Tom Martin
"To put it in gentleman's terms if you've been out for a night and you're looking for a young lady and you pull one, some weeks they're good looking and some weeks they're not the best. Our performance at the weekend would have been not the best looking bird but at least we got her in the taxi. She weren't the best looking lady we ended up taking home but she was very pleasant and very nice, so thanks very much, let's have a coffee"
One of the many nuggets of wisdom to come from the eccentric yet loveable Bristolian that is Ian Holloway. I have a lot of time for Ollie, not purely for his off-the-wall sayings (MOTD won't be the same without them) but because when you look beyond his way with words and his strong West Country tones, a hell of a lot of what he says is, in the words of the recent Bombardier ad, bang on. Another thing to his credit is his frankness - in an age where we constantly hear Wenger churning out tired, patronising excuses and club propaganda, how refreshing would it be to hear the boss say 'Well frankly, we were shocking' or 'Yeah, Alumunia isn't very good at what he's paid to do'. I'm not saying Holloway is the man to replace Wenger but a man of his frankness would go some way towards getting rid of the culture of complacency that is rife in the team these days.
But going back to the original quote from Cadbury Heath's favourite son, it is very applicable to the Swansea game. Arsenal pulled a bit of a minger against Swansea it has to be said but nevertheless it was a win and given the recent run of results and the fact that Swansea could have got a point too, we can't really afford to be fussy. Every successful side wins narrowly in games against lesser opponents and Arsenal are no exception in successful times. I can still remember going to penalties against Port Vale in the FA Cup and scraping a semi-final win over Wolves back in '98 but I certainly wasn't complaining when Adams was holding the cup aloft at Wembley. And if you think every game of the famous 49ers was a classic then think again. I know that by and large people remember the demolition of Leeds, winning the league in N17, etc but what about the 2-1 win at home to Bolton that season? And how many munters did United metaphorically pull last season? A fair few, it has to be said.
After the debacle of the last game, getting confidence back and bedding in the new signings is not going to happen overnight. I know we were all hoping to put the last game out of our heads and stuff Swansea 5-0 but I think we all knew it wasn't going to happen. There are major confidence issues with the squad, faces have come and gone and the manager is still just as deluded and out-of-touch as he has been for the past couple of years (personally, I think Wenger started losing it when he signed Silvestre). So for now we'll just have to take wins in whatever shape or form they come in as it's got to give the side more confidence than if Swansea had managed to earn a point. Or in Holloway's terms, think of the three points gained on Saturday as the nice personality.
The current issue of the Gooner went on sale at the weekend and is available to buy online here
