When chaps of a certain vintage, that is to say elderly gents like yours truly, hear the name of Burnley FC a deluge of images at once swamp the imagination. Muddy, potholed turf, balding players, comb-overs streaming in the wind behind them, leather case balls, concrete terraces and, invariably, a dog on the pitch.
Burnley is one of a list of names once synonymous with top flight football, now faded and trying to plough a new furrow. Huddersfield, Preston North End, Leeds United, the two Sheffield Clubs, Coventry City all enjoyed their time in the limelight, all slipped quietly away. It is a salutary lesson for the dreadful, entitled fans of today who believe their club owes them trophies and continual success, who seem to regard it as a birthright. Clubs rise, build empires and those empires fall.
Sometimes the fallen can rise again. I clearly remember watching Manchester United at Eastville stadium, home then of Bristol Rovers, in a second division fixture. Nobody imagined for a moment they, Manchester not Bristol that is, might climb to the summit, dislodge the mighty Liverpool and dominate English football for years. It can happen but it is the exception and not the rule. Nowadays the only likelihood of seeing the likes of Huddersfield or Leeds challenging those at the business end of the league comes in the cup competitions.
Such is the case today as Burnley travel down from Lancashire to face an Arsenal side who, they might feel, could be ripe for the taking. How, you may well cry, can I inflict such jibber-jabber upon you? ‘Ripe’ forsooth? ‘For the taking’ egad? Well, I only say they might think this, not they do or they should. Taking into account the fact that we’ve failed to win in our previous three games it is conceivable that they could be forgiven for thinking this is as good a time as any to visit the Emirates. We shall see.
The dog eared Soccer Stars cards of Colin Waldron and Freddie Smith may have faded from all but the most nostalgic of memories, but Burnley FC hasn’t gone, far from it. In fact the mention of their name has garnered a more recent connotation. I for one cannot hear it without seeing this, one of my all time favourite Arsenal goals.
Set up by intelligent, urgent movement from Alex Song, physical battling by Diaby and tireless off the ball running from Arshavin before a mercurial assist by the man who started the move, the goal isn’t just splendid for its finish. It is also a beautiful snapshot of how utterly wrong the cliché racked moron brigade always have been about players’ abilities, strengths and fitness to wear the shirt. Always have been and sadly I suspect always will be. Imagine, for example, if Andre Arshavin really had been lazy and unwilling to chase down every lost cause. That wonderful goal would never have happened.
Of course the finish was sublime. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry when I watch it. That such a player with such composure, such class should have been cut down by a man with no right to walk on the same grass is heartbreaking, but at least we saw some flashes of what Arsène saw in him. I sincerely believe he could have gone on to be one of the very best.
These days Burnley are building again and are very strongly in contention for promotion to the Premier League. I don’t see today’s visitors as a team from a lower division goggle eyed and weak kneed in the house of the mighty. There is very little difference in this fixture than playing against a side in the Premier League relegation zone. Consider that we will have to rest players and possibly blood our new boy as well and the gap closes a little more. In short I don’t expect it to be easy.
However. Having said all of that I seriously believe that someone is in for a spanking soon. The manager and players will be hurting after the recent run of poor results and we all know that there are more goals in this team than we’ve seen lately. Will this cup tie provide the cathartic blood letting which restores the humours and puts us back on track? Or will we squeak through today and vent against Southampton on Tuesday? I don’t know but I feel it’s coming.
Even as I toy with ideas of a sudden goal rush reversing the recent trend of snatched, missed chances I have to be honest and say I’d settle for a calm professional performance of control, a carefully managed victory with no alarms and no surprises. But then – where would be the fun in that? This the FA Cup, our FA Cup and such a tournament demands excitement, drama, spirited resistance from the plucky underdogs, near misses and of course a glorious outcome for the worthy winners. Oh, and a goal or two to match the superlative effort of Eduardo da Silva’s wouldn’t go amiss either.
Positively Arsenal 
70 minutes, Rosicky on for Iwobi
LikeLike
Arteta on for Coquelin
LikeLike
YES!
LikeLike
Kos booked for a deliberate handball
LikeLike
how is ward not booked for that foul on Giroud
LikeLike
Nasty from Ward. Yellow card foul for me.
