JoeNottingham is a city I haven’t visited often and after Saturday I’m starting to wonder why. My journey up from our nations capital was smooth, quick and thoroughly enjoyable. The company was second to none and as we pulled into Nottingham to sample the hospitality the mood was buoyant. As is the case with the last away day of the season, there is a bit of a party atmosphere. As I stood next to the canals in the sunshine, reflecting on the season, the word bouncing amongst my mates was proud. Proud that our young team had run arguably the best side (oil) money can buy as close as we have. That and ‘Spursy’ of course!
For us Saturdays game didn’t really mean an awful lot. I said last week I wanted to make Man City win it and that was still the case but in reality it was largely irrelevant. The title was going to Manchester one way or the other, so aside from professional pride we were playing for little else. Forest on the other hand knew that a win would keep them safe for another year and although I don’t really agree with the way they’ve done it by signing 2523 new players, it has worked so props to them for that.
I’m not criticising Mikel considering the phenomenal job he’s done this season but our line up was strange to say the least. Gabriel at left back and Partey at right back with White and Kiwior in the middle. But as the game started Partey drifted into the middle leaving us with a back three which hasn’t worked for us all season. Despite the Ghanian moving more centrally we lost the battle in the midfield which left us trying to thread the ball through the eye of a needle. It didn’t work. One mistake and we were behind to the luckiest goal you’ll see this year as the ball cannoned of Gabriel and in.
We huffed and we puffed (kind of) but despite mountains of possession we did absolutely nothing with it. The away end was simply magnificent as it has been all season. We sang, loud and proud as the atmosphere inside the ground approached bursting point as the minutes ticked by. The wild celebrations from the home fans at the final whistle were quite something but having been victims of the “celebration Police” all season I’m not going to deny them that. Gooners poured towards the city centre and the train station amongst the jubilant home crowd, who it must said, were great craic despite the result.
So onto the finale then. A home meeting against Wolves where I hope on another sunny day we can finish on a high and show our young team just how proud and excited we are. They deserve nothing less this season even if it didn’t finish how we wanted it. I’ll see you all there.
COYG!
-Joe