I don’t know about you but Christmas has always been a time out of time for me. Even the days of the week cease to follow their usual pattern. We abstain from the conventions of Monday to Sunday, preferring instead Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day. These will bleed seamlessly into The Day After Boxing Day followed in this instance by Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and New Year’s Eve.
It’s the only time of year that does this and I love it. A little holiday from humdrum reality and other than when we change the clocks is probably the only chance we have to allow ourselves to toy so fancifully with such rigidly imposed temporal norms.
Apart from not actually knowing that yesterday was a Sunday (until I resorted to inspecting a calendar) other significant facts my mind glossed over in its Yuletide reverie were that I had a blog to write and Arsenal had a match to play.
I don’t think anyone here will mind therefore that I have nothing prepared for you today. I’m sure you all had far more important things to do than give even a fleeting momentary thought to such distractions as football yourselves. Don’t panic, there was no danger of me actually forgetting the match entirely. You may recall a few weeks back when we played Tottenham that my nephew came and watched the match with me, he having, at the age of nine, decided that the mighty Arsenal was the team for him.
Well we’ve already been given notice that he’s coming again today, resplendent in his most prized Christmas gift of the year, his Arsenal first team kit. He has been an ever present with me, for day time kick offs at least, and it’s been a fascinating change to my routine.
Apart from when Kelly and Mike visited us earlier in the year I haven’t watched a match with anyone else in the room since the League Cup final against Birmingham, preferring to sit alone in a state of tense, twitching anxiety for the duration of the game. However seeing the whole thing through the eyes of a child has been a tonic for me.
If I allowed my perception of football to be dominated by the pathetic online squabbling and faux expertise of the so called adult population I seriously think I would give up on the sport altogether. The warm, funny, insightful community I joined all those years ago has disintegrated and is now almost entirely monopolised by point scoring demi trolls on either side of the debate who have lost any obvious love of the simple thrill of following their favourite team.
The young man who will sidle in next to me at three o’clock today knows none of this. He also struggles with the offside rule, why everyone doesn’t get booked for kicking the ball over the sideline as Francis Coquelin did, and why, if he can see a bad decision on the screen, can’t the people in charge of the game see it also. He cheers and whoops with delight when we score, and purses his lips and just stares at me for guidance when we concede.
It is fair to say I’ve learned a hell of a lot more from him in the last six weeks than I have from Twitter in the last several years.
Unfortunately for me he missed the City game and came round the next day to watch the replay with me forcing me to do that which I never do – watch a defeat all over again. Once more it was a salutary lesson. I survived the ordeal, no one died as a result of it and surprise surprise neither our tactics nor the individual performances of our players were remotely as bad as the internet had led me to believe. I put the highlights of our six nil thrashing of Ludogorets on when the game finished and the boy went home happy.
So as you lot all wind each other up with talk of ‘must win’ games and dark tales of Pulis and his sinister past my nephew and I will balance our lucky soccer cards on the keyboard of my computer and compare his new Arsenal shirt with my old style one. We’ll yell encouragement at the deaf, uncomprehending screen as our boys go forward and sigh and shake our heads at any setback. And I’ll bet I enjoy the whole experience a thousand times more for taking it so much less seriously than any of the games I used to watch with only the internet for company.
I predict a thumping win today with goals galore and end to end action all cheered on with gusto by those lucky enough to get their hands on a ticket. If not I predict a kick about in the back garden under the lights and something fizzy to drink. Smashing.
Positively Arsenal 
Morning Stew – it is a fine day for a game of football. I’m fit, relaxed and ready for what the Baggies have to offer. Despite Pulis they are not a bad side at all.
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Morning Andy, hope you enjoy the game. You watching from the cold Eastern wastes or from a seat in the stands?
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Oh for simpler times! Great article Steww.
Most of us are indeed guilty as charged of taking everything too darn seriously. It might help if we supported a genuinely mid-table team then it would be easy to see how unimportant the various outcomes are.
But we don’t, we support a side that for 20 consecutive years has given us reasonable grounds for genuine hope of ‘success’, howsoever defined, and most of us get carried along with the whole ghastly and self-indulgent roller-coaster of a sport that long ago stopped feeling like just a game.
But still we return for more, like the hopeless addicts we are.
Or do we? The constant reports that UK audiences are well down for Sky and BT Sport are in my view hugely significant. Although figures globally look decent the bursting of a balloon has to start somewhere. What is causing the great switch off? Illegal streaming? Dire refereeing? The cheating and the histrionics of players with the morals of the greediest alley-cats?
