Arsenal (0) 1 - 1 (0)Wembley. Wednesday 21st October 1998. kick-off 7.45Champions LeaguePreview
Arsenal (0) 1 - 1 (0)Wembley. Wednesday 21st October 1998. kick-off 7.45Champions League
scorers: Bergkamp 74 Rebrov 91
Arsenal:
Seaman
Dixon Adams Keown Winterburn
Parlour Garde Hughes Overmars
Bergkamp Anelka (Vivas)
It's hard to know how to feel about this. It looked
like we were going to win but unlike several other
recent draws I could mention, in this match we would
have had to consider ourselves a bit lucky to get away
with the point.
Kiev showed more of the qualities that beat Barcelona by 5 last year, than those that lead to their previous results in this year's competition. Great speed and passing caused us loads of problems, and even though the defence did well to restrict them mainly to long-range efforts, they were getting enough of those to make an away goal seem ever more likely. We missed Vieira and Petit in midfield, and ended up relying too much on the likes of Dixon and Garde who were both great defensively, but also repeatedly turned out to be weak links going forward (Dixon's part in our goal kind of balanced by his part in theirs). Shevchenko demonstrated why so many Arsenal fans were salivating when the rumours linked us with him. Fantastic speed and strength of purpose as well as physical strength. He once beat Keown for pace and power but his pull back from the goal-line was hit way over by Rebrov, who was much less impressive. It was Shevchenko who put the ball in the net on 72 minutes, a goal ruled offside but clearly on. 2 minutes later Ray Parlour fed a long ball in front of Dixon. He didn't exactly beat his opposite number to the ball, but managed to wrap his peg round it at a stretch and whip over a perfect near-post cross. Bergkamp muscled his way in front of his marker and dived to head it home. Kiev, knowing that a loss would practically end their hopes of progressing to the quarter-finals, really went for it after that. But if anything, this left more space for us to counter-attack and we had as many good forward moves in this last spell as they. On 85 Vivas came on for Anelka, who had done well but whose tendency to stand around watching when the ball didn't come to him was starting to niggle given the state of the match, and went to the left side of midfield with Overmars pushing in. Shortly after, Keown broke up a Kiev move just outside our area, played a lovely 1-2 with PArlour on the right wing, and fed Overmars moving forward up the middle. He rounded the keeper alright, but Kiev's superfast full back Luzhnyi got back to clear the goal-bound shot. Half-way into injury time, Kiev were awarded an extremely dodgy free-kick near the corner flag on our left, Winterburn being penalised for the quality of the other guy's fall. The crossed free-kick was cleared, but fell to a Kiev player just outside the box. He pushed it forward first-time to Rebrov who was clear int he box and who could hardly fail to steer his shot past Seaman. Rebrov and a team-mate could have both been offside, but Dixon had been guarding the far post from the free-kick and was too late coming out. As Wenger has said, the free-kick was harsh. But the offside decision for their disallowed goal was equally harsh. The other moment of note was Adams's extraordinary tackle on Shevchenko, who appeared to have beaten him only for Tone to stick out a foot and somehow avoid the striker's legs to bring that foot down on top of the ball. He even bounced up to make another challenge. On ITV Ron Atkinson compared it, quite justifiably, to Bobby Moore's famous tackle on Pele. Bargkamp was booked for a daft hand-ball in their penalty area, although I supposed if he'd got away with it (liek ANekla had in the first half, before shooting high) and scored it would have seemed sensible. Assuming he doesn't travel to Kiev or Greece, he's only got one more match to survive card-free before the knock-out stage, which cards aren't carried forward to. Still top, halfway into the league, but Lens beat Panathinaikos to move level on points with us. On tonight's performance, it wouldn't be surprising to see Kiev win their remaining 3 matches (yes, including the one against us in 2 weeks).
