Goal 1 – Song plays a nice ball to Bendtner who in turn plays a nice ball to Eduardo who thumps it home from just outside the box. Quality all around and a great finish.
Goal 2 – Debutant Kieran Gibbs plays a ball through the middle of the Sheffield United defence. Eduardo latches onto it and finishes with aplomb. Spiteful Chris Morgan shoves Eduardo over long after the ball has hit the back of the net.
Goal 3 – The ball is worked to Denilson outside their area. He takes a shot which clips off the spiteful Chris Morgan (it’s called Karma, cunthole) and it loops up, over and wide of the goalkeeper. That was his second of the season and both have come in this competition.
It is no understatement to say that it was easy for Arsenal. Despite possibly the most makeshift back four I can remember since that game at Old Trafford they didn’t threaten at all, they couldn’t keep the ball and we simply passed it around them as if they weren’t there.
Stand-out performances from Eduardo, whose finishing was excellent and those goals will do him a lot of good, Diarra at right back who looks real quality, Alex Song and Justin Hoyte at centre-half who were solid throughout and …well, all of them. The keeper looked good, Kieran Gibbs had a fine debut, Denilson showed the manager what he’s capable of and he’s enjoying the Carling Cup this season, Theo was dangerous and could have scored but the post saved Sheffield United, Diaby was a bit hit and miss but when he hits he does lovely stuff and Bendtner did well up front and showed some good touches.
There was so little chance of Sheffield getting anything from the game late on that we could bring on Henri Lansbury and Nacer Barazite for their first team debuts and Fran Merida for another few minutes of Carling Cup football. The style of football and the way Arsene likes his team to play is not just limited to the so-called ‘First XI’. These lads have shown they’ve got real quality and while the game itself was hardly what you’d call exciting it was a pleasure to watch. The way they just kept possession at times in the second half was wonderful. Everyone concerned can be very happy with their evening’s work.
A word for Gilberto though. It’s hard not to feel for him. Such an important player last season he’s so much on the outskirts now but unlike Jens Lehmann he hasn’t gone mouthing off in public. I have no doubt he’s had some discussions with Arsene about the lack of playing time he’s had but he’s done it the right way – in private. We can only speculate as to why the captaincy was given to Fabianksi, playing only his second game for the club, but you have to give credit to the Brazilian who had a fine game and however he might be feeling about his current circumstances it didn’t stop him giving 100% and acting like a real professional. The manager says there’s no problem so I suppose we have to take his word for it.
AW was also impressed with the overall performance (how could he not be?) and had some words about the Crozilian who notched his first domestic goals, saying:
Eduardo played very well, it is very difficult to say that one player in our team did not play well. He took his first chance, that is always a sign of quality for a striker, and he looked sharper than three, four weeks ago. We do not put any pressure on the timing, we just know when a player comes to a club it takes more or less six months.
If he can get there sooner then fantastic. There’s no doubt he’s played himself into contention for Saturday’s game against United. Diarra too and possibly Gilberto could all figure, if only from the bench – and this is going to be a tough a test as we’ve had so far this season. More on that in the next couple of days.
In other news Carlos Vela scored his first goal for Osasuna as they beat Real Betis 3-0 last night. He played on the left of a front three and according to Marca was ‘the real deal’. Sounds promising.
Cesc takes some of the limelight off himself and gives props to Almunia (saying they feel ‘VERY secure’ with him in nets) and Alexander Hleb who he calls a ‘complete player’.
Not much else to tell you about this early. I suppose I’d better get cracking on the Arsecast although tomorrow may be an Arsecast free day, we’ll have to wait and see.
Until tomorrow.
