Kevin Whitcher
All credit to Orient. They worked hard and made the best of infinitely less resources than Arsenal managed in this FA Cup 5th Round tie. The Gunners didn’t really ask them enough questions, but for the most part, the Os dealt with those they did.
Arsene Wenger claims he has a squad good enough to compete on four fronts, and technically, the quadruple is still on. However, once the same bunch of players have accounted for the Os at home on Wednesday week, they will be paraded again at Old Trafford and the hope must be that humiliation is avoided. They can’t get a result away from home and indeed often struggle in London N5. Hell, Orient could even win the replay.
It’s all very well hanging onto the ball and building up possession percentage, but when there is no end product the team become a hostage to fortune as they did at Brisbane Road. The Os had about four decent chances in 90 minutes, but scoring from one of them proved enough. Ignasi Miquel and Kieran Gibbs were made to look like mugs as the 90 minute mark neared and an equalizer followed. Suddenly the second stringers produced the type of urgency that had been totally absent all game. Where did that come from? And why did it require an Orient equalizer to produce it?
I will tell you why. Because this bunch of overpaid and overpampered stars are well aware that it is they who will be having to put right the wrongs of today’s performance in ten days’ time. A game they do not want to go through the bother of playing. So they put in a shift for a whole six minutes to try and avoid the inconvenience of working a chilly February evening when they could be at home in front of the Playstation. Pass me my snood please.
It is the Winston Bogarde effect. Everyone is comfortable financially, but out of the picture when it comes to a first team starting spot. However, it’s only Orient. We can be arrogant and complacent and play below the level we are capable of because we will still be good enough for a League One side. Er… actually, not true. You get out of games what you put in and on that score, this group of players could not have complained if they had lost today. It was all keep ball and you can't get it. The contempt summarized by the shirt swapping at the end of the game. The Arsenal players gave their shirts, but were not fussed about taking their opponents’. Would they have the same attitude v Barcelona I wonder?
The apathy shown by the players will sadly be matched by the home fans for the replay. I predict a true attendance of around 40,000, with empty seats galore. People who have season tickets will not bother to turn up to a match knowing they will be watching players who can’t be bothered to turn up either. The game will go to general sale and still fail to sell out as the club cannot do reduced prices for the FA Cup because it is on the season ticket. It really is time that the competition was treated the same as the Carling Cup in this regard. Cut down the number of home cup ties on the season ticket to three matches (which will generally by Champions League group games) and make the FA Cup games optional and much cheaper. Fans are being served up second rate line-ups and second rate football, as the Leeds and Huddersfield games have proved. So charge them less.
Wenger’s second stringers do not gel and play with little heart. The half decent performers today were Sagna, Miquel (in spite of the the goal), Gibbs (ditto) and Chamakh. Some of the players had positive stinkers – Song and Bendtner the most guilty in my eyes. Wenger spent much of the second half warming up Fabregas, Nasri and Wilshere and the game was crying out for them with the score at 1-0. Granted, Arsenal looked comfortable, but it did not take a soothsayer to realize Orient were going to have a go in the final few minutes.
A word of warning for those who might think about traveling to Old Trafford in the event that Arsenal do progress. Watch this and wince at the memory. A half-baked performance by a half-baked selection in which only Eduardo and Jens Lehmann showed the slightest indication of giving a damn about the result. A result that led to the Premier League challenge going off the rails in tandem with an away Carling Cup semi-final hammering at Spurs. The draw for this season’s FA Cup quarter finals has removed any notion of the quadruple going beyond the end of March, regardless of Barcelona.
Still, there has to be an upside to this. Surely, it will have removed any temptation the manager has to field anything but his strongest line up for the Carling Cup Final next Sunday.
The new issue of The Gooner will be on sale for the matches at home to Stoke, Orient and Sunderland. For those unable to make any of these games, it can be bought online here.
