(0) 1 - 0 (0) ArsenalHillsborough. Saturday 26th September 1998FA Carling PremiershipPreview
(0) 1 - 0 (0) ArsenalHillsborough. Saturday 26th September 1998FA Carling PremiershipArsenal's bogey ground lived up to its past today, as Arsenal again lost to Wednesday at Hillsbrough. Keown was sent off in an incident which saw Paolo Di Canio shown red also, then push ref Paul Alcock to the ground. It all started with a bad challenge on Vieira by Wim Jonk, Di Canio appeared to kick at Keown in the ensuing fracas and was shown red. It's not clear what Keown's red was for, and why Vieira was shown yellow is even more of a mystery. Keown will miss the home match against Southampton on October 17th. Maybe we won't need him against _them_...Anyway, Wednesday stole the points with a last minute lob from the edge of the box. Arsenal lose their unbeaten recored. More here soon. (Monday) Having now seen the replays it's clear that Vieira was booked for reacting to Jonk's challenge. Vieira had just shown great skill with a turn that beat 3 playesr in one go. Keown was presumably sent off for the arm in Di Canio's face, although by this point Keown's options were limited. Di Canio did bad, but it wasn't much of a shove really. As the kids on my bus this morning were saying, the ref should have been booked for diving. I've never seen anyone take so long to go down.
There's talk now of a scuffle between Vieira and a policeman, in the
tunnel after the match. There's a possibility of charges being brought.
Result : Sheffield Weds (0) 1 Arsenal (0) 0
Scorer: Briscoe 89
Arsenal: Manninger, Vivas, Adams, Keown, Winterburn; Petit, Vieira,
Parlour, Overmars; Bergkamp, Anelka
Subs: Bould (Overmars 45), Ljungberg (Parlour 77),
Hughes (Petit 77), Garde, Taylor
Booked: Winterburn, Vivas, Vieira
Sent off: Keown (44, violent conduct)
Sheff W: Pressman, Cobian, Hinchcliffe, Thome, Walker, Atherton, Jonk,
Rudi, Alexandersson, Booth, Di Canio
Subs: Briscoe (Alexandersson 58), Humphreys (Booth 20),
Magilton (Jonk 90), Clarke, Barrett
Booked: Thome
Sent off: Di Canio (44, violent conduct)
Att: 27949
Ref: P Alcock (Halstead)
An eventful game on Saturday, in which a fluke late goal ended Arsenal's
unbeaten start in the league and continued the Gunners' dismal record at
Hillsborough over the last 15 years. The football was overshadowed by
the incident at the end of the first half which led to red cards for Di
Canio and Keown, and a shove by the former on the referee which seems
likely to end the Italian's career in England.
It was all rather bizarre, and somewhat out of keeping with what had gone before in the first half which Arsenal had comfortably controlled, despite a run of eccentric refereeing decisions, all of which seemed to go against the visiting side. Indeed Arsenal started the game in similarly dominant vein to that which they'd enjoyed in their previous game against Man United, and created 3 or 4 good opportunities in the opening 15 minutes. Such was their dominance that the only time the home crowd got excited was when Parlour tried to take a corner with the ball marginally out of the arc. The list of Arsenal chances started when Parlour got away down the right and crossed, only to see the ball clear the unmarked Anelka's head by a few inches at the far post. Then a lovely pass by Bergkamp fed Anelka as he made a run between two defenders down the middle into the area. Unfortunately the young Frenchman's first touch took it slightly away from himself, and Walker was able to get back with a covering tackle which denied Anelka the chance to shoot. Arsenal's best chances of the half though probably fell to Parlour. First Bergkamp laid off a first time pass to send Parlour away down the right and he got in front of Hinchcliffe as he charged into the area. Hinchcliffe was pulling back on Parlour's shirt as he cut across the area, but unwisely perhaps he ignored it and carried on to get in a left foot shot which the outrushing Pressman did brilliantly to get a hand to. From the upper tier at the other end of the ground I could clearly see Parlour's shirt being pulled, so I can only assume that the ref played advantage. Quite how anything else can be an advantage over a penalty is not so clear. The Owls benefited from another dubious refereeing decision when Thome pulled down Anelka when he was clean through, but was only given a yellow card. Bergkamp