Hirshey: The Queen Roots For WHOM?

David Hirshey writes regularly for Deadspin about soccer.

Why did I come back? Why didn't I just drink myself into a coma in London and check into rehab with my hero Pete Doherty, who not only gets to shag Kate Moss when he isn't nodding off but also has his priorities in order.

"Your loyalty to a team can never die," Pete said recently, snorting the colors of his beloved Queen's Park Rangers. "Ties are stronger than they could be with a woman. If she goes and sleeps with your best mate, it's over. If the Rangers manager slept with my best mate, QPR would still be my team."

Truth to tell, there are times when I wish Arsene Wenger would sleep with my best mate (c'mon Rog, just once, for the Gunners!). Like this past Saturday, for instance. If only Wenger could have been el flagrante in the 94th minute of Arsenal's blood feud with Tottenham, then I might have been spared the horribly painful fate of watching the Gunners take it up the heinie nine seconds later—nine seconds after stoppage time had expired, I might add — when Jermaine Jenas lashed a 20-yard prayer under a diving Jens Lehmann to give the hated Spurs a thoroughly undeserved 2-2 tie and shovel another mound of dirt on our chances of finishing third.

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Even worse, I had to endure the maniacal taunts of Mid-table Mikey serenading the gang at Kinsale with "There's only one Jermaine Jenas" and then announcing that the goal was like "a big orgasm, the kind that my wife can no longer provide since the kids arrived." That's not what I hear from your best mate, Mikey! At any rate, it's time to ask some hard questions of Wenger and why he loses control of his sphincter muscles during those first few minutes of stoppage time. First it was Essian's scud missile at the death in the Carling Cup, then Andy Johnson scrambling the winner for Everton last month, and now Jenas. To be fair, he has a lot on his mind these days, what with the sudden ouster of his chief rabbi, Arsenal vice chairman David Dein, the swirling rumors of the club falling into the rapacious hands of yet another American owner and, most unsettling of all, the revelation that the Queen is an Arsenal supporter. "She told us she was an Arsenal fan," Fabregas told Spanish radio. "She appeared to definitely know who I was, and we exchanged a few special words." I'm still waiting for confirmation from Buckingham Palace, but I hear Her Majesty's "special words" went something like this: "Weren't you supposed to be tracking Jenas on that fuckin' shot, you Spanish twat?"

No wonder Fabregas, Arsenal's only real world-class performer this season, was left off the Premier League Team of the Year, which was announced last night and included the entire ManU squad, save the physio and John O'Shea. The back line was all ManU — Van der Sar, Neville, Vidic, Ferdinand and Evra — and oh how Ferguson must have wished he had even half those players available against Middlesborough on Saturday and Milan tomorrow night. Still, how to explain Sir Alex's bizarre decision in the dying minutes of the first half against Boro, when Ferdinand clutched his nether regions and indicated he needed to come off? Fergie took one glance at his Lindsey Lohan-thin bench and opted to let the goofy-looking centerback run off his groin strain.

Big mistake. Within seconds, Viduka left Ferdinand for dead and headed in the goal that doomed ManU to a 1-1 tie. Imagine the fiendish delight this gave to Chelsea supporters, whose team only had to beat hapless Newcastle on Sunday to reduce ManU's lead atop the Prem to a point. Maybe it's me, but in the 17,000 pubs I frequented on my recent London debauch, I could not find a single person who wanted Chelsea to win the league. The prevailing sentiment among fans of Arsenal, West Ham, Charlton and even those Tottenham scum was: While ManU is not exactly loveable, Ronaldo and Rooney and Carrick and Giggs have played the most attractive soccer in England, if not in Europe, this season, while the best that can be said of Chelsea is they keep grinding out wins with a combination of power and resilience. Plus, of course, their manager is an insufferable attention whore.

So when Chelsea failed to score against Newcastle and were forced to settle for a 0-0 draw, it seemed all of London (except for certain parts of Fulham Road) let out a collective sigh of relief. Even though their margin is only three points with four games to go, United's overwhelming goal differential means it could lose to the Blues in their epic Stamford Bridge showdown on May 9 and still win the league, provided they beat Everton, Man City and West Ham in their other three games. As for Chelsea, they have a far more daunting run-in with Arsenal looming on May 5th at the Emirates.

Let's hope the Queen shows up for that one and that the Gunners, with the game on the line in the 94th minute, don't royally suck.