The way I see it - Bolton Wanderers v Arsenal

Last updated : 19 December 2003 By Jason Hogan

A victory at Highbury over Blackburn was way overdue, and thanks to Kolo Toure and ultimately Dennis Bergkamp that's exactly what we got.

What a find young Kolo is turning into. I have had this boy down as our player of the year so far and if he carries on the way he's going, the award will be his, bar all the shouting, by the end of March.

I suppose it easy to be generous after the event but I must give a little credit to Blackburn. They made us fight all the way for a win that took us back to the top of the table. They may be in 14th. place at the moment but if they finish up there in May, I will eat my Arsenal tie.

Though the personnel was a little different, the Arsenal went to the Hawthorns and earned a hard fought victory over West Brom 48 hours later.

Whilst Kanu and Aliadiere scored the decisive goals, I thought that young Gael Clichy was excellent at left back. I remember watching this boy play for us in a pre season game against Rangers at Ibrox and although he was only on for 10 minutes I felt that the boy definitely had something about him

Clichy was directly up against a stronger, more mature player in Bernt Haas for most of the night on Tuesday but I thought he stood up to the task admirably. I also thought that Graham Stack did well in goal and Tavlaridis did the same at centre back.

It was also good to see "Ralph" Lauren and Martin Keown return to action. Ralph had a fairly steady game whilst Keown was well, himself, though there is no doubt that he could have given away two penalties on another day.

Even I winced when Keown clattered into Andy Johnson in the box. It's a miracle that Johnson doesn't have stumps where he once had legs!! Still, it's great to see that the old boy is back looking as feisty as ever.

Funnily enough our Carling Cup semi-final opponents could have been the Totts but they stuffed up against Boro. Damn!! I would have loved to see our kids do number on them!!!

Now let's look at Saturday's game and the trip to the Reebok to play Bolton. If last Sunday was an occasion to exorcise one ghost, Saturday is definitely an occasion to exorcise another one.

I think that the Reebok is widely acknowledged to be the place where our hopes of retaining our title all but disappeared last season.

The most amazing thing about that fateful match was that we had had to make THREE enforced substitutions because of injuries- all in the space of 10 minutes. Now I have watched hundreds and hundreds of matches from all over the world and I have never known a scenario like it.

And when we lost those players I had a feeling that in spite of the fact we were 2-0 up, things might turn sour - and as all we know, they did.

When Keown inadvertently flicked a header into his own net, I got a feeling that was reminiscent of those I had when Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink scored THAT late goal for Leeds against us back in 1999. It was like someone had switched lights out on my world and I was in a state of shock for days afterwards I can tell you.

What made it worse was the fact that Sam Allardyce, the Bolton boss, is a well-known friend of Old Purple Nose at Old Trafford.

Allardyce had even taken a leaf out of Fergie's wind up manual before the game by claiming that Arsenal players are the worst in the game at intimidating referees.

Now some people may find this a little sad but if Allardyce is a friend of someone like Ferguson then, regardless of the fine job he has done at Bolton, he is no friend of mine.

I have to admit that this was actually one of the first fixtures I looked for in the summer. Believe me, this match is personal and definitely not just about three points.

The fact that Bolton are in good form and are not short of the odd decent player is by the by. I want revenge here big time. Let's hope that Wenger and his players feel the same way.