The Warm-Up: Arsenal are Arsenal even when they win

There are a few constants in life. You’ll be familiar with death and taxes, and also probably the inevitability of Arsenal labouring to victory over a side that is supposedly one of the Premier League’s less glitzy outfits. They beat West Brom 2-0 on Monday night, a scoreline that was as predictable as Tony Pulis’s choice of headgear, a couple of goals from Alexandre Lacazette enough to give Arsenal a solid, if unspectacular, three points.

Maybe that’s just the sort of thing they need at the moment. With doom once again predicted, as players fix one eye on the door and fans grow weary of seeing a string of the same old, same old failings, maybe a nice run of boring victories is just what they need.

“They pushed us very hard, especially in the first half,” solemnly intoned Arsene Wenger. “They disturbed our build-up and played a very dangerous and direct game. In the second half I felt we controlled the game and did not give anything away.”

The bad thing for Arsenal is that this win, plus the scrappy (in the positive sense of the word) performance against Chelsea last week, have been greeted as if they were great showings, a sign that a corner has been turned and everything is going to be OK again. It’s a little like praising a cat for soiling the litter tray rather than the sofa. Good, but that’s what they’re supposed to do. Who knows whether they’ll carry it on, but this will do for now.

Of course there will be those who complain about yet another concession to the idea that football began in 1992, but playing in probably the most physically demanding era of professional football for nearly 20 years is some achievement.

Gareth Barry clocked up his 633rd appearance in the defeat to Arsenal, nudging ahead of Ryan Giggs, who is no doubt now gutted but will have to console himself with his silo full of medals. Did Ryan Giggs get a congratulations message from Gareth Southgate? Did he heck.

Doing one thing for what essentially amounts to a whole generation seems absurd, and thus Barry seems like one of those incredibly old people who were around for the invention of the box brownie camera, or knew the Wright brothers when they flew for the first time. He’s one of our few links back to the distant days of the 1990s, when hair was curtained and kits baggy. Soon, we’ll all be gathered around Barry as he sits in a high-backed leather chair and we ask him: “Mr Barry, tell us what it was like to play football in shirts where the sleeves reached your elbows.”

Those of us of a certain age grew up when Russians were still the cold-eyed, cold-faced, cold-blooded villains of choice in films. Therefore, the words of the Russian Football Union’s head of security, discussing the behaviour of Liverpool and Manchester United fans heading to Moscow this week to support their sides in the Champions League, had a certain familiarity to them. Which is to say, they were bloody terrifying.

Cartoon Russian Vladimir Markin said: “I don’t want to scare anyone but I warn those who plan to come here not to support their side and see the country but to commit hooliganism: the law is the same for all, not just for Russians. Those who break it will face a suitable punishment, possibly in the form of a long stay in Russia, in conditions our guests won’t like.”

It’s unconfirmed whether he said this while gently gazing at a map to Siberia, or twirling a set of keys with ‘Gulag’ written on the tag, but you certainly get the message. Keep your heads down lads, or else you ain’t coming home.

Now, some people might argue Sparta Rotterdam keeper Roy Kortsmit only made all these saves because he kept pushing the ball back into the danger zone, and that he should have caught the ball. But those people are joyless buffoons and should be treated as such. The rest of you, enjoy this.

Much like eating a bacon sandwich or listening to ABBA, there is never a bad time to call Xabi Alonso an absolute hero who we all either want to be, or be with (possibly both…actually, no, that wouldn’t work…), but let’s just taken a moment to think about what it would be like to be coached by him. He carefully explains a tactical ploy, he places a firm but tender hand on the top of your arm, he looks directly into your soul with those beautiful eye…sorry, miles away there for a moment.

As unpalatable as it might seem, there are a couple of things that rugby does better than football. The Welsh national anthem is one. Trusting fans to drink booze and watch the game at the same time is another. The advantage rule is a third, as West Brom found to their cost on Monday evening.

Jay Rodriguez was clearly taken clean out by Shkodran Mustafi, who probably shouldn’t have worn those clown shoes to defend in, but the referee played an advantage. That was fair enough, as Rodriguez then hit the post with his shot and Jake Livermore nearly stuck away the rebound, but football and the way its rules and conventions are set up doesn’t allow the referee to play the advantage that far ahead. It should though: of course it should. Rugby has figured it out, and their idea of fun is to drink 14 pints of something warm through their mate’s jockstrap. If they can figure it out, surely football can too.

A very happy birthday to Michael Ballack, 41 today, and here are the 42 goals he scored for Germany, including the ones he scored to carry his country to the World Cup final in 2002.

In the Irish Times, Ken Early has a look at Liverpool’s defence and wonders if there really is a problem there. Maybe not, as it turns out.

The Chaaaaaaaaaaaaaaampioooooooooons. Yes, the Champions League is here again, with a set of fixtures you can generally file under ‘intriguing if not mind-blowing’. The big one looks like Borussia Dortmund v Real Madrid, while the English clubs have some ticklish tasks as Spurs travel to APOEL Nicosia, Manchester City host Shakhtar Donetsk and Liverpool face Spartak Moscow. Meanwhile, for all you gritty types, there’s a full programme of Championship games too.