First thought: phew. It goes without saying that we needed a win
yesterday. It wasn't obvious that we would get it, and I certainly
didn't predict that we would get it with such ease. Before I describe
the performance and the impact one might hope it has on morale for
games to come, I need to add the caveat that Blackburn were truly
awful. Watching them yesterday, it was very much clear why they are 19th in the league. Add to that the fact that they played with 10
men for most of the game after Gael Givet was rightly sent off, and
we'd be wrong to take too much from the thrashing we delivered.
Having said that, let's not be too hard on ourselves. This is the
Blackburn team that beat United a couple of weeks ago. Scoring 7
against any Premier League side is a feat. Gael Givet was sent off
after we had quite clinically 'won' the game in the first half. They
were terrible, but we made them look worse.
I was so pleased with the impact of Walcott and AOC. They were very
effective, and when you have wingers (or wide forwards, as neither was
really playing on the wing) that are getting behind the
defence so effectively, you're going to create chances. And when you have a striker
of the calibre of Robin van Persie in the box, chances are you're
going to score from some of those chances. People might look at van
Persie's goals yesterday and think they were all relatively
straight-forward. And in terms of the actual finishing, they were. But
watch the replays and focus on the man's movement in the build up to
each. He's like a ghost. Defenders know that they are playing against
the most in-form striker in the world, but they can't defend against
him because his movement makes that impossible. He is phenomenal to
watch. 3 goals and 2 assists yesterday, one of which was a visionary
through ball to the Ox. If you didn't know before, let me tell you:
this is one of the best footballers ever to play for Arsenal. Bold
words, I know. Let me put it another way: he has now scored more goals for Arsenal than Dennis Bergkamp. That says it all. Obviously, one of our main priorities now has to be
keeping him. He deserves to have a team built around him.
Others impressed. Rosicky started and looked really good, as he has
done recently. Koscielny is a very solid defender. More ammo against
the mugs who argue that Wenger inherited a defence and can't spot
defensive talent. For every Cygan, there's a Koscielny. I'm a big fan
of the Kos.
So what does this comprehensive victory mean? Certainly not that we've
turned a corner. We may have, that remains to be seen. Maybe we never
had a corner to turn, perhaps we were just on a straight road but had
foolishly gone into a Little Chef and eaten an omelette which had
turned out to be made with 6-week old eggs, got salmonella, and had to
spend a month recovering. Or something. One of the best ways to get
out of a deep rut is to spank a load of useless-ex-allardyce-long-
yesterday. It wasn't obvious that we would get it, and I certainly
didn't predict that we would get it with such ease. Before I describe
the performance and the impact one might hope it has on morale for
games to come, I need to add the caveat that Blackburn were truly
awful. Watching them yesterday, it was very much clear why they are 19th in the league. Add to that the fact that they played with 10
men for most of the game after Gael Givet was rightly sent off, and
we'd be wrong to take too much from the thrashing we delivered.
Having said that, let's not be too hard on ourselves. This is the
Blackburn team that beat United a couple of weeks ago. Scoring 7
against any Premier League side is a feat. Gael Givet was sent off
after we had quite clinically 'won' the game in the first half. They
were terrible, but we made them look worse.
I was so pleased with the impact of Walcott and AOC. They were very
effective, and when you have wingers (or wide forwards, as neither was
really playing on the wing) that are getting behind the
defence so effectively, you're going to create chances. And when you have a striker
of the calibre of Robin van Persie in the box, chances are you're
going to score from some of those chances. People might look at van
Persie's goals yesterday and think they were all relatively
straight-forward. And in terms of the actual finishing, they were. But
watch the replays and focus on the man's movement in the build up to
each. He's like a ghost. Defenders know that they are playing against
the most in-form striker in the world, but they can't defend against
him because his movement makes that impossible. He is phenomenal to
watch. 3 goals and 2 assists yesterday, one of which was a visionary
through ball to the Ox. If you didn't know before, let me tell you:
this is one of the best footballers ever to play for Arsenal. Bold
words, I know. Let me put it another way: he has now scored more goals for Arsenal than Dennis Bergkamp. That says it all. Obviously, one of our main priorities now has to be
keeping him. He deserves to have a team built around him.
Others impressed. Rosicky started and looked really good, as he has
done recently. Koscielny is a very solid defender. More ammo against
the mugs who argue that Wenger inherited a defence and can't spot
defensive talent. For every Cygan, there's a Koscielny. I'm a big fan
of the Kos.
So what does this comprehensive victory mean? Certainly not that we've
turned a corner. We may have, that remains to be seen. Maybe we never
had a corner to turn, perhaps we were just on a straight road but had
foolishly gone into a Little Chef and eaten an omelette which had
turned out to be made with 6-week old eggs, got salmonella, and had to
spend a month recovering. Or something. One of the best ways to get
out of a deep rut is to spank a load of useless-ex-allardyce-long-
to the extent that we can at least start to idly dream about not
playing in the Europa League next year.
As I write, I have recently returned from watching United do us a
massive favour against Chelsea. Of course, if they really wanted to do
us a favour, they could have not beaten us 8-2 in August, but I
suppose it's the thought that counts. I know I have written off our
chances of coming fourth, and I stand by that, but what is the point
of being a football fan if you can't cling to the straggliest of
straws? There's still a mathematical chance, and Chelsea showed off
some more of their deep-rooted flaws tonight. 3-0 up to United, they
were pulled back by 2 Wayne Rooney penalties and a Chicharito header.
One thing you could say is that that would never have happened under
Mourinho. Chelsea are certainly not the force they were, and watching
them objectively (something I struggle with, admittedly), they do not
necessarily look stronger than Arsenal. There's still hope, even if
your heart tells you that fourth is out of our reach.
Overall, I'm happy with the weekend. Newcastle won, of course but if
you see Chelsea as our main competitors for fourth place, this was yet
another opportunity to make up points on them, and an opportunity we
took. We scored 7 goals, RvP got a hatrick, Thierry scored in his last game at the Emirates, and Stoke lost. Call me a
man of simple pleasures, but that for me is a great weekend of
football.
Until next time,
Joe
No comments:
Post a Comment