BIENVENUE TO SUTTON MONSIEUR WENGER! Doswell’s planning a hellish night for Gunners
IJUST hope his team talk will be a little more convincing on Monday night. “I’m over in Munich mate, doing a bit of scouting for our next opponents”. I’m half way through asking Paul Doswell why, if that was actually the case, did his mobile phone not have an abroad dialling tone when I called him two hours before. Oh, and why I could hear the TV commentary in the background and also his wife asking if he wanted a cup of tea. But I get interrupted before I had finished spoiling his fun totally. “Oh wait…. wait….it is!” says Sutton’s excitable manager. “It’s 4-1. Four! Interesting this, eh?” Interesting it is. Not if you’re Arsene Wenger though, and certainly not if you’re an Arsenal fan. But for the rest of us? You can’t get away from the fact something is brewing in the air over Gander Green Lane after the Gunners and their beleaguered boss were chewed up and spat out at the Allianz Arena on Wednesday night. Although you know deep down the chances aren’t high whatever team the Frenchman fields in south west London tomorrow, there is something sitting there in the back of your mind that maybe – just maybe – that 3G pitch everyone is talking about could finally bury the great Monsieur Wenger. The artificial surface could be dug up and relaid. It could be about to become the graveyard of a football icon. “Do I have sympathy for Arsene Wenger? I wouldn’t say that,” Doswell said “I have respect for him of course, what he has achieved in the game is incredible but no sympathy. He is well schooled. I don’t feel sorry for any of the big name managers out there. “It’s our job, if we can, to try and make things that little bit more difficult for them on Monday. It’s the biggest game we’ve ever played, and it’s probably one of the smallest grounds they’ve ever played at! “I tell you one thing, they’re going to bloody love our dressing rooms! There’s no room to swing a cat but the good news is we’re on the way with fixing the hole in the roof of our changing
THE Football Association are today sure to the come under fire as Sutton reveal gift governing body will not let Arsenal them well over £300,000. understands the Premier League The NLP of the giants want to hand over their share their entire broadcast fee – £247,500 – as well as entitlement to the gate receipts. Gunners that But the FA have incredibly told the club a penny they can’t give the National League the glamour tie. more than they should receive from it unbelievable Manager Paul Doswell said: “I find football but nothing surprises me in anymore.” added: But the Gander Green Lane boss “Arsenal are going to try and make that up to us somehow they say, which is great of them.”
room. I say that, it’s got a bit of board covering it up so we’re not getting wet any more but we’ll get there.”
He does plan to give Wenger a memento of the night his galaxy of stars took to their plastic. The most level of playing fields will always give Sutton a shout after building their game around the surface with an unrivalled record. They have beaten Forest Green, Cheltenham, Dartford, AFC Wimbledon and of course Leeds. Most of them at home.
“He’ll go back with a very nice bottle of red,” said Doswell, who added that it goes without saying that this is the tip of the iceberg when it comes to his managerial career.
Bandwagon
“The build-up has been incredible as you would imagine. Not all positive, I’ve got to say. A few people have had a fair bit to say about things but this isn’t a regular day for us. It’s not something we’ve experienced before this season – you’ll always have some people jumping on the bandwagon but we just want to enjoy the days leading up to the game before giving it everything we have got on Monday night.
“People keep asking me one question; can you do it? I tell them, it would be the equivalent of Luxembourg beating England at Wembley.
“It would probably be the biggest one-off sporting upset there has ever been but the hope and the opportunity is what we’re in the game for, isn’t it?”
ADAM MAY was Sutton’s unlikely hero in the against Leeds last round United – but he will gutted it’s the Gunners be a bit fourth today and not Arsenal’s round opponents! Southampton fan horns May, 19, would have with his childhood loved to lock Walcott team but England and Danny Welbeck attackers Theo Arsenal had other wiped the floor ideas. won’t with the Saints grumble at 5-0 but the U’s midfielder country’s the prospect of finest players facing some of the May on Monday night. said: “I grew up supporting on to play for Portsmouth Southampton but I had to keep then going “I’m quite a relaxed that to myself a before person. I was asleep bit! the last round! You by 10pm the night how many know millions are watching these games, so I didn’t actually think any more of the Leeds game than usual. If you have more nerves, you crumble. We can’t afford to think too much about it.”