Opening day

Good morning and welcome back to the Premier League season (2024/25). The League officially kicked off on Friday night (August 16th) this week (2024) with Manchester United eeking out a 1-0 win over Fulham thanks to a goal from debutant Joshua Zirkzee. The 2024/25 season continued into Saturday morning with a noon kickoff for Ipswich who hosted Liverpool. Liverpool won 2-0. And Saturday concluded with Arsenal hosting Wolves and beating them 2-0 as well, taking the famous Arsenal to the top of the table!

In order to watch the Premier League this season, I need to have a subscription to Peacock and at least one pseudo-cable package (called a TV provider). I’ve chosen Hulu because I’m already paying for the Hulu, Disney and ESPN package. For the rest of the games (Champions League and Cup) I need to also carry Paramount+ and ESPN. So, it’s just the Hulu+ package and Paramount+. And with all of these plusses I’m overflowing with positivity.

There were no such Friday night kickoff shenanigans or staggered kickoff times, or even TV packages, on opening day of the 2001/02 season. Eight of the ten matches kicked off at 3pm GMT that Saturday. There was no TV coverage here in the States – other than highlight packages on Fox Sports World, which is how I watched Arsenal matches this season – and I believe that there wasn’t any TV coverage of Saturday 3pm kickoffs in the UK.

Before I get into the match recap, the number one song in the UK on August 18th 2001 was “21 Seconds” by So Solid Crew. There seem to be at least 21 rappers in this band but I only listened to about 21 seconds of this song before switching it off. The name of the song, which doesn’t have a hook as far as I can tell, comes from the amount of time each rapper has to “spit their verse”. And apparently, it was a breakout hit in a new genre: garage something. One of the dozens of people who rap on this track killed his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend. He’s still in prison for that.

On a lighter note, the number one movie in the UK on August 18th 2001 was Cats and Dogs! I think I watched this movie with my son when he was pretty young. It’s a kind of mashup of every cat v. dog cultural meme and Spy Kids. I didn’t hate it but I can’t say I remember it. The director was Lawrence Guterman who has Cats and Dogs, something to do with Antz, and Son of the Mask to his name. After Son of the Mask – which lost hundreds of millions of dollars – Guterman disappeared from filmmaking. Though his IMDB page lists a film called “The Adventures of Buddy Thunder” which is Brian Dennehy’s last film. The film that killed Brian Dennehy.

As for born on August 18th 2001, I can’t find anyone famous born on this date. There is a Russian footballer named Ruslan Litvinov who plays as a DM for Spartak Moscow but that’s it. Oh well, better luck next week!

Ok, on to the match.

On the field for Middlesbrough were Gareth Southgate and Robbie Mustoe! Both of whom had a front seat at the start of one of Arsenal’s most historic seasons. Mustoe now does commentary for NBC and I don’t hate him. Southgate is an England treasure and sure to be the next coach of Man U before the season’s end. Mustoe played in midfield and was absolutely scorched by Patrick Vieira. Southgate played in defence and was crucified by Henry, Pires, Ljungberg, Bergkamp and even once by Wiltord.

Between the sticks Middlesbrough fielded a 28 year old Mark Schwarzer. You may recall that he was the subject of an Arsenal bid in 2010 but the deal fell through when Mark Hughes and Mohammed Al Fayed wanted £10m for the 37 year old. When he tells the story he’s quite angry that they essentially blocked the deal. I’d be angry too. He could have played for the absolute peak Banter Era Arsenal side. He could have kicked the ball to the greatest striker who ever lived.

If you’re into this sort of thing, you can watch the full match here at Footballia. The site requires you to sign in but is free and ad free and has tons of historical matches to watch.

The match starts out pretty scrappy and loose. Touches in 2001 were not the same as they are in 2024 and I feel like that is an understatement but the point is that closing down space could really put a team under pressure. Arsenal show a number of bad touches and turn the ball over quite a bit in the first 20 minutes of play. They looked like Thomas Partey yesterday!

