There are many conceits in English football, but the most important one is that you have to be hard. It’s important because unlike many of our footballing traditions, this one has some foundation in reality. England is cold a lot. If you’re going run around on a frozen field for 90 minutes on a Sunday morning chasing a man who may or may not have spent the previous night in the local police station, you can’t cry when he kicks you. That’s human survival.
Marc Albrighton has just scored Leicester City’s second goal of the night and, assuming they don’t go all Arsenal on us, will proceed directly to the quarter finals of the Champions League. Their performance has been everything part 2 of the Ranieri era was not; purposeful, competitive, pressing, intense. They’re irresistible.
How ironic then, that they should be the club representing football’s summiting of Peak Entertainment and beginning the long miserable march downward into unknown (if inevitably uncomfortable) territory.
Arsene keeps a close eye on the hair loss. Image: REUTERS/ Eddie Keogh.
When Arsenal were invincible, it seemed like their glory would go on forever. For game after game, their boundless beauty was the envy of teams the world over, and their grace and allure on the pitch might have launched ships, if North London wasn’t essentially landlocked.
Arsene Wenger has worked hard to maintain Arsenal’s looks over the past eight years, and it would be fair to say that occasionally, when light and dark collide and shadows fall at just the right angle over the Emirates, a casual watcher would never spot the imperfections.
