Sunday lunchtime saw a pre-match gathering of Holics for the first time in a very long period. A convivial gathering was made slightly tenser by the nagging concern that the season could still go to custard. Defeat followed by a catastrophe at Southampton (who held C130y, the Cup Final losers last week) coupled with a win for the Totts in Bilbao next week was more than flesh and blood could stand. It was a very unlikely scenario but in a season like this sanity can be distorted. Loss of the Champions League place (and income) would wreck carefully laid plans at Arsenal .
Our mood was eased by the news that our Nemesis, Isak, was missing. All those incantations in our back room with eye of newt and entrails of frog weren’t wasted. Arsenal’s team was fairly predictable once it was clear that Rice had recovered from injury. Kai Havertz made a very welcome return to the bench.
Play began in bright sunshine and the first ten minutes were something of a nightmare for Arsenal. David Raya was both hero and villain. His kicking rayardar (see what I did there?) was massively off and set up a series of frantic scrambles which saw Raya make wonderful saves from Guimaraes twice, Barnes, Livramento and later Burn (a superb stop from a corner). At the other end, Pope made a fine stop from Trossard and a good save from a Partey header from a corner. But Newcastle were the better, more coherent team in the first half and Arsenal’s first half performance was very undercooked, far too lateral and without pace. I made the mistake of watching a few games yesterday in which the Invincibles cut teams to pieces with incisive pace and rapid passing rhythms. Here Arsenal were pedestrian, a side that takes enormous passing risk in its own area but prefers to knock corners back to the goalkeeper rather than whip in a speculative ball in the opposition half.
Half-time: Arsenal 0 Newcastle 0
Our mood was not improved on the resumption by the news that Saliba was to be removed from the play and replaced by Calafiori. Had we but known that the new central defence partnership of Calafiori and Kiwior was to be so effective we would not have worried. For the second successive week Arteta provoked a much better second half performance and Arsenal controlled much of the game in the second period. Their play was sharper, more intelligent and more dynamic . Ten minutes into the half Ødegaard pulled the ball back for Rice to hit a superb swinging right foot shot that curled away from Pope and nestled in the far side of the goal.
54 minutes: Arsenal 1 (Rice) Newcastle 0
Arsenal were more threatening but looked confused on the break and didn’t add to their goal. Saka had a fierce shot blocked, Ben White flashed a shot just wide and Havertz almost crowned his return to the pitch with a close range strike. The game became increasingly tetchy not helped by an increasingly pompous referee in Simon Hooper. I liked his willingness to let the play flow in the first half but he seemed to miss significant fouls as the game went on and it ended with a brawl as this unlikeable Newcastle side took out their frustration at losing by surrounding David Raya after he caught a cross. The final whistle signified our ascent to the Champions League (worth a minimum of £70 million) and a likely second place finish for the third successive season.
Full time: Arsenal 1 Newcastle 0
There is no doubt that the absence of Isak was very significant today and it was frankly a relief that he wasn’t able to galvanise the Newcastle attack. Nevertheless both Kiwior and Calafiori played very well indeed and interestingly Calafiori appears to have that quality that lifts teams through the force of his personality and the class and quality that he displayed. I had not seen him play centre back for Arsenal before and I was very impressed.
Raya received Man of the Match plaudits and indeed made a flurry of superb saves in the first half (Newcastle had ten shots in the first half, five on target) but they lost their impetus in the second half as Arsenal stepped up their game. Having said that his kicking was erratic throughout the game and Arsenal seemed to go long increasingly during the match. But he has the great ability to make spellbinding saves which is a great quality to have in a keeper.
Arsenal looked a very tired side in the first half and it is significant that they could lift their game after they had looked so subdued. It is a tribute to their character and the motivational power that Arteta has that they improved so much against difficult opposition.
I have to confess that I am concerned about Ødegaard regaining his mojo. He is a pale shadow of the player that has played so superbly in previous seasons. I thought Saka also looked very flat and wonder if he has recovered from his injury or whether Livramento is a very fine full back indeed. Martinelli still has limitations from which I don’t think he can escape and I thought Trossard not only worked most effectively upfront but he also created some nice moments of inspiration.
Declan Rice is clearly exhausted but he is an outstanding competitor and a very fine player. He is emerging as a more frequent goalscorer and I expect him to continue to get more goals in future seasons. MLS is an incredible character and has such a high ceiling and he rarely fails to leave an imprint on a match.
