It’s been a long time coming but there has always been the suspicion that when this Arsenal team clicked they’d give someone a bit of a hammering and so it was yesterday against Reading.
We played the kind of football that made us so fantastic to watch in the unbeaten season. In fact, to me it looked even more refined, more clinical and more precise. We opened the scoring on 58 seconds when Cesc chased the ball into their box. Most players would have tried to win the corner off the defender but he controlled it, laid a ball back to Thierry who used the pace of the ball to sidefoot it home to make it 1-0.
We might have had another couple through van Persie and Justin Hoyte before Alexander Hleb played a sweet one-two with Rosicky and blasted it home to make it 2-0 before half-time.
The third was the pick of the bunch as our slick, one touch passing brought us to the edge of the box, Henry fed Hleb who could have shot but pulled it back for Robin van Persie to score with his right foot. As much as 30 yard screamers are great to watch so are goals like that. It was 4-0 with about twenty minutes to go when Henry played Cesc through, he was upended by the keeper and Henry slotted home the penalty off the post.
We then brought on Adebayor, Walcott and Song for Hleb, van Persie and Rosicky and then just cruised for the last 20 minutes. People might point to the fact that it was ‘only Reading’ but don’t forget Chelsea were lucky to scrape a 1-0 win here and Man United could do no more than draw 1-1 with Steve Coppel’s team. They’re no mugs and although they were probably a bit naive yesterday the way we played would have caused any team in the league problems.
As others have pointed out Cesc was just fantastic and that was a great way to celebrate signing his new deal. That said I don’t really want to single anyone out above anyone else because the team as a whole was just excellent yesterday from back to front. Having Hleb, Rosicky and Fabregas confusing opponents with their passing and movement while Gilberto mops up behind them looks very tasty indeed.
There’s an obvious hunger in the side that hasn’t been as apparent previously and I enjoyed seeing Hleb, van Persie and Rosicky chatting and laughing at the final whistle. They’re young, talented players who are obviously enjoying their football and I think that’s true throughout the team.
Now, one swallow doesn’t make a summer and all that but I think we’ve all been waiting for a sign that we’ve stepped up a gear. The win against United at Old Trafford came on the back of three relatively poor results and instilled belief in the players that the manager professed to have in them all along. The subsequent league wins, that’s five in a row now, should have done the same for the fans. We’re not perfect, of course, but it would be churlish to focus on any of the negatives this morning. What we do know now is that we are capable of playing the kind of football we’ve threatened for some time, that we can go away and win, that we have goals from all over the pitch and that a title challenge is not beyond the realms of possibility.
Afterwards Thierry Henry said the midweek defeat to CSKA Moscow was the spur for the performance while Cesc said:
When we play like that, I don’t think a lot of teams can do anything about it against Thierry and players like that. The important thing was that we played as a team, we defended as a team and we’re really happy with the peformance today.
Arsene Wenger was again quick to talk up his confidence in the side and the belief the players have that they can challenge for the title, saying:
I feel strongly that the hunger is there, the quality is there, the competition is of a very high level but we believe we can do it. Let’s see how consistent we can be and I think we will be, but we go from game to game now and give everything in every game like we always do, but we believe we can do it.
So, it should be a pretty happy Monday for Arsenal fans. And I can make your Monday even happier with another fab competition.
Ok, we’ve got Carling Cup action tomorrow and we’ll no doubt see some of the kids involved there. A more detailed preview of that tomorrow.
Bye for now.
