Morning all,
Arsenal moved into the top four yesterday with a good win over Birmingham, but it wasn’t quite as comfortable as we would have liked. We started well, pretty much bossed the game and it was no surprise when in the 15th minute Robin van Persie put us ahead. Collecting a low, hard pass from Alex Song his first touch was quite brilliant and his finish first class. A goal for us and a goal for him to celebrate the arrival of his new baby in midweek – that’s 5 for the season and a goal in each of his last four games now too. Just the kind of scoring we need from him in the position he’s in.
It was two just a couple of moments later. Eboue broke down the right, played a nice little ball outside the full back to Rosicky who pulled it across goal and Abou Diaby arrived at the back post to slam it home. A very tidy finish and Diaby had a good game overall yesterday.
Having been on the end of a rather vigorous challenge earlier in the game Theo Walcott only lasted half an hour and was replaced by Andrei Arshavin. Arsene Wenger wasn’t happy with it after the game, obviously because Theo’s injury is as yet an unknown quantity, but Ridgewell played the ball and frankly if one of our centre-halves had made that kind of tackle I’d defend their right to do so. It was strong and hard, but that’s football. Theo faces a scan so fingers crossed it’s nothing too serious, he is unlikely to play midweek though.
As an attacking force Birmingham, with their new owner looking on, were nothing to write home about. Mannone made a bit of a meal of a Larsson free kick and that was about their only shot on goal that I can remember. Nevertheless we went in at half-time with just a one goal lead. Mannone failed to deal with a fairly bread and butter ball in the area, it fell to Lee Bowyer and football’s very own Orc slammed it home.
It made the second half a much more nervous affair than it really should have been. We never really looked as fluid as we did pre-Interlull, but all the same there were chances. Arshavin amazingly put one wide from inside the 6-yard box, but to be fair it was a snap shot on the turn, Joe Hart played a pass straight to Cesc who couldn’t get it back across goal, a free kick from about 7 yards after the ref deemed Hart had picked up a back-pass cannoned back off the bar from van Persie and another van Persie free kick went inches wide of the post.
And for all that there was just the one goal lead. Birmingham pressed and might well have equalised. A ball over the defence found Ridgewell at the back post, he skimmed in a cross which would have been a tap-in had Mannone not made up for his earlier error and got fingertips to it. Gallas hacked it clear.
Yesterday though I spoke about Andrei Arshavin and in the end it was the Russian who made the game safe. We broke out of defence, Cesc gave him the ball, he wandered into the Birmingham area and casually as you like curled it into the bottom corner. That’s the touch of quality and experience that can be the difference between winning a game and holding your head in your hands as some poxbottle grabs a late equaliser for them. And last season that would have been a real fear. How often did we dominate games but not close them off? Arshavin’s 5th of the season made sure.
Overall a good result, especially when you consider Chelsea and Liverpool both got beaten yesterday, and a nice way to ease ourselves back into action. Afterwards Arsene Wenger said:
In the end I still believe 3-1 is a fair result because we had plenty of chances. I feel also we tried to force the situation a little bit individually, especially in the second half, and that’s why we didn’t score more goals.
More goals would have been nice but yesterday was all about the three points. All the same we kept up our 3 goal a game league average which really is remarkable this far into the season. Next up in the league is a trip to West Ham this day week.
In a very brief Sunday round-up Gael Clichy talks to The Times and … erm … that’s about it. Only a couple of days till the next game though, Champions League action in Holland.
Have a good Sunday.