LikeLike
Larry has been too far ahead in his thinking for his team mates today. On a few occasions he has played them in and they’ve not been able to anticipate his play.
LikeLike
Akpom has scored again for Hull
LikeLike
My computers been guffing its pants off toady too Steww.
COYG!
LikeLike
even today too Steww.
LikeLike
77 minutes, Walcott on for Alexis
LikeLike
in fact Akpom has a hattrick for Hull today, the second goal was a penalty.
LikeLiked by 1 person
in fact Akpom has scored a hattrick, the second goal was a penalty.
LikeLike
nice build up shame it wasnt a goal
LikeLike
Ox over the bar after good patient build up
LikeLike
Wonderful patient build up. Ox fluffs his lines at the very finish.
LikeLike
Toady. snort
LikeLike
LOL
LikeLike
4 minutes stoppage time to be played
LikeLike
Two fouls in quick succession both ignored.
LikeLike
Barnsley with bad sportsmanship, giving the ball back after a gibbs injury the put it out deep in the Arsenal corner.
LikeLike
Zut alors!
LikeLike
Steww this ref has ignored fouls all game
LikeLike
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
LikeLike
COYG!!!
LikeLiked by 1 person
barton still showing he is scum
LikeLiked by 1 person
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
LikeLike
ah theo, should have finish that
LikeLike
hoorah and hussar! Tough game, what with nine changes,but plenty of positives.
COYG!
LikeLiked by 1 person
So unusual for Theo to try to round the keeper. He loves to take those chances early. Great fun today and the right result.
LikeLike
FT: 2-1
dominated the second half, should have scored at least a couple more goals.
Elneny looked good on his debut, Iwobi good too, Alexis was good and scored the winner, Ox done some very good things, but final ball too often was off, but he did provide the assist for the winner, Chambers scored a wonder goal, Coq is back, Gibbs got better and better as the game went on, Ospina done well under the high ball
LikeLiked by 1 person
Never in doubt. Arsenal 2; Burnley 1.
LikeLike
What was Theo waiting for 1 v 1 with keeper to beat.?
LikeLike
The U21’s won 3-1 away to Stoke U21’s
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ed, which age group were playing Barnsley?
Only joking, did Danny play against Stoke.
Great to meet up with A5, Steve_I, DC and George.
Considering the team was a mixture of players returning from injury and players who were out of form or haven’t had much game, we played very well indeed. If we hadn’t conceded a soft goal I think we would on strolled it.
LikeLiked by 3 people
no ian, DW is expected to play his first game with the U21’s next Friday.
LikeLike
.com’s take on Crowley’s sending off in the U21 game
“The most controversial moment of the game followed, as Crowley was sent off in the midst of the celebrations for dissent.”
Read more at http://www.arsenal.com/match/report/1516/post/under-21/u-21s-stoke-city-1-3-arsenal-report#GEj53QOuvyw2bycA.99
LikeLike
WENGER ON VICTORY, ALEXIS AND ELNENY
Arsène Wenger spoke to the media after his side beat Burnley in the FA Cup fourth round.
Here’s a full transcript of what he said:
on the game…
We needed to work. At the start it looked like it would be easy because we had a lot of the ball and good opportunities around the box. When it came back to 1-1, it became a different game. I think we were a bit shocked and they gained belief. I saw them against Derby and I could see that this is a very efficient, strong team with no weakness. Everything they do is based on efficiency and they’ve shown that today. In the second half, I don’t think they created a lot. They had one or two opportunities on the counter-attack but we managed to win the game and we looked quite in control at the end. We needed to keep our focus, our urgency until the last minute.
on Chambers and Alexis’ goals…
I would say they are two completely different goals. One came from a build up in the final third, where we were patient and moved the ball well, with great finishing from Chambers. He’s quite a good finisher in training. The second one was in transition, coming out quickly from the back and finishing well, with a lot of pace. They were two completely different goals.
image: http://www.arsenal.com/assets/_files/images/jan_16/gun__1454168439_Chambers.jpg
Calum Chambers celebrates
Calum Chambers celebrates
on Elneny’s debut…
I felt he started a bit cautious, played a bit secure. He became more adventurous, he had some good shots on goal. His mobility, his work rate was exceptional and for the rest, he needs to adjust to the power of the game in the Premier League. This was a good welcome today and certainly he has learnt a lot today. It will take him some time to adjust to the power side of our game here, but the intelligence, the mobility and the technical level are good.
