Saturday, January 16, 2021

I Knew I Shouldn't Watch It...Arsenal 0-0 Crystal Palace

 That was an awful game.  My second post in this blog recommended "right viewing" and this game convinced me that watching Arsenal games live is a terrible idea for me.  I'm in a constant state of anxiety or frustration, depending on who has the ball where.  If we go a goal up, I know it'll probably be a desperate struggle to keep the opponents from scoring the rest of the way.  If we go down a goal, the game is almost certainly over.  I follow the score when I don't see it live, and when Arsenal went up 3-0 to Chelsea, I figured I'd turn it on--they'll show highlights afterward.  The first action was the Chelsea goal.  Then the penalty.  That's when I turned it off, figuring this was nature's way of telling me not to jinx the Gunners.  With me not watching, Leno saved the pen and all was well.  The Palace game was not fun at all.  They had the better chances (such as they were); we really didn't look as though we were even going to force their keeper into a good save.  This was a game I expected us to win.

The talent is there.  Hiring Willian was idiotic.  Buying Pepe was criminal at that price (maybe literally).  I'm still not sure what they saw in Cedric.  But the academy is coming up trumps, and the Tierney purchase was a great move.  We'll see if Partey can stay on the field.  I think we'll be all right as long as Leno doesn't get hurt.  The boys will be doing it without my full attention, which I'm sure is fine with them.

I like Mikel.  I do wonder if he can get the best out of this crew.  Those who were eager to push Wenger out (I was one) are finding out that he was not the problem after all.  Arsenal is not as fun to watch these days, and we sit in 11th.

No comments:

Post a Comment