Like Lipstick on a Pig

"We expressed ourselves well tonight. We created a lot of good chances and I think we are going to improve on today. It's not the worst result but it could have been better for us."

- Alex Ferguson, putting a nice layer of lipstick on his overgrown sow

Wednesday night I spent walking through Edinburgh, desperately looking for a bar that screened the Arsenal vs Dynamo Kyiv match. No such luck. There are plenty of bars showing Champions League matches, but they all showed Man Utd vs Villareal. Turns out that Edinburgh is a hotbed of Man Utd fans.

Go figure. I thought Edinburglers had taste.

So I hunkered down at Walkabout and watched 70 minutes of the most enlightening football I've ever seen. Man Utd without Ronaldo are toothless. It was amazing to see Villareal hold a team with players like Rooney, Anderson, Nani and Tevez. There was plently of determination, work-ethic, pressing... but no invention and no creativity. Man Utd without Ronaldo are ordinary. Which explains why Ferguson was so desperate to keep Ronaldo, I suppose.

Moreoever, is it coincidence that the only two games we haven't won this season (Fulham and Dynamo Kyiv) were the ONLY two games I haven't seen? Of three games I've personally graced, we've won by an aggregate scoreline of 11-0. Someone please, please let Danny Fizsman know about my amazing abilities.

Wenger's furious about the penalty, of course, and about Kyiv hacking down Walcott at every opportunity. What does he expect? Gallas and his opponent both went down like they were pigs in an ice-rink, and Walcott got trampled like a grasshopper between a pig and his slop-bucket. These things happen in football, and a draw against Kyiv is a decent result. We haven't won in the Soviet in ten attempts.

Bolton next, on the Saturday. We love you Arsenal, we do.