Oh so low as Guns fall silent

AFTER the utterly devastating denouement of the Gunners’ season over the past few weeks, I’m afraid that like many of my fellow Gooners, I am all footballed out.

Even after 40 years of watching the Arsenal I still struggle to reconcile the ecstatic highs and gut-wrenching lows of last Tuesday’s Champions League exit. I guess that’s what makes this amazing sport such an addictive enigma. The euphoric peak of the scintillating perfection of Theo Walcott’s run from the edge of his own penalty area, to put what we all assumed would be the winner, on a plate for Adebayor, lifted all of us present to such a head-bursting, oxygen-deprived altitude that the subsequent thud was almost physical, as poor Kolo inadvertently pushed us off this lofty perch, by committing hari kari at the other end of the pitch only moments later.

I’ve some sympathy for poor Theo. As had been the case a few weeks prior against Birmingham, the boy wonder had come up with the goods, when we most needed them, with the sort of game-changing, sublime skills that deserved to decide a Champions League quarter-final. But instead of being the hero and grabbing all the headlines, just as at St Andrews, subsequent events ensured that Walcott’s contribution will only be remembered as a mere footnote.