{"id":6503,"date":"2022-08-20T22:02:23","date_gmt":"2022-08-20T21:02:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=6503"},"modified":"2022-08-26T05:21:57","modified_gmt":"2022-08-26T04:21:57","slug":"this-organisation-does-not-tolerate-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/?p=6503","title":{"rendered":"This Organisation Does Not Tolerate Failure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color:#fff;display:inline-block;font-family:Roboto,sans-serif;color:#a7a7a7;font-size:11px;width:100%;max-width:594px;\"><div style=\"padding:0;margin:0;text-align:left;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/1416017894\" target=\"_blank\" style=\"color:#a7a7a7;text-decoration:none;font-weight:normal !important;border:none;display:inline-block;\" rel=\"noopener\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div><div style=\"overflow:hidden;position:relative;height:0;padding:66.66667% 0 0 0;width:100%;\"><iframe src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/1416017894?et=bggu9wI2Q315kTryXaQO_A&amp;tld=com&amp;sig=vpKiO5jQBavhwlvOvGqvraoAGd8fGws2kuKuHhEXHW8=&amp;caption=true&amp;ver=1\" scrolling=\"no\" style=\"display:inline-block;position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;margin:0;\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\"><\/iframe><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>There is a scene in You Only Live Twice where Blofeld interrogates two of his subordinates who have failed to kill Bond. He sends them away in displeasure, yet after the first chap has crossed a suitably&nbsp;<em>evil lair d\u00e9cor 101<\/em>&nbsp;looking bridge, Blofeld depresses a lever with his foot and the bridge falls away, sending the red-haired woman (Helga Brant is the character name \u2013 thanks Google!) into a pool beneath. She surfaces and screams, before being submerged in a frenzy of bubbles as she is eaten by piranhas. The camera pans to the horrified look on the face of the chap who has just escaped death by a whisker.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I imagine this was something like Scott Parker felt in the first half an hour as his Bournemouth side were torn to shreds by a rampant Arsenal. I don\u2019t know what colours piranhas actually are, but I assume they are salmon pink \u2013 either due to natural selection or because they feel such a strong kinship to Jesus, Martinelli <em>et al<\/em> that they have all bought replica Arsenal away kits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We began nibbling away from the first whistle but tore our first chunk out of them after a mere five minutes. Ben White played a brilliant, lofted ball forwards (what do you mean it was a loose punt upfield?!) which Jesus took out of the sky under pressure with a touch God would have been impressed by before showing incredible skill, strength and pace to beat two men, drive forwards and slip a delicious ball through for Gabigol. His shot was saved but \u00d8degaard was in the right place to knock it in. What a start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We scored again five minutes later, our captain feasting on easy prey. It\u2019s a pity we can\u2019t play a Harry Redknapp side in this form. We\u2019d show him what \u2018down to the bare bones\u2019 really means. Anyway, this time Ben White overlapped, Saka played him in, and his pullback was cushioned perfectly for Martin \u00d8degaard (what do you mean he was trying to control it for himself?!) who absolutely walloped it into the far corner. There was a VAR check off White\u2019s position, which I have to say I thought was going to go badly for us after a look with my naked eyes, but the arbitrary lines went in our favour this time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The rest of the half was a solid display with some dangerous looks that did not quite materialise into good chances. We played well and held them at arms length. They couldn\u2019t lay a glove on us and we looked untroubled all the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bournemouth perked up a bit in the second half, starting better but not causing us concern.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Then, we swung a long corner to this new chap we\u2019ve signed to make runs into the box and get the goals and assists we need to go to the next level. It is unusual that we have given him Granit Xhaka\u2019s number 34, and even more so that we haven\u2019t even changed the name on the shirt, but I\u2019ve been watching Xhaka play for years, and I\u2019ve got no idea who this bloke is. He layed off a wonderful, weighted pass to invite a shot from, of all people, William Saliba. However, the young Frenchman has cunningly turned down all Thomas Partey\u2019s invitations to join him for shooting practice, and stroked it into the top corner with his left foot. Absolute banger.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Bournemouth sent some crosses in. Keifer Moore did moore with them than he could be expected to but we kept the clean sheet. See what I did there?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We could well have added to our goal difference. The arbitrary VAR lines ruled out a Jesus effort dinked over the keeper. Pity. He had another decent chance that was saved. ESR and Eddie came on and both had chances that failed to get past the goalie. Lokonga and Tomiyasu got on, as did Tierney, ahead of Zinchenko in an interesting positional choice that we may see more of through the season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We ran out 3-0 winners. A thoroughly deserved result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A word for the away fans, who had a marvellous day out. They were raucous and did not stop singing. Even on the TV you could hear them pulling out the full repertoire for those on the pitch, as well as a few old favourites. \u201cYou\u2019re going down with United\u201d was good work. I was more surprised to hear a chant for Xhaka than for Rocky, but glad of both. Saliba was serenaded all day, including at the end when the team went over to applaud their rapturous support. He was coy at first, but was soon wreathed in smiles. He looked very happy. Good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The entire team were brilliant. The Xhaka-Zinchenko thing is just excellent. Saka had a good game and yet was our least effective attacking player. Partey was like an octopus in the middle, pulling the ball in from all angles. Saliba gets a special mention for the goal and generally being the sort of invincible-seeming henchman Bond would have to kill with a seriously elaborate death (perhaps one of the floodlights crushing him?) Jesus got MOTM from Smudger but Gabigol and the skipper would have been good choices too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, I have watched All Or Nothing, and it appears that Arteta has a dog. I think this is the wrong animal for him. Can someone get the Gaffer a fluffy white cat to stroke menacingly as he stares furiously at his team for failing to win by seventy-four clear goals?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Afterwards the Sky Sports gimp asked him how close that was to perfect. As expected, he barely drew breath before asserting \u201cStill far,\u201d and proceeded to lay out a variety of ways we could have been better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Honestly, I think he is aiming to win the Prem and Champions League only as practice for World Domination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, we have three wins from three. We are doing as well as we could be at this point. Let\u2019s not go overboard, there is a long way to go. But, as Dave would remind us, it\u2019s good to enjoy the good days!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a final note, we wore black armbands for Steve Braddock, by all accounts a tremendous man as well as the finest groundskeeper in the country, if not the world, and I think everyone at the club did him proud today. This one was for you Steve, thanks for the carpet, and RIP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Have a good one \u2018holics.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Embed from Getty Images There is a scene in You Only Live Twice where Blofeld interrogates two of his subordinates who have failed to kill Bond. He sends them away in displeasure, yet after the first chap has crossed a suitably&nbsp;evil lair d\u00e9cor 101&nbsp;looking bridge, Blofeld depresses a lever with his foot and the bridge [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6503"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6503"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6548,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6503\/revisions\/6548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.goonerholicsforever.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}