Excitingly we can attract the very best players to N5 knowing that we can offer the biggest stage for them to play on and we can plan much more expansively in financial terms. It is a mark of how far Arsenal have come under Mikel Arteta that there was a feeling of anti-climax after a season where we finished second in the league and reached the semi-finals of the Champions League. We are a club moving very much in the right direction. The suggestion that he must win something or be sacked next season is an example of the mentality that is encouraged by misguided tabloid and social media. Mikel Arteta is someone that we can believe in for the future.
I failed to spot that Arteta was given a yellow card by the fussy Hooper .He will serve a touchline ban next Sunday at Southampton. We will survive
An accurate summation of the game, TTG. I endorse your final paragraph unreservedly.
Cheers TTG. Excellent report.
I’ll join Ned in agreeing with your last paragraph, and in particular the final sentence.
I see Josh Kroenke also made a statement today that leaves no room for doubt that the club plan to bring in significant new blood over the summer. I liked how much he spoke about Arsenal in the community too. The Kroenkes’ messaging and PR is so much better than it used to be, and it may even be the case that the club is actually getting under their skin.
One more game, not a lot of pressure against Southampton, and then everyone can sod off on holiday (well, not Berta, obviously!)
Very much the game I saw, TTG. Excellent summation. Lunch was pretty darn good and as ever the company even better. The first half was nail-bitingly tense and it did look as though we might throw the game away, but in the end the clearly tired and depleted team dug very deep indeed. It was nice to beat this mob. Their fans were deeply unpleasant, matching many of their players, after the Carabao cup semi final up there in January, so it was particularly nice to see so many of them miserable after the game, made all the better as the Piccadilly line and trains out of Kings Cross were all gone to cock yesterday too. It’s funny, I don’t remember ordering roast schadenfreude at lunch yesterday, but it really was rather tasty.
Arteta was excellent in his speech after the game and Josh Kroenke’s messaging was spot in too, as GSD says above. One slight downer on the day. Someone in the crowd asked me if I thought Arteta ought to go at the end of next season if we didn’t win anything. I was truly stunned that anyone outside tv morons like Merson and Redknapp Minor could hold such views. When I asked who should take over in that case, the look was as empty as Merson’s bank account after a day in front of the horse racing on ITV.
Excellent report, TTG. A very challenging first half followed by a better second. A well deserved win and a superb hat trick of seconds.
Thanks for your comments . Interestingly re CER’s chat with the bloke behind him the brainwashed minority ( if you believe the Athletic survey) think that a man who takes you to the brink of success on a sustained basis should be replaced . No clear idea on who can do better as Arteta has set rather a high bar but we need a change . So let’s say we get Iraiola or Eddie Howe or Ange ( that’s a joke btw) .We must surely expect immediate gratification. Silverware . Of course we know that if they have a decent first season that will do. Champions league qualification and a good cup run- it’s his first season after all. So we cut off our noses to spite our faces and fulfil the agenda of idiots in the media who brainwash gullible Arsenal fans.
Football success is iterative usually ( not for Slot) Wenger achieved almost instant success and then had umpteen tears of finishing second before he built the best team in our history. Some idiots got impatient then . Let’s treasure what we have and hope we can take the next step – a step that before we arrived we were nowhere near .
Cheers TTG. A game of two halves.
Thanks for the report TTG. I concur with most of what CER said @4. It was a very convivial lunch, where the consensus was “it’s been a funny old season.” I was surprised at my own primal pleasure in beating this very unpleasant Newcastle team who, fair play, have had the wood over us for a couple of years now. I completely agree about their fans who, since they took the Saudi blood money, have become insufferable.
Newcastle is one of my favourite cities, but in the last few years I have taken dogs abuse at St James Park because I was wearing an Arsenal scarf. As they say, you can tell a Newcastle fan, and you can’t tell him anything. Well yesterday was for you guys. And it felt good. I don’t think Isak is going to end up at Arsenal, but I would laugh for a week if he did.
Thanks TTG, a fine report of a game that
it was an absolute pleasure to take three
points from and condemn our visitors to a
week of nervous looking over their shoulders.
Deserve has everything to do with it.
