Interesting interview with the captain, on the UTD debacle, who presented the award yesterday for the Sports personality of the year to a fellow Gooner Tony McCoy. He said
"They (UTD) were more aggressive than us. They have the belief that comes from not losing at all this season. That gives you a lot of help mentally.
"I'm realising more and more that football is all about confidence and mentality. Sometimes you do the right thing but, if people tell you it's not right, you start believing it, even though you were right at first.
"I think the difference on the night was that we were scared of losing but they were not scared of winning.
"That was a big difference that played in our heads. Sometimes we seem scared of losing these big games – we don't really go for it and we're tempted to drop back and see what the opposition do.
"We look to see if we are capable of beating them by what they are doing and how good they are on the day, instead of us going forward, causing them problems and dominating the game ourselves."Its about time the team stopped giving us this kind of post match reviews of the game, that's what folks like myself are for. If you know where the bloody problem lies - FIX IT !!
I am tired of listening to the team ramble on and on about how their mentality was different than ours, how we dominated the game, its just one of those days and so on and on and on...and on.
This is the kind of talk that should be done in the team meetings and during training sessions. United's win against us was not down to their unbeaten streak or that they were not scared of winning. Its because we suffer from performance anxiety in the same way a Virgin groom suffers from it on his wedding night.
We play the most beautiful football, we have a midfield that is second to only Barcelona in terms of attacking and playmaking ability and on our day we can pass the ball out of the park and not give the opposition a sniff at the ball. So where does mentality come in ? Its a clear case of letting the past get to you. We haven't beaten them for a while and get bogged down because we let this history stick to us like a moth to a flame.
Its only when we bring a certain 'fearless' attitude to our game is when we will truly become world beaters. Look what Ian Holloway has done to a bunch of no body's at Blackpool, who currently sit pretty at 10th in the PL. How has he achieved this ? The answer is by making Blackpool play fearlessly and playing against any opponent the same way as they would play the next. And that for me is where the problem lies.
Enough on that rant now.
Reports in Italy suggest that Rafa Benitez has been sacked, yup the same guy who bankrupt Liverpool and was trying to do the same at Inter. Remember you heard it here first.
You can follow me on twitter @IndiGooner chatting Arsenal in the evenings ( I work a day job, cos thats what pays the bills)
Have a good evening wherever you are.
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