had tried to pass out to Overmars on the left, Thome just managed to stretch to intercept but succeeded only in presenting Anelka with the ball. The young striker nipped in and was streaking clear when the Brazilian centre half pulled him back. A clear professional foul, but ref bottled it and produced only a yellow card. Later in the half Parlour had another good opportunity when Anelka just failed to get on the end of a pass in from the left I think by Overmars. Pressman was dashing out of his goal to sweep, and ended up having to chest the ball away. It fell to Parlour, and with the keeper out of his area and only one other defender in the way, all it needed was a bit of composure to score, but he hurriedly hit the ball first time from about 40 yards and it drifted wide. Pressman did rather better soon afterwards when Anelka did well, skating past a couple of challenges in the area before cutting the ball back for Vieira, running into the area. He hit a waspish first time shot from about 15 yards which Pressman did well to beat aside for a corner. At the other end Manninger was largely a bystander, and Wednesday only really threatened through Rudi who was being given too much space by Vivas down the Owls' left. It was from one of his crosses that the home team had their only real chance of the half, which arose when Petit, running towards his own goal, stuck out a foot to try and intercept the cross, taking it off Adams' head. The ball spun up off Petit and fell to Alexandersson who was completely unmarked at the far post. Fortunately the ball was spinning viciously and deceived the Norwegian enough for him to make a complete hash of his shot from the corner of the 6yd box. The game really turned on the much publicised incident shortly before half time. Perhaps players had been getting frustrated by some of the ref's decisions which included bookings for Vivas and Winterburn after seemingly innocuous challenges, but all the same it's hard to see quite why the incident escalated so explosively. It started when Vieira brilliantly got away from two opponents only to be hauled back by the shirt by Jonk. The Frenchman then grossly over-reacted by shoving Jonk away, and the Dutchman in turn rather over-dramatically executed a twist and half-somersault in his tumble. Di Canio took huge exception and charged in to give Vieira a return shove, Keown stepped in to ensure Vieira didn't retaliate and as he put his arms out to keep the two apart accidentally caught Di Canio in the face. This provoked the Italian into kicking Keown in the legs and then shoving his hands into his face as Keown grabbed hold of him. That was basically the end of the "fracas" as Rudi stepped in to drag Di Canio away and restrain him. As far as I could see the only other player involved in an agressive way was Winterburn. After Di Canio had calmed down slightly, the ref waved the red card at him which as is well documented didn't do much to further the Italian's sang froid, and the ref made a rather comical tumble. When he'd recovered he also sent off Keown and booked Vieira but not Jonk. Right, wrong, right, wrong in my view. Anyway, in the second half the incident seemed to have a positive effect on Wednesday than on Arsenal, though the Gunners should have gone in front early on. Parlour broke down the middle and passed out to Bergkamp lurking in space on the left. A superb first touch took him clear into the area with only Pressman to beat from an angle, but he seemed rather too deliberate with a measured shot inside the far post and Pressman was able to stick out a foot to make a save, though it was nonetheless brilliant. The home side then enjoyed a period of dominance as Arsenal were pushed back and defended uncertainly for 20-25 minutes. The Gunners looked particularly vulnerable to crosses, and were indebted to two brilliant saves from Manninger to prevent them going a goal down. The first, from a thumping Thome header at the far post from a right wing corner was all the better because he'd started to come off his line and been blocked by a Wednesday player so was still getting back when he had to make the save. On the second occasion he probably shouldn't have been given the chance to save, but nonetheless made a great reaction stop. Rudi had again got past Vivas on the left and swung over a cross which picked out Briscoe completely unmarked on