Birmingham City won their first major silverware since 1963 as they beat Arsenal 2-1 in the Carling Cup at Wembley yesterday, when on-loan striker Obafemi Martens scored two minutes from the end of normal time, after a howler of a mix-up in the Gunners' defence.
Arsenal manager Frenchman Arsene Wenger said, however, that the gargantuan mix-up was not of a football nature, but rather a literary one - nobody can spell Arsenal players' names anymore!
In the recent past, the north London giants have taken to signing footballers from all parts of the Earth, preferring their fancy names to those of players from Britain with regular names, like Alan Ball, Jimmy Rimmer, Tony Adams and Charlie George.
Tomas Rosicky is one of these, and try as they might, Arsenal fans just cannot say his name right!
Yesterday, it was the turn of the Arsenal defence to suffer from the same type of confusion, as first fans, and later journalists, struggled with the gruelling task of correctly pronouncing the names of Gunners goalkeeper Wojciech Szczesny and defender Laurent Koscielny, after they collectively messed-up, allowing Martens to sneak in and strike the late blow that clinched victory for Blues boss Alex McLeish and his men, sending their supporters into ecstasy.
Martins is currently on-loan from Rubin Karzan, which is a mouthful in itself!
The striker had the simplest of chances after Koscielny attempted to clear when Szczesny came to collect a tame header from Nikola Zigic (Birmingham are not totally exempt!) to extend the north Londoners' six-year wait for a trophy.
In contrast to the crestfallen figure of Szczesny, Birmingham were indebted to their simply-named keeper Ben Foster for a magnificent display that rightly earned him the man-of-the match award.
Foster was outstanding throughout, denying Samir Nasri (know what I mean?) on three occasions and also saving splendidly from Andrey Arshavin (!!!) and Nicklas Bendtner (!!!!!!!!!!)
Yesterday's teams:
Arsenal
53 Szczesny
03 Sagna
06 Koscielny
20 Djourou
22 Clichy
07 Rosicky
08 Nasri
17 A Song
19 Wilshere
23 Arshavin (Chamakh 77)
10 Van Persie (Bendtner 69)
Substitutes
01 Almunia, 18 Squillaci, 27 Eboue, 28 Gibbs, 15 Denilson, 29 Chamakh, 52 Bendtner
Birmingham
26 Foster
02 Carr
05 Johnson
06 Ridgewell
28 Jiranek
04 Bowyer
07 Larsson
08 Gardner (Beausejour 50)
12 Ferguson
18 Fahey (Martins 83)
19 Zigic (Jerome 90+2)
Substitutes
01 Taylor, 03 Murphy, 21 Parnaby, 23 Beausejour, 09 Phillips, 10 Jerome, 17 Martins
Arsenal also have a player in their squad called Emmanuel Frimpong.
I rest my case.
