Kicking the ball up front for no reason

Thierry Henry on the quality Arsenal showed in beating Real Madrid 1-0 in the first leg of their Champions League tie:

"You see that as soon as Arsenal is not scared to play, we can play good football...We have only won one game. We are not there yet so we have to stay calm and focus. In some games recently we have been kicking the ball up front for no reason. Here we played football. We were tremendous at the back - amazing." (BBC 22.02.2006)

Yes, Arsenal may be back with Wenger's latest youth movement paying dividends. I say again that the sale of Vierra was a necessary sacrifice for the future.

And a strong, young Arsenal will be good for a league where, as Henri said about his own side, teams continue to have a tendency to boot the ball up the pitch with no specific target in mind. I still haven't gotten over that terrible match last month bewteen Liverpool and ManU (see "Kind-ness" 14.02.2006).