September 28th
Well, three more juicy Champions League points in the bag even if they came from a performance that nobody is going to remember much. A 2-1 win for Arsenal included our 100th Champions League goal
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We couldn’t have started better when Flamini won the ball in midfield, gave it José who ran at the defence, split them with a beautifuly weighted ball and Freddie’s finish was coolness itself. Arsenal 1-0 up after 2 minutes. There wasn’t much else to talk about in the first half though, we defended well and Ajax’s only real chance came near the end when Peinaar skied the ball over the bar when our defence had been at sixes and sevens.
The second half wasn’t much better either, really. Again we defended well, won lots of headers, Basil made a decent save from some bloke and it was hardly an advertisement for great football.
Then José was sent through and he won a penalty which Robert Pires converted. 2-0 Arsenal and you thought you could settle down for a nice final 20. Not so as almost straight away we backed off some other bloke and he unleashed a decent shot which Almunia did well to get a touch to. Sadly his touch made it hit the post and rebound to some other other bloke who knocked it in to make it 2-1.
We brought off José and brought on Quincy who found time for a couple of stepovers if nothing else, Clichy came on for Pires and right at the very end Cygan came on for someone else. There were 5 minutes of injury time due to a stoppage when Kolo and some other other other bloke clashed heads but we held on.
Not vintage Arsenal by any means but , and I’m sorry to be positive when there are so many things to moan about these days, we have seen Arsenal play beautiful football at this stage of the Champions League before and not get the points on the board. Performances can be changed and improved as the season goes on. Results can not. We have 6 points out of 6 and that’s a good start to the campaign.
We are missing something though and that’s down to the inexperience of the players. Don’t get me wrong. We battled well and scrapped out a good result tonight but with so many young players in the team you’re never going to hit the heights that people have come to expect from us. The balance between youth and experience is a little off at the moment but we went away from home and did a good job against a decent team. I’d like to see have seen more from our wide men to keep the pressure off the two young central midfielders but there you go.
Afterwards the boss praised the team, saying “We showed good solidarity with a very young team. We’re in a strong position in the group, but the picture can change quickly.”
Now, we have a decent rest before Sunday’s game against Birmingham and tonight it’s Liverpool v Chelsea. Some scores to be settled there. It’s a good game on paper but we’ll have to see if it works out like that. Some mindless on-pitch violence would help. Off to work. No packed lunch. Till tomorrow.
