|
|
England vs France
Wembley Stadium. Wednesday 10th February 1999
Friendly
|
See NewsReel for
breaking news |
|
Everyone has known for years that the Arsenal defence is the best
in the country (if not the world) and that they're all English.
It is absolutely scandalous that only Tony Adams and
David Seaman have been recognised by successive managers,
that Martin Keown has had to play second fiddle to the likes
of Southgate and Campbell,
and that Lee Dixon, Nigel Winterburn and
Steve Bould have been so overlooked (ok, so Lee had his
chances...).
So we say...
Well done Howard Wilkinson!!!
(but what about Bouldy?
what better cover for Tony and Martin could you wish for?)
|
- Monday 8th February
It is announced that Lee Dixon has been added to the England squad,
a move forced on new manager Howard Wilkinson by several injuries, the
latest being to Man Utd defender Gary Neville.
- Tuesday 9th February, AM
ArseWeb calls for the addition of Nigel Winterburn to the
squad, in this NewsReel item
by Simon. Without wanting to take anything away from Dixon's
much-deserved call-up, if anything Winterburn has had the edge over
him this season and last. Together with the fact that England are
notoriously short of (decent) left-sided players, surely the nutty boy
deserves the same as Dixon?
- Tuesday 9th February, PM
Clearly moved by our demands, and possibly influenced by the transfer
of Andy Hinchcliffe to the injury list (from the "shit, but English
and left-footed" list), Wilkinson calls up our Nigel. He comes
in as back-up for Graeme Le Saux. Fingers crossed that we'll see
all 5 of them together at some point.
|
As if all this wasn't enough,
Matthew Upson
scored the winner as England U21 came back from 1-0 down to beat their
French counterparts at Pride Park on Tuesday night. He chested down a
a Seth Johnson free-kick before putting away a close-range shot.
It was Upson's
second international goal in 2 games.
Full line-up (expected)
England
|
France
|
England are obviously at a strong advantage with 4 or 5 Arsenal players
compared to only 2 or 3 for France.
|
Not only that, but France may suffer from having a greater
complement of Chelsea players.
It's hard to see why, when they could have
picked another 4 from our ranks! (and that's ignoring Willie Huck)
|
- The Evening Standard last week said that "all 5 London-based French
players"
had been selected for the French squad. Err, wakey wakey Standard people,
we've 7 at Arsenal alone. And I'm told there's a Frenchman playing
at Tottenham too.
Lee Dixon
- "Jeremy Beadle's coming out in a minute, isn't he?"
- "I told him [son Josh] 'he [Wilko]wants Daddy to play for England'. He told my
daughter Olivia and they had tears in their eyes as they asked me
'does that mean you're not going to play for Arsenal any more?'"
- "I said to Manu Petit, 'I'll see you on Thursday when we've given you a good hiding'. He just laughed and said 'I don't care, I've won the World Cup'
"Now I can go out there against him. And you know I'll give 100%. I'm determined to savour the moment and... er... try to kick Manu"
|
Nicolas Anelka
- "For me, it is more important to score for France in this game
than it was in the FA Cup final last year"
- "We must not lose to England - it is a question of honour. In
general, English footballers like to feel superior to us.... they
are only thinking of one thing - and that is to beat us and
humiliate us."
Arsène Wenger
- ...has called for the match to be switched to the Arsenal training
ground at London Colney. Just in case this happens at the last minute,
here are directions to the training
ground
|
Triv
- The combined age of the Arsenal back 5 is 168. It is almost
9 and a half hours since they last conceded a goal in the Premiership.
- If people's choice Terry Venables is made England manager after this
match, he'll be able to make his first act the same as it was when he took
over the first time: to drop Lee Dixon.
- Lee's last England match was more than 5 years ago in
November 1993. It was the last match under Graham Taylor:
the 7-1 beating of San Marino which featured a goal against England in the
first 10 seconds, and 4 goals from Ian Wright.
|
-
This won't be the first time that France have played in England and
half the players came from Arsenal. Back in the spring of 1989
(Valentine's day actually) France
were entertained at Highbury by George Graham's Arsenal.
The match was
a warm-up for the French for their forthcoming match against Scotland,
and GG was criticised north of the border for this. But he got the last
laugh, as the Gunners took France apart and won with goals from Alan Smith
and Martin Hayes.
The crowd were singing "Arsenal for England". This was
nearly 10 years ago, and the Arsenal defence featured Adams, Dixon,
and Winterburn.
|
- French boss Roger Lemerre and player Youri Djorkaeff
want revenge!
JFD writes from France:
France lost 5-0 at Wembley 30 years ago (the game was played on 12 march
1969). England was then the World Champions and Georges Boulogne the French
national team newly appointed coach [Quite the opposite today ;-)].
Roger Lemerre played then centre-back and says,
'I felt I could
cope with the English style of play, I thought I had the qualities to face
them. The match was played under typical british weather conditions and was
lost within 15 mins. I remember the O'Grady England first goal, Hurst
scored three afterwards. Problem with the English players is that they never
give up and give everything during the 90 mins of play. You have to live
that once during your lifetime. This match was however good fun...'
Youri D.' s father nicknamed 'Tchouki' played too (right-back?) and never
told his son of the match, as you can imagine!
Arsenal Defence (0) 0 - 2 (0) Arsenal Attack
England
Seaman (Martyn h-t)
Dixon(FedinandR) Adams Keown Le Saux
Beckham Ince Redknapp Anderton
Shearer Owen (Cole)
Anelka (???)
