Sometimes it’s nice to see an old friend after a long absence and last night’s 1-0 was just that. It’s our first 1-0 since the opening day of the Premier League season and it will provide welcome relief to everyone this morning.
As a game it wasn’t a feast of football by any means. We were pretty poor overall but with so many players out injured, confidence and form in the shitter, pressure on from all quarters and playing against a well organised defence who don’t concede too often I’ll take a 1-0 every single time. The goal came when Cesc fired a beautiful ball over the top for Nicklas Bendtner who controlled it well, looked for a moment to have taken it too wide but he slammed it home with his left foot to score the winner.
His pink boots might be ridiculous but it was an excellent finish and I was glad for him that he scored. He’s been subject to quite a bit of stick in the recent poor run so hopefully the goal will do him some good. And hopefully it will do the team some good too. The objective last night was to qualify for the knock-out stages of the Champions League and we did that. We kept a clean sheet too and credit has to go to Manuel Almunia for keeping us in the game with an excellent save late in the second half, before we had scored.
There was a little bit of history made too with Jack Wilshere becoming our youngest ever player in European competition at 16 years and 329 days. He turns 17 on New Year’s day. Well done to him.
Amy Lawrence quotes Arsene Wenger on the Arsecast every now and again where he says confidence is the easiest thing to lose in football and the hardest thing to get back. Yesterday was a baby step in getting some of our mojo back. The manager said afterwards:
Winning is a first step for us because the team needs a bit of reassurance and at least the win will give us that. I felt that it was a more steady than spectacular performance and for us it was important to come back to win the game.
The most important thing was the result. It was a difficult game because every team who comes here comes to defend and try to play on the counter attack. But we were patient and continued to play our football and in the end we scored the goal that we deserved.
And he also had praise for teammates Gallas:
It was difficult but you could that every time he [Gallas] touched the ball it was cheering him up and he was fantastic. He is a big professional and nobody doubts his commitment and he has shown that tonight again.
And Almunia:
Almunia has kept us in games four or five times now. He is growing in every game and is vital for us. Everyone respects him in the dressing room and he is gaining confidence so he is fantastic for us.
So a good start as captain for Cesc and his work at uniting the squad and getting everyone pulling together in the same direction has begun. And let’s not forget how important his football is to us. There’s nobody else in this team who could have played that pass to Bendtner for the goal last night, so to kick off his career as captain by talking the talk and walking the walk, so to speak, is good stuff.
Now, we’re not necessarily shouting from the rooftops yet but it’s good to get a win under our belts. It had been exactly two weeks since our last win (Wigan in the Carling Cup) and it now gives us a bit of a platform to work from ahead of Sunday’s game against Chelsea. More on that in the days to come. Who will finally top our Champions League group comes down to the game against Porto on December 10th.
Elsewhere, while William Gallas’s agent was saying the player had no plans to leave Arsenal, Kolo Toure was being somewhat cagey about his Arsenal future. Responding to speculation about a possible move to Manchester City in January, he said:
I am injured and need to get back to fitness. I have nothing to say about the transfer link, time will tell.
It could be just a throw-away comment but I would have preferred to hear him say something like ‘I have nothing to say about the transfer link. I am just focussing on working hard to get back into the Arsenal team’.
Maybe we expect too much from players but you’d never have Kolo down as a quitter. I’m sure he’s not enjoying things at the moment but he’s not been the same player since he came back from the ACN last season. Still, the last thing we need to do is sell any of our players, especially the more experienced ones.
With January and the transfer window looming ever closer I think most of us are expecting, if not praying solidly for hours at a time, that the manager spends some money to improve the squad. When you hear him talking about how some clubs are ‘living in dreamland’ and making his second reference of recent times to the current world economic climate you do start to worry. I’m choosing to look at this in a positive way this morning though, no doom and gloom at all, it’s obviously all part of his bargaining strategy. He’s making other clubs think there’s no money around so when he comes along and offers three bob and sixpence for a player they’ll feel like they have to take it. Yes, that’s what it is. That’s what it is.
Right so, not much else happening so let us spend the day basking in the warm glow of a win, at last. Till tomorrow.