Result : Arsenal (0) 1 Dynamo Kyiv (0) 1
Scorers: Bergkamp 74 Rebrov 90
Arsenal: Seaman, Dixon, Adams, Keown, Winterburn; Hughes, Garde,
Parlour, Overmars; Bergkamp, Anelka
Subs: Vivas (Anelka 84), Boa Morte, Bould, Grimandi, Mendez,
Wreh, Manninger, Manninger
Booked: Bergkamp
Dynamo Kyiv: Shovkovsky, Luzhnyi, Holovko, Vashchuk, Dmytrulin,
Kaladze, Kossovsky, Shevchenko, Rebrov, Husin, Belkevitch
Subs: Kardash (Husin 82), Kernozenko, Gurerassimenko,
Radchenko, Mikhailenko, Makouski, Kiriukhin
Booked: Luzhnyi
Att: 73256
Ref: R Wojcik (Poland)
Another Champions League game, another injury time equaliser from a free
kick, another two points dropped. However, on this occasion Arsenal
couldn't have any complaints about the overall result, despite the harsh
award of the free kick which led to the goal, because for most of the
match they were totally outplayed. Dynamo Kyiv were full of strong and
intelligent running and passing, and for long periods overran an Arsenal
midfield lacking it's most important components, Vieira and Petit.
The start to the game was almost reminiscent of the previous CL game at Wembley as Overmars won a free kick wide of the area on the left, but this time Bergkamp's free kick was slightly overhit and cleared Adams as he made his run in at the far post. Thereafter the similarities ended, and a couple of minutes later we were given a graphic illustration of what a dangerous team Dynamo, and in particular Shevchenko, are. Overmars missed a chance to release Winterburn who had made a run ahead of him down the left, and was dispossessed by Shevchenko on the halfway line. The striker played a quick one-two and got away down the right before cutting into the area. He evaded challenges from Hughes and Keown to leave himself with only Seaman to beat from about 16 yards but fortunately put his left foot shot straight at the keeper. Soon afterwards Vaschuk strode forward down the middle, and unchallenged tried a shot from over 30 yards which was superbly struck and swerving viciously, so Seaman did well to palm it round the post. Dynamo continued to dominate the rest of the half, and only some stout defending and poor final shots and passes prevented them taking the lead, as they frequently carved their way through the middle, down the left and down the right. Husin blazed a 25 yarder over the bar, Adams & Dixon both made vital interceptions as the Kyiv forwards threatened to break through. On occasion they did break through, most notably when Shevchenko produced a lovely touch to send Holovko clear through to the byline, but with time to pick out a colleague from just outside the 6yd box he wildly overhit the cutback. At the other end Bergkamp, Anelka and Overmars were all struggling against close marking. Anelka looked most likely to produce something and as the half wore on he did come close a couple of times. First Bergkamp played a perceptive through pass for him to at last race clear of the Kyiv defence, but the keeper dashed off his line and just managed to get a hand to the ball to take it off Anelka's toe. Then Anelka took a short pass from Parlour and stumbled through a challenge on the edge of the box before whipping in a left foot shot which cleared the bar by a foot or so. The way the match had gone, at half time I'd have been grateful for a draw, and in the second half Dynamo continued to cause the Arsenal defence problems. Shevchenko posed the main threat. One brilliant run down the middle past at least 3 challenges was only stopped by a slightly heavy final touch and a timely charge off his line by Seaman to intercept. On another occasion he showed alarming pace to get to a long ball ahead of Keown and he then shrugged off Keown's challenge to get free on the byline to the left of goal before cutting the ball back for Rebrov who was running in at pace. Under pressure from Adams & Dixon though he blazed a shot over the bar. Another quick Dynamo break also resulted in a half chance for Belkevitch, but he put a snap shot from the edge of the area wide of the far post. Shevchenko very nearly broke through again when a pass down the middle threatened to put him clear, but Tony Adams produced one of the great tackles of all time to dispossess him cleanly on the edge of the area. Wembley rose as one to acclaim the great man. Meanwhile Arsenal were looking slightly more dangerous. Bergkamp, Hughes and Overmars all found space for shots from outside the area, but on each occasion the shot was somewhat tamely hit straight at the keeper. Bergkamp had another half-chance when a flick-on from Anelka gave him an opportunity to hit a first time shot, but with it falling on his