HAVING spent the eve of England's new league season worrying whether
their magnificent new North Bank stand would be finished in time,
Arsenal officials were reduced by four o'clock on Saturday afternoon to
concern that supporters might be flinging themselves from the top tier
in frustration.
For the second year running, George Graham's team, well backed as
potential champions, had offered early encouragement, soon to be erased
by defending as suicidal as their followers must have been feeling.
Last season it was Norwich City who came from 2-0 down at Highbury to
score four times without further reply; this time, the equally
unregarded Coventry City resisted an early assault and went on to claim
the outstanding result of the opening day with a hat trick in half an
hour by the ebullient Mick Quinn.
Whether insulted or delighted to find himself priced at 50-1 to finish
as the Premiership's leading scorer, Quinn invested #50 and went on to
establish himself as the clubhouse leader. Arsenal had little time to
dwell on their misery, for tonight they must play away to Tottenham, of
all teams.
They will find their neighbours preening themselves after having
grounded another club who had been reaching for the sky. Teddy
Sheringham's first-half goal was a reminder to Newcastle United that
hype alone never won any points. Although doubts about Kevin Keegan's
side have centred on their defence, it was the attack, in the absence of
Peter Beardsley, that disappointed most.
With six out of 10 matches finishing in away wins, Anfield was one of
unexpectedly few venues where deflation was not the prevailing emotion.
Helped on their way by the sending-off of Sheffield Wednesday's Carlton
Palmer after only 12 minutes, Liverpool took a comfortable, and
comforting, victory with two goals by Nigel Clough on an assured debut.
With Blackburn coming from behind to defeat Glenn Hoddle's Chelsea on
his debut at Stamford Bridge, the only other home winners on Saturday
were Aston Villa, by a flattering 4-1 against Queen's Park Rangers, and
Sheffield United, playing in one of four games which brought together
eight teams expected to spend the next eight months in the nether
reaches. Swindon Town, likely to be the nethermost of them all, were the
sufferers against United, now without Brian Deane (who scored Leeds'
very late equaliser at Manchester City).
Oldham and West Ham did nothing to dispel the notion that they will
both struggle, with emphatic defeats at home to Ipswich and Wimbledon
respectively -- Wimbledon rather spoiling the effect with their owner
Sam Hammam scrawling obscene graffiti on the dressing-room wall that was
designed, he said, to motivate his team.
The writing was supposed to be on the wall for Howard Kendall and
Everton following prolonged failure to sign a replacement for the
unwanted Mo Johnston. Midfielders Peter Beagrie and John Ebbrell earned
him breathing space with goals at Southampton.
One result leaped out from a series of close encounters in the first
division of what we must learn to call the Endsleigh League: Derby
County's 5-0 demolition of Sunderland, whose manager Terry Butcher said
''We were bloody awful.''
There were those at the Baseball Ground who felt that was a generous
assessment.
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