This time it started with the FA Cup fifth round draw at Old Trafford, a stiff test but one I was so convinced we were up to that I bet a round of beers with Man U Rejji on a 3-1 result, even though Man U hasn't given up that many goals at home in a decade. Both teams were short-handed due to injury. Arsenal were without Clichy and Sagna, the two outside backs that have turned our defensive performance from last year's mess into something pretty tidy. Alex Ferguson shocked the world, though, by not dressing Cristiano Ronaldo, and so when the teams took the field, I felt we had the better team.
It was not long before I realized how wrong I had been. Rooney scored off of a flick header that resulted from a poor clearance. Fabregas and Hoyte were both caught inexcusably flat-footed. Four minutes later Hoyte let Nani run to the line and cross without impediment and Fletcher buried a header. 2-0 down at Old Trafford is a death sentence. Unfortunately the game got worse from there.
Anderson and Nani ran rampant in the midfield. Gilberto, whose confidence and spirit are gone, was never near to marking either of them and Fabregas was horrible in support. How many times can you say Fabregas was horrible? I don't know if his fitness is down or what, but he is not the player who started the season. He is not tackling nor is he getting into the opponent's box for chances at goal.
Hoyte and Gallas on our right side were made to look like amateurs. Hoyte is not a good player. I know he is young, but his instincts are all wrong. He back-pedals from the get go and is not quick to ground or up high. The result is that he is a well-positioned decoy. Gallas cannot read more than one responsibility and he likes to leave his place in the back line given the slightest excuse.
Arsenal did not tackle or foul until the second half when Emmanuel Eboue got a straight red for going in with his cleats up against Nani. The card was deserved.
Anyway, you get the point. We had no possession after that and we got woefully embarrassed. Darren Fletcher not only scored two goals, he looked like one of the three most dangerous players on the field for most of the match. That about says it. Wenger put in our injured first team reserves with twenty minutes to play. But Adebayor, Flamini, and Senderos only got to taste the misery and did nothing to turn it around. It was an utterly humiliating 4-0 beating to the team we are trying to take the championship from. And they were without their best player...
But the FA Cup is just the FA Cup, or so we told ourselves going into the Champions League quarterfinal with AC Milan at the Emirates. It was a relief to see Sagna and Clichy back, I'll say that much. Wenger talked about the need to erase the humiliation at Old Trafford from our minds and the Gooners at the Globe were upbeat before the match. Jamie, consummate proprietor and Everton fan, said he would have gloated more if he hadn't lost so much money during the United match. Gooners drink when Gunners score goals.
I won't go into a match report of the AC Milan game because there isn't anything to report. Catenaccio. That is the Italian word for "door-bolt" which describes the way Italian teams play when they don't want to lose and never has there been a better example than the game at the Emirates. Arsenal had massive amounts of possession but almost no scoring chances. Milan's average age was up around 31 and ours around 24. Age before beauty? Never.
Adebayor had the only really good chance in the final minute, latching onto a very nice cross from Walcott and banging it off the cross bar. The keeper was out of the play and Adebayor appeared to lose his footing before ducking his head blind to the header. The game ended a scoreless draw. Good news is we did not concede an away goal. Bad news is that we went two games running without scoring and appeared to be losing our mojo.
How to cap a week like that? Go to Birmingham City, dangerous bottom-dwellers that they are, and concede a last minute penalty for a 2-2 draw. What's worse than that? The knowledge that you played said bottom-dwellers with a man advantage nearly the whole game because one of your brightest young players had his leg broken in four places by a horrific tackle.
Eduardo shimmied away from two defenders in the opening minutes of the game and Martin Taylor came in late with his studs up and nailed the stationary plant foot. It took the medical staff ten minutes to get Eduardo off the field and you could see the sick looks on the faces of the players standing around him. Word is he will be out at least a year.
When the game resumed Arsenal looked shaken but in the second half they played much better. Theo Walcott scored twice in five minutes to give the Gunners a lead and Adebayor missed a handful of good chances again, stretching out his mini-slump.
The game would have been a bitter pill to swallow even without the 95th minute penalty by James McFadden that took two points from out title hopes.
So that's that. A miserable week. A loss and two draws. The damage, though, was not irreparable. A couple of goals at San Siro and we are Champs League semi-finalists. Should we smash Villa, we'd be top of the league too. But the margin for error is gone now and the team is not playing well. The next week will very likely decide the lasting legacy for this year's Gunners.
Lest any United or Chelsea fans take my prolonged silence as an admission of defeat, I've decided to pull myself up off the mat to write about Arsenal's worst week of the season thus far-a week so reminiscent of last year when, in a span of days, the Gunners were eliminated from the league cup and Champs league and had their title hopes mathematically extinguished.