Fozzy 
How I loved watching the Man City game. What’s more, I am now that little bit more confident that we can do the business this season.
I thought something special might be happening when I noticed that there was minimal moaning during the fifteen minute queue to get into the ground. But I can moan now. What was the point of having two turnstiles just reserved for ladies when we weren’t being frisked and had just a random wave from a Star Wars wand? Fortunately, with ten minutes to kick off, a member of staff saw sense at entrance E, let everybody through and Gender Wars ceased. We waved our red and white plastic carrier bags when the teams emerged (nice touch, and what’s more, I collected some of the discarded bags at the end to save paying 5p every time I go to Sainsburys), the crowd was buzzing, and carried on throughout the match to help to secure victory.
For the first half an hour, not much happened and I was getting a bit restless. Walcott was sulking on the left wing with the game passing him by. He didn’t do himself any favours as he hardly moved. Once again, the match officials were truly dreadful. Marriner bottled far too many decisions when having witnessed nothing short of orchestrated thuggery. We were regularly and cynically taken out of the game whenever we broke, and their message must have been to target Ozil every time he got the ball. Full credit to the bloke, as he kept on running and being brilliant. I was dismayed that there appeared to be no communication between Marriner and the linesman on the east side who persisted in making incorrect decisions and failing to flag when it was obvious to see that the ball had gone over the line. At one time I thought that the bloke had a broken arm.
Up until the opening goal, we were entertained by Kevin de Bruyne on two occasions, firstly when he was put through with just Cech to beat and the greedy little man thought he’d get the glory instead of passing, and missed. He then tried to take a corner in front of us and he kicked the corner flag instead of the ball. How we laughed, but what do you expect for 55 pence? sorry, 55 million.
That seemed to wake up our latter day number 14, who did his best to replicate the previous number 14 shirt wearer with a goal that the former best player in the world would have enjoyed scoring. Ashurton Grove was rocking. There was just one minute of time added on at the end of the first half and I was pleased to see that we were defending our lead in their half. With ten seconds to go, a poor clearance was seized upon, Ozil squeezed the ball through a gap and there was Giroud outpacing a defender. The bloke sitting next to me shouted out “Hit it, Giroud!” and he did, straight through Hart’s legs. Hahahahaha! Ashburton Grove was rocking even more.
We were more withdrawn in the second half but still had decent opportunities to put the game to bed. Giroud was magnificent throughout as he was there to hold the ball up and bring in others whenever Per or Kos cleared the ball to safety. Thank goodness Toure’s appetite for the fight only began in earnest when it was almost too late. He should have equalised, but didn’t. Instead, we held out. The four minutes of time added on was once again defended in the opposition half.
This was marvellous stuff and yet again demonstrates that we can cope with the so called big boys. The time has come to show the world that we can push on. Fingers crossed. Merry Christmas, everyone.
