Arsenal 1 – 1 Bolton: Like the North, really…
907 comments January 29th, 2007
…Very drab, very dour. If the team and the crowd have a reciprocal relationship designed to raise the roof and win matches, then both parties failed yesterday.
It’s not often I say this, but if you weren’t at the game yesterday, you can’t understand how frustrating it was. The team’s first-half performance was terrible, and the crowd were worse. It seems that those in attendance had seen the win over Manchester United, and now expected us to roll Bolton over without any support or encouragement. Half-time was greeted with a muted response; a Thierry Henry backheel that was cleared off the line not really lifting anything but Bolton’s resolve.
I was hoping the second half would change things, but it barely did. Whilst our performance improved, it took a well-worked Bolton goal to get a bit of noise out of the 60,000 present. Eventually, our pressure told, with Kolo Toure diving to head home a scrappy equaliser. Beyond that, our best chance fell to Theo Walcott, volleying wide after a good Emmanuel Adebayor cross.
Walcott, again, was not good. He is only seventeen and is probably our third-choice in that position, but the bright spark of the beginning of the season seems a long way off. When this ball dropped to him, as against Spurs, neither he nor the fans had any confidence he would finish. I’m sure he’ll get over this slump, but yesterday was evidence of just how much we will miss Alex Hleb.
And back to the crowd. It really disappoints me. Frankly, I feel embarrassed by the jibes of the away fans, because what they say is true. It’s bad enough our fans stupidly rowing on this blog (cut it out), but it’s something else entirely when the REDsection are forced to implore their own fans to start singing, with chants like “Sing Up For the Arsenal”, and “We forgot that you were here”. It’s not been like that at every game, but yesterday’s atmosphere was just horrible.
The frustration of the 90 minutes only increased after the game when it emerged that Julio Baptista may have a significant groin injury that could keep him out for up to three weeks. To panic buy or not to panic buy?
It really was a painful game. A bad game, for the first half at least. It’s not like our players didn’t try, but nothing came off. Rosicky dribbled well but picked the wrong pass, Adebayor had some very good good moments and some very bad, and despite keeping Anelka quiet Senderos fell over quite a lot (as is his custom). Maybe we really are afraid of Bolton, fans and players alike. I know I’m not, but either way, at least we didn’t lose to them, and we have a chance to go to the Reebok and get over this ridiculous hoodoo. Bolton are good, but if we can beat the likes of Man U and Liverpool, we can beat them.
