Published: 20 October, 2011

ARSENAL
ISN’T it good having the old Arsenal back?

Not the Thierry Henry-Robert Pires-Patrick Vieira, brilliant old Arsenal.

I mean the old old Arsenal we grew up on, before all those nouveau Gooners who moan at the first sign of Jenkinson began coming to the football because Sky Sports told them to. Every one of them showered in tickertape.

This week has been like a timewalk back to when you could go to a match like Arsenal versus Sunderland and not be sure until the last 10 minutes that Arsenal were going to win.

Gone is all memory of a team that might have the audacity of winning the title without losing a single game.

There’s no fun in that, those behind the scenes have obviously decided.

Here is a team that hates such predictability.

Up a goal and cruising, what’s fun about that?

Better to clown around, concede an equaliser and then emerge as last-gasp heroes in the final moments.

The same policy of dramatic finales was employed against Marseille.

That’s the way to send the fans home happy.

The dogfight in France had shades of the way George Graham won the Cup Winners’ Cup.

The misfiring way Arsenal beat Sunderland reminded us all of the chaotic performances presided over by Rioch and Houston.

The way van Persie always emerges as the hero is like the way it was always Ian Wright who saved the day.

It’s the return of old old Arsenal and that means it is impossible to predict what’ll happen next.
RICHARD OSLEY

TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR
AT times we’ve all known greedy players.

Players who’d rather shoot from the corner flag than pass you the ball, those whose tunnel vision for scoring infringes more on their team than the oppositions.

Jermain Defoe is such a player. Sometimes brilliant, of late frustrating.

He was presented with the perfect opportunity in Sunday’s 2-2 draw at Newcastle to show a touch of class by pulling the ball back to any number of team-mates lining up to score, thus confusing a defence that probably guessed he’d shoot in the first place!

The realisation that Spurs haven’t beaten Newcastle in seven years at St James’s Park is a crime in itself but Defoe’s gluttony should be marked down as a felony.

I like the way Manchester City are going about the Carlos Tevez affair.

The fact they’ve enough money to sit great footballers on the bench is obscene but his fining and expulsion from team training might just be the kick-start needed to get players to take their commitments seriously.

Imagine contracts being honoured?

Imagine players being directed by their employer to attend weekly sessions in primary schools and pupil referral units, giving seminars on healthy eating and care in the community?

Admittedly most of these athletes are at the top of their game, a fact recognised by the incredible fees paid for their services, but wouldn’t it be in the public interest to know what and how much goes back into the community?
TONY DALLAS