I notice Arsenal have gone seven points clear at the top of the Premier League table and are thus very likely to win the title – a victory, then, for Brexit football. I watched the game between the Gunners and Chelsea at the weekend and it genuinely was like watching Wimbledon versus Sheffield Wednesday in 1989.
It was Goal of the Month time and I also noticed that an Arsenal player has won this benediction just once in about six seasons. Indeed, if the club were to put together a ‘Goals of the Season’ package for fans it would consist of 12 corners taken by Declan Rice, several players wrestled to the floor in the penalty area, a scuffed shot from Madueke from two yards out which deflects off the defender for a goal.
Do we mind this? I know Arsenal fans will not care one bit. And I have mixed feelings. That tippy tappy stuff used to bore me to distraction – and it always occurred to me that carried with it great peril. One week I noted that 40 per cent of all PL goals were the consequence of clubs conscientiously playing it out from the back and then making a pig’s ear of it. But on the other hand, that Arsenal vs Chelsea game was fabulously unattractive, on a kind of epic scale…
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