Drawing’s for artists

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Last night: good 1-0 win, not spectacular, plenty of missed chances from the usual culprits but a result we sorely needed. It’s too far in the past, in blogtime, to make any further comment than that. For what it’s worth, and having given him the benefit of the doubt, my Baptista umm-and-aah-ometer is currently more aah than umm.

I just couldn’t let the evening pass without a mention of the comedy proposals to ensure all draws end with a result by tagging on penalty shootouts. To borrow a phrase from the legendary Pete and Dud, I haven’t laughed so much since Auntie Mabel got her left tit caught in the mangle.

Are they for real? The whole essence of football is win, lose, draw, and this would change things so fundamentally – a bit like the proposal prior to the World Cup in the USA in ’94 to have four quarters to make room for more ads, or the other one some time ago to make goals bigger. It’s a non-starter and what surprises me most is that some very important people are even considering it. It’s unbelievable. As Roddy Forsyth pointed out on 5 Live last night, it’s so bonkers that, in an extreme scenario, a team could win the league without scoring a single goal in open play.

But hey, why stop there? Maybe we should change it so that if strikers score it should only be half a goal, as they’re meant to score. If a midfielder nets it’s one and a half, a defender two, and if the keeper knocks one in it’s three goals and everyone in the ground gets free buffalo wings and lemonade.

Back to Arsenal, anyway, and we’re off to to Merseyside on Sunday for the second of our three consecutive away games. We’ll be without Clichy and Eboue, both injured, though Kolo is back. The revolving door of injuries has been unbelievable this season. Bad luck? It doesn’t feel like it.

Jim

Arsenal since about 1979. Thick, thin and all that.