[h=2]Arsenal on £12,000 at Anfield/QPR memories[/h]By Myles Palmer Arsenal's bonus structure is generous. Most clubs have similar incentives in their contracts : appearance money if a player gets on for three minutes as a sub, extra for a draw, a win bonus. Apparently Arsenal's win bonus is more than Manchester United or Juventus! As I understand it, last year they were on £12,000 each to win a game. Liverpool v Arsenal is a 12.45pm kick-off on Saturday. Clearly, Anfield will be harder than Spurs because Liverpool will not surrender the midfield. Agger and Skrtel have been immense this season, so RVP might have few chances to shoot. Kaboul and Ledley King had nightmares last week. King had the worst game I've ever seen him play. Glenn Johnson is far more skilful and experienced than Kyle Walker and while Luis Enrique has off days, or a couple of wobbly moments, he's never as hopeless as Assou-Ekotto was at Arsenal. The truth about Arsenal's bank balance has been made plain in a Radio 5Live programme that I've not yet had time to hear online. I gather that 5Live shed some light on the size of Wenger's bloated squad, the selling strategy behind it, and the ridiculous wages that make Wenger's failures unsellable. It's funny to hear Gazidis remind us that Arsenal need unity, so you should get behind the team as they battle for fourth place. Victory through harmony and all that. Since those in the know insist that Gazidis and Wenger rarely speak, Ivan's rallying cry has a hollow ring. Rather than be in Milan, your CEO went to a wedding in Mexico. Saturday has come round again very quickly, before I've really digested the events of last weekend. Ryan Giggs played his 900th game at Norwich and in stoppage time, with the score level at 1-1, he got onto the end of a diagonal cross from the left a yard from the far post and knocked in the winning goal. Interestingly, Giggs has started 500 games and come on as a sub in 400. He had a lot of trouble with his hamstrings and he's still playing because he does yoga. Last Saturday was fun and made me feel somewhat sentimental. As we got to our seats in Row C of the Ellerslie Road Stand, with the PA playing London Calling by the Clash, it was if we'd walked into a timewarp. No legroom, restricted view of the far goalmouth, leaning back to look behind a post as my friend Doug leaned forward to look in front of the post. Awkward but, somehow, not annoying. In Club Level, I'm watching shirt numbers. At QPR, I'm watching people. QPR v Fulham was an old-fashioned, noisy, gritty, involving football experience. We felt part of it. We could see the faded tattoo on John Arne Rise's upper left arm when he took a throw-in. And the QPR programme is better than the Arsenal programme. More football in it. Fulham had a goal disallowed, scored, almost scored again inside the first 10 minutes, it looked as if it could be four or five, or any score, really. And then Samba Diakite was sent off on his debut by Phil Dowd. Mark Hughes said : It was my fault, I told him to be aggressive. Mali had come third in the African Cup of Nations and the boy was still playing African football, which is very,very physical. QPR played well with 10 men but lost 1-0. The game was far closer than we thought it would be. But Fulham are vastly superior to QPR. We could see why they let Zamora go. Without a striker, Rangers could go down. That game made me think. I realise that, since 1967, I've now seen matches at Loftus Road in six decades. In 1969 I saw Rodney Marsh score a hat-trick against Blackpool in 6-1 midweek victory. Rod was brought down for a penalty which was converted, possibly by Terry Venables. Blackpool were promoted that season and QPR were not. I was a journalist, but not a football reporter, when the Stan Bowles-Gerry Francis team finished second to Liverpool in 1976. Chris Wright had four seats in the patron's box and I was often there with my Chrysalis mates. After 1982, I was there as a journalist in the press box, watching Les Ferdinand jump a yard higher than Colin Hendry, talking to Gerry Francis, now the manager, chatting to Clive Wilson on the stairs outside the players lounge. Andy Impey used to walk down South Africa Road with his minder. When the mobile phone rang in Andy's jacket pocket, his minder would take the phone out and answer the call. After 1996, when Chris bought the club, I was in the directors' box when I wasn't in the press box. In the Nineties I worked with Stan Bowles on his book at my house. Stan's a lovely lunatic and an incorrigible gambling addict and I haven't laughed to so much in 20 years. I still have the cassettes somewhere. When I find them I'll be in convulsions again. He actually said, "I've been a very unlucky gambler." Stan told me that he took valium every day for the eight years he played for QPR. Did that explain a lot? I was never sure.
Great, maybe we should turn LR into some kind of theme park to satisfy afficionados looking for the real football experience. In the meantime us regulars have to start planning surgery to repair damage to joints caused by a tortuous lack of leg room and wonder if the inability to access the toilets at half time is doing any long term damage to our kidneys. Don't listen to these once a decade tourists: new stadium now! He's right about the striker problem though.
Luis Enrique from Barcelona all those years ago is now at Liverpool?! Jose Enrique guys. We're better than that
