Very much a game of two halves yesterday. As the first ended I can’t say I felt particularly confident that we’d get anything from the game. A goal down, as poor a performance as we’ve had all season, our record in big games not very good at all either, so there were reasons to doubt.
Arsene said we played with fear in the first half. Liverpool really did compete very well. They won all the tackles, made all the passes, not helped by us being sloppy in possession and back on our heels for the entire 45 minutes. They should have had a penalty when Gerrard was obstructed by Gallas, perhaps his dive last week against Blackburn came back to haunt him. He’d poked the ball a bit far away but it was a definite foul and we got lucky there. This came after our defence got caught too high up the pitch, one pass cut us right open and Torres was clean though. Surprisingly his shot was tame and straight at Almunia.
Their goal came in the 41st minute, bringing back harsh memories of the Chelsea game a couple of weeks ago in terms of the time the goal was scored. Aurelio clipped in a free kick from midfield, Almunia came, flapped weakly, the ball fell to Kuyt and he prodded it over the line. I can’t argue that they deserved a goal but once again poor goalkeeping was the root cause. So many of our goals this season have come due to bad keeping and whatever Almunia says about being back and ready to play, he’s not the keeper he was. While never a world beater he was pretty solid for the last couple of seasons, that’s clearly not the case anymore.
It’s a big weakness and we have to get it sorted as soon as possible. At the moment the only real alternative is to play Fabianski and that’s exactly what I’d do, starting with Burnley on Wednesday evening. Almunia’s error yesterday proved not to be as costly as it might have been but there’s only so long you can keep playing a guy who is making mistake after mistake after mistake. His decline is sad to see but there’s no room for much sentiment in professional football. You’re judged on your performances and Almunia yesterday, like much of season, was well below par.
So half time and 1-0 Liverpool. In the second half Arsenal came and played with fear again. Only this was a different kind of a fear. Not of a the big game or our poor record in them, but fear of the manager who, by all accounts, gave them a massive bollocking. Afterwards Cesc said:
The boss screamed. He was really disappointed with us in the first half. I’ve never seen him like that before. He said we didn’t deserve to wear the Arsenal shirt and he was right because we really weren’t good, we weren’t up for it. But that gave us a boost and the second half was one of the best second halves we have played this season.
All I can say is ‘Fair play, Arsene’. And there are some who might suggest that such a half-time tirade is long overdue. Of course it was only as effective as it was because it was so out of character for a man who is usually much more calm and considered, but you can understand his frustration after watching that first half. After the weekend of results in the Premier League to allow this kind of chance to pass us by would have been verging on criminal and I’m sure the boss let the players know that.
It certainly worked because we were much more in the game second half and above all else competed better. There was a touch of good fortune about the equaliser, Glen Johnson should probably have done a lot better than toe the ball over his own line, but the second was a thing of beauty. Again Johnson, good value for his £139,000 a week salary you have to say, failed to deal with a fairly tame cross, it came to Andrei Arshavin, who cut inside him and unleashed a rocket of a shot which flew in off the post. Another outstanding strike and the Liverpool fan beside me in the bar I was watching him declared himself sick of the sight of the little Russian.
He had struggled in the centre-forward role, which wasn’t at all unexpected. There were big cheers when he won a header in the second half, quite why Almunia insisted on pumping it long towards him every time is beyond me. Against Carragher and Agger he had little chance of winning a thing but he tried and his ability to score at any moment is invaluable.
Arsenalist has the goals/highlights.
Even then I wasn’t confident we’d hang on. Last season’s game at Anfield followed an indentical pattern and our ability to self-destruct this season has been worrying, but Liverpool were broken. Their form is so bad that there wasn’t a shred of self-belief left in them and they didn’t worry us for the rest of the game. I know the Mugsmasher pins a lot of the troubles they’re having this season on the absence of Xabi Alonso, it must have hurt to see him watching on from the stands. The difference between Liverpool this season and last is remarkable and despite the support he has from fans who seem to be more focussed on the owners, Benitez must be walking on very thin ice right now.
So, from being written off after the Chelsea game a couple of weeks ago we’re right back in it. Keep winning and win the game in hand and we’re just 3 behind the league leaders, a sign of how quickly things can change this season. Credit to the lads for their second half performance but I have to go back to Arsene’s half-time talk. None of this leaving them to think about how they can improve stuff, a proper, good old fashioned rant sparked the reaction and the comeback. As I said, it’s not something to do every week, but reminding the players that they’re wearing the Arsenal shirt and how much that should mean is no bad thing every now and again.
Afterwards he said:
I never speak about what I say at half-time. You respond to what you believe your team needs. I try to be composed. I was quite composed. But it is good that after 13 years as manager I can still surprise the players like that.
I don’t think it’s just the players he surprised either but it’s good that it worked. The league table looks quite healthy now and we’ve got to keep focussed. As with any result there’s no time to dwell on it. Yes, it’ll be a confidence boost but we’ve got the fabled ‘cold night oop north’ coming up this week and we have to be ready for that. The most important thing though is that we’ve put ourselves right back in the mix and taken advantage of the results that really did go our way this weekend.
More on that game to come in the next couple of days, now though it’s the kind of Monday morning that we, as fans, can bask in a bit. I am basking like a shark.
