Update: Ok, I watched the match. As I guessed, it looked as if the boys were having themselves a grand old time. I hope this spirit carries them into next season. The classic moment of the match for me was watching Manu and Eboue positively ridicule Rob Earnshaw for his earlier goal celebration. Someone needs to sit Rob down and tell him that he’s a major reason why his club is going down harder than any other club in Premiership history. You wait until the 3rd to last game to score your first goal? And then, celebrate as if you do this all the time? FFS, man… Perhaps he was dancing because he just earned himself £3,500,000 for a single goal? Arseblogger says he’s “Football’s only Ferengi” which nearly made me piss my draws when I read it. Too rich.

Don’t have much to say on this one yet, as I haven’t seen it. I have it recorded, but couldn’t get around to watching it. I was trying to avoid news of the score but accidentally caught it on my Google homepage. Oh well, it’s not like a big game, but it will still be fun to watch and I haven’t missed a match all season and I’m not about to start now.

It appears the lads had themselves another fun match, and got to blood a new keeper as well. Good experience, I say. We may have serious need of Lukasz Fabianski next season. Emmanuel Adebayor got himself into the record books as the only player to score both home and away hat tricks against the same team in the history of the Premier League. Way to go Manu! And he’s only 4 shy of that irritating fop El Miraculo, so you just never know… if Manu goes on a tear and Boy Diver has a dry spell, our man may yet take the Golden Boot. A long shot, yes. Stay tuned…

Although last night’s result was not unexpected in light of the season that Derby has had, the win was important in that it sealed 3rd place for us. There’s a minuscule glimmer of hope that we might catch one of the current leaders, but I really can’t imagine that happening. I’m confident that we’ll take our final 6 points, despite the fact that neither of them can be considered a banker. But it’s even more likely that both Manchester United and Chelsea will take their final 6 as well. The only potential ripple I see is the West Ham match at Old Trafford. As unlikely as a home loss might seem… football is a fickle and mysterious mistress. You just never know. Manchester will either be on a high coming off the Barcelona match, or a low… we’ll see. Either way, they’ll be tired. And Alan Curbishley will know it. We’ll see… because Chelsea only has to face Newcastle away and then Bolton at the Bridge. I can’t see them dropping even a point with that schedule. Man U winds up the season with Wigan away. If they both take their 6 points, The Red Devils will have the silverware on a Goal Differential that Chelsea have no prayer of catching. This is far more interesting than knowing the winner 4 weeks out, right?

Shotfest. It was nice to see the lads have a match where the pressure was off and they could just think about playing football. They looked comfortable, they looked fluid, they looked sharp… in short, they were having fun. And after the brutal season they just went through, good for them.

The score doesn’t reflect the match very well. It could easily have been 4-0. So many shots went just wide or banged off the woodwork, I couldn’t believe it. I was actually chuckling to see some of them go so close. And then it dawned on me… I must have been feeling some of that pressure myself, because I enjoyed watching this match more than any other in recent memory. It’s fun again. Perhaps not as exciting…. scratch that… it was exciting. Damn exciting. Just because there’s less at stake now doesn’t make the football less beautiful. I’m very much looking forward to the remaining matches.

And how about that great moment after Gilberto Silva scored? An absolute outpouring of affection from the whole team to show their happiness for him. It just goes to show you that just because a player doesn’t have quite the same form as they had in the past, it doesn’t always diminish their importance to the other players. Even riding the bench, he’s always been a solid, stand-up fellow and I, for one, will be sad to see him go when that day arrives.

Endgame. Despite our boys playing the better game, we were outdone… yet again. So, that wraps up our season, and that match pretty much defines the last few months. All we have left to play for now is to hold third and perhaps take a stab at 2nd place. It would be nice to go right to the Group Stage in the Champions League next year, but we’ll need some slip up by Chelsea in order to make that happen now with only 12 points left to play for.

All I keep hearing about since the match are that Arsenal and its fans are going to come away for yet another season… with nothing. I beg to differ. Prior to the slide we took in ‘08, which I peg to be either the 0-4 defeat to Man U on February 16th or the infamous Birmingham draw a week later, we played quite a lot of good football. Somewhere on the order of 40 games, with almost no losses, dozens of beautiful goals and a passing game that is unrivaled in the world of football. And that, my fine Gooner friends, is not nothing. I’ve written before and maintain still, that I would rather be an Arsenal fan whose team is about to come off the season with no silverware to show, than be a Chelsea fan whose team still has something to play for. And that’s only for all that beautiful football that we get to see. It’s about the football, not the laurels. And on that score, we won in all competitions long ago.

So, I’m proud of my team, and consider myself lucky to have wound up a fan of one of the few sides left in the world that still plays the beautiful game beautifully. There’s always silverware to play for. Each year, they make more. In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy watching their final games of the season and then looking quite eagerly forward to a side that will emerge next season much stronger, much wiser and ready to fight yet again.

I should know better, but I’m going to post anyway… not 5 minutes after having watched the match.

I’m not going to whine about the penalty given for Babel’s run through the box. Any ref could have gotten that one wrong or right. It just didn’t go our way. Now we’re out…

But what a roller coaster ride that was, huh? Sure, it’s nicer to be a Scouser on that particular roller coaster, but damn… what a game. I’m completely gutted that we’re out, although I felt it coming. But, my friends… that’s how football should be. A white knuckle ride right to the final minute. And that’s what we got tonight. We just came up short this time. The Arsenal is out of gas for this year and needs to begin focusing on getting shit together for next season. Yeah, I know we’ve still got work to do and we’re not technically out of the title race yet, but… who are we kidding? We’re so thin with injuries and fatigue, it’ll be nice if we can just take second place in The Prem. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thoroughly looking forward to the clash at Old Trafford this weekend… I’m just not going to get my hopes up that this is the beginning of our run for the title. It’s not. It would be nice to be proven wrong on that count, but I won’t hold my breath.

I’d rather start looking forward to next season and getting some new talent in there to fill the ranks. We’ve got a side full of incredibly awesome players… we just asked too much of them too long this season. With some more depth, I just know this side can take any cup put before it next season. So, with that… I’d just like to say…

Arséne: Spend The Fucking Money

Really quite a frustrating piece of business to watch, it really was. We were pretty much just handled by Liverpool’s scrubs. Great fun. Manchester United drew with Boro, but somehow that doesn’t feel very reassuring. Not after seeing the way we played yesterday. I’m well aware we were resting as many players as we could for Tuesday… but I’ll be damned if this recent spate hasn’t had a negative impact on the team. They look done. I just hope they can get it back together enough in time for what’s seeming to be the only competition left to us. I hope I’m wrong about that. Arséne said we’d need 5 wins and a draw. Well… there’s your draw. But does this look like a team that can go WWWWW for the distance? Not likely… although, if we can get our first W by beating Manchester United, that may… may just give us the momentum we need to roll on. We’ll see… I know I’m grasping at straws, but they’re all I have to grasp at anymore.