I was going to break out the old disappointing night template but fuck it. We lost 1-0 to CSKA Moscow and once again one poor performance brings out the worst in some fans. It’s really quite tiresome now.
Yep, we didn’t play very well. Yep, some of the lads had very poor games. Yep, we can do better. However, to read some of the vitriol spewed out in the comments of some other Arsenal blogs is pathetic. People need to get a fucking grip on themselves.
The match, meh. One of those nights. Henry had a perfectly good goal disallowed – I love this picture from Gunnerific (a new blog to me) – and understandably he was upset about the decision and the yellow card he received. He said afterwards:
I think it’s a disgrace. I asked the ref what did he see and he couldn’t tell me. He said at the end he didn’t talk about it anymore. He was happy to talk about other stuff with the boss but not that. To give me a yellow straight away – please, look at the replay.
And the replay shows it should have ended 1-1. Arsene Wenger was equally as scathing, saying:
It was a goal but sometimes referees cancel good goals because they don’t see things. Tonight, we had a new thing because they cancelled the goal after they saw things that didn’t exist. It was a very bad decision.
It’s hard to argue with that but at the end of the day we had other chances to score. Particularly in the first half when Robin van Persie should have done better on two occasions. Still, these things happen. You pick yourself up and you get on with it because not every loss means the end of the world and that all your players are crap and that you should buy 20 new players.
Their goal: like Goodplaya the two players turning their back on the ball need a bit of a talking to but I thought we were unlucky here as well. For me it was never a free kick. The challenge itself didn’t merit a free kick, their player fell over Djourou and the ref then played an advantage. They had a shot at goal which was blocked and then he gave a free kick. How many chances did he want to give them?
As poorly as we played the officiating was just as bad and on a cold night on a crappy pitch we never got going. I’d certainly have no worries about the return leg of this fixture. CSKA are a decent side but we should have far too much for them at Ashburton Grove.
Next up we take the long trip to Reading on Sunday to play the Premiership new boys and I’ll be previewing that game and reviewing the CSKA game in the very first Arseblog podcast, or arsecast (which is better?), on Friday. Remember if you have any comments or suggestions to make please email them to podcast at arseblog.com. There have been some interesting ones already.
Also on Friday, what a busy day it’ll be, I’ll be announcing the winners of the Football Manager 2007 competition. If you haven’t already entered see Monday’s blog for details about the game and the question which a surprising number of people are getting wrong!
And there you have it. Let the post-mortem commence.
