december 20th
Not exactly a classic Arsenal performance yesterday but three very nice points nonetheless.
If you were scoring like boxing you’d have to have given the first half to us, but we didn’t really create really clear chances.
In the second half Portsmouth took the game to us and had a number of chances. Lucky for us Ricardo Fuller is shit or he’d have put them one up early in the second half, a Toure block foiled Yakubu (I think) while Manuel Almunia made good saves from Patrick Berger and Steve Stone’s bobbling effort.
I think we missed Cesc in midfield. Flamini worked hard and got about the pitch very well and he looks more and more an Arsenal player with each game but Patrick Vieira’s worryingly poor form continues. With Cesc in midfield we have someone who can pass the ball forwards and find an Arsenal player, something that’s not Flamini’s job and something, that at the moment, seems beyond Vieira’s ability.
At the back today Sol was magnificent. He provided the solidity we’ve been missing for so long, he made a number of great clearances from corners and free kicks and to top it all off late in the second half he came forward, picked up a (sideways!) pass from Vieira, took a lengthy stride forward and hammered it from 25 yards and at nearly 80mph past the Portsmouth keeper. Leading by example. Considering all his other Arsenal goals have been headers from set-pieces this was something special and on days like this one that’s the difference between one point and three. So it stayed 1-0, we got the three points and it was nice to see the togetherness of the team at the final whistle.
One of the reasons we were so good last season was our ability to graft out results when we didn’t necessarily play well. Yesterday showed that we’re still capable of that and it bodes well for the coming months. The boss reckons we’re back in the title race now, saying “We have to go from game to game. We also have the belief and we can come back. You have seen that anything can happen and it’s down to us.”
In other news Jurgen Klinnsman is concerned that Jens Lehmann is spending too much time on the bench while later today the FIFA World Player of the Year will be announced. It should be Thierry but don’t be surprised to see it go elsewhere. So how was your weekend then?
