In terms of preparation for Tuesday yesterday’s game was about as good as you can get. We rested players, only Song, Walcott and Sagna kept their places from the United game, and pretty much strolled to a 3-0 win.
We opened the scoring through Nicklas Bendtner when he headed in captain for the day Arshavin’s looping cross. Such was the power, the ferocity, the exocetesque quality of his header that England’s number one, David James, just couldn’t hang on to it. Ok, so he was helped a bit by the keeper but once it goes in who cares how it got there?
The second came from the penalty spot. Portsmouth claim the penalty was harsh, it might have been, but once again I couldn’t give any less of a shit if it was harsh or not. Commentators seemed to think Andrei Arshavin‘s finger wave after Davis tackled him from behind was to say ‘No penalty’. Perhaps that’s very sporting, I prefer to think his gesture meant ‘About time you gave us a penalty. Did you not see Big Fat Sol hauling down Carlos Vela a few minutes ago, you stupid ref twat? So this is the very least we deserve. And Jermaine Pennant is a woolly headed gobshite, by the way’.
It’s amazing how much you can read into body language when you’re as expert as I am. I was expecting the Russian to take the penalty himself but up stepped Bendtner again and he sidefooted it home to make the score 2-0. That’s 14 goals this season for Bendtner now, not a bad return at all. I know he’s got his critics and even those who are big supporters of him will say he can improve, but look at the number. 14 goals. Adebayor has 16. Van Persie 18.
Bendtner’s 8 in the league in just one less than van Persie’s 9 so whatever his faults we have to give credit where it’s due. He’s an intelligent lad, he won’t have been unaware of the stick he got from the crowd at times this season, so fair play to him for keeping things going.
Portsmouth, bar one Peter Crouch effort when he was one on one with Fabianski, didn’t really bother us in the first half. It was all very comfortable. At the start of the second they brought on Kanu and Utaka (for Pennant, haha), and really had a go at us for the first ten or fifteen minutes. They certainly had chances to score, perhaps the best fell to Utaka who trod on the ball when trying to go around Fabianski. Almost immediately we went up the other end and scored through Carlos Vela, his left footed shot going through BFS’s legs and into the far corner.
That was game over. There was no way back and the home side were reduced to 10 men when former Sprs defender Pamarot was sent off for hauling down Arshavin when he was clean through. The scoreline allowed us to make more changes. Amaury Bischoff PI came on for Theo, Fran Merida for Bendtner and Mark Randall got a run out in place of the impressive Aaron Ramsey.
Afterwards Arsene said of his young side:
I never have doubts about these young players. I see them everyday and you can see there is a good communication, a good connection and we showed some good combination play; we work a lot on that. These players have talent. We were sharp, composed, mobile and had a great attitude.
So 3-0 means three points. It means we finish in 4th at least but with Chelsea 6 points ahead and with only 9 left to play for it does make finishing 3rd less likely. However, when you consider where we were a few short weeks ago you can’t be too unhappy with the position we’re in. After a disappointing 0-0 draw at Fulham Villa just had to win against Stoke to open up an 8 point gap over us. They led 2-0 until the last 4 minutes then conceded twice. It’s almost as if that 4 minutes sparked our season back into life.
So credit to the lads and the manager for turning things around. As it stands we’re now unbeaten in our last 21 league games and we’ve scored at least 3 goals in our last 5 away league games. Impressive stuff. It’s a shame it’s come so late in the season but better late than never. What it means in terms of the bigger picture is something for the end of the season/endless summer blogs but for now I’m just happy we are where we are. It might have been much worse.
Now, all the attention can turn towards United on Tuesday for what’s going to be the biggest game of the season by a long, long way.
A quick Sunday round-up for you. The Mail reports Robin van Persie will be fit for Tuesday night. I hope so, we need all hands on deck and his ability to score from nothing could be crucial. Also, it’s been quite some time since he scored a free kick, hasn’t it? He’s overdue one. Tuesday would be a good time to make that right.
That most august of journals, the News of the World, says Arsene Wenger turned down a €40m deal to manage Real Madrid. After seeing them turned over and violated by Barcelona last night who can blame him? I’ve got to say though, Barcelona’s display last night was just awesome. Whatever you might think about them, and I’m sure I might have made clear my feelings on one or two occasions, you have to admire the way they play football, and Lionel Messi is just an absolute joy to watch.
Meanwhile, Madrid want Gael Clichy for £15m, according to the People.
The Takeover Panel is examining Stan Kroenke’s recent share purchases to see if there’s anything dodgy about them. An Arsenal statement said:
There is no suggestion that anyone connected with the club has behaved improperly or broken any rule.
While Usmanov’s Fat and Orange said:
We need to understand whether one shareholder is being given preferential treatment in buying shares.
I’ll tell you what Usmanov needs to understand. It’s being kicked in the balls fourteen times by an angry horse. I think he’d get the message then.
Right, that’s enough. Have yourselves a good Sunday, the countdown to United starts tomorrow.