Djorkaeff (Vieira) Zidane Pires (Dugarry)
Petit Deschamps
Lizarazu Desailly Blanc(LeBoeuf) Thuram
Barthez
France
|
This report will focus on the Arsenal players involved, hence there's
an emphasis on the French attack and the English defence. But to be
fair on the French that's not a bad reflection of the balance of play.
Arsenal saw plenty of action in the first half,
including 3 missed chances, although 2 of them might not
have counted.
The first of these came from a Beckham free-kick from the right corner.
Adams got a free header at it but put his effort just wide. It looked
like it might not have counted since there was a foul just in front of him
as a the blocking defender was taken out gridiron-style by a flying white
shirt.
Dixon's first action, apart from a misplaced pass, was to
clobber Lizarazu. Shortly afterwards Djorkaeff got the
better of Lee and fed Anelka. Nicky took it wide and turned it
back into the box, but his cross fell between strikers and was cleared.
England's next chance was created by Martin Keown. His hoofed ball up
to Shearer on the edge of the penalty area was so good that the England
captain could hardly fail to play the ball to Owen's feet. He took it
into the area under challenge and while the Liverpool man's shot was feeble,
it had Barthez diving the wrong way and forced him to save with his feet.
Keown had to clear from Petit, after a deflection off Dixon's
heel took the ball dangerously close to Petit (although Seaman
was probably close enough to deal with it).
Dixon clobbered Lizarazu again.
Keown fouled Djorkaeff in the face with his elbow (;->),
but the same player's shot went well over from the free-kick.
England were getting their share of the play at this stage, but when they had it
the French looked a whole lot classier. One excellent spell of possession football
ended when Emmanuel Petit fed Anelka on the edge of the box. With his
back to goal he turned sharply to his left and with 2 defenders in close
attendance almost managed to catch Seaman out with an angled shot back across
the keeper.
Thuram tried a 1-2 with Petit, but couldn't get past Adams's raised arm. The free-kick
was cleared by a Keown header. The resulting corner was headed down by Desailly
and Anelka tried a first time shot on the turn from point-blank range. It was awkward for
Anelka, and a good effort, but he only succeeded in diverting the ball to Seaman.
As it happened Desailly was penalised for a foul in getting to the header.
Owen's pace created an England corner on their right, which fell to Keown on the
far side of the box. For a left-footed Keown volley, a few yards high is pretty
good going.
The second half saw Nigel Martyn come on for Dave Seaman.
Petit evaded a couple of challenges bringing the ball forward. Keown stopped him, only
to find that one of theose challenges had been penalised. Zidane blasted the free-kick
into the wall where it met with Tony Adams' face and decided to change course.
Then it was Anelka's turn to skip past a couple of tackles. He fed Zidane but Adams blocked.
Then Anelka finally got the better of Adams, who was caught out stepping up for offside
a bit too late. Anelka got clear and his powerful volley had Seaman beat but crashed down
off the underside of the bar and bounced out. Replays were inconclusive but you had the
feelign that if the linesman had been Russian instead of German Anelka might have just
scored France's first ever goal at Wembley.
But shortly afterwards he did score, thanks mainly to an exquisite first-time flick
from Zidane, lobbing the ball over the defender into Nicky's path. Graeme Le Saux
this time was trying to play offside but Anelka managed to stay level. Obviously
Seaman would have saved it ;-)
Shortly after there was a nasty clash of heads between Dixon and Dugarry. Worryingly,
Lee was stretchered off with concussion and replaced by Rio Ferdinand.
Then France got their second thanks to more wonderful play from Zidane, linking up
with Dugarry on their left corner of our penalty area to send Dugarry down to
the goal-line. He beat Ferdinand (never would have got past Dixon) and his low cross
was turned in by Anelka for his third goal for France.
There was still time for Martin Keown to pick up a hamstring injury, and in the last
10 minutes a couple of French substitutions saw Anelka go off and Vieira come on.
So, it was a class performance from the World Champions, with the Arsenal contingent
prominent in it. Our English players didn't have such a good night though. Seaman
had a good first half, and can't be blamed for the goals in the second. But it's
hard to believe he would have kept a clean sheet in this one, so dominant were the
French in the second half. Adams and Keown were good in the air but exposed too
often when the French tried passing through and past them. Dixon worked hard and
didn't have a bad game, certainly better than a few England right-backs I've seen
in the last few years. If anything England's cause was lost further forward, with
Ince Redknapp and Anderton all underperforming woefully.
Keown will be out for 3 weeks and is a definite non-starter for the Man Utd game
next Wednesday. Dixon was taken to hospital as a precaution and is doubtful both for
Saturday's FA Cup tie and the Man Utd match. It's a terrible shame to
lose them for the sake of an international, and a friendly one at that, and a lot
of Arsenal fans are going to be saying "told you so". "Why get excited about
International call-ups for our players?", they'll ask, "it doesn't help Arsenal,
and there's always a chance that it'll harm us through injury". Well, while we
should obviously always put the club first, I'd say there's a limit. And if we want
the players to care about the club it's only fair that we think about them once
in a while. It doesn't help Arsenal that Bergkamp scored the goal of the World Cup
or that Petit scored in the World Cup final. With international call-ups just as with
these achievements and accolades, when these things happen it's nice
for the players and we should be happy for them. Not that Lee Dixon
will be feeling particularly happy this morning...
Rupe.
Other reports
copyright belongs to original author where credited. otherwise © Rupert Ward, ArseWeb MMV
ArseWeb is NOT the official Arsenal site. The (excellent) official site is here
|