the 6yd line, but his header gave Manninger a chance when it really shouldn't have done. Humphreys also glanced a header just wide, and Adams very nearly glanced another cross into his own net, but as the game moved into the last 15 minutes or so Hughes and Ljungberg came on and helped give Arsenal a fresh impetus and they dominated most of the closing stages. Arsenal's mini-comeback was also sparked when Bergkamp dispossessed Walker near the half way line which freed Anelka to break towards the area with both Bergkamp and Parlour in support. With a 3 on 2 break he should have played Parlour on his right in earlier, and when he did the pass was slightly short. Parlour had to check but still got in a good shot which Pressman superbly palmed over. Soon after he'd come on Ljungberg did brilliantly down the right and got in a lovely cross which just eluded Adams and Bould in the 6yd box and was somehow cleared. Then Bergkamp fed a ball in from the right to Anelka who turned on it and fired in a superb shot from 20 yards which seemed destined to end in the corner of the net until Pressman somehow got a hand to it. Arsenal were denied another penalty when Anelka chased a through ball into the area and nicked it away from Walker, and then fell under the defender's challenge. He possibly had pushed the ball too far in front of himself and perhaps fell over rather than was brought down by Walker's tackle (no pun intended), but the ref ludicrously gave a corner when Walker hadn't got anywhere near the ball. Arsenal's final chance came when Vieira fed a ball out to Ljungberg running into the area on the left, but he didn't get enough power behind his left foot shot and Pressman was able to make another save. A minute from time came the sucker punch. Vivas lost possession on the half way line and still hadn't regained position when Jonk threaded a pass through to Briscoe as he made a run down the left channel. There still didn't seem much danger as he had no-one in support, but against all the odds he produced a fantastic left foot chip from the corner of the area which cleared Manninger and dropped into the far corner. I suspect he'll only score a goal like that once in his life. As Arsenal pressed desperately for an equaliser Humphreys could have made it 2-0 as he broke clear from the half way line, but with only Manninger to beat his attempt to put the ball round the keeper also put it wide of the post. So another bad day in Sheffield. Dunno why I keep going there, perhaps I'd be better off doing a strip show next year. It was one of those games where things just weren't going to go Arsenal's way. They played fairly well in the first half, Wednesday should have been down to 10 men early in the first half, Arsenal had two decent penalty shouts denied, a man unfairly sent off, and came up against a keeper in inspired form. Our luck can only improve.
Manninger 7.0 Two quite brilliant saves, but he flapped at several
crosses and needs to improve his distribution too. His
domination of his area did improve after a couple of
games last season though.
Vivas 6.0 Did one or two good things, but far too positionally
uncertain, and I thought he was standing too far off
Rudi who often didn't even need to beat him to get a
cross in.
Adams 8.0 Good game again, apart from a near own goal, and
drove Arsenal back into the game towards the end of
the 2nd half.
Keown 7.0 Didn't do a lot wrong really, apart from stepping in
to seperate Di Canio from Vieira.
Winterburn 7.0 Don't remember him being noticeably good or bad, apart
from his needless intervention in the Di Canio affair.
Parlour 7.5 Pretty good game again I thought.
Vieira 7.5 Had a good game again, the best player on the pitch
until he spoiled it by over-reacting to Jonk's tug.
Petit 7.0 Relatively quiet game, though did some good tidying
up and defending in the 1st half, playing centre half
on two occasions before Bould came on and when Bould
was off receiving treatment for a gashed forehead.
Overmars 7.0 Also relatively quiet, and perhaps a strange decision
by Wenger to take him off for Bould.
Anelka 7.0 Didn't do too badly though I thought didn't play quite
as well as recently.
Bergkamp 6.5 Again looking rather uninterested and off form a lot of
the time, though it's true a proportion of Arsenal's
best chances came through him.
Derek
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