Chelsea vs Arsenal. 30/09/95

Chelsea (0) 1 - 0 (0) Arsenal. 30th Sept 95

Arsenal: 
Seaman Dixon Adams Keown Bould Winterburn
Jensen Parlour Merson
Wright Bergkamp
    subs: Helder, Hartson (not used), Bartram (not used).
Scorers: Hughes

A pretty dirty game, all in all. Wise was all over Jensen, who gave as good as he got, Keown was battling with Furlong and Hughes, Bould was floored by an elbow in the face from Hughes, in the Chelsea area, as Merson prepared to send in a corner. Arsenal had all the territorial advantage in the first half, and Chelsea relied on counter-attacks.

In the second half the game was still going Arsenals way, when the ref awarded a free kick against Nutty, near the corner flag, as he made what seemed a good tackle, from the resulting free kick Furlong(?) headed over, but Chelsea were awarded a corner, from which they scored after a scramble.

Hughes had several more tussles, Keown and Jensen were both laid low by bad tackles, Gullitt was taken out by Parlour, who earned a yellow, Bergkamp got booked but didn't do too much else, he was very tightly marked.

Helder came on late in the game, and immediately tore into the Chelsea defence, setting up several good attacks, he even got clean through into the area with only the keeper to beat, but once again tried to hit the ball with the outside of his foot, as the travelling gooners urged him to welly it into the net-he sliced it across the goal again.

Helder was playing along the touchline, right by the Arse fans, so we were able to give him a bit of encouragement, and he certainly gave his all, despite the ferocity of some of the tackling. Let's hope he can learn to overcome his problem in front of goal, -Brian Marwood -he ain't

Saw Tom Watts in the pub, and Matthew Harding. The chelsea ground _still_ looks like a monstrosity, the team is very mediocre, and we always seem to get a dodgy ref at the Bridge, Bodenham seemed like a "home" ref, on another day we might have had two penalties.

Still, I think Bruce should have sent Helder on at the start of the second half, to run down the wing in front of the Arse fans, and pose Chelsea problems. We, once again, seemed to lose possession of the ball, rather than playing quality balls to Bergkamp or Wright, there was too much hoofing forward. Helder was only getting warmed up and the match was over.

All these opinions subject to modification once I have seen MotD tonight;-)

this report from Mick Winnett.

Well apparently 31 048 poor sods paid up to see this spectacularly frustrating game. I would imagine that most went away happy but not many among the 2000 or so poor Arsenal support. As most have already commented, the ground is an armpit, no hang on more like a groin, of a place. From reading the program on the way home it looks as though Bates needs more money rainsed to finish the building that has already been started, but even then Stamford Bridge will still be thoroughly unpleasant, even before its filled with those frightfully nice Chelsea supporters. There were further apologies about the paucity of tickets available for the away supporters, but none for the 20 quid ticket price. And to think that those d**kheads sitting above and behind us were paying 35 quid. I mean WHY?

Still onto the game. I think the new formation was fairly positivein concept, but fell down from the fact that Winterburn and to a lesser extent Dixon are not quick or skillful enough to push up effectively to make a difference up front. Defensively we looked pretty sound in open play, as the trio of Adams, Bould and Keown seemed to cope with most of what was thrown at them. Without a doubt they are the three best defensive players we have and this seemed a pretty good way of playing them all, but without the problem of sending Keown into the midfield to show his great distributive skills (not). Once again our defending at set piece play was a problem and now 3 of the 5 goals let in this season have come from set pieces. Presumably Bruce is too preoccupied trying to teach the lads to pass a football to spend too much time on defending free kicks and corners. Nor can he be polishing our set pieces up. Our corner taking has let us down a bit recently. We only have one ploy, the Bould flick on, Tony to head it in. Well obviously Hughes and co had seen this, easy to defend, just nudge The Bald One as the corner comes in, even better as the ref. doesn't seem to mind, why not just elbow him to pieces and kick him a bit afterwards?

As everyone else seems to have noted the rest of the game was pretty much a brawl. Where I was sat I got a good look at Wise poleaxing JJ several times including some great over the top tackles, studs up and flying and a couple of rugby tackles not to mention two punches and a sneaky elbow. He also had a couple of turns at Keown. I'm afraid this provoked me and a few others around me into a mass Matthew Simmons lookalike competition but all the little git would do was snarl at us. Now if only I had a taxi. The next worst was Hughes but that can come as a surprise to nobody. I particularly enjoyed the coupe of times he gobbed into the Arsenal section of the crowd, now that was really nice. In the light of these goings on the ref, Mr Bodenham was completely useless. Rioch was roundly critised in the press here, for publically complaining about him, and will probably be getting a call from Lancaster Gate for his trouble but I ask you 5 Gunners booked and only Wise for Chelsea. The sending off was in the 88th minute and up till then Spackman was one of the few Chelsea players I didn't want to belt. Not that we were entirely blameless but I'm afraid I may have had my red and white specs on at the time. Just for the record the ref also missed a great handball by Gullit in the box after about 5 mins, but then again it was a Maradonaesque handball on the blindside of the ref (you could almost admire it).

Everything went wrong after half time, the goal coming from a corner (looked like a goal kick to me) after a free kick for, well nothing. Predictably we looked a little slow and Hughes took his goal well. We then fell apart for 20 minutes and wern't in the game until Helder came on. He seemed to scare the Chelsea defence shitless, and provoked Johnsen I think into diving at his feet, like a rugby tap tackle which knocked Helder to his knees, result goal kick to Chelsea. He also had one clear chance on goal which he should have tuckled away no problem. His finishing and to a lesser extent his crossing need some work, his pace and control however are superb, he should have been starting the game or should at the very least come on soon after the goal was scored.

Merse was terrible. I know Chelsea were his team as a lad but I mean! He didn't look interested, was slow in mind and body. Seeing as Bergkamp was drawing two or even three defenders he should have been able to create some space getting away from one, but he seemed, especially in the second half, to move into Bergkamp's space and bring another defender in to crowd Dennis. Now that he has sorted the rest of his life out, let's hope he can get his game back together again as well.

Once again Bergkamp was excellent, but denied room by Chelsea and not provided with enough suitable service and very few options when he had the ball. Wright was lost for most of the game, but this wasn't his fault. Dennis did manage to get one great shot in to the keeper's left and low into the corner, taking a cheeky bounce a yard or so out,Kharine got to it but then almost let it roll out of his grasp into the net but it rolled off for a corner instead.

All in all an enjoyable afternoon except for the result and no good football. Plenty of scrapping, fair amount of crowd involvement, generally loads of commitment but bugger all else to smile about.

Now tomorrow, can we pleeeeeeease see Wright, Hartson, Bergkamp, and Helder all on at the same time please, Bruce, please? You can have Linighan, Keown and Jensen on the bench ....just in case, if you must.

This report from Dom Corry.

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