Kevin Whitcher's Arsenal Blog

Arsenal 3 Tottenham Hotspur 1     Premier League     Sunday 26th September 2021 4.30pm     I admit to traveling in hope rather than expectation to yesterday’s North London derby, although it must be said that Spurs’ record in fixtures at both Highbury and the Emirates has been very patchy for going on 30 years now. Still, it can’t be argued that overall, they have performed the better of the two clubs since 2016, certainly in terms of league position, and we had that nightmare of them reaching a Champions League final. I still shudder at the thought they could have won that game.   The match was preceded by a minute's applause for the sadly departed Jimmy Greaves. I was relieved it was done that way, rather than a minute's silence - not only is it more fitting (and celebratory of a life), it doesn't leave room for the odd numbskull to show disrespect. I was amazed, astonished and grateful for the dignity of the minute's silence for David Rocastle befor...

  Arsenal 3 AFC Wimbledon 0     League Cup 3rd Round     Wednesday 22nd September 2021 7.45pm     So let’s start with the chaos outside the stadium with a midweek evening match that saw far more attendees than are normally seen at an Arsenal game on such occasions. The tickets were cheap, not many season ticket holders took up their option to buy a seat, and so we had a crowd that had a lot of people who were not that familiar with attending the stadium since increased security measures were introduced. And of course, for obvious reasons, a lot of people turn up a bit closer to kick off than they can help, and there are often streams of latecomers after the game has kicked off.   But nothing like yesterday evening. The stands had a lot of empty seats at the start of the game, for a match which – although not sold out – wasn’t too far off being so. A lot of people arrived late. Ok. There was a lot of unfamiliarity with the new ticket readers in whi...

Burnley 0 Arsenal 1    Premier League    Saturday 18th September 2021 3pm    I remember Piers Morgan brought out a book on Arsenal’s Invincibles season in the summer of 2004, which was mainly cobbled together from his rehashing of Daily Mirror match reports and his watching the games on Match of the Day. As a season ticket holder, he did attend a few of the matches at Highbury, but I was struck by what a lazy book it was, especially as he didn’t ‘fess up that he hadn’t actually attended many of the games. There was a serious lack of the insight, depth or anecdote that came from, for example, former Gooner contributor Bernard Azulay’s excellent account  of the same season. So the reason I state this is because, faced with the choice of watching a likely unreliable stream of the game (I had no intention of travelling to Turf Moor, as in my old age, I am getting more choosy about my away trips) and seeing my 19 year old son play for his Saturday afternoon...

Arsenal 1 Norwich City 0   Premier League   Saturday 11th September 2021   3pm     It was a welcome Saturday afternoon 3pm kick off, in short shirt-sleeved weather for the Arsenal’s second home game of the season. There is a hope that the Gunners might be playing a lot more games at the once traditional kick off time, because they are not in the Europa League and thus not on a Thursday – Sunday cycle. However, there are seven teams in Europe – which will generally mean that the Monday (and occasional) Friday evening slots will not be troubled by any of them much of the time, and Arsenal have already filled two of those in one week in October, both at home. Oh joy. Friday evening, I can live with, but Mondays… it brings to mind the Boomtown Rats for those readers of a certain age. Still, let’s return to Saturday and it’s fair to say that this was a ‘must win’ game in terms of Arsenal having any hope of doing anything at all this season in the Premier League. At h...