Arsenal's driving force celebrates his goal
I’ve always said I can forgive a lot if the players put in
the effort. Yesterday was one of those such occasions. Let’s get this straight:
Manchester City are a far stronger side than Arsenal (especially an Arsenal
missing Koscielny, Ramsey, Wilshere, Walcott and Ozil). If you want an
illustration of the respective strengths of the squads on show yesterday then
look no further than the late subs – they brought on Alvaro Negredo, we brought
on an unknown French kid who is yet to score a goal. For that Arsenal team to
put up such a display, especially off the back of the previous week and the
publicity they’ve had, showed a lot of resolve and respect for the shirt and
the fans. I haven’t written about the Swansea game and perhaps it’s just as
well – the opposite of what I’ve written above would have been appropriate
content.
If there is a frustration for me today it is that we had to
go through the humiliation of the Chelsea game and the lack of effort in the
Swansea game to get here. If the same players (and there was only one starting
change yesterday from Tuesday) had played with the same desire against Swansea
we would have been two points better off this evening and still in the mix
(albeit mathematically). What I witnessed on Tuesday was as far removed from
yesterday evening as it’s possible to be. Swansea City should have been swatted
aside and the only reason they weren’t was a lack of proper motivation in our
players after the hammering at Chelsea.
Yesterday they looked like a different group of players.
There were nerves early on as City clearly came to play but I thought the
defence weathered any early storm and Arsenal were then largely the team on top
for most of the rest of the game. That didn’t translate to shots on goal
unfortunately but we were mostly unthreatened. City’s goal came from us yet
again dithering in midfield, though our lack of a decent run of the ball was
there again when they scored. Szczesny made a very decent save to push Dzeko’s
shot on to the post. For the ball to rebound and basically hit Silva and go in
the net summed up a team short on fortune at the moment. As I write this I’ve
yet to see the highlights so I don’t know if we should have had a penalty when
Rosicky appeared to be fouled by Zabaleta, but the lack of a yellow card for a
dive summed up a return to form for Mike Dean I suspect.
Mr Dean was certainly pretty abysmal for most of the rest of
the game. But not as bad, maybe, as the linesman at my end of the ground. You
might recall I referred to this official as a “busy little f****r” after the
game at Spurs a fortnight ago. He certainly was yesterday, as long as you were
“infringing” in a red shirt, at least. Again, I’ve not seen the replays but I’m
told Flamini was offside when scoring in the first-half – just about the only
thing the linesman got right in the whole game. James Milner was certainly
offside when he nearly laid on a second goal for City shortly after coming on.
Incidentally I’ve read the match report on the BBC website by some cretin
called Phil McNulty who claims that Arsenal were being dominated down our left,
with Podolski basically labelled a waste of space. That will be why Navas, on
City’s right wing, was taken off then Phil. In general I don’t get this media
impression of Podolski (that idiot Paul Merson said on Sky last week that he “doesn’t
know what Podolski does” – well he doesn’t waste his talent with drink and
drugs does he you bitter little t**t?) It might have been Podolski who was
eventually robbed of possession that ended with City’s goal, but it was Arteta’s
dithering and negative passing (which is getting more and more annoying) that
saw us get closed down in the first place.
Arsenal’s biggest problem was, as ever in the absence of
Theo Walcott, that we had nobody trying to run beyond the City defence. My
brother pointed out that Zabaleta, from right-back for City, made more moves in
behind than any Arsenal attacker did. I actually thought that Cazorla and
Rosicky (especially Rosicky) had very good games, but nobody was really
supporting Giroud who was winning more than his share in the air against
Kompany and Demechelis. Rosicky was the man who was willing to take someone on
with the ball at his feet and get between the lines. More than once it looked
like it would drive us on, but there was nobody making that run that would see
us get City’s defenders turning towards their own goal. We know how weak Clichy
is but we didn’t really test him.
The Arsenal goal was thoroughly deserved and was again
created by Podolski (absolute waste of space that bloke). His ball to Flamini
was superb and it was a very decent finish. Flamini got forward a lot during
the game which worried me at times, but his engine is good enough for him to
get up and down all day long. Vermaelen’s more disciplined approach to
defensive positioning today also made that possible. When the ball fell to
Podolski a little while later, one on one with Hart, I felt sure he’d bury it.
Again, with a bit of fortune it might have squeezed the right side of the post
for us, but it wasn’t to be and Podolski really shouldn’t have given the Head
and Shoulders boy a chance to make the save.
The season will, no doubt, end with some regrets for us.
Yesterday’s performance won’t be one of them, I feel. The fact that we went in
to such a game without the necessary strength in the squad will certainly be
one, but that’s a discussion for another day. In concentrating on what was
available on the day I thought it was a fine effort, ultimately not quite
getting what might have been the deserved reward of three points. If nothing
else it stops the rot and restores some confidence ahead of a tough trip to
Everton next week. That game is, at the very least, a must not lose.
One final note for optimism. I met Laurent Koscielny in the
car-park after the game yesterday and he said that he will be fit in “two
weeks”. Assuming that it’s a real two weeks and not a Wenger two weeks he
should be back for Wembley and Wigan Athletic. Fingers crossed.
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