Off-topic: Arsenal 2, Newcastle 0 (Carling Cup)
Arsene's young boys are at it again.
While Liverpool loaded up its team with its senior players (Torres scored a hat-trick), Arsenal continued its policy of playing its young(er) guns in the Carling Cup. Bendtner and Denilson repaid the favor with two goals in the last five minutes to take Arsenal past Newcastle to the next round of the Carling Cup. Last year Arsenal's young lads trounced Liverpool repeatedly, and it looks like its young talent is set to do more of the same this season.
This is particularly ironic given Newcastle coach, Sam Allardyce, shooting off his mouth before the match suggesting that Newcastle pull a Bolton on Arsenal (read: wreak physical violence on a team that is interested in playing football, not kickboxing). "[Arsenal has] not managed to work it out yet [i.e., how to beat Allardyce's tactics], so I might as well keep going," declared Allardyce. It is hard for me to convey in words appropriate for this family forum my feelings about Allardyce and his tactics, but let me just note for Big Sam:
2-0, and your team has the zero.
The "Lumbering Oaf" model of beating Arsenal by beating them up is yesterday's game. It doesn't work anymore, as every team this season has discovered. Arsenal is playing exceptional football, which thick-skulled browbeating can't counteract.