Pub: A great pub called the Crown and Cushion near Lambeth North station. An Irish pub--if you couldn't tell by the plastering of Guiness propaganda covering every inch of the wall--, it has a great atmosphere with unoffensively-sized screens for sport, and prices hovering around a healthy £3.80 a pint (and the Guiness is surprisingly good value for its £3.60 price tag).
Football: My life was coasting until two days ago. Uni work was going fairly well, getting on wonderfully with all the people in my life, and--though some might consider it petty--Arsenal were top of the league after the best start to the season. I was looking forward to this match for about a week and woke up singing the Giroud song to the acute annoyance of my girlfriend. Arrived at the pub early with a friend of mine--Liverpool fan--in order to get a good seat, and I had a full pint of Guinness for the kick off. Perfect.
Instantly I had a strong feeling of malaise. Giroud and Ozil (apologies for the lack of umlaut) passed it back from the centre and we punted a speculative (at best, moronic at worst) ball over the heads of Sagna and Oxlade-Chamberlain to concede possession within about five seconds. Then Mertesacker needlessly conceded a foul on Suarez who was going nowhere to allow Liverpool to get a ball into the box, all within thirty seconds. While our defence has been solid this year, we have as a team been vulnerable to set-pieces for about eight years now, and this year have conceded the highest proportionate number of goals from them. This flashed through my mind as Gerrard smacked a cracker into the box and, not a minute after we had kicked off, I was staring into the swirling black mass of Irish booze while my friend, bless him, managed to half-restrain himself from gleefully shouting in my face. Only half though.
After that first went in I scrambled to recall the times this season when we'd come back from a goal down to win a game. Aha! West Ham! 1-0 to 3-1 in the blink of an eye. Then I tentatively thought past this initial memory to remember the times when against Villa, West Brom, United, Manchester City, and Swansea, we conceded first and proceeded to drop points. As this thought crossed my mind, another Liverpool cross came and Skrtel's bald head put--to be fair--a perfect header into the top corner. That's fine, I thought, We can score at least two. The third came and I remembered Arshavin's four goals against Liverpool in the 4-4 draw a few seasons ago. The fourth came and I was ready to leave there and then.
As far as I saw it there were two main problems with our performance; the first was complacency, and the second was structure. As to the first I don't think I can remember the last game where we gave away so many balls or free kicks in the middle of the pitch leaving ourselves so vulnerable at the back which always looks more frail without Flamini. The first goal was down to Mertesacker conceding a foul in a fairly innocuous position. The third (Ozil pathetically falling to the floor under pressure from Henderson), fourth (again, Ozil passing a straightforward ball to a Liverpool player), and fifth (Koscielny inexplicably playing the offside trap) were all down to Arsenal's failings.
Fair play to Liverpool, who allowed Arsenal no time on the ball by pressing extremely well when not in possession and counter-attacking with pace when they were, but I have to question Arsene's tactics. Without Flamini, Arteta or Wilshere should have sat in front of the back line; instead, they wandered forward, which meant that if the ball was lost there was only the paceless Merteacker, slow Monreal (who deservedly came off for Gibbs) and stranded Koscielny to defend against some of the quickest players in the league- Sturridge, Suarez, Coutinho and Sterling. A rare admission of guilt I think shows that Wenger knows he didn't set his team up appropriately.
Since Saturday, then, I have a ton of work to do, I've had arguments with my friends and girlfriend, and every time I've looked out of the window it has invariably been raining. And people still say football doesn't matter.
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