december 13th
I have to say the feeling after our 2-2 draw with Chelsea was one of disappoinment. Not because of our performance but I really felt like that was a game we should have, and could have, won.
It started so well for Arsenal. A long Fabregas pass was nodded on by Henry and headed back to him by José. Henry’s first touch was exquisite and with his left foot he put it past a stranded Cech in the Chelsea goal. Another amazing goal to add to his collection.
After the initial shock Chelsea came out and started playing a bit. Robben looked quite dangerous, without producing much, and they passed the ball around like you’d expect a team with their confidence and ability to do. One slick passing move saw Lampard fire in a shot from the edge of the box but Manuel Almunia made a fantastic save. Sadly from the corner nobody saw fit to keep an eye on John Terry and he stole in to score with a fine header. I can’t pay him any higher compliment than that he reminds me of Tony Adams a lot.
For most of the first half Chelsea looked the slightly better side, their experience in midfield gave them the edge, but when we got a free kick about 25 yards out some quick thinking by Thierry put us 2-1 up. Graham Poll told Gudjohnsen to move aside and the minute he did Henry took the kick and with a slight deflection it went in.
Chelsea’s players went mental, Robben got booked for mouthing and afterwards José Mourinho was spewing. Not that he said anything because he was being diplomatic but it was obvious he was very unhappy about it. Boo fucking hoo, that’s what I say. We’ve had them go against us, Ian Harte got one a couple of seasons back for Leeds, we’ve had them go for us. It’s the circle of life.
Chelsea made two changes at half time. Bridges and Drogba came on for Carvalho and Tiago and within a couple of minutes it was 2-2. Another set piece saw Gallas win the knock down and the Gudjohnsen’s opportunist header crept in at the far post. After that though Arsenal got more into the game. Flamini and Cesc grew in stature in midfield and got really stuck in. They weren’t outlcassed in any way by Lampard or Makelele. Apart from one dazzling Robben dribble the only way Chelsea were a threat was through set-pieces. Lampard had a free header from one and in general we looked suspect from corners and free kicks.
We had our chances too. With about 15 minutes to go some slick passing between Cesc, Flamini and Pires saw Henry with a gilt-edged chance from about 7 yards. No keeper, two defenders on the line but with his left foot he somehow managed to scoop it over the bar. With not long left Scott Parker bundled Flamini over in the box and I’ve seen penalties given for less. In the end though a point was ok but we should have had three.
Positives for me were Cesc and Flamini in midfield. The two youngsters worked really hard and Flamini has impressed me in the last two games. Almunia looked good in goal today, he repaid the manager’s faith in him with a solid performance, he made a number of good saves, he swept up well and his kicking was flawless (something you can’t always say about Jens). And what can you say about Thierry? In his post match interview he looked a bit deflated, no doubt he was thinking about his miss, but he’s something special and I love him. I had a chuckle at his comment about how he doesn’t score in big games so this must have been a small game. What I would like to see is Robin van Persie get a start. I said it after the Rosenborg game that he looked a threat when he came on and the same wastrue yesterday. I understand erring on the side of experience with Dennis but van Persie deserves more than 9 minutes at the end of the game. I’d like to see him start ahead of Dennis now because he looks like he’s got goals in him whereas his elder doesn’t. What was obvious though was that despite showing Chelsea some healthy respect in the first half in the second we realised they weren’t as good as everyone seems to think. At the end they were the ones making defensive substitions. They have good players and Mourinho is building a decent team but we shouldn’t be afraid of them.
Something we obviously need to work on though is set-piece defending and again our corners were pretty poor. Too many of them didn’t make it past the near post and that’s really not good enough. We need to find a corner taker, make him practice like a fox and get it sorted out. As for the defensive side of things people are talking all the time about this zonal marking thing. If that is the way we’re playing it then wouldn’t it just be easier to go man for man at corners and sort it that way? Anyway, it’s something to work on. The boss spoke afterwards about how we lack a bit of height at the moment. Maybe a solution would be to bring Senderos into the centre of defence moving Kolo out to right back. Anyway the gap remains 5 points and we stay in third position after Everton’s merseyside heroics put them in second place.
In other news Arsene Wenger believes Thierry deserves to win at least one of the European/World Player of the Year awards saying it would be a “scandal” if he was overlooked. Edu is off to Valencia apparently, well so say the News of the World. And that’s about it. So how was your weekend then?
