There’s not a huge amount you can say about yesterday’s game that’s positive – apart from ‘well, at least we didn’t lose’.
We looked like a team who knew they were playing in the FA Cup and not the league, if that makes sense, and we lived very dangerously in the opening parts of the game. For me we got lucky – the first 15 minutes were all Cardiff. They played some nice football and had some real chances to score. Lucky for us that their finishing wasn’t up to scratch because we could easily have found ourselves behind.
I thought Arsene’s post-match comment that we started the game very well was so far wide of the mark it might as well have been an Alex Song shot. Gradually though we did get back into it but struggled to create and impose ourselves on the game. Nasri had a good chance but instead of hitting it with his left foot as he did last week he came back on his right and the keeper saved.
When we did show a bit of bite and aggression Kieran Gibbs, one of the few bright spots of the day for me, began a move with a crunching tackle and ended it with a shot that went just wide. Robin van Persie took a free kick which wasn’t far away. Eboue was booked for diving then failed to control a simple ball in the box, which pretty much summed up his day.
Aaron Ramsey started the game on his return to Cardiff. Perhaps the occasion got to him but he won’t look back on this as one his fondest days but perhaps one when he learned a lot. In the second half he was replaced by Diaby while Adebayor came on for Eboue. The most likely goal threat came from van Persie who had a shot well saved by the Cardiff keeper whose name is too complicated to spell although this is much more time consuming to write, and the miss of the game came when Adebayor, all alone at the back post and certain to score, mis-kicked like a spastic foal. In games like this, when we struggle to create, you need your striker to be more clinical than that.
Jack Wilshere got 4 minutes at the end and I have to wonder about that. What is the point of just giving him 4 minutes? I can understand a late substitution to try and hang on to a lead but when you need a goal what’s the point in giving a guy so little time? I don’t think he even touched the ball. Cardiff hit the bar with the free kick late on but Fabianski always looked to have it covered. So 0-0 final score, a good result for Cardiff who will enjoy a night out at the Grove on Tuesday week, but disappointing from our point of view.
I’m not that worried about having to play another game but the poor performance, despite it continuing the unbeaten run, was a bit worrisome. Afterwards Arsene was keen to play-up Cardiff’s performance, saying:
Cardiff had a good committed game and created some chances. It was the quality of their defending and their commitment that stopped us scoring. Their centre-backs had a great game today and overall I think the whole team had a great day.
Now, while I’m not trying to take anything away from Cardiff, and fair play to them the way they played, I think the manager is a bit too keen to say Cardiff were great because it means he doesn’t have to say we were poor. And we were poor. Too many passes went astray, we didn’t put enough pressure on them, we defended poorly at times and would have been punished by better teams, we didn’t create enough and when we did have a clear cut chance Adebayor blew it.
But we get a chance to make up for it and should we beat them in the replay then a home game against West Brom or Burnley, the team that knocked us out of the Carling Cup, awaits.
Meanwhile Chairman Peter Hill-Wood has blasted Real Madrid presidential candidate Floretino Perez. With an election in the summer there are going to be all kinds of promises made. Perez has been talking about how he’ll bring Wenger and Fabregas to the Bernebeu – and not just that, there are stories in Spain about how he’s going to try and bring Messi from Barcelona to Real.
All complete bollocks of course. They promise the sun, moon and stars to get elected – a bit like Laporta promising Beckham to Barcelona before his election, but of we course we have a manager Madrid fans would love to see at their club, not to mention a player or two. Our chairman is having none of it though, saying:
I think it is laughable. It is disrespectful and very rude. It cannot be right to talk in such a way about a manager who is under contract at another club.
And of Cesc, he says:
He is not for sale to Madrid or anybody else. Absolutely not. He is a very sensible young man and he is very happy at Arsenal.
No doubt as the election draws closer we’ll get caught in the crossfire a little bit but it’s good to know where we stand. As if there were any doubt.
The Daily Mail – at the bottom of this report – brings us the following update about our Owlish friend:
Meanwhile, Andrei Arshavin was close to completing his transfer to Arsenal last night after Zenit St Petersburg abandoned hope of raising £20million from the sale.
Arsenal are understood to have set a deadline of today and Zenit will decide this afternoon.
It seems to tally with something one of the Russian speaking forum members found on a Russian website last night but who knows? There was supposed to be a deadline of Saturday, now there’s a deadline of this afternoon, and when that deadline is passed? Who knows? But with the window closing sooner rather than later we’ll know for sure soon enough.
Right, have a good start to the week. More tomorrow.