A nice win at Soton and then some well-
earned R & R for the whole squad.
Thanks for a swift and enjoyable report TTG – that was the game I saw. I am getting thoroughly sick of the media twats and so-called Arsenal fans giving Arteta grief for not winning silverware this season. Would we really trade this, extremely bizarre, season’s achievements for the Mickey Mouse Cup that Manure and the Spuds will play for this week? If you would, you’d need your head examined. Actually if you are an Arsenal fan and think Arteta should win silverware or leave next summer you should be exiled to the Marshes.
Frankly, the pundits calling Arteta out have a long-standing anti-Arsenal agenda and would love to see Arteta leave because they know it would weaken us and derail the progress we are making. The ‘fans’ suggesting he should be sacked if he doesn’t win silverware next season don’t deserve to have any association with a successful club and should go back to their video games. Paul Merson is a special case – an exciting footballer in his day despite the alleged alcohol and drug excesses but he was never gifted with intellectual skills and I suspect that he has also headed too many balls over the years.
If you think we need a goal scorer, spare a thought for the Czech league side, SK Dynamo Ceske Budejovice, which went the 30-game regular season without a win (P30 W0 D5 L25 GF14 GA78) and hasn’t won any of the first four of its five relegation play-off games (P4 W0 D1 L3 GF1 GA6). One game away from the perfect imperfect season. Top scorer Quadri Adediran has three goals.
Bath @10. Every word my friend. Every word.
Bath
You sum it up very well. The Neanderthal hordes – eg Goldstein, Cundy , O’ Hara , Carragher and Keane etc etc decree that any silverware is better than a solid high quality season even if that siverware is a tinpot trophy competed for by lightweights .
Should the Marshdwellers overcome United in the eagerly anticipated Europa League final on Wednesday I look forward to the song originally patented by Wet Spam when they won the Neasden Alliance Flower arranging competition – ‘ Champions of Europe- you’ll never sing that ‘. Indeed we won’t because we are too good to be in a competition of that quality
The equivalent of winning League 1 and saying Arsenal are second three years in a row.
Great stuff, TTG – add my endorsement of your final paragraph to the others above.
Newcastle have become Stoke with money under Eddie Howe and the Saudis (not the 60s pop band), which is a bit strange as he seemed a very reasonable sort at Bournemouth. He directs operations at St James’ and has become chief excuse maker for their thuggish behaviour. Good luck to any team that is hard and fair but there are a few nasty pieces of work in that team.
As for the other stuff –
If Liverpool had lost Salah and van Dyke for several months this season they would not have won the league – any more than Man City did, and they only lost Rodri.
Given the season we’ve had, 2nd place in the league and a Champions League semi final is a superb achievement.
It’s stupid of the media to blame Arteta for not wanting / getting a striker. He said very clearly when asked in January that yes, he definitely wanted a striker. The acquisition of same is not his job.
Considering the circumstances he’s been up against for the entire season – and despite how well Slot and Nuno have done – I think Arteta should have got / should get Manager of the Season. I won’t be holding my breath.
Bath @10 – yes, Sir, absolutely !
I sympathise with Merson over his addiction problems and he does sometimes nake some decent comments about the football but the nonsense about Arteta yesterday died him no favours at all.
It’s strange how Eddie Howe manages a thoroughly unpleasant team who have blown everything out except a league cup and he, according to the media, is the natural choice as the next England manager.
Meanwhile, Mikel Arteta takes over a giant club in chaos, rebuilds every aspect of it and goes within a whisker of beating Man C130y (with all their state funds and cheating ) to the title – twice ! If he doesn’t win it next time though he should be sacked. Really ? Per-lease !
TTG@13: Given that the Europa League is the bastard child of the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup and the European Cup Winners’ Cup, and we’ve won both those, we can sing that.
Merson was quoted on the BBC earlier today as saying that if we aren’t in the top two at Christmas, Arteta will be gone. So add Trev@16’s final paragraph to those I am endorsing unreservedly.
Trev’s also right @15 about the media piling on Arteta over the signing of a striker. My understanding is that the club thought a deal for Sesko was done and dusted last summer, but the Slovenian got cold feet at the last moment, fearing he wouldn’t be the regular starting 9, and leaving no time to implement a long-term Plan B. The Sterling loan was Plan something way down the alphabet, but come the January window, its success put paid to the notion that any body was better than none.
