By Boris Mellor
January 28 2007

Last week we had the Lord Mayor’ show, it was a wonderful procession of fine goals and excitement. But after the Lord Mayor’s show come the men with the shovels to clear up the horse shit. This had all the anticlimax of clearing up after the big parade

For the second game in a row Arsenal were late in turning up for a match, except this time the Gunners were an hour late.

Last week we had Mystic Wenger predicting Man U would concede late, this week Mystic Mellor predicted "Bolton may have shipped five goals last week - but I don’t expect them to do that twice in a row. - All the statistics show that teams who suffer heavy defeats do not succumb in exactly the same way the following week, usually only conceding one or zero."

So one goal it was then, and one wasn’t enough for either team. There was very little football in the first half, Bolton were playing for time after only 20 minutes. They don’t so much bully as destroy your will to live. Constant diving and rolling around, combined with last ditch defending of the bye line (to win throw ins), doesn’t make for much of a spectacle, and eventually boredom, and then thoughts of suicide are induced.

Arsenal allowed themselves to be thus hypnotised, unable to change the slow tempo, which clearly suited the Bolton game plan. Nonetheless it was 0-0 at half time with both teams sharing the chances, but Henry had come closest to scoring when his back heel was cleared off the line.

When the match resumed Bolton managed a couple of well orchestrated attacks, and on 50 minutes the inevitable happened Nolan passed to Anelka on the edge of the area and he turned it wide to Davies. The striker’s shot-cum cross reached the far post. The unmarked Nolan turned and fired the ball between Toure and the upright.

At last the Gunners turned up, Arsenal’s midfield was not at its sharpest, they clearly missed Hleb and Gilberto. Walcott was a little lightweight, finding it hard to deal with their defenders, however he was denied a clear goal scoring opportunity in the second half but the Bolton defender was only shown a yellow.

But Bolton were under bombardment for most of the last half hour, but Arsenal couldn’t deliver the coup de grace, Arsene turned to the bench, without RvP his only super sub was the Beast. The Beast got involved and gave some good passes, but it was a free kick from Fab that finally forced the equaliser. Speed failed to clear the ball resulting in a diving Toure header, at the far post, finding the back of the net.

Last year we were losing 1-0 with seconds to go when Gilberto equalised; this time the Gunners had managed it with 8 minutes to spare. With the crowd behind them they pressed on for the winner. With seconds left Baptista’s header narrowly missed the target. Arsenal were left ruing missed chances, but what they should be ruing was turning up an hour late.

Reasons to be cheerful: Big Sam can’t celebrate destroying the Arsenal unbeaten record at Ashburton Grove.

For a large selection of Arsenal Books, DVDs, PC games AND MORE at Bargain Prices visit the Arsenal Times Store CLICK HERE