LIVERPOOL v ARSENAL "fings ain't wot they used to be"

An away fixture at Anfield in the second half of the 1990/91 season, and having recorded a 3-0 victory at Highbury earlier that season, The Arsenal went up to Liverpool and grabbed a 0-1 victory. This was a telling result in deciding the destination of the League Championship. The Arsenal took back the title finishing 7 points ahead of Liverpool having lost only 1 game while conceding a paltry 18 goals.

Manchester City finished 5^th, Manchester United 6^th, Sp*rs 10^th and Chelsea 11^th; this was the English first division. The bombast of the inaugural 1992/93 Premier League was just over the horizon.

Times change and Liverpool v Arsenal is no longer the clash of title challengers, it is a competition of the once mighty; two of England’s greatest clubs who have seen a decline in fortunes, for differing reasons, but a decline never the less.

The football landscape has changed over the two decades since that day in March 1991 when an Arsenal victory brought home the hard reality to Liverpool that perhaps there period of dominance was coming to an end. That great club has now gone without a league title for 22 years. Arsenal have spent 8 years away from the pinnacle of English football and our challenge for that honour has been marginal at best.

So today’s game is another game of football, a game to hopefully be won and enjoyed. It’s not the fixture it once was and it may never be a fixture of that significance again; the arrival of the billionaire benefactor has changed things and ‘greatness’ seems to be just an antiquated phrase, its now more a bout 'richness'.

Comments

Reasons to be cheerful?

So November arrives with cold weather and grey skies. Arsenal sit in 2 nd place with a great chance to make progress in the Carling Cup with a home draw against wigan Athletic. Poised to win our Champions league group and with six months of the season left have 3 of our five tougher away fixtures out of the way, having taken a respectable 4 from 9. I say respectable as, the Man City away trip aside the draw at Anfield on the occasion of Hodgson’s first game was a good result and the Chelsea game I don’t think anyone can really speak of any injustice. That leaves away games at Old Trafford and Sp*rs (who as we know raise their game for this fixture). With injured players gradually returning and the Polish goalkeepers showing signs of optimism, we’re in relatively good shape. Or so you’d think. Yesterday at the Emirates West Ham were put to the sword late on after some stout defending, a good performance from Robert Green and a couple of missed opportunities. The level of indign...

There's something rotten in the state of Denmark

A number of blogs are pointing out what was evident to me yesterday; as a season ticket holder and Silver member i like thousands of others made plans to purchase an additional ticket for the Barcelona game using the frustrating and irritating online service, but guess what? no joy, just lots of waiting finger tapping and watching the dreaded 'loading' bar (to make matters worse I had asked my missus to do this as I was doing training). But no one got these additional tickets, that is no supporters judging by the general feedback! It seems to me that the additional seats will have probably gone to customers of a corporate nature. Ultimately for such a marquee (to use an American commercialism term) game I suspect that the club where never going to sell to supporters of the club, there is clearly a undercurrent at the Emirates that the club wants to have the stadium full of customers ie; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ognvWIwjKTQ The Emirates of the future? It will be interesti...

PERSONALITY TEST

Played 23, 10 defeats, 4 draws and 9 victories; that's the factual bit out of the way. What does that tell us? I guess it is a set of statistics that reasonably reflect a mid table team. How we got here is something that countless column inches and hours of debate have gone into. How we move forward is the bigger question. Naturally, learning from past mistakes is a key element to moving forward but have Arsenal Football Club done that? Have Arsenal Football Club realised that a clear vision and plan is needed? When you look at the current squad its relatively easy to see where the strenghts are, and the weaknesses. The manager too, has strengths and weaknesses but one thing that is intangible is the personality of the club. Not so much "where are we" as "what are we?" To know what the club is is to know what the upper echelons think, what their plan and philosophy is and how the manager processes that information. We can assume that the club decision makers wa...

ARSENALISM©

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