Match report – By the numbers – Player ratings – Video
Back to the top of the Premier League we go after an odd 2-1 win over Aston Villa last night.
Odd because for 75 minutes there was only one team in it. Arsenal knew it and even Villa knew it. After two quickfire goals in the first half Villa played like they were beaten and Arsenal as if they’d won. Then a careless moment from Santi Cazorla saw us punished by a good cross and Benteke’s first goal since 1895, and all of a sudden the whole complexion of the game changed.
Villa were reinvigorated, the crowd woke up and got behind their team, and the final 15 minutes, plus the 6 of injury time we got after Agbonlahor smashed Rosicky’s nose all over his face with an elbow, were torturous. One more mistake, another moment of madness, and we’d have dropped two points we had no business letting go of.
Thankfully, battling to hang onto a slender lead is something we’ve had a lot of practice of over the last 12 months and we’ve got a back four + keeper now expert in coping with these kind of situations. To be fair, it was the entire team – we sat back en masse and soaked up wave after wave of Villa pressure and only once did they create something, a Benteke header straight at Szczesny after a foul on Mertesacker.
Guzan would boot it long, we’d head it away, they’d lump it back in, we’d head it away, spurning a couple of decent opportunities to hit them on the counter by giving the ball away high up the pitch when a better final ball would have sealed the deal. Still, Villa huffed and puffed but couldn’t blow our house down.
It was, all in all, quite unpleasant considering what had come before it. A beautiful 34th minute move saw Arsenal open the scoring. Ozil cut their defence apart with a great ball to Monreal, he pulled it back to Wilshere who took a touch and rolled it into the bottom corner. Less than 60 seconds later Jack turned provider, taking advantage of poor Villa play to feed Giroud who took a lovely touch and finished with his left foot past the man who likes to boot the ball really long.
From 0-0 to 2-0 in 59 seconds and on basis of first half performances we deserved our lead. The game was played almost entirely in the Villa half and they looked a side short on confidence. Even more so when we went ahead and if I’m going to be slightly critical this morning it’s that we weren’t a bit more ruthless at that point.
I do understand that this defensive platform we’ve built over the last year makes a 2-0 lead feel quite assured, but as we saw just one mistake can change the dynamic completely. We went from in control, and a little bored by the whole thing, to panic stations. As well as we coped, and as well as we believe we can cope, there’s no real need to put yourself on that knife edge.
I thought at 2-0 we had the chance to put them to the sword a bit, score another and then, if we really have to, relax a little bit. Even if they’d pulled one back at that point you still have the cushion which makes the game relatively safe. Instead, we were a bit too casual, perhaps Villa’s lack of goals convinced us they’d be a soft touch for 90 minutes, and we made life difficult for ourselves when there was no real need.
That said, it does seem a bit churlish to complain after three points so it’s just an observation more than anything else and, hopefully, a little reminder to the players that taking your foot off the gas is something you do when your lead is considerably greater than just 2 goals.
In the end we dug in, scrapped it out, and won ugly away from home again to make sure we went back to top of the table. Ultimately that’s what will be remembered and that’s all that was important. We’ve had difficult games here before in the recent past, and we owed them from the opening day so taking the three points was all that counts.
There were, unfortunately, a couple of injuries. Rosicky’s nose was smooshed across his face like a prize fighter – and quite why the referee who had a look, saw him bleeding and played on was doing I don’t know – while Nacho Monreal has a suspected broken metatarsal which would be very bad news if true. Although Vermaelen can play there at a push it again highlights how thin we were at centre-half and I’d worry about having to use our only back up in a different position if anything happened to Gibbs, himself just back from injury.
There was also more than a hint of frustration from Lukas Podolski (10mb GIF) who failed to get on the pitch yet again. In the circumstances – Rosicky going off required a midfielder to go on – I think the manager got it right bringing Oxlade-Chamberlain, but I think the German’s unhappiness is more about his overall lack of involvement. Arsene talks about him as a potential central-striker when he gets fit, but since his return to full training at the end of November he’s had just 65 minutes up front against Cardiff and that scintillating cameo at West Ham.
Considering the schedule and the opposition it’s hard not to wonder if there’s a reluctance on the manager’s part to use him and it looks as if that’s hitting home to Podolski now. Maybe there’s method to it: Wenger keeps talking about wanting more from him in terms of fitness, so this could be a ploy to have him chomping at the bit when he does get a chance, but right now it’s not a happy time for the usually happy German.
There’s still a lot of football to play this season and he’s got the talent to make a big contribution if and when he’s given the opportunity to do it, so let’s hope we get the required response when that happens.
Overall, it could have been easier, but we’re Arsenal and part of what we do is find the most complicated way to do anything, so let’s enjoy the three points, assess our wounded over the course of this week, and get ready for Fulham on Saturday.
Till tomorrow.
