Gerrard Houllier said "you dont win things these days with just 11 men"

Today at Highbury Leeds United proved that to be true.

This was a humbling experience. Outfought, outclassed, and out of the
top 3. Our fantastic run had to end sometime, today we ran headfirst
into the Arsenal brick wall.

Leeds are in danger of being caught between two stools. Today's loss
almost rules out a 3rd place spot for Leeds and if we play as badly on
Tuesday then Valencia will be celebrating in a sea of Sangria and
Paella.

Leeds weren't even 2nd best today, I thought the burgers were better
than us.

2-1 sounds like we were in it but believe me we weren't. Arsenal
murdered us. I can only hope that Leeds didn't have their foot on the
gas today, but if they did then Arsenal are in different class to us,
and the fact Valencia beat the Gunners recently doesn't bode too well.

O'Leary had a selection poser :-

Should Leeds send out their 2nd team and concede defeat before we'd even
kicked a ball ? At least Woody and McFrail would get a run out.
OR
Should we put out our best side and go for the 3 points, take one game
at a time and show Arsenal what a good side we are.

We did neither.

The only changes Leeds made were Bakke,Keane & Kelly for Batts,Smiffy &
Mills. Some squad we have.

Without Batty, Leeds are at best average. Today without our prodigal son
we were simply dreadful.

Apart from a 10 minute spell following Ian Harte's free kick to make it
2-1 Leeds were outrun and out-manoeuvred. Soon after his superb goal
Harte hit the post from another dead ball but this was a tame cross from
40 yards that went skidding through a crowd of players. An equaliser
would have been very harsh on the hosts.

Henry and Wiltord seemed to have acres of space whereas Viduka and Keane
had to fight for room to just breathe against Adams and Keown. Any ball
played up to our front men saw the English stalwarts stepping in and
winning the ball effortlessly. With little or no support from the
midfield the two Leeds front men looked lost and isolated.

I cant recall a shot we had in the first half but at the other end
Ljunburg made Arsenal's superiority tell with a neat finish after
moments earlier he had wastefully nodded over the bar unchallenged from
8 yards. Harte and Matteo lost their markers and Freddie with his
ridiculously patchy dyed hair waltzed through and slipped the ball past
Nige. Bit of advice Freddie - get a professional to do your hair, not
your mum.

Only a superb Martyn stop from Dixon kept us within touching distance of
respectability.

As expected Dacourt and Bowyer were heavily involved but Bakke far too
often gave the ball away cheaply and he looked horribly out of his
depth. Even our trademark work rate was overshadowed by Arsenal as we
were 2nd to every ball.

Arsenal were tactically spot on and they closed Leeds down very quickly.
Dacourt , Bowyer and Kewell got no room in the middle to do anything
creative. Vierra showed why he is the best midfielder in the country.

The 2nd half was not much better for Leeds who introduced Wilcox for the
injured Keane. Kewell pushed up alongside Viduka but they made little
impact. Briefly Viduka looked interested as Keown cuffed him round the
lughole.

From a seemingly harmless position Vierra drove forward, slipped the
ball to Wiltord and his angled drive from the edge of the box
surprisingly eluded Martyn. 2-0, piss easy.

The Arsenal fans delighted in taunting us - "Fack awl - you're ganner
win fack awl."

Once we'd deciphered what they were saying the truth hurt.

"What you doing Tuesday night ?" Leeds responded. It sounded like we
were asking them out for a date. A romantic meal for 5,000 perhaps ?
Jesus to do the catering.

For the umpteenth time a Leeds player, in this case Adams on Bowyer, was
poleaxed and despite the ref awarding the free kick he declined to show
any card to the roughhouse Arsenal rearguard.

Harte stepped up from 20 yards and curled the ball out of My Little Gypo
Pony Seaman's reach who threw pegs from his caravan at the ball but to
no avail. The top corner of the net bulged and the Leeds fans, who to
the their credit, sang long and loud throughout.

I was on the edge of the Leeds/Arsenal fans and the banter was good fun
except the taunting of a steward with "who's the Paki with the specs ?"
Not surprisingly the steward looked affronted. Earlier a fight broke out
on the terraces as Leeds fans fought amongst themselves. Many Leeds
fans, including myself had been drinking heavily. The atmosphere was
slightly tense. The police soon restored order and the sideshow was
over.

It was just a pity that the Leeds team showed as little passion and
aggression !

If Leeds were really trying and playing at 100% effort today then I'm a
worried man and our confidence will have been knocked by the apparent
gulf between us and Arsenal. If not then we can forget it as just a
minor blip.

Football today is about squads and on today's evidence Leeds are rightly
in 4th place behind the real big boys.

Tuesday is another day and if we've learnt a lesson today it is that
anything less than 100% commitment and we will stuggle.

Thankfully we dont play many better sides than Arsenal in a season.

Scores
--------
Martyn - 7 - Remarkable save from Dixon but strangely got nowhere near
Wiltord's shot for the 2nd.

Kelly - 5 - Danny Mills' rise to the fore recently underlined just how
poor Kelly is.

Harte - 6 - A defensive nightmare but scored another wonderful goal. Is
the trade off worth it ?

Matteo - 6 - for the first time he looked uncomfortable at the back.
Must have relapsed back onto the old smack.

Rio - 6.5 - As captain and main defender he needed to get things
organised better.

Bowyer - 6 - crowded out.

Bakke - 4 - drowned in an ocean of quality opposition.

Ollie - 7 - tried hard but too many players around him were not at the
races.

Kewell - 5 - In a deep trough at the moment.

Keane - 5 - Outclassed

Viduka - 5 - Totally outclassed.

Subs/

Wilcox - 5 Saw little of the ball.

McPhail - 5 Saw very little of the ball.

Ref/ Frightened to book any Arsenal players when they were clearly
twatting Leeds right, left and centre.