Well, plenty of us had a good feeling about the game yesterday and we were duly rewarded in football heaven with a game that will go down in Premiership history as one of the best. For once though, we were not at the upsetting end of a classic. No, we were the team that came out victorious. The game was so ridiculous, if an American Film production company had scripted it as the championship game of the season, you’d have said it was unrealistic!
We started off incredibly shaky at the back, Djourou lost his bearings after about 2 minutes and allowed Ashley Cole to slip in behind him, the mobile full back cut a perfect cross across goal but Fernando Torres could only fire wide of the post. A pretty miserable miss even if it was early on.
Down the other end Robin Van Persie managed to work his way into the box, his cut back into the penalty area wasn’t met by anyone which was quite frustrating. Sometimes our players seem to have their sense of goal poaching smell switched off at vital moments.
We were under the most pressure, mainly because our full backs were having absolutely appalling games. The pace of Sturridge and Cole bamboozling the them time and time again.
Our first clear cut attempt on goal came when Theo managed to out pace Cole, he engined to the edge of the area and slipped the ball across goal to Gervinho who somehow conspired to turn the ball wide of the post in an attempt that could be classed as technically retarded.
The opener to the game came from a full back mistake. Santos dived in on Mata, who side stepped, created some space, whipped a cross in that evaded the falling Mertesacker, Frank Lampard put his diving header into the bottom corner.
Sturridge nearly made it two when he slipped into our box but sliced his shot just wide of the post.
We equalised on 35 minutes when Santos passed to Ramsey, the Welshman turned, fed Gervinho through the middle, the Ivorian cut to the side of Cech and Robin passed into the empty net! A goal the stank of the Arsenal of old.
Things almost turned to Chelsea’s advantage moments later down the other end when Sturridge turned in a cross that was fractionally offside. The worry for most Arsenal fans is that there was still a whole other half of full back exploitation to be had. Who knew that the Englishman was quite so polished these days?
Just before half time, calamity struck again. Chelsea won a corner, Lampard fired it into the middle of the box, Chelsea’s movement confused everyone and Mertesacker saw Terry’s run too late, he threw himself at the ball like a body guard throws himself at an assailants bullet, it looked like he made connection and it crept inside the far post. Yep, the far post Arteta was supposed to be standing on. Sunday league stuff, front post, back post… jeez.
The second half was going to be massive. We’d looked pretty sharp going forward, Robin, Theo and Gervinho were having a good game. The question was, could we stop ourselves leaking more goals and could we become more clinical?
Well, it didn’t take long to find out. Our full backs combined for the greater good, JD jinked inside from the right, he passed to Songinho who found Santos gallivanting outwide, the Brazilian breezed into the box and fired under the legs of Petr Cech. A surprisingly cool finish for a player having a weak game.
The team had come out fighting, we were controlling possession and looking far more threatening. What had Arsene said at half time?
Theo took the ball from outwide, cut inside, fell over, worked his way out of the pack, powered into the box and belted his shot inside Cech’s post! What a great goal! We were winning!
There was a good shout for a Gervinho penalty on 69 minutes when Ivanovic bundled him over just inside the box, it would have been a harsh penalty, but we were looking for more goals, a lead is never safe with us!
Sure enough we were right, Santos turned villain when his lazy pass was intercepted by a the footballing visual crime Meireles, he cut Mata in who took no time in firing off an absolute screamer past Chezzer. A ridiculous goal from a fantastic talent you felt should be wearing an Arsenal shirt.
No time for moping, we had a game to win. We’re incapable as a side of sitting on a 3-3 draw and praying for full time.
Our chance came when Malouda played pass an awkward pass to John Terry, he turned back to retrieve it falling over in the process, Robin sniffed out an opportunity, sprinted into the box, shimmied round the keeper and slotted into an empty net for our 4th! At that point I went so ballistic at the pub, I was told to calm down by my friends as a few Chelsea fans were looking less than enamoured with my well constructed JT opinions.
John Terry finally shows some respect to a foreigner…
Marvellous. Fitting. Deserved.
Things weren’t over though, this was either going to be a 4-4 like Newcastle or for once, we were going to make this an Arsenal Classic our kids and Grandkids could watch and talk about!
Rosicky helped forge a counter attack on 91 minutes, he passed to Arteta who held off, released Robin who powered a shot in brute force fashion for the 5th! What an amazing bit of attacking football to finish the game! Chelsea were buried, Arsenal were elated and the 3 points belonged to us.
