OH DEAR!

I should probably not bang on about the performance and result on Saturday. It won’t do any good. There’s no getting round it I’m afraid. Spurs victory was deserved. Even with that lot you have to give credit where credit’s due. 

It should have been so different. We were comfortably in control at half time at 2-0. We should never have taken our boot off their collective throat. We did – YET AGAIN – and that was all she wrote. 

Whilst none of the three Spurs goals were directly attributable to him, Łukasz Fabiański provided a couple of examples of why so many Gooners, me included, worry about him as a long-term bet in goal. There needs to be a detailed inquest over Saturday’s performance and tactics. We’ve got to learn from our mistakes. That will have to wait however. We have a crucial game in northern Portugal tomorrow night against SC Braga in the Champions League. Following our loss in Ukraine to Shakhtar Donetsk we really need the three points if we’re going to finish top of our group.  

I watched yesterday’s game in an excellent Toronto pub called The Football Factory. An emporium dedicated to the beautiful game. I was in company with Dr Declan Hill, Canadian investigative journalist and all-round good guy. Declan read for him doctorate at Oxford and also spent some of his teenage years in Britain where he had the good taste to become a Gooner. If you haven’t read it, you should check out Declan’s book The Fix – Soccer & Organised Crime: 

http://www.howtofixasoccergame.com/ 

The paperback edition recently came out and it can be had on import from the Canadian publishers McClelland & Steward for £8.79. The Kindle download will set you back £7.39. Despite repeated attempts and the fact that the book’s French and German editions are both in their respective top-sellers’ lists on the continent (the book has also been published in Dutch and Mandarin Chinese), Declan’s literary agent can’t get a British publisher for the book which a) tells you a lot about how venal sports publishers are in this country; and b) that the book is well worth reading. I thoroughly recommend the book if you love football and want it kept safe from corruption. Knowledge is power. 

Here’s a link to the appropriate Amazon page: 

http://tinyurl.com/39qjosg 

I digress. If it weren’t for the second half performance and result I would have thoroughly enjoyed by visit to The Football Factory. If you either live in or find yourself visiting Toronto and want to catch a game live I thoroughly recommend it. It’s easily reached from the city centre on the 504 streetcar, part of Toronto’s excellent public transport network, shows almost all Premier League games as well as Toronto FC away matches and Canadian national team games. For the games that kick-off at breakfast time in Toronto (as ours did yesterday) they serve cooked breakfasts. I can recommend the bacon sandwiches. They even have HP sauce. How good is that? 

Ontario provincial law prohibits the service of alcohol before 11.00am so I’m afraid its food and soft drinks only for the early kick-offs, but I sampled the range of beers available at a function there the previous evening. They have an excellent range of local Canadian beers, including from local micro-breweries, as well as the better known Canadian and European lagers. The evening food menu is also excellent and the staff is efficient and friendly. 

What more do you want? Thunder and lightning? : 

Full details here, including how to get there: 

http://www.thefootiefactory.ca/ 

Last night I was at Toronto FC’s home ground BMO Field to watch this season’s Major League Soccer  (MLS) Cup Final, North America’s championship title play-off between the Colorado Rapids (proprietor one Silent Stan Kroenke, also of this parish) and FC Dallas. The Rapids won 2-1 after extra time which at least has given Kroenke something to smile about this past weekend. The Toronto FC fans turned up in their droves despite their team not being in the game and a bone-chilling temperature of around five degrees Celsius. The patriotic, loud and proud rendering of the Canadian national anthem Oh Canada was spectacular. The fans that’d travelled north of the border from Denver and Dallas also made themselves heard too. An enjoyable night out and a welcome distraction from the hurt of events at the Grove the previous day. 

Now, three points in Portugal tomorrow please. 

Keep the faith! 

vic@arsenalinsider.com

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Vic Crescit

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