Terrace Talk: Arsenal - Victory can’t hide that nearly-men feeling

There was much delight among travelling Gooners at being geographically blessed with the dream ticket promotion of Watford, Bournemouth and Norwich.

Nevertheless, it’s not until after having endured a seriously arduous away day outing that one feels truly immersed into this season’s campaign.

As ever, the long schlep back to London from Toon Town seemed suitably truncated, not only due to the three points, but with the time passing so much more pleasantly as we savoured the radio commentary from Stamford Bridge, with the Gobby One’s anniversary celebrations going so awry.

Despite St James Park being such a happy hunting ground, with the Gunners having not tasted defeat on the Toon’s home turf during the past decade, there was a prevailing mood of trepidation as we made our assault on the oxygen-starved altitude of Level 7 of the Leazes Stand on Saturday.

At last Monday night’s encounter with the Scousers, there was no hiding our lack of the cutting edge required to break our home goal-scoring duck. While the implication to be drawn from the Toon’s 0-0 draw at Old Trafford is that the Wally has been bashing heads with his Brolly. McClaren somehow appears to have introduced more steel into the Geordies’ previously porous defence.

The early KO in the north-east was this season’s first reaffirmation of the contempt those responsible for dictating live TV schedules hold for the travelling faithful.

Sadly, I might be ‘past it’, but for plenty of Gooners, Saturday’s untimely kick-off proffered an excuse to travel up the day prior. As evidenced by those arriving at the ground with obvious hangovers, after having taken out an insurance policy on a bad result by ensuring they’d been suitably hammered the night before. At the very least, they’d be returning home with happy memories of Newcastle’s “banging” nightlife.

Doubtless, the Geordies will contend that it was Andre Marriner who definitely got out of his bed on Wearside and that it was the card happy ref who was most in need of some Alka Seltzer. Yet with his aid, these Gooners were grateful to have enjoyed both their piss-up and the three points.

Considering the way renowned Gooner Mo Farah was simultaneously making history in Beijing, Arsenal could well do with some lessons in clinical finishing from Mo.

In their efforts to knobble the Gunners, the Toon shot themselves in the foot with their “over enthusiasm”. Yet as is so often the case, not only did the ref put the kibosh on a potentially entertaining encounter, he really didn’t do us any favours.

Mitrovic’s early bath left the Gunners looking as if they’d already won the game and without Coloccini’s inadvertent contribution, we might’ve found ourselves ruing our failure to press home our advantage.

The early start also meant that we made it home in time for Match of the Day, on which one couldn’t avoid the contrast between Walcott’s profligacy and Sterling’s clinical strike. Not to mention Arsène’s obliviousness to the opposition, preventing us from profiting from the sort of tactical half-time tinkering seen from Pellegrini.

With most of the competition splashing the cash like it’s going out of fashion, I refuse to believe that we lack sufficient financial muscle to secure any of those players being incessantly touted in the media.

Seemingly, it’s Le Prof’s parsimony that always leaves us waiting for the vagaries of the transfer merry-go-round to fortuitously deposit a star-name at our door, instead of simply stumping up whatever it takes to land our targets. Surely this is a false economy, if it leaves our squad with patent deficiencies.

Like most other Gooners, I let out an exasperated groan at being lumbered in Bayern’s way (yet again!) in Thursday’s Champions League draw, knowing that the likely limit of our ambitions will be another knockout stage exit, after qualifying in second place.

The old adage says that you can’t buy character. Yet without more firepower, or a viable alternative for Coquelin, our squad will be no better equipped to believe themselves capable of beating the likes of Bayern and it’s hard to envisage anything other than the same “nearly men” script that’s sadly become the Arsenal’s trademark.