The celebrations at the end of the match once again summed up the captaincy of Robin Van Persie. He’s injected passion into a passionless team. That’s such a massive difference this season. The players are a reflection of their captain, Cesc Fabregas wasn’t a leader. Robin clearly is, so full credit to him for an inspired performance and delivering yet again!
Conclusion
It’s tough to be anything other than over the top about a victory like that, away from home against the back drop of a truly dismal season so far. We’ve carved out a solid set of results recently and we’ve been quietly building our confidence. Today could have been dead and buried within the first 25 minutes.
We weathered the storm, built on our solid attacking play and out fought Chelsea with an inspired second half performance. Wenger sent the boys out with plenty to think about and they must have absorbed every word of it. That was one of the best games of the last 5 years for me. Beating Barcelona at home doesn’t quite hold the same weight as beating a team of Chelsea’s quality away and scoring 5 goals in the process. Wenger’s 500th win apparently? Superb stuff.
There were some gripes, I thought our full backs were pretty awful all game. Santos needs to up his fitness moving forward, he looked the weak link and for a Brazilian international, that’s not a good sign. His attacking play was ok, but pacey wingers are a regular fixture in the Premier League. JD was suspect, but he has the excuse of not being a right back by trade.
Mertesacker made some pretty costly mistakes as well. His problem is that if a player doesn’t do what he anticipates, he doesn’t have the mobility to react. Two of the goals today sat with him as the part of the problem.
Going forward we were inspired. Theo Walcott had a superb game, he was productive, he used his pace properly and his passes in the final third were well thought out. I also though Arteta had an industrious game in the middle. He really helped dictate play in the second half.
That leaves us 3 points off Chelsea and level with Spurs, though they have 2 games in hand. We’re back in the mix again, this year is going to be much like last in my opinion, every team is capable of losing 3 on the bounce because the league is so competitive at the moment. We’re still chasing down 4th as our trophy, what today told us is that on our day, we can still mix it with the best. It also showed great team spirit and that never say die attitude… something I’m not sure we had too much of last season. I guess that comes with experience eh?!
Onwards and upwards! Savour this day Grovers, gloat and get your smug on… Monday is going to be beautiful!
Ratings:
Chezzer: Conceded three but none were down to him. He did really well to command his box and dominate long balls in. 7.5
JD: A real mixed bag for the Swiss. He made some poor mistakes and he was continuously caught out of position in the 1st half. He improved with the game though. 5
Santos: A very weak defensive display, costing us two goals because of basic errors. Made up for it with a goal, but he seriously has to do better. 4.5
Mertesacker: Some clumsy defending combined to cost us. For me, he’s a good player, he’s just prone to lapses. He’s still finding his way into the game, but from what I’ve been told, he’s an absolute asset at the training ground. A class professional. 6
Kosicielny: I can’t really find too many faults with his performance today, he did everything pretty well. 7
Song: A strong performance and a great assist for the Santos goal. Held his position well and didn’t get bullied. 7.5
Arteta: Growing with the team and hardworking. His passing is improving and he’s starting to carve out a role in the team. 7.5
Ramsey: Covered loads of ground, landed an assist and made a general nuisance of himself all afternoon. 7.5
Theo: Used his pace and passing to great effect yesterday. He looked inspired, something he hasn’t done for weeks. Took his goal fantastically well. Top effort from a dangerous forward. 8
Gervinho: Guilty of a horrendous miss early on but didn’t let it affect him, went on to have a great game. 7.5
Robin: Man of the match performance from the man of the moment. Scored 3 superb goals, led us like a warrior and took the 3 points home for us! 10
the best sign from Ramsey in the past two weeks is he’s starting laughing again on the pitch, which among other things means he feels like he belongs on the team sheet again now.
Some of his finest moments pre injury came in reserve games where he just tried mad shit for fun and it worked, that Ramsey is starting to reappear.
Yep the joy is back.
They are all playing with their hearts on their sleeve.
And we still have jack and sagna to come back!
Agree with both those points Rohan, they didn’t go unnoticed with me.
Song did a great job on Mata when he wandered inside and Ramires the rest of the time, part of me suspected Song read Mata as a Cesc clone & I liked his niggly fouls , he’s learning to keep them just far enough out of the danger zone. His let down, which smithy picked him up on loads, was the regular stray passes in their defensive third when he wasn’t under pressure – I imagine thats why he’s been neglected for praise.
Arteta was the invisible man, Gilberto but even more subtle, he kept lampard out of the game almost completely – they could only attack our flanks. But Arteta not sticking to the near post on that corner didn’t help his cause.
