So it’s our chums up north in the final – expect loads of old yarns about pizzas and vendettas to fill the papers between now and 21st May. It’s the final the media and telly dreamed for, I expect, but as a punter, it’ll do my nerves no good whatsoever. I’d settle for a similar result as 1979, except without the goals against column having the number ‘2’ in it.
You could say we’re due a win as apart from the charity shield, we’ve not won for a few seasons against them now. If only football were about what is due you.
I was going to write a suitably lengthy piece about yesterday, but I have woken up to what is known in the modern world as an ‘outage’, which means I am crouched over my laptop massaging a particularly slow dial-up connection. All I will say is that the team that wanted to play football won, and that I don’t blame the 15,000 Rovers fans who didn’t come. If I had to watch that team play every week, using such tactics as they employed, I’d do the same.
The day also ended on a sour note for me, as the Little Chef in Abergavenny, a venue that served us so well in 2003 on our return leg, has been closed down. I am reliably informed that Little Chefs are closing as fast as you can say ‘Olympic Breakfast’. It’s a bitter pill to swallow.
Couldn’t agree more, as soon as Blackburn put the talentless, nasty **** Savage on, I knew they were getting desperate (and I’m taling as aWelshman). Sorry about the Little Chef.
Blackburn had been reading too many of these simple-minded tabloids who say things like “Arsenal are a bunch of weak Frenchmen that can be bullied”. Sure Man U used a similar tactic against us, but at least they played some football. And for Mark Hughes to come out after the game and accuse Vieira of being a weakling is just a joke. Good riddance to them, I hope they get relegated next season.
Ok, rant over. Back to work everyone. Nothing to see here.
It has been a constant theme this season, particularly in the FA Cup remember Sheffield Utd, but also remember Van Bommels performance in Eindehoven. People forget there is a difference in being physical and fair and cynical fouling. The referee on saturday was week, several times players were obstructing by Blackburn Rovers while running through and the referee did nothing.
Fabregas gets booked for his first tackle and a player is booked for kicking the ball away when Dickov did the same. Savage’s foot first challenge on Fabregas’s knee didn’t even merit a free kick!
Trying to think whether it was a poor performance or whether bitty performances are inevitable when the other team play the way Blackburn do. It was worrying the lack of edge we have without Henry though.
Thought Cardiff was a good venue, 150 miles from London (Villa Park is 120) and 213 from Blackburn. It certainly made more sense than when we played Spurs at Old Trafford. There were also plenty of empty seats at Old Trafford when we played Sheffield United and they only had to travel 40 miles. Thought the singing was disappointing though, no originality.