When Arsenal won against Standard Liege, having come from 2 goals down, the performance was poor but I thought the way we won the match was important. We played poorly and managed to produce a comeback from a couple of goals down. Every team needs games like that to give them the belief they can salvage something when things are going wrong.
Yesterday’s game was similar. Vito Mannone was by far the busier of the two keepers, yet Arsenal left Craven Cottage with three points thanks to Robin van Persie’s goal.
The first half was Arsenal at their most frustrating. Simple things seemed beyond them, our passing was off and our left side looked vulnerable, which Fulham exploited. It was the home side who threatened most, Mannone making a great double save from Andy Johnson and Clint Dempsey’s follow up. He saved again from Zolton Gera’s low shot, pushing it out for a corner with Zamora lurking for a rebound.
The best chance of the half fell to Andrei Arshavin after nice play between Robin van Persie and Cesc on the edge of their area but it looked as if the ball bobbled and his close range shot went well over the bar. We were better in the second half, sharper, had more of the ball, but again we struggled to create clear cut chances.
Seven minutes in though we got the goal. Cesc, who really didn’t have a good game at all, showed why he’s so important to this team with the kind of pass that our other midfielders can only dream about making. He chipped it over the Fulham defence into the path of van Persie whose left foot control and right footed finish were first class.
Fulham rallied and showed why they were good value for their 7th place finish last season. They work hard, they don’t waste the ball that often and we had to defend well. Again Mannone was the key man making a couple of good saves, the pick of the bunch from a Zamora header. The young Italian can rightly feel proud of his day’s work.
Late on we might have had another goal as Fulham pressed. Bendtner had a couple of half chances while Eboue screwed one wide after being put through by Cesc. We held on though to win at the Cottage for the first time since 2006 the last time we won there, man of the match was clearly the goalkeeper, but it might just be one of those wins that does wonders for a team.
Maybe I’m trying to be too positive here but this is exactly the kind of result that pundits laud United for. They didn’t play well, the opposition had a plenty of chances, but they won the game. We ground out three points yesterday and it’s not something this Arsenal team is renowned for doing. Mostly because we don’t do it that often and I think a bit of that is that we don’t believe we can do it. Hopefully yesterday will go some way to instilling that because it’s such an important ability.
Pretty football is lovely but ask anyone to choose between a pretty draw and an ugly win and there’s only one answer. Afterwards Arsene Wenger said of the win:
It is good for us to know that you can win that way. People always want us to play well and dominate but when we do not win they are not happy too. Today I am happy.
Quite right. There’s much to be said for winning games at a canter but you have to be able to win games like yesterday’s the way we did. On the keeper the boss said:
I believe we will give him 10 out of 10 because everything he did was right. For a goalkeeper that is most important. He stopped everything he had to stop, didn’t make any wrong decisions and overall he has shown he has the potential to be a very good goalkeeper.
You have to be pleased for the young man and when you consider that is only his fourth professional appearance it’s great for him. You also have to laugh at the interviewer on ESPN who asked him ‘Is that the best day of your professional career so far?’. He’s only played four games! And I would say we should laugh at Chris Waddle but he’s shot right into the top 5 of most irritating co-commentators/pundits of all time. It’s bad enough hearing anti-Arsenal stuff but hearing it from someone who can barely speak English is another thing entirely. Honestly, he sounds as if his signature is a paw print. Moron.
Anyway, it was a good three points, an invaluable three points given the other results, and while we’ll all hope for better performances in the future there’s a lot to be said for the way we won that game.
In other news the draw for the 4th round of the Carling Cup took place yesterday and we’ve got Liverpool at home. I imagine they’ll be keen to make up for the last time we played in that competition when Julio Baptista got four at Anfield and even Alex Song scored so it should make for a good game.
Gael Clichy talks about William Gallas’s new found partnership with Thomas Vermaelen and the fact that Kieran Gibbs wants his place in the team.
And that’s about that. Time for some patented Sunday lying around going ‘Urgh’.
