Wolves 1-4 Arsenal – 07/11/09 – (Premier League) 11 November, 2009

I know it’s a bit late for this but there might be someone out there who wants to read about my trip to Wolverhampton on Saturday. Maybe it’s just me or maybe it’s just that it’s Interlull and there’s nothing really else to talk about, but this is what you’re getting.

My day actually started the day before travelling up to London from Bournemouth the day before but that’s irrelevant to you. We set off from North London Saturday lunch time and headed north up the M1. We arrived in Wolverhampton at a safe, but very keen time of about 2.30 and set out to get some food and some beers. The first thing that struck me about the town was – ‘fuck me, what a shithole’. The overcast weather didn’t really help but it seemed like a really gloomy place to be.

Anyway we went to a local Whetherspoons for a burger and couple of beers and it gradually started filling up with home fans. The few Arsenal fans that were in there started filtering out and we joined to see where all the Gooners were headed. All the pubs around town were ‘home fans only’ and were packed, there was literally nothing for an away fan to do so we thought we may as well head down to the ground… a full two hours early.

It was bitterly cold and with nothing to do it was turning into a bit of a disappointing away trip. However all of a sudden fans started arriving and we made our way into the concourses for a quick beer. The atmosphere was great in there; this is what I’d come all the way up here for! Been a while since I’d been to an away game and I was loving it.

Our seats were pretty much dead on the halfway line, quite a good view. The away fans had the full length of one stand but just the lower tier, with home fans peering down from above. At first I thought it was good but I soon realized that the long and thin allocation we had made it hard contain any noise. Of course there was singing and it was good but there were no acoustics and it took some time for songs to reach one end to the other. Quite clever of the Molineux staff to give away fans that area.

The home fans themselves were quite loud and there two things together made it very difficult for us to be heard. They had something to sing about too as we found it very difficult to get into the game early on. Alex Song had been rested for this afternoon’s game and for my very first time as an Arsenal fan I heard some one say how much we missed him. It shows just how incredibly far he has come here but it was true.

In the 23rd minute Abou Diaby limped off and Song came on with a chance to sort things out. His impact wasn’t immediate but he had a fantastic game. He calmed things down in the midfield and was even showboating in the second half.

The goal came soon after the substitution. We got a free kick wide on the left near the corner flag, it was swung in by Fabregas and came off someone and appeared to go in the back of the net. I started celebrating, I had no idea what had happened but it looked like 1-0. The ball had actually gone behind the net, but out for a corner.

Fabregas stepped up to swing one in again, and again someone got a touch on it but this time it actually went in the back of the net. I couldn’t tell who the scorer was and it didn’t help that there was no announcement of the scorer or scoreboards to check. Later on I found out it was an own goal and so too was the second…

We found a gap in midfield and sent Eduardo racing through with acres of space one-on-one. Thoughts of Tottenham when he missed that one-on-one came to mind when his chip over the ‘keeper looked to be going wide. It ended up in the back of the net though even when it looked to be going wide, oh well I just took it as an amazing chip. However when I watched it back that night it took a deflection off the defender’s head helping it into the bottom corner.

So we we’re two-nil up thanks to a little hand from the home side. We didn’t overly deserve the position we were in but who cares? The third came right before half time, a great passing and moving display ended up in van Persie laying it on a plate for Fabregas who easily added to his impressive goal tally.

3-0 up at half time and surely no way back for Wolves. We hadn’t even played that well; their defense was just shocking.

We picked up slightly in the second half, our passing was better and although we didn’t seem to put in much effort we were all over Wolves. It was just a case of when we would add to the three-goal lead.

It took until the 65th minute and it was Arshavin the scorer. Firstly he exploded down the left, took it inside the box and tried to smash one inside the goalie’s near post but he read it and made a great save. However from the resulting corner Arshavin found the ball land at his feet on the end of the box, put a foot through it and sent it inside that same post at the second time of asking. Lucky to find the gap through a busy box like that but a good goal.

Soon after Rosicky and Nasri were given a run out. I thought one of the two might start on Saturday but hopefully we can look forward to that after the international break.

The second half continued in the same sort of fashion, however Wolves were putting a bit more into it as their fans got behind them. They were trying to wind us traveling fans up, one of the more ridiculous chants was, ‘We support our local team!’ Right OK then good for you, we’ll just get off down the M1 and back to the train to London and think about how we should do the same then shall we? ‘You support your local shit’ was the response.

They got one back late on and intelligibly the place went mental. You’d think with the scenes in the stands, the music and the PA announcer they’d just equalized but oh well it’s just a bit of fun.

So 4-1 it ended, we never really played our best but it was way more than enough to beat this lot. I can’t wait until they come to the Grove because they really are awful.

So that was my first trip to Molineux, and hopefully my last! I haven’t come away from Wolverhampton the biggest fan of the place to be honest.

We’re now in second place after United lost to Chelsea and five points behind the leaders who we play at home at the end of the month. It’s getting a little bit exciting now.

Thanks for reading.

That was my first and hopefully my last trip