutes gone, Leeds somewhat fortuitously took the lead. Harte was really just getting rid of the ball before he was tackled, and clipped a high looping ball forward from the right hand touchline 15 yards into the Arsenal half. Adams and Bould were caught back on their heels and Wallace nipped in between them. Seaman was slow coming off his line but still seemed to have done enough to put Wallace off. However, the striker swung a foot at the bouncing ball and in fact with his studs glanced it past the keeper. It spun through, Keown chasing back seemed unsure of whether it would go in, wide or off the post so was wrong footed when it did the latter and Wallace had scrambled up in time to lash it into the net from a couple of yards out.

Arsenal resumed their seige of the opposite end and for a period Leeds stopped them by giving away a series of free kicks just outside the area. The first Merson took and lashed in a screamer which was only a foot or two past the angle of opposite post and upright. Hughes took the second and chipped a curler over the wall which didn't quite dip quickly enough and landed on the top of the net.

Halle gave away the third and was booked for tripping Vieira right on the edge of the area. Merson blasted the free kick into the wall, Hughes picked up the rebound and curled a cross in to the far post to pick out Keown. He headed back across goal to find Wright, unmarked about 10 yards out. His header was firm enough but too close to Martyn who was able to brilliantly turn it aside for a corner.

Soon afterwards Vieira nipped in as Palmer miscontrolled on the half way line, and surged in space towards goal. He played a pass forward to Wright as he made a run into the area on his left. Wrighty chased on to stab a shot goalwards which Martyn again reacted brilliantly to, sticking out an arm to block. Wrighty scrambled with a couple of defenders to regain possession and from a sitting position managed to flick the ball out to Merson in space on the right. Merse whacked a first time angled shot from 12 yards which seemed certain to fly into the back of the net before Martyn topped his previous efforts by again sticking out an arm to divert the ball wide for a corner.

After that Leeds coped more comfortably with the Arsenal attack, and themselves threatened once or twice with high balls into the Arsenal area which caused a bit of confusion.

Arsenal replaced Hughes with Hartson at half time, and started at a terrific pace which for the first 15 minutes threatened to overwhelm the Leeds defence. Early on Morrow completely sliced an attempted pass which turned into a rather good ball for Wright to chase out of the area wide on the left. Halle took a wild swing at the ball which missed by some distance and almost cut Wrighty in two at the waist. The ref ran purposefully over with yellow on his mind, but then realised he'd already booked Halle so turned yellow himself.

Merson took the free kick a couple of yards wide of the area on the left, and curled in a cross which picked out Hartson's head beyond the far post. His header from a fairly acute angle hit the outside of the post.

The frame of Martyn's goal was rattled again when Vieira turned onto Morrow's throw from the left, and with Palmer trailing in his wake carried on into the area before striking a ferocious angled drive which clipped the top of the crossbar.

Martyn was then called into action when Parlour (I think?) played in Dixon down the right and the keeper had to rush off his line and did well to block Dixon's attempt to square the ball into the middle.

Leeds had weathered the storm and after that were fairly comfortable sitting back and coping as Arsenal resorted to lumping the ball hopefully forward trying to find the head of Hartson. The tactic had little success until the final few minutes when Adams moved up front as Arsenal desperately sought the equaliser, and it was his presence which almost produced it. First he ran on to a Hartson flickon down the right and cut the ball back from the byline. It went slightly behind Wright in the middle but he still had time and space, but lifted the half-volley over the bar.

Then in injury time Adams' refusal to give up won a corner when Martyn dropped a high ball over the line. This corner was cleared for another, and Merson's kick from that found Hartson at the far post. It was a reasonable chance but his header again just cleared the bar and dropped onto the roof of the net.

Disappointment and frustration yet again in a home FA cup tie. Leeds came to Highbury with the sole aim of stopping Arsenal from playing, and thanks to a bit of help from lady luck, a keeper in superb form and a ref who allowed them to get away with an excessively physical approach, it worked beautifully. Durkin's arbitrary waving of the yellow card was summed up late in the game when he booked Merson following an accidental tangle with Deane having watched unconcerned as Leeds committed foul after foul.

Arsenal should nonetheless have been able to cope, despite their main threats Merson, Wright and Vieira all being closely marked. I thought they resorted to the long ball far too early, and given that Leeds were never going to do any serious attacking in the second half, I wonder whether it wouldn't have been better to replace Morrow rather than Hughes with Hartson. However, in the end I guess it just wasn't our night, and I have to admit that smug bastard GG certainly knows how to stop other teams playing.

I woke in a cold sweat last night. I dreamed I was watching a Leeds vs Wimbledon Cup final.

Seaman     6.5  Maybe harsh to criticise him for the goal. Had little 
                else to do - I can only recall one other shot on target.
                Was the supposed knee injury the reason he was wearing
                track suit bottoms on a mild evening?

Dixon      6.5  Again I felt he was quite up to speed following his 
                injury layoff.

Morrow     5.5  Showed how well Winterburn has done this season, but 
                perhaps a bit unfair to expect him to come in cold and
                play like Nutty.

Adams      7.5  Uncharacteristically hesitant in defence on occasion, 
                but as ever lead from the front in the final desperate
                efforts to get a goal.

Bould      6.5  Little to do defensively, but unfortunately bringing the
                ball forward not his strength.

Keown      6.5  Perhaps also harsh to criticise him for the goal, but I
                thought he might have cleared it.

Parlour    6.5  Didn't think he played as well as recently and didn't 
                see a great deal of the ball.
               
Vieira     7.5  A good game I thought, despite the attentions of Palmer.

Hughes     6.0  Struggled really to get into the game.
                
Merson     7.0  Again struggled to cope with the attentions of a marker,
                Kelly on this occasion, but still our main hope of 
                producing the breakthrough.

Hartson    6.0  Slightly better than Saturday, but still lumbering. 
                Booked again to incur another 2 match suspension.

Wright     6.5  Not at his best, perhaps due to the hamstring problem 
                and flu. On another day would have put away at least one
                of the 3 decent chances he had.

report by Derek Brownjohn

ArseWeb is NOT the official Arsenal site. The (excellent) official site is here