King William Conquers Chelsea
Dec 17th, 2007 by 'holic
Apologies to anybody who visited earlier for a ‘holic-eyed view of yesterdays events. In all honesty I took the opportunity to celebrate our victory a little too enthusiastically! In fact the hours between me departing London last night and waking up this morning have been stolen by the time thief. A hard day at the office has not helped.
The funny thing is that yesterday started so badly. The taxi I booked on Saturday to get me to the station failed to materialise. ‘No thank-you I do not require the car at 9.45 tonight, that is why I asked specifically for Sunday morning’. An hour late I departed the station, which meant I was an hour late hitting the pub in Holloway Road.
No sooner had we started on our first pint than my mate realises he has left his ticket at home. Fortunately after a bit of a flap we persuade the ticket office to part with a replacement. I miss the opportunity to switch pubs while all this is going on. I do not like the way the day is heading.
The game gets underway and Arsene has left Robin on the bench. My worst fears are confirmed. A 4-5-1 will surely favour a draw? Fortunately though Chelsea have come with a similar formation and a distinct lack of ambition.
Not surprisingly there is some spite in the early challenges. Terry is fortunate to only see yellow for an ill-concealed assault on Fabregas, but then departs after Eboue extracts full revenge. In the second-half Joe Cole repays the compliment, putting Eboue out of action for what could be a few weeks.
In between there is absolute glee for William Gallas. When the second best left-back on show yesterday moved to Stamford Bridge we got to promote Gael Clichy, on the evidence of this game a better player. We also got a chunk of money and Gallas. I had the good fortune to be sitting almost next to the away fans. A sea of red faces greeted the match-winner as Billy took advantage of a rare Cech howler to head home on the stroke of half-time. Like many before him it has taken the skipper a year to acclimatise to Arsenal, but he is now convincing the doubters with a string of inspirational displays.
To be fair Chelsea showed a little more ambition in the second-half, and the game was a better spectacle for that. They would argue that Almunia was called into action a few times, and Wright-Phillips wasted a golden opportunity it’s true. Arsenal however still had the edge for me. Two disallowed goals, one rightly for offside, the other a little more mysteriously, plus chances for van Persie and Fabregas raised the temperature.
The not so good left-back was fortunate not to see red after raising his hand in retaliation to Fabregas. His hand signal to the home supporters at the final whistle confirmed that we had played our part, and got well and truly under his avaricious skin.
‘Bus stop in Fulham, You’re just a bus stop in Fulham’. Block 24 was in humorous mood as the visitors departed. ‘Come on ‘holic, join me for a drink in Block 31 and we’ll see Kenny Sansom’. The mate with the replacement ticket has a diabolical thirst to quench, and so begins the second session of a full day. Hopefully he can remember a bit more of it than me and fill in the blanks later. Suffice it to say Mrs ‘holic is not the only one surprised to see we have gained a very nice Fullers ESB glass overnight!
7 Responses to “King William Conquers Chelsea”
Thief!
Trust me Pip, I paid for it…
One way or another!
i believe Pip was right. Thief!
🙂
Right, I now understand why you were MIA on sunday then.
good account of a great day!
Cheers dino. Good to see you here again. Hope you have a happy holiday.