I had lunch yesterday with a delightful nonagerian who has supported Fulham all his life . He was reflecting on their season and said that Arsenal and Palace were the only teams to play them off the park this season ( that was generous to us ) and he also looked at the ex- Gunners they have . Leno has been superb , Nelson largely injured , Willian has made a mark again, Iwobi is close to player of the season but ESR has been a major disappointment. He feels that he doesn’t last ninety minutes , that he disappears in games and has been underwhelming given the £32 m they paid . He hasn’t heard the Croydon De Bruyne ‘ tag which amused him but felt they had fallen far short of that level. I wish him a better second season but it does suggest Arteta gets his assessment of players right.
My friend also intensely dislikes S***s , finding it hard to believe their assessment of themselves as a big club .
TTG @20 – It would appear that a gentleman with , I assume, around 80 + years if watching football knows his onions. Who knew that kind of experience could result in a measured, thoughtful view?! Any chance he could take over from one or all of the Ship of Fools we have foisted on us by the broadcasters and legacy media?
The inimitable Jonathan Liew on retiring from his Wednesday night football team.
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/may/20/some-guts-no-glory-end-of-my-amateur-football-career-brings-painful-realisation?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Great link, C100. So true.
TTG@20: Sharp observation about ESR.
C100@22: Thanks for the link. Growing old isn’t the hard part. It’s admitting it.
Many thanks TTG for your fine report on that excellently executed Geordie slaying. Just in case you forgot, we did take all three points out of their pockets. 😎
Thanks c100 for that Liew link. Very enjoyable read.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Liew
The whole point, that he makes, is that he is not a professional.
He’s not even 40? He’s free to make that choice, but essentially, in his case, if he really stops, it’s a cop out, not a generally applicable reflection.
Ollie@27: In Liew’s defence, there does come a point when positional sense, ability to read a game and passing range can no longer compensate for the loss of speed and power as opponents a quarter of a century younger zip by you or barrel through you. Even mastery of the dark arts and sheer bloody-mindedness are of minimal assistance any more. All that is left is the wait to be old enough to play walking football…
So going into the final game, c115y are three points and -8 on goal difference behind.
Nice piece by Blogs on Kieran Tierney today. A genuine footballer whose career – even at Celtic – has been blighted by injury. He arrived at the Arsenal with a refreshing, down to earth, hard working attitude. A younger player than we’d maybe been used to at 22, and I clearly remember BtM being convinced from the start that here was future captain material. Injury and a change in tactical thinking from the manager put the breaks on that.
I hope he does really well back at Celtic. He always gave 100% whenever that was possible. At 28 he deserves a break 🤞🏻
Cheers TTG!
https://unexpecteddelirium.substack.com/p/the-long-read-chapman-and-allison
What Trev said. Although his last sentence may sound unfortunate :-p
The penultimate leaderboard of the GHF Predictathon has been posted. We now have three players level on points in second place, and any one of them could still snatch victory at the death.
You know where to find it…
Yep Ollie – I didn’t even want to qualify my last sentence just in case …..
Cheers Ned, going to be as intriguing a final day in the Predictathon as in the PL in some respects. And ooooooh, I’m off the bottom again, all the way to 18th? Too late for the great escape I suspect, but that’s an unexpected improvement!
Esso@31: Thanks for the link. Always a pleasure to read about Herbert Chapman, a true giant of not just our club but the game. As I argued in my appreciation of him, https://www.goonerholicsforever.com/?p=7636, he, George Allison and Tom Whittaker were a dynasty the likes of which we are unlikely to see again.
Congratulations to Ode to Saka for hanging on against Bad Habits in the semi-finals of the Ropey League Cup. The boys staged a spirited fightback, despite having to play with 10 men after losing Saliba at half time, but they had left themselves too much to do after falling so far behind early on. Best of luck to OtS in the Final against the Top Sheep.
Thanks Ned for your best wishes. I was well aware what was at stake as I watched Pool playing Brighton. A single goal or assist for Salah or Diaz and the Bad Habits Boys would have been through. I couldn’t believe when Salah put the ball wide of an open goal from about six yards out. Fine margins indeed.
It became clear to me early on that Ode To Saka are more of a cup team than league challengers!
Nightmare.
