Friday Night Musings

I think we’re going to win for the second week running. The fighting spirit displayed against Chelsea was maintained to real effect last week at Villa and hopefully with Kenwyne back in the side and a 4-4-2 formation we’ll be able to attack strongly from the kick-off. This is no time to be messing around and we can really put the pressure on our rivals by getting a win tomorrow. I think most of the others will drop points; Bolton are at home to Arsenal, Reading home to Blackburn and Wigan away to Portsmouth while Fulham are at Derby. The Mags are away to Spurs on Sunday and I can’t see them getting much joy there. With our six pointer against Fulham coming up next week we can go into that game with great confidence if we win tomorrow.

The Match

Once again I was working on a Saturday, supervising students through an exam, but this time I was able to hear some of the game live thanks to my stepson tuning my new mobile into BBC Radio London, which had a live commentary. I won’t say much about the game itself as I was only able to catch it sporadically in between explaining the pronunciation of words like ‘flour’ and ‘recipe’, and entering the exam room to superintend discussions about imaginary students with imaginary problems. Anyway, it was clear that we were really going for it after West Ham went one-up in the 17 th minute. The BBC London commentators were very fair to us throughout and didn’t say much on the negative side apart from what we already know about the final third and commitment/hard work at times making up for lack of skill. They said at half-time that, “It was a fantastic advert for Premiership football” and earlier, “It’s a pleasure to be here, really good entertainment.”

Tuning back into the game ten minutes into the second half I heard that we kept attacking in waves and at 1-1 a winning goal for us always seemed on. After another lengthy gap it was still 1-1 and as far as I knew Bolton were still two-up against a ten-man Arsenal while Brum were beating Man City. Then things got worse when Fulham went 2-1 up against Derby.

Next thing Derby had equalized and as we kept pulverizing West Ham and chance after chance seemed to be going begging and our corner tally went past the dozen, it was looking like we’d have to settle for a draw. However, that huge dollop of injury-time coupled with Ljunberg’s going off and reducing them to ten men coupled with recent memories of many late goals made this a game that had to be followed to the end. I heard that some were still leaving early. I’ve sung Reid’s praises since he arrived and was delighted that he, especially, got the winner. He’s a quality footballer and a character too and I think he’s going to be a major figure for us for a long time in the manner of Bally. That goal was fantastic enough but almost immediately news came of Arsenal taking a 3-2 lead against Bolton. God, those Bolton fans must’ve gone through a hell compatible with our heaven in the same space of time but that’s football. It ain’t over till it’s over and we, of all supporters, know that well enough but it’s not half looking much, much better than it did a fortnight ago. See you at Fulham.

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