The Hatters’ promotion from the fourth tier stirs memories of being a ballboy when they won the League Cup with an underdog comeback worthy of RockyTuesday marks the 30-year anniversary of one of the great Wembley cup finals – perhaps even the greatest. It was Luton versus Arsenal in the League Cup, underdog versus coming force, and to these eyes it had everything: four goals and a penalty save in the last 19 minutes, a whirler‑twirler of a match that swung one way and then the other and ended in a shock 3-2 win. Then again I am horribly biased, given I enjoyed my only experience as a ballboy that day.Even as a 13-year-old it felt like an out-of-body experience....
Arsenal manager seizes opportunity to talk about how worldwide image of the club has taken a battering, not helped by fans inside the EmiratesIt was never going to be a totally normal day. Even if so much of it slipped into the old routines – Arsenal played with every typical Arsenal characteristic and the crowd watched on without getting overly dramatic – there was a surreal sense that underneath it all nobody quite knew what to do about the bombshell. It felt like that quintessentially English thing of having a cup of tea or talking about the weather rather than delving into the deep emotional consequences of a turn of events everybody really cares about.During the game itself Arsène Wenger...
Harry Kane is out of sorts, Joe Hart soars before being floored, and Stoke must choose between youth and experience up frontWhile Southampton will take something from getting this far in the world’s most celebrated domestic cup competition there are other, more pressing priorities, such as making a late dash for safety in the Premier League. Can they take any hope from their performance? Not from the first half. Olivier Giroud’s goal at the beginning of the second period forced Mark Hughes to change things, however, and it was to his team’s benefit. A 3-5-2 became a 3-4-3 and suddenly Charlie Austin was getting service. Southampton will feel they could and should have had an equaliser before Chelsea settled the...
The Frenchman will doubtless receive a vociferous send-off in due course but the crowd’s response was low-key during the 4-1 victory over West hamThe promise had come from Ivan Gazidis. Arsène Wenger’s final game at the Emirates Stadium, the chief executive thundered, would feature “a send-off that the world will take notice of”. That is for later – 6 May against Burnley, to be precise. But what of the manager’s third last home match and, more importantly, the first since the announcement on Friday that he would walk away from Arsenal at the end of the season?The hope and, indeed, the expectation had been for an outpouring of affection to mirror that seen from within the game and across social media since...
His spellbinding peak is too long ago for anyone to still be in denial but as the Frenchman heads to the Arsenal exit it is time to cherish his best yearsThe saddest thing, perhaps, is that of all the thousands upon thousands of words that have been devoted to Arsène Wenger over the last couple of days, it is difficult to recall a single sentence arguing that this is all threatening to be one big mistake and that, contrary to what you might have heard, it isn’t the right time for him to go.It was difficult, however, not to appreciate the cartoon in Saturday’s edition of L’Equipe showing two Arsenal supporters debating the issue and the impression it left about...