So the worst neighbor’s team in the Premier League era beats the worst Manure team quite possibly in their history to win a trophy. That lot is going to be intolerable. On the positive side it is likely they won’t fire Ange.
I watched the excruciating fare on offer tonight and honestly can’t remember a worse Cup Final.
There is an irony in Tottenham winning by Ange employing the tactics he says he so despises . That’s how they won in Frankfurt and tonight . But really wh9 cares?
Let’s not worry about a competition we aren’t allowed to enter because it’s too low level for us
They will have more money bur they may also keep Ange !
My money would be on the neighbours starting next season with a new manager. If I were Ange, I’d want to get out of there while the going was good.
I didn’t watch the game last night but I’m reading that it was terrible. Two appalling teams trying to outdo each other with crapness. Anyway congratulations to Southend on coming through it and commiserations to Forest Green Rovers.
SP,
Imagine a game where all the players on both sides are Jeff Blockley, Lee Chapman, Ray Hankin, John Hawley, Sead Kolasinac, Jeff Barnett, Xhaka at defensive midfield, Eddie McGoldrick, Alan Hudson in his “drunk mode, Kim Kallstrom and Andre Santos.
It was worse than that.
Esso @31, thanks for that link – an excellent read. Looks a good site.
Interesting stuff on Twitter from MagicHat about the forthcoming financial pressures on Manure as a result of losing that match. I did subject myself to watching the game. It was like watching a badly acted farce. The nature of the winning goal epitomised the ineptitude displayed throughout by both teams. Why Amorim waited until the 75th minute to bring on Garnacho to provide effectiveness to their attack in a game that they simply had to win is beyond my comprehension.
If I was the President of UEFA, I would have declined to award the trophy to either of these groups of muppets (amongst many other things I would do to improve the game). The integrity of that competition is now soiled for ever.
I love a lot of sports but my two favourites are football and cricket . I’m becoming fonder of cricket and disaffected by football because of the media surrounding both sports , Cricket has intelligent ex- pros describing and explaining the game in a comprehensible way and not looking for click bait headlines or banter discussions. Football operates on a much lower level .
I expected this wave of absolute garbage this morning . Merse to the fore again’ Football is all about winning’. Arsenal are in a different stratosphere to Tottnumb. If we’d had a season like they have the acquisition of a minor bauble wouldn’t compensate for losing twenty one ( possibly twenty two) games in the league . We’d be horrified and pessimistic. What they have done is earned CL qualification which is very lucrative for them but will put enormous strain on their playing resources .
You can’t play a shadow team against Norwegian part-timers or a team in Eastern Europe who are about National League level. All that money will need to be expended on strengthening the team ( who would you have at Arsenal in a starting role from their squad ?) and they will be into three serious games a week. I think they will do well to get out of the group stage in the CL and in so doing they will find it very hard to reach a decent league position. But I don’t want them signing a decent coach like Iraiola or Frank or Glasner .
TTG@46: I wonder if there is something fundamental in cricket that elicits more intelligent commentary than football. It also has a rich literature, which football lacks.
I have seen only the highlights of the Europa Cup final, if highlights is the appropriate word. The game looked dire. Man U seemed to be reduced to lumping crosses towards the forehead of makeshift centre-forward Maguire, hardly the apex of tactical sophistication. Man U has the mirror image problem that Chelsea had when Poch was manager at the Bridge: a squad that doesn’t match the playing philosophy of the coach. Either the squad or the manager has to change so that there is a fit. With no CL or any European football next season, it is going to be difficult for Man U to attract players to reshape the squad. That doesn’t bode well for Amorin.
No one prepared to get off a shot to land the half ton?
Done my hamstring sorry.
I’m not a habitual listener to Arsenal podcasts but I recommend the new Le Grove podcast with Matt Scott. It has very interesting stuff on Gyokeres , Rodrygo and particularly Max Dowman. It also has a very realistic take on Tottnumb becoming the most successful club in Europe and lots of doom and gloom on Manure if that floats your boat !
Well hobbled in for the half ton, SP.
Well done SP.
Incredibly that’s more runs than low-scoring Root yesterday.
Keep hobbling, Sancho – there’s a long queue for surgery let alone treatment.
