Some nights Arsenal just click and it’s beautiful to watch. After about five minutes we put together a flowing, pacey, one-touch move which ended up with a Robin van Persie shot flying just wide of the AZ goal. After that you knew Arsenal were in the mood.
We opened the scoring through Cesc Fabregas whose low shot scuttered between a defender’s legs and practically trickled across the line. The AZ keeper obviously got his hair in his eyes or something. Poor keeping it might have been but I can live with poor keeping all day long as long as it’s not at our end. The second goal looked a bit like poor defending but having watched the replays it was, instead, a very good goal.
Picking up the ball in the centre of the pitch Andrei Arshavin played a fantastic ball down the middle for Samir Nasri. He took it on, wiggled his hips like some kind of footballing Elvis, putting the nearest AZ defender flat on his arse. He took it on a bit more, held off the challenges, and fnished adroitly into the bottom corner.
It was his first goal of the season and his presence in the team in the future is important. Both he and Rosicky have the ability to drive forward quickly in midfield, to beat a defender with skill and pace, where other midfield options might look for a more simple or conservative pass. It allows us to break down teams who are well organised defensively, like AZ obviously set out to be last night.
So 2-0 at half-time and given how quickly the third goal came in the second half you might go so far as to say that the team has learned the lesson of West Ham. Against Sp*rs we got the third to calm the nerves, last night wasn’t nervy but the goal was important just to confirm Arsenal’s superiority and to ensure the visitors didn’t get any smart ideas about sneaking one and making us all a bit jumpy.
Again Arshavin was the architect, playing in Cesc who gave the keeper the far post eyes before slamming it home high at the near side. A fantastic goal from a truly fantastic player. He’s got 8 goals already this season, a brilliant return for a midfielder, and if this new formation suits anyone, it’s him. He can make goals, he can score goals, and there was a moment in the first half when he rose highest at the back post to a head a Kieran Gibbs header over that illustrated just how much he’s enjoying his football right now.
With the game won at that stage the manager was able to take off van Persie and Cesc, replacing them with Eduardo and Ramsey. AZ got forward a bit and Pellé brought out a fantastic save from Manuel Almunia who pushed his close range volley onto the bar.
The goal of the night was to follow though. We brought it out of defence, played to Eduardo whose backheel from just inside our half set Andrei Arshavin free. He took it on, played a pass I thought at first was a bit heavy for Abou Diaby, but the big man loves a goal. He stuck one of those long legs out to control it and then sidefooted it past the keeper to make it 4-0. That’s his 4th goal of the season and it made for a hat-trick of assists for Arshavin.
Arshavin was replaced by Rosicky who slotted into the system flawlessly. With Arsenal claiming a penalty for handball at one end, the Dutch went up the other and scored. Perhaps a bit of defensive naivety from Kieran Gibbs but Almunia’s copybook was somewhat blotted when their player drilled it home at his near post. It looked as if he was moving to his right, anticipating a cross to free AZ players on that side, but at 4-1 it didn’t really matter.
Afterwards an ebullient Arsene Wenger declared the performance ‘brilliant’, saying:
We dominated our subject technically, tactically and overall we felt never under threat. We played with the needed confidence, technically astute, overall very happy. It’s important to keep that attitude to progress, to improve and to play for each other even more. Then we can believe in our future.
While just to keep feet on the ground, Cesc said:
It’s just the beginning of the season, nothing is done, we want to keep going until the end. I’ll feel it is something special when we win something. We want to win and if we win something at the end we will say we had a good year.
Wise words, indeed. Performances like last night are marvelous fun but ultimately just a very small part of the bigger picture. We can enjoy them as much as we like but for the players it’s important to realise that you don’t get trophies for nice football and impressive performances. It’s a reminder from the captain that there’s a long way to go yet and a lot of work still to be done. Impressive stuff from the young man who appears to be growing into the role as the natural leader of this team. He’s never going to be one of those shouting, in your face, captains, but you can see from his performances how focussed he is and that will transmit itself to the rest of the players. Leading by example, you might say.
Qualification remains unconfirmed due to other results but we just need one point from our last two games to go through, a win against Standard Liege in the next game will ensure we top the group.
So, another fantastic home performance and our form at the Grove is something a bit special this season. We’ve played 10, won 10 and scored 33 goals in the process. It’s becoming something of a fortress, maybe for the first time since we moved from Highbury, and nobody is going to fancy playing us there. There are those who criticise, saying we have the most expensive seats in football, but it’s hard to argue we’re not providing value for money at home this season.
Next up, Wolves in the league. More to come on that in the next couple of days. Have a good one.
Quick update: Stan Kroenke now owns 29.9% of Arsenal – http://tinyurl.com/yz2fol3 . 200 shares purchased, 100 of which came from Chairman PHW. Any further share purchases would require him to make a bid for the whole club.
Interesting.
