By now we all know what happened in Turin on Wednesday night, so a match report is unnecessary, neither are the constant whitterings of how the table would have ended up if team A beat team B and then over in Spain team C...etc etc...
By the time Ron Atkinson had talked himself into circles, I was even more confused over the final league standings than I was before the game started. And believe me, I was confused even then!
Will this be a turning point in our season again? And if so, will it be for the better, or for the worse? Remember back in 1999 when Dennis Bergkamp missed that penalty at Villa Park against Man United? Our season pretty much collapsed. Out of the cup and then our league title challenge flopped from either the exhaustion of a fixture pile up or the depression due to the realisation that the Double wouldn't be happening for the second year on the trot. Yet this time around, with Man United back in the Champions League race, and Liverpool finding performing at the highest level all quite exciting, will this leave the Premiership door open for us to walk through unguarded?
But one part of our potential domestic clean sweep which will have to be put to bed is this Saturday's FA Cup quarter final against the Toon. I'm sure these lot were meant to be the Christmas decorations of the Premiership and were meant to slowly subside in January. But they are still up there causing problems, and as we know, they are also doing so in the cup as well. Granted, the Arsenal that we saw at St. James Park was not the team that we all know and love, a mish mash of second stringers and those recovering from injury and certainly not fit enough to wear a red and white shirt in such an important match. But hey, injuries and suspensions meant that we couldn't pick and chose the sort of team that ran riot against Leverkusen at Highbury just a few weeks ago. Although Henry will still be sitting the game out we will hopefully have a more familiar feel to the team this time round.
So, the crux of this is, will our exit from the Champions League act as a catalyst for a domestic rampage, or will it act as a depressant that means that once again, we will end up with nothing?
It will be interesting to see how our players who are 'hungry' for success will react. Monsieurs Vieira and Henry have repeatedly gone on record saying how unhappy they are at always finishing as runners up. so when will we finally see them do something about it? Patrick, darling, as wonderful as you are, and we all know that you could walk into any national, let alone any club side, but you really haven't been your usual world class best this season. Am I asking to much? Not at £30 a ticket I'm not. Yes he's still a great player, but not compared to his usual standards. Great, but not wonderful. I no longer feel my breath catch in my throat when I see him play, he rarely leaves the half way line to push forward, nor does he trek back to help out in defence as mush as he used to. Am I immune to his powers now? Or has he really lost it?
As for the penalty debacle, we may as well refuse to take them now and just let play continue. It's not just penalty shoot outs any more, but those in open play. Two in a week? TWO IN A WEEK! Is that the price you pay for having your keeper save one at the other end? It's getting worrying when you trust Seaman more than Henry in a spot kick situation.
So what becomes of Arsenal remains to be seen, will we rise from the ashes, or get our fingers burnt for the fourth year in a row? Perhaps Saturday will give us some sort of indication as to whether this will again be our year.
Jackie Bass