I’m still incredulous at “that” goal being given to Johnson for the Spuds. I know we’ve had one or two players in the past like Welbz and Gallas whom we’ve implored to get one off absolutely any part of their anatomy they could shove in the way of the ball but Johnson deflected the ball away from goal and it rebounded in off a defender’s stomach (?) – how the hell are people calling it his goal ?
Still, the scrappiest ever goal in the crappiest ever final of the crappiest ever competition, so who cares ? Apart from me. Apparently….. carry on …..
Still haven’t seen that goal and fully intend not to see it if I can avoid it. However, I am in no doubt it is an own goal, especially after your post here. 🙂
At the risk of being even more of a bore than usual, there is no way an Arsenal player is credited with that goal in a similar circumstance. It’s just laughable.
That goal being given to Johnson is just plain weird. It goes in off Shaw’s hand and is clearly an own goal. I wonder what convoluted reasoning decided otherwise? Maybe if they acknowledge it was handball then the ref should have awarded a penalty instead of a goal? So they’ve pretended it didn’t hit his hand to make the referee/VAR ‘correct’ in their interpretation of the rules?
Or UEFA didn’t want the game to be won by an own goal and exerted some sway? Apparently it was Opta who changed the designation. I must admit, I had considered them a reasonably impartial body who simply collated stats. This obviously incorrect decision to change their original decision from handball to a goal for Johnson raises serious questions about their integrity, and I would like to hear both the process for this decision and its rationale. I don’t struggle to believe UEFA might have channels of pressure they can use, but it would seem weird even for them to care that much about a blatant own-goal being credited as such.
Obviously though, there will be no further clarity about any of this. At least it didn’t change the fact that a goal was correctly awarded.
And… football becomes ever murkier. No surprise is it?
GSD: As competition organiser, UEFA gets to determine the scorer of any goal.
In its document on the definitions of its stats, Opta is ambiguous in how it attributes own goals:
Given any contention around assigning a goal to an appropriate player, Opta will apply their own rules, and when applicable will align decisions to the relevant official competition or governing body.
Were I to be a person with a conspiratorial mind or a financial fraud investigator, the first thing I would look at is whether there was any unusual betting activity around the attribution of the goal scorer.
Well in for the 50 SP. Fortunately I missed the Ropey League Final given the quality of the two teams
BUT……..
No such lack of quality in the Ropey League Holics Fantasy League Annual Challenge Cup
Final this weekend though, two fine goonerly sides will meet as
Ode to Saka managed by 🦖 take on Top Sheep managed by er.. 🐑
Looks like a mismatch emoji wise but the savage sheep did for the double dreaming
TTG last round 😱 and anything can happen in a one off – good luck to you both!!
Betting company pressure. Obviously they pay out more on an own goal than on some Spurs Herbert finding the back of the net.
Ned @58 – thanks for including that last paragraph. If only I could begin to work out what it means …….
Big games this weekend
Arsenal v Barcelona – Ladies Champions League Final- good luck girls
Southampton v Arsenal – a pretty dead rubber
The big one – Ode to Saka v Top Sheep. Top Sheep eliminated me for the second year after a count back last year . Good luck to you both gents .
Trev@62: I find the Marx Brothers can usually explain any legal mumbo-jumbo:
I didn’t know it was the 2nd year running TTG!
Youngsters today eh? I would cut his pocket money
if gave him any 😄
I just love the Marx Brothers. Karl wrote some of the funniest lines I’ve ever read, while Groucho’s views on Economics were measured and thoughtful.
Heh CER! 🙂
Interesting that Jason Ayto has decided to leave the club . Obviously disappointed that Berta got Edu’s job
He is credited with signing Zubimendi ( who as far as I know hasn’t signed yet!)
Another big Marx brothers fan here – cheers Ned !
OM@65: Not that TTG’s counting 🙂
TTG@86: Not a huge surprise. In most businesses, it would be common for a No. 2 who had stepped up to the top job in an acting capacity, put their hat in the ring for permanent appointment but been passed over to leave.
Neville has been refused entry by Forest for the game against the bus stop.
I can understand the desire not to let the weasel across the front door step
but if The Arsenal banned every pundit who said stupid things about the club
it would a very long list.
Some talk of a bus tour in London last night I hear? Something about winners of some 16th versus 17th cup of shame……..was watching paint dry at the time and must have missed it.
>>>>>>>