TERRACE TALK: Arsenal - Mourning demise of the Boleyn... and our season

With Saturday’s encounter being our last ever London derby at the Boleyn, there was absolutely no way I was going to do the sensible thing and stop indoors to watch the game on the box, despite having been struck down by a debilitating lurgy last week.

I’ve been making the annual pilgrimage to Upton Park for so many years that I’d have needed to be literally on my death-bed, to miss out on this eagerly anticipated opportunity to bid the Hammers’ dilapidated football temple a fond farewell.

Mind you, compared to the end-to-end intensity of the utterly thrilling spectacle on the pitch, the abhorrent early kick-off meant the atmosphere on the day didn’t quite live up to my expectations.

But then as I keep trying to forewarn my West Ham pals, sadly they won’t fully appreciate the extent to which the Hammers’ world is about to evolve, until they’re ensconced in their far more glamorous, but lamentably sterile, new home in Stratford and like the Gunners, they suddenly discover that the soul of their club has been ripped out and replaced by a corporate cash register.

Call me a sentimental old fool, but as Upton Park goes the way of the spiritual homes of Highbury, Maine Road, Roker Park and all the other traditional bastions of the beautiful game being swept away by the irresistible tide of commercial progress, I become increasingly emotional, knowing there will soon come a time when the modern day product that is the EPL is exclusively confined to suitably profitable, but tragically anonymous and antiseptic arenas.

Sure clubs like ours continue to organise choreographed displays of red and white plastic bags, to con the TV audience into believing that the big match atmosphere prevails. Yet when one contrasts this with the sort of genuinely moving rendition of YNWA witnessed at the Scousers’ game in Dortmund in midweek, the Arsenal’s contrived efforts are so obviously counterfeit by comparison, as to leave me enviously coveting the matchday atmosphere of yesteryear.

Mercifully, the entertainment on offer on Saturday was so engrossing that there were no frills necessary to fan the flames of this fervent contest. Although I can appreciate Wenger wanting to keep faith in a winning formula, all talk prior to kick-off focused on his confounding decision to leave a fit Petr Cech on the bench, especially when Bilic had opted for the league’s most accomplished aerial presence in his starting XI.

Not that Andy Carroll exactly needs any more spring in his step but I’m certain he must’ve been enthused at the sight of Ospina on our teamsheet, instead of the more imposing physical presence of Cech.

With Ospina having already picked the ball out of his net twice before the Gunners began to find their mojo, only for the Hammers fans to be rightly incensed to have both goals ruled, one by customarily incompetent officiating, we knew we were extremely fortunate to find ourselves 2-0 up and cruising, only a couple of minutes away from the break. But it was the Arsenal’s stuttering season in microcosm that we couldn’t hang on to this lead until half-time.

For all the tactical nuances of top-flight footie, there are certain simple truisms, such as the essential need to deny the supply to the big lad in the box, that remain constant at every level.

We then assumed Arsene had lost the plot, when his answer to this problem was to leave us chasing the points in the last 20 minutes with no one other than Ramsey to defend in the middle of the park, having removed both Coquelin and Elneny.

Ultimately, a draw was probably a fair result. Sadly, yet again, instead of being able to celebrate a cracking game of football, a couple of publicity-seeking individuals poisoned the post-match mood, by inciting more disunity with their new anti-Arsene banner.

There’s nothing wrong with slating our absentee owner, with their other “Love Arsenal, Hate Kroenke” escutcheon, but lambasting our leader in front of his troops certainly doesn’t count as showing loyalty to the cause.

Up until now, the only essential objective has been to overhaul Spurs but suddenly we’re forced to contemplate the encroaching Mancunian threat. Playing first at the weekend is advantageous when one wins, but only offers succour to the competition when one fails to maintain the pressure. However, the lifebelt of Champions League football is unlikely to save us from drowning in the face of the tsunami of finishing below Tottenham.