Nought Availing

Arsenal 3 Charlton 0


For some weeks past, the regular commentators on the Charlton blogs have been wondering why Jerome Thomas (above, in white) never gets to start, and where Dennis Rommedahl is. So they must have cheered up quite a bit when both appeared in the starting line-up for the Arsenal game. They did their bit, by all accounts, yet it seems that hardly any club in the world could have lived with this powerful, on-form Arsenal side on Saturday, and I have to admit I was relieved that the score of 3-0, reached after 49 minutes, was unchanged by the end of the game.

The BBC reporters were delighted of course; God was back in his heaven as Charlton apparently proved what they have been telling us all season: that they are no good.

Well not on the day, there's no point in deluding oneself. A friend of mine in the U.K., whom I rang for other reasons, had seen some of the game and repeated what I had already read: Arsenal were just unstoppable. There is a proper, professional, report here.

Of course the joy of football is that such form does not always repeat itself. Liverpool must have looked great last night, thumping Birmingham 7-0, but their season is maybe only coming good now, and could still fade away from them; you just cannot tell, and there is no reason to believe that Charlton's season is now at an end, either. It might be, of course, but another day is another day.

Charlton are at home to Middlesbrough again tomorrow night in the Cup quarter finals. The absurd Lawro, having forecast a Charlton win over 'Boro in the league a couple of weeks ago, to which he added a forecast of a 'Boro win in the Cup, and at the same time too, has now reduced this second prediction to 1-1, and there might have been a vague hint that Middlesbrough will win the replay. Well, maybe, but right now I can't see how anyone can know, and by the look of things, Lawro certainly doesn't.

The quarter finals of the FA Cup used to be on a particular Saturday, too, but now the whole thing is strung out across the length of the week, with the more attractive ties in the middle and the less attractive ones out on the end, a rather bizarre decision which some think is to do with World Cup preparations, and others think is at the behest of the TV companies. If this last is the case, perhaps the TV corporations might consider staggering the actual Cup Final, too: the first 20 minutes could be played on a Saturday, and then there could be four days of endless speculation and drivel talked till the following Wednesday, when they could play a bit more of it, and the whole thing could come to a glorious end about a fortnight later. Just think of the revenue. After all, international cricket matches go on for days; it is time football caught up.

Meanwhile, Charlton's bid to reach the Cup semi-finals for the first time since before I was born clashes with the quiz, so I can see myself frantically hopping from TV screen to quiz and back again as the night wears on.