I was pretty much worried at around the fifteenth minute of the first half. We should have been 10 goals up by that time but for the wasteful nature on the night of Messers Milan and Djibril. Flashback to around a year ago, and we would see ourselves putting our foot off the gas after 15 minutes of absolute domination and gradually letting Charlton back into the game and by the second half it would have been anybody's game. Come the 89th minute, Charlton would score via a freakish goal that bobbled of the knee of some Charlton player from a corner and trickle oh so slowly into the net. I would have then shouted obscene profanities and start referring to players and managers by animals such as donkeys and monkeys.
That was then. This is now. For the rest of the match, what happened just shows how far we have gone in the short time so far that we've been under the guidance of Rafa Benitez. Never once did we look like we didn't have control of the game, although i do admit we take our foot slightly off the throttle for 2 to 3 minutes of the first half, if i can vaguely remember. We kept our shape, kept our cool and more importantly, kept on attacking them.
Come the 56th minute, cometh the man. Risse belted a scorcher of a shot into the bottom lefthand side corner from the edge of the box which left Kiely grasping into thin air. I would refrain myself into calling this a "trademark Riise effort" as it has been a LONG while since he has been scoring these sort of goals, and you can only call it a trademark effort if he can consistently score like, in my honest opinion that is.
So, we're one nil up, cue the defensive substitution, hoofing the ball up to the forwards, and the agony of waiting for the final whistle while we keep on getting hammered by the opposition. Oops! We aren't in the Houllier era anymore are we now? So what happened was more posession football, and taking the game to Charlton and not letting them settle to create any chances. So, cue another candidate of goal of the week by non other than the new crowd favourite, Luis Garcia, scoring an absolute peach of a goal from probably 25 yards or so. Cue me jumping like a maniac at the mamak, and strangers giving me the look thinking "What the f*cks wrong with you mate?!"
Think all they want. I am happy with the performance. True, we might have not won the premiership yet. True, we might have not scored 10 or more goals in the game. True also, that we might have wasted countless opportunities to actually make it 10 goals or more. We might have only been playing friggin Charlton Athletic who aren't really the definition of Premiership big guns are they? But goddammit, we are definitely heading in the right direction and I love the way we play now (at home so far that is), and i love the feeling that I get at the end of the match where I am looking forward to the next match to be shown. I was telling my friends during the game before we scored, that even if we had drawn nil nil, i still would have been happy for the performance that the players served today. We are finally playing proper football and I can't complain.
I noticed during the game that once Cisse moved to play from the right wing, he looked much much more menacing there with his pace running at defenders and creating chances. It is interesting to note that Henry plays almost exactly like that for Arsenal, although on the left side of the pitch. I would like to see Cisse to keep trying that as it actually does look to have massive potential.
One thing did annoy me tremendously today though. Why was Igor not on the bench today and why on earth was that waste of space, sorry excuse of a Senegalese international doing there instead? Oh well. You can't win them all can you?
You'll Never Walk Alone
