See Merson's magic to create a goal against us for Villa.
Laugh at Chelsea. Twice.
Cry with Lee Dixon (and he's not ashamed to admit it)
and
Discover that Luis Boa Morte played for us last season.
Having had a few weeks to recover from the
UEFA Cup final, watching
the end-of-season goals video came as quite a pleasant reminder
of the positive aspects of the season, both in terms of Arsenal's
great attacking play and in terms of developments for the future.
As usual most of the tape is taken up with the goals, 122 in all
and plenty of good ones. I guess a team with Bergkamp Kanu Suker
and Henry ought to get a few crackers but it doesn't make them any
less fun to watch.
While we hope the most significant on-pitch development for the future
will prove to be the emergence of Thierry Henry as a world-class
striker, it's also nice to have this record of Davor Suker's single
season at Highbury. The second half of the season was so dominated by
Thierry that it'd be easy to forget how many quality goals Suker
was involved in earlier in the season.
One thing I'd have liked is an interview with the (probably) departing
Arsenal legend Nigel Winterburn. But there is at least an
appropriate eulogy from Arsène Wenger, who cites the way
Nutty helped his replacement Silvinho as "one more sign of his class".
In a feature about the spectacular new training ground, Wenger talks
about his design criteria. The players support his claim that it's
"a big step forward for the club", with Dixon and Henry describing it
as simply "the best". Adams admits it's "20 years too late for me"
although he does say it still "might extend my career".
The tape ends with a nice feature looking both forward and back,
through the eyes of departing MD Ken Friar. He's clearly been a
very influential figure, particularly with regard to the new
stadium plans, and there's some discussion of that. It certainly
appears that the club is confident the Ashburton Grove development
will go ahead (full planning application goes in Oct 2000, and a
hopefully positive decision is expected early next year). But make
sure you catch the first bit of the Friar interview too, with the
fantastic and almost unbelievably romantic story of how Friar got
his first job at Arsenal.
Top embarassing moment: Matthew Lorenzo describing Barcelona as
"the capital of the Basque country". Ouch.
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