It’s also kind of amazing how hard the fouls are back then. They are real fouls. Lauren and Campbell get away with some strong tackles that and nowhere near the ball and only get a warning. I would say that things are different these days but apparently it’s ok to fully choke an Arsenal player in 2024.

Tony Adams captained the Arsenal and it was pretty funny to watch him spring his offside trap and raise his hand. I love big Tone but I really don’t think you can play that way these days. He’s sprinting away from his own goal to spring the trap! Just totally abandoning any defensive duties and hoping the ref makes the call. And this was in pre-VAR so the refs didn’t get the calls right at all. Dean Windass got a wide open shot because big Tone was barrelling up the pitch and left his man. Windass was offside but the official didn’t call it.

Speaking of Windass, Ray Parlor gets a yellow card for a comically dangerous tackle from behind on Dean Windass. Just completely wiped Windass out and sends him flying into the air. That tackle was never legal. And it came from frustration: Arsenal are playing that direct football that Wenger was known for in his early days – long passes up the pitch, splitting defenders, using the speed of Ljungberg, Henry, and Wiltord to run under the ball and the tactical awareness and class of Pires to hold possession – but it wasn’t working and Arsenal were turning the ball over on nearly every possession. Boro were holding their own.

But as the half started to wind down, Boro looked fatigued and starting giving Arsenal tons of space, especially at the back. In one possession, Campbell found himself with the time to read a chapter in Ivanhoe and launched a moon shot up to Wiltord who kept his defender at bay and scooped in a cross to Henry. The cross was way off the mark, headed away, crashed into Southgate, and then went to Henry. Henry hadn’t had many touches in the first half but he didn’t need many! He chested the ball down and hit it in off the volley. A pure moment of class from the Arsenal legend. The rest of the half was kinda boring.

Five minutes into the second half and Ray Parlour was sent off for a crazy tackle on Egu Ehiogu. Ljungberg had turned the ball over with a terrible pass to Henry (Henry made sure to tell him) and then Parlor kicked one guy, Henry tried a crazy slide tackle on another guy, and Ray Parlor flew in like Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon on Ehiogu.

I literally laughed out loud watching Parlour put in this tackle and then complain to the ref about it. Even Wenger just looked disgusted.

The red card didn’t really hurt Arsenal. Boro were gassed and it showed. Henry nutmegged Southgate and Boro needed all 10 outfielders to defend against Arsenal’s class. I think it was a bit easier because Arsenal just controlled possession and stopped trying to pry Boro open with long balls between the lines.

As the match wore down Arsene Wenger brought on Dennis Bergkamp! Bergkamp is so so good. His touch in this match is literally from another century. He’s one of the few players here who could play in the modern game. And given space, as he was once Boro’s Ehiogu was sent off in the 85th minute, he was devastating.

Ehiogu was sent off for a last man tackle on Ashley Cole. It was reminiscent of David Luiz’s red card if I’m honest. Robert Pires put away the penalty and from this point on it was the Bergkamp show.

Just like 10 seconds later he is played in by Cole (it’s a terrible pass) and just wrong footed the keeper and slid it home. Great goal. And less than a minute later, Bergkamp runs the same channel, this time a great pass from Pires, takes a touch to give himself space away from Southgate, and scores with his left foot In the exact same corner of the goal. Right foot, then left foot. Fucking crazy.

After the match, Thierry Henry was preening and prescient, saying “I saw something today I never saw last season – we played as a team. It’s the most important thing in football.” Wenger mentioned that Arsenal had practiced playing with a man down because, let’s face it, Arsenal got a lot of red cards back in those days. But it was this quote from Henry which gave me a double take: “If we’re going to win the title then we’re going to have to win it away from home.” Henry couldn’t possibly have known how true those words would be (SPOILER ALERT). He was simply commenting on the team’s weakness from the 2000/2001 season.

Anyway that was opening day for the Arsenal in 2001. It was Sol Campbell’s debut for Arsenal and Arsenal wore the Gold away kits that would be later made famous (SPOILER ALERT!). This was also the last season that we would see the old Arsenal badge. Just 37 more League games before the Arsenal would retire the famous badge and debut the comic sans badge.

Maybe I’ll do matchday 2 next week.

Qq