A panda walks into a restaurant, sits down and orders a sandwich. After he finishes eating the sandwich, the panda pulls out a gun, pops the waiter and stands up to go.
“Hey,” shouts the manager. “Where do you think you are going, you just shot my waiter and didn’t pay for your sandwich!”As he’s leaving, the panda shouts back, “Hey man, I’m a panda, look it up.”
The manager opens his dictionary and sees the following definition:
Panda – a tree dwelling, Asian bear, characterised by its distinct black and white colouring. Eats, shoots and leaves.
Anyway, enough of that, what has happened to our midfield. A few seasons ago, the regular shout around The Emirates/Highbury was, “Shoot, for gods sake shoot” as our midfield again searched for the extra pass, only to see another opportunity to test the keeper fizzle to nothing.
I can still hear John Motson;
‘And it’s Hleb to Flamini to Rosicky to Fabregas to Helb, 12 yards out, he must score, oh, he’s passed sideways to Rosicky… and so on.
This season alone, the stats speak for themselves. With a third of the season gone, our three main midfielders have scored 20 goals. In the aforementioned seasons our midfield would average 20 goals between them. Go figure!
It doesn’t really matter if this is the Mesut Ozil effect or whether we’ve just realised that ‘if he shoots, (more than likely) he scores’, the figures in the top left are in positive to The Arsenal and that’s all that counts.
Also, I know it’s Arsenal tradition that the captain decides on sleeve length before the game, but isn’t it going a bit far when players are ‘cutting’ their sleeves off before the game because ‘I’ve been playing at the top level for 10 years. I like to wear short sleeves, that’s what I do’ and then having a strip ‘torn’ off them in public.
1 – Surely what goes on in the dressing room, stays in the dressing room.
2 – Does it really matter? I’m more interested in the passion in the shirt, not the amount if material used on the shirt!
3 – If it’s that big of a problem, Vic Akers should strip search the players for sharp objects before entering the dressing room?
TheSundayMorningGooner: taking applications for someone to undertake a strip search
Steve Wellman
English by birth, Australian by choice. Traffic Engineer, Arsenal ST Holder, Sun DreamTeam Winner, Writer on @GunnersTown, Depeche Mode, Welcome to my world…
John Motson’s comment about the passing frenzy still rankles me.
It’s this reluctance to shoot that could have caused the drought.
Thankfully this season,there has bee n a refreshing change.