I have no idea but I have a feeling that desperate times lead to desperate measures and we may see the moves towards safe-standing and the implementation of video-technology suddenly fast-tracked in order to resurrect a sickly looking golden goose.
But today no doubt the prospects await of a plethora of match-altering refereeing decisions by our befuddled referees in front of fans at least some of whom may be feeling fleeced by the whole industry.
We should be feeling confident of three points for Arsenal but this season’s experience of a string of odd refereeing decisions means we really have no clue of the outcome, so much of it resting as it does on the unpredictable whims of the refs and their wayward linesmen.
Well I wouldn’t want to call it, I’d just like to enjoy it, really I would.
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I am at home today Stew, walk at Sandringham, pottering in garden then football – most content
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That picture brought back wonderful memories Steww. The joy of having a tennis ball and sufficient mates to kick about with in roads unencumbered with cars. And I swear those games were just as frenetic and competitive as today’s. Hope you and nephew have a great afternoon.
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The Boxing Day football experience as it should be. Part of me wants to join you and your nephew for the game in front of a screen with the option of a remedy highlight session to revive, on event of a defeat. An option that seems to offer less physical demands than the pending journey from post-Christmas sofa sitting fugue via taxi, train, tube, pavement, pub, pavement, ground and repeat in reverse back to sofa late this evening.
I will, of course, be taking up my seat at the game but a bit of me will be trying to peek into your afternoon with said nephew and regret not having the option to vicariously enjoy experiencing his experience in his ongoing football watching education in your company. One gets the strong sense of the whole being greater than the sum of the parts in your developing football watching partnership that will be unique and special to you both for years to come.
Right…. Fat lazy arse, get off this bloody sofa! UTA
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“… watch a defeat all over again.”
You have more courage then I
“…I put the highlights of our six nil thrashing of Ludogorets on when the game finished”
Smarts too!
Merry Xmas!
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I’m planning to take my nephew today to see the match. He’s only six and it’ll be his first big noisy crowd!
The worry is watching the PGMOB and Pulis combo in action will be enough to turn him off (Rugby) Football for life!
Come on the Arsenal Association Football Club.
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Positively Arsenal @Blackburngeorge 5m5 minutes ago
People that say “football is all about opinions” actually mean
” For me,football is all about me, and shouting my opinion,over and over”
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Steww’s story of his nephew’s wide-eyed innocence upon becoming an Arsenal supporter gives hope that this beautiful sport will always triumph over the corruption of money, pride, avarice and envy that the youngster will inevitably have to endure and navigate. Will he rise above it or be subsumed? That is the challenge that maybe the precious hours with his Uncle will help decide.
As for the hopes of our blogmeister that WBA will simply a game to be enjoyed, regardless of the result, I am afraid that is a bit of innocence that I have long lost. Fortunately or unfortunately we are partisans in a competitive sport and it is not all about the game itself. Any of us that are embroiled in the various battles in social media (blogs, twitter, etc) soon become aware that Arsenal is a threat to a certain narrative that the mainstream media and the football establishment see as vital to control. The minute things go bad they come out with all guns blazing seeking to discredit those of us who defend the Arsenal-way. For example I saw our Pedantic George taking it in the neck earlier this week. Fortunately he can give it right back.
So come 11:00 am, my time, the stomach muscles will tighten, the acid reflux will begin to burn as I will fight a desperate battle to control my competitive impulses, demanding we make the necessary adjustments to cope without Saint Santi and Mustafi. Pulis saw how we lost control of our last two games, he will be confident that he can kick us further to the kerb. I demand the boys kick him and WBA in the nuts (figuratively) letting them know we intend to fight and win.
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I hope for a good game, an excellent performance from our team, that any underhand tactics from Pulis are dealt with according to the games laws , and that the way this match is resolved has nothing to do with the mistakes of officials.
But , Wenger was critical in public of the PGMOL after the City game, we all know what he said, I just hope Mr Riley doesn’t have a little punishment in store for wengers words. We shall see, and hopefully overcome if need be.
Thes refs need tech help, and the way things are going, much better leadership from Mike Riley. We never hear a peep out of this man……things not exactly great in his organisation, there are not enough refs for this league, insufficient geographical diversity in their numbers (Greater Manchester ref in charge of games involving Manchester teams), nobody can surely make a case that standards are improving this year, he choses not to communicate, he wasn’t exactly the greatest of refs, as Wenger and the Invincibles know to their cost, so what exactly is Mike Riley doing in his current role…..and who does it suit to keep him there?