I also think Mert had a pretty good game, he really suppressed Torres who hasn’t been short of form recently. He made loads of timely interceptions.
I felt Szczesny was a little flat footed, should have reached Mata’s, I recon he’s made harder saves for club and country in the past, even as recently as playing germany.
Keep feeling we’re getting carried away and something will knock us back down soon enough, but honestly go through that Chelsea game and theres soo many things you miss first time around.
I think the Welsh National team could even have less pressure for him really, they’re not expected to win or qualify and he seems to have no trouble asking for the ball from his team mates there or even scoring.
Something we’re starting to see come back into his game now, Fabregas leaving could be like Henry leaving before.
yeah i’ve watched it 2.5 times now &I think what we saw on saturday was something akin to a training ground exercise.
Villa Boas played right into our hands, he’s taken a squad used to pragmatic powerfull football for years into a team trying to learn a style we’ve been playing for 3 seasons now.
We’re quite good at challenging teams that play in the style we play (see barca) because we train against ourselves.
We come unstuck when we play teams that don’t give us room to play and Chelsea yesterday waved the red flag to the proverbial bull.
It didn’t go unnoticed in all AW’s mutterings in the week leading up to saturdays match, that he praised AVB’s on his attacking style (read vanity), almost goading him to keep playing it because he knew it would be their undoing.
I dunno I think Gary Speed’s got some reasonable expectation for his squad, I think there’s a degree of pressure there.
punching out.
Basically I think Chelsea have been flogging the same horse Mourinho took to the title for the last 3-4 years and there’s nothing left in it now. They breathe life into with Luiz, Torres or Mata, it ebbs away in the ageing of Terry, Lampard or Drogba.
Mourinho knew he had little to no chance of progressing without replacing players like Robben and so on with like for like and got himself sacked.
Since then Scholari’s tried to play attacking football, even Avram, and now Villas-Boas, it’s a decent team but they need the sort of attacking flair Mata brings or the energy of Luis in abundance not as patchwork.
Like you say we struggle against teams who deny us space or ask us to break them down, it was basically a free-for all on Saturday, all you hear in the media is how poor both defences were or Chelsea didn’t take their chances but if you watch the amount of times we had the ball in midfield with Gervinho, Ramssey or Van Persie looking to run clean through you’ll see how much worse it could have been for Chelsea or how much room we’ve got for improvement.
In the last two games Gervinho’s started to link up with Van Persie and Ramsey’s starting to [ick passes.
Though our pressing in midfield first half was abysmal and left our defence like the last year or so ridiculously exposed especially with the new defenders.
I can’t remember the last time Wales qualified ? I think with a National team like Wales there’s probably a whole lot more patience, considering Ramsey, Bale and a few others are probably their Golden Generation he’s maybe got a few years of leeway.
There’s also not the same scrutiny the English team get or even Arsenal.
My;es Palmer if he wasn’t soo snide could have had a key point, it wasn’t Chelsea defending like Arsenal onS aturday, it was Chelsea failing to attack like Arsenal have done for the best part of a decade.
500th win is quite a high. It would be so graceful of you to leave now, Wenger. Please go!! NOW is the best time!!!
yup, hence not getting ahead of oneself. the thing that offsets that cynicism though is our 1st, 3rd & 5th goals were born from moves to ‘breakdown’ a resolute defence, the 2nd and 5th were more counter strikes… so progress is being made I feel.
righto thats it. from me.
calling for AW out now is a useless soundbite, if the event happened right now it’d be catastrophically stupid.
Good morning,
Lurch, the win maybe bought him time, but he has to go
We can’t take another season like what we had
We are the Arsenal, we shouldn’t be celebrating 4th as a trophy, it is twisted
$ity has both of Aguero and Dzeko with 9 goals each, but Robin is above them with 10 goals in 10 games…… Prolific
And let’s admit it, Cech paid us back for all those unbelievable saves he made against us throughout the years, with an Almunia-esque display
Neymar: “Henry is a player that I follow for a long time, he had a stunning passage at Arsenal, one of the world’s greatest, of course.”
Hey
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVMNv8nSEds
Gambon mus ve got 3 FLACCID ones for each of the goals scored against us but cudn’t keep it hard bearing in mind we scored them 5. Unlike some of us i bet u never came this w.end n will b swallowing cum up ur oesophagus a lot more often as we r on a roll.
Kompany a bargain Wenger didn’t see ???????? sure