left foot he hesitated and allowed his marker to close him down and knock the ball away for what should have been a corner. With a little over 15 minutes left, in the space of a couple of minutes the match appeared to take a dramatic swing Arsenal's way. First another lightening Dynamo break had the Arsenal defence in some disarray and Rebrov flicked a short pass down the middle to find Shevchenko unmarked in the area. Seaman got a foot to his shot but couldn't stop it going in, but fortunately Arsenal were rescued by the linesman's flag though TV replays later showed that Shevchenko wasn't offside. The let off seemed to wake Arsenal up somewhat, and in the next couple of minutes they twice threatened before finally taking the lead. After a rare sweet passing move from Arsenal, Bergkamp just failed to get on the end of a short lobbed pass from Garde, and then Winterburn went on a rare break down the left which ended in a cross which almost found Bergkamp in the middle. Soon afterwards Arsenal were in front with a great and somewhat unbelievable goal. Parlour chipped a lovely pass down the right for Dixon to run on to, and at full tilt he just beat a defender to the ball and put over his first decent cross since April 1992. Equally incredibly Bergkamp was making a near post run and his diving header thumped the ball past the keeper and inside the post. Rather ironic that Arsenal's two worst performers on the night had combined to produce the goal. Kyiv now had to push forward desperately, and caused some moments of high alarm, particularly with a couple of swinging crosses from left and right which were nicked away from attackers at full stretch by Keown and Adams. However they were forced to leave gaps at the back and Arsenal nearly profitted about five minutes from time. Keown cut out a pass and broke forward, laying the ball out to Parlour on the right. Keown continued his run into a huge gap in the Kyiv half and Parlour found him with a return pass. Overmars was breaking at speed in space down the middle and Keown played the ball forward into his path. The flying Dutchman's first touch took him round the keeper but rather too wide, and though he got a shot on target from an angle, Vaschuk was able to get back to clear off the line. The clock ticked over into injury time and nervous Gooners remembered the injury time equaliser in Lens, and so it came to pass again. Winterburn was unluckily penalised for a tackle wide on the Arsenal left, the free kick was swung into the crowded area and the ball looped up off the mass in the middle and out to Belkevitch a few yards outside the area. Instead of shooting he cleverly played an angled ball back into the area, and with Dixon perhaps a bit slow coming out from his guard position at the far post, Rebrov was left with plenty of time and space to pick his spot and smash the ball past Seaman from 10 yards. There was a brief moment of hope as the ref appeared to rule it offside, but he eventually took the word of his assistant and the goal stood. Extremely frustrating again, and I hope we don't live to regret this Champions league campaign as the one which went down the pan in injury time. Vieira picked up both of his bookings in the last minute, and he and Petit were sorely missed last night. I thought Arsenal played pretty poorly overall last night, apart from defensively, though it's hard to say how much of that was due to Dynamo Kyiv who I thought played brilliantly.
Seaman 7.5 Dealt with whatever came his way pretty competently.
Dixon 6.0 Had a bit of a 'mare at times, particularly in the
first half, but characteristically kept going.
Adams 9.0 An absolute rock again, and kept trying to drive
Arsenal forward too. That tackle will live long in
the memory.
Keown 8.0 Also had a pretty good solid game.
Winterburn 6.5 Fairly frequently exposed, and sold himself rather
too often.
Parlour 6.5 Also a relatively poor game, but also kept going.
Garde 6.5 Got through quite a lot of covering and did reasonably
well defensively.
Hughes 6.0 Had a poor first half, though improved slightly in the
second. Hope it showed him he's got a little way to go
when it comes to making another step up in class.
Overmars 6.0 One of the poorest games I've seen him have. He did
try a couple of passes to Anelka but both were woeful.
Anelka 7.0 Struggled to cope with the close marking, but I thought
he at least kept trying to make runs to shake them off.
Bergkamp 6.0 Another disappointing and frustrating performance. His
touch still isn't quite there and he seems too easily
frustrated by it. Nice goal though.
Other reports
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