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Eduardo and that goes as much for us as for those with whom we disagree.
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Steww and Eduardo: The older I have gotten, it has become necessary to question and even amend my core beliefs. Having fallen in the past for ideas which do not correspond with reality, I have lately adopted a data-driven paradigm. If it is not measurable and verifiable, no matter how attractive, my beliefs are merely theories that are not compatible with reality.
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Damnably inconvenient though it was West Brom were very good at the Bridge a fortnight ago and it took a moment of top quality from Costa to secure Chelsea’s three points. I expect a game of few chances and deadly finishing.
For those of a statistical turn of mind I see in our previous Boxing Day games in the PL we average 2.19 ppg. Our visitors in contrast 0.5 ppg
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It may just be my warped view but Deeney looks like a man gradually working off a steaming hangover – I can see Watford stealing this
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Great again Steww, although I obviously disagree with your reply to Ed, the mere suggestion that I cannot be rational when faced with facts backing a counter argument is foreign to me.
I just watched the breakdown of the city game and the fact we didnt play well second half has seemed to blur the offside lines even the normally reliable Adrian Clarke. Yeah is might have been risky playng offside, yeah we maybe should have gone with the runner but at the end of the day the lino was stainding the wrong side of our back three to get a good view and the mistake was with him.
Back to todays game, no matter the temperature its always cold when we play any of the pullis teams. It will be one of those “earn the right physically games” today and there will be little protection from the ref. So a win will be well earned and will indeed be well needed to set us up for the forthcoming games. COYG
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What a great way to start Boxing Day, Stew. Your “I don’t have anything to say” pieces sure do have a lot to say. I’ve been looking forward to today. I’m off work for a change, so a Monday of football it is! (Wait, is it Monday?)
Glad to see my boy back in the squad for his birthday. A win will do nicely as a present for him, lads. (A goal for him would be great, too, but let’s not get greedy.)
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Wot no Theo?
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wba:Foster; Dawson, McAuley, Evans, Nyom; Yacob, Fletcher (c); Brunt, Chadli, Phillips; Rondon
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steww, he is injured
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Line-up surprised me. Thank heavens I decided I was not qualified to tell Wenger how to set up this team.
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holy fuck, lcfc have put out thousands of jamie vardi face masks, for their fans to wear today, cos the BPL refused his appeal of his red card for a two footed lung in his last game.
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Ozil playing in his 100th BPL game today.
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Clearly my few words with Olivier have had their desired effect.
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Iwobi has started on the right with Alexis wide left
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Gibbs has a spring in his step
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chelsea 1-0 up
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Seriously, just how amazing a footballer is Alex Iwobi?
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ah the soft booking of an arsenal player,
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HT: 0-0
arsenal dominated possession but have had little in clear chances, need to up the pace a little, might be a good idea to bring on Ramsey for Coquelin for the second half, add an extra goal scorer.
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Good first half from both sides, plenty of possessive intent on our side, matched by implacable resistance from the visitors
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So far so good. It is just a matter of time before we score. WBA will try to make this the Battle of the Alamo.
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a lot of possession for possession’s sake from us in the first half, sideways and backways, we have giroud up front and we attempted only 7 crosses in the first half. We are lacking someone who runs direct at defenders and beats a man or two,
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no foul called for the most deliberate of fouls on Giroud,
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oh I was wrong, the ref in fact called a foul against him, good one pgmol
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Foster with a fine double save
then alexis hits the post at the resulting corner
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chelsea 2-0 up
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foster with another save from alexis
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giroud with our 7th attempt on target, from 17 attempts,
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monreal on for the injured gibbs, and lucas on for iwobi
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the wba time wasting is at farcical levels but don’t expect the ref to do anything about it
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73 minutes, coquelin off, ramsey on
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82 minutes of time wasting and ref finally books foster
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Giroudddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd
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A game of few chances and (finally) deadly finishing
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FT: Arsenal 1-0 WBA
Giroud with the goal, ozil with the assist, cech with a clean sheet, what more could you want
dominated game throughout, much better tempo in the second half, koscielny outstanding, xhaka controlled midfield, and although we huffed and puffed alot up front, foster was wba man of the match with about ten saves, with two or three of them top notch, he could do nothing about the finely placed winning header by our big hansom frenchman
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Positively Arsenal @Blackburngeorge 3m3 minutes ago
Every pundit in the world is gutted that WBA couldn’t stop us playing for the full 90.
Some of our fans to I suspect?
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