Arsenal 1 Leicester 1 :-(
Highbury, 11th Feb 95, Premiership
att: 31,700
Linghan continued for the suspended Bould with Selley, Jensen, Merson
and Eddie in midfield. Kiwomya and Hartson continued up front. Poor
Chris Kiwomya probably thought he'd be leaving behind relegation
battles when he left Ipswich. This game should have been a
formality
after the opening 5 mins. Constant pressure bought a number of half
chances. Then Selley broke his leg going in for a 50-50 ball
showing
the sort of commitment that some of the other players could learn
from. For reasons known best to George, the obvious midfield
replacement
of Ray Parlour was overlooked for the never impressive Keown. Even
so Leicester were such a poor side that goals seemed inevitable.
Merson
looked the most likely source as he had a fine game. Kiwomya's pace
always threatened and Jensen had a curling shot easily saved.
When the goal finally came it seemed that victory would be ensured.
In
fact it was the otherwise hopeless Eddie that set it up from the
right
wing. A ball played neatly into the box, though slightly behind
Merson
was volleyed right footed past the helpless keeper by the Magic
Man.
Merson could have added a second when a curling shot went narrowly
wide. A string of corners bought little reward but the game was
being
completely dominated by Arsenal. Keown nearly got on the end of a
cross but somehow you just never expected him to score. As the game
drew on the fact that the score remained only 1-0 was getting rather
worrying. And so with ten minutes to go the game turned. Draper on
a run from the left edge of box skipped past two rather half
hearted
challenges and then buried the ball past Seaman. The shock of the goal
seemed to drain everything out of the players and in the last few
minutes they could have won the game. From a twice taken free kick
a fiercly struck shot was brilliantly tipped over by Seaman.
Someone
was booked for incroaching on the original free kick but I'm not
sure
who. Hartson was also booked after he just failed to get on the end
of a through ball before defender and goal keeper. In fact he did
rather go through the back of the defender but even so it was a
fair
challenge. In fact even the referee thought it was fair as he
awarded
the throw in and called on the trainer. It was some moments later
before heW decided to get his book out. The referee was pretty
inept
through out as he stopped first Kiwomya and the Merson going on
clear
runs in order to award us free kicks further back. George bought on
Parlour for Jensen with just two minutes left but it was to late.
So yet another home game that should have been a comfortable
victory
ends in a draw. Depressing times. I think it's probably just as
well
that the Man U game is postponed from this Saturday. THe new
provisional
date is March 22nd. This leaves March fixtures as:
Thur 2nd Auxerre(h)
Sun 5th West Ham (h)
Tue 7th Blackburn (a)
Sat 11th Liverpool (h)
Thur 16th Auxerre (a)
Sun 19th Newcastle (a)
Weds 22nd Man U (a)
An expensive month if ever there was one.
Report by Trevor Collins
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