on Coquelin’s return and if it was early…
He was quite available for the Chelsea game but I thought it was a bit early. Today he looked quite comfortable and without any problems.
on Alexis…
[It was his first start] for eight or nine weeks. When I saw Derby against Burnley, I had a little hesitation to pick the three [Alexis, Coquelin, Elneny]. But the fact that we played at home, I thought we could manage to get away with it. With Alexis, I was not too much worried about on the fitness front because I kept him out two weeks ago and he was already there physically. We had some worries about his muscle but today he came through well and you could see that physically, he is ready.
image: http://www.arsenal.com/assets/_files/images/jan_16/gun__1454171189_Alexis-goal.jpg
Alexis celebrates
Alexis celebrates
on the importance of Alexis…
He had a long rest now. When he got injured, you could see signs of fatigue. I think two months’ rest is a good winter break!
on what winning three FA Cups in a row would mean…
First of all we have only passed two rounds. It’s a long way to go, when you look at everybody still in there. We would love to do it but there’s a long way to go. We are still in three competitions and we will try every time to get a team out to pass the round.
on if Gnabry is returning from loan…
Yes.
on if Gnabry will stay at Arsenal this season…
I am tempted to give him some competition because he has not played at West Brom. I am tempted to let him go somewhere to do with him what I did with Coquelin, somewhere for a month or two.
on Debuchy…
No [developments]. We will not have a long time to wait [the deadline is approaching].
Copyright 2016 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to http://www.arsenal.com as the source
Read more at http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/20160130/wenger-on-victory-alexis-and-elneny#f81vEzjhVwCYpLJ7.99
LikeLike
Gnabry back at Arsenal, what a waste of the lads time going to WBA, we should have known Pulis would not pick him.
LikeLike
FK² @fkhanage 2h2 hours ago
It appears that Mohamed Elneny had more touches of the ball than any other player on the pitch today, 100. He did not stop running.
Elneny had a fine debut, nothing spectacular but nice and steady and grew into the game the longer it went on, and the most encouraging thing about today’s game for me was that our other players were more than willing to pass the ball to both Elneny and Iwobi, they had complete faith in them, which for me is always a good sign.
LikeLike
AFCPressWatch™ @AFCPressWatch 3h3 hours ago
Hull boss on Akpom: “He has all the ability in the world. He is blessed with natural ability but he needs to keep his head down & work hard”
LikeLike
a big hand for the Express, they have published an article on Mohamed Elneny’s debut, clearly written by someone with special needs or from care in the community, its not everyday such a big media outlet would be prepared to do such a fine gesture. Well done Express.
http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/639556/Mohamed-Elneny-analysis-Arsenal-Arsene-Wenger
LikeLiked by 1 person
Eddy at 8:43pm – Special needs is very charitable. The media writes for idiots and malcontents and it takes one to do the job.
LikeLike
It was a pleasure to met the lads today, Steve_I, Seebs and his two lads, DC and Anicoll. Shame I couldn’t get to the sooner and a shame I couldn’t meet up after the game…..
Decent game, but I wanted more goals…glad Le Coq is back…mightily impressed by Iwobi….Elneny had a good start….great to see Little Mozart and Miguel….we were spoilt on that front…
LikeLiked by 3 people
it seems today is the day more journos show that they are special needs, John Cross for example learned today that Ospina “lacks height”, you’d think that a journo who watches every AFC game would have noticed how tall Ospina is before now, after all this was his 27th game for Arsenal.
LikeLike
isn’t it about time .com included Iwobi in our first team squad list.
LikeLike
I see Jon Toral was the victim of an awful knee high tackle that seen him go off injured after 34 minutes of Brums game v Bristol City away today, but of course the thug who done it did not get a red
LikeLike
https://soundcloud.com/officialarsenal/chambers-and-alexis-on-target-in-victory-against-burnley?in=officialarsenal/sets/goal-commentary-clips
LikeLike
anyone got the stats on the distance Elneny covered in today’s game
LikeLike
akpom’s hattrick
https://streamable.com/p4zb
LikeLike