Emmanuel Eboue. He was direct, full of energy and gave the side a dynamic outlet. As a talent, he is hugely underestimated. Full of ability, speed and tricks. Theo Walcott would do well to watch him closely. Rarely gives a pass away

Match Review – Arsenal 2 Sunderland 0 – Premier League

The race continues to get very interesting as Manchester United were beaten by an inform Everton team at Goodison Park whilst the Gunners along with leaders Chelsea picked up three points.

Each week brings about a new setback for at least one of the chasing sides, this is what has made predicting a winner almost impossible. In August Arsenal went to Goodison and won the game 6-1, in February Everton have beaten Chelsea and Manchester United and have looked the better side in both games. This clearly indicates the unpredictable nature of all the teams striving for their own success.

For Arsenal, the game against Sunderland couldn’t come quick enough after the midweek disappointment. A disappointment that will be forgotten about if we can pull off at least a 1-0 victory in the return leg, not the most difficult challenge that the side of 2010 will have faced so far, I am sure.

Nevertheless, the defensive lapses have been the talk of the town and victory against struggling Sunderland will have given others something else to chew on instead.

Interesting team selection from Arsene, I got some of it right and was left with a raised eyebrow at some other interesting selections.

I thought that a new right side of Eboue and Walcott could well be in Wenger’s thinking. Those two players give the rest of the side another offensive dimension. With Rosicky and Nasri in the wide berths we are technically stronger but we can also lack the ability to get in behind the opponent, especially with Sagna overlapping who isn’t going to trick his way past his opposition fullback.

I had selected the England flier as the one to watch before the game and in the early exchanges this was certainly the case, George McCartney was given a torrid first half hour when on more than one occasion Theo Walcott gave the defender a huge head start and still managed to zip ahead of him to win the ball. Unfortunately Walcott’s final delivery or finish hadn’t been good enough.

I would love to know what condition he would be in right now had been fit enough to have a full pre-season and had been available for the squad for the large part of the season. We will never know until he manages to get into that position but like with Diaby before him, we can all see the signs of what Theo can do when it comes off and he will only develop that and do it consistently over 90 minutes once he strings a run of games together.

All of a sudden we miss Abou Diaby who is now flavour of the month when not too long ago he was the lazy, unintelligent footballer who couldn’t make the right decision on the ball to save his life. Hopefully Theo can join the list of players coming good under the tutelage of Arsene Wenger.

I thought Samir Nasri had taken a step up from recent performances, he looked more willing to be positive in the final third and showed what an extreme talent that he is. It is almost as if Wenger had pulled him aside and reminded him of the ability he has to beat players. He has always been a very tidy player but for my eyes, he hasn’t committed his opponent enough, yesterday Samir Nasri was direct and dangerous.

With Cesc Fabregas being the target of man to man marking, I would have liked to have seen Nasri and Cesc switch more often when we were attacking, thus pulling the marker out of position, Nasri is more than capable enough to hurt the opposition from a central role with either his passing range or his dribbling ability.

The double selection that raised my brow were the inclusion of Aaron Ramsey and Mikel Silvestre. Ramsey for Denilson was a positive move from Arsene and it was not in anyway a bad reflection of Denilson as I have read in some quarters. It was for the very same reason that Wenger replaced Sagna for Eboue. Wenger knew that his team would be on the front foot, he knew that his team would face plenty of men behind the ball for large periods of the game and if you wanted to select a player who was more likely to break down a defensive by either a final ball or a long range strike then it will be Ramsey. If Arsenal were playing away to Aston Villa then Denilson would be selected ahead of Ramsey, it is that simple.

Wenger obviously feels that Sol Campbell cannot play two games in three days so he rested the giant experienced center back and drafted in Silvestre. Being a man of continuity, I was surprised to see Vermaelen cover the right side of the two center backs as he had been playing on the left during the whole season so far, perhaps Wenger was slightly worried about Silvestre and wanted him to feel as comfortable as possible. Only Wenger should know his reason.

The two players showed that they lacked games together when they was split wide open with Kieran Richardson’s slid pass to Jones who wasted a great chances for the visitors, he needed composure and went instead for power and his shot was dragged way wide of the post.

Darren Bent and Fraizer Campbell also had chances to run at Almunia but they couldn’t take their chances. Manuel Almunia didn’t put a foot or hand wrong throughout the game. He made a vital block at the feet of Darren Bent and punched, caught and kicked very well over the 90 minutes.

My man of the match has to go to our most productive and threatening player, right back Emmanuel Eboue. He was direct, full of energy and gave the side a dynamic outlet. As a talent, he is hugely underrated. Full of ability, speed and tricks. Theo Walcott would do well to watch him closely. Rarely gives a pass away, something that is often ignored. What I like about the Eboue of 2010 is his ability to drive into the open spaces as shown for the opening goal. When he was first moved to the right wing, he was a little predictable, much like Theo nowadays.

When he had the ball against an opponent, he would only try and take him on, on the outside and he was read time and time again. Today he is driving inside his defenders and continuing his run inside the penalty area like a slalom skier.

I really feel that when the opposition sit behind the ball the best way to open up spaces is for players like Eboue and Diaby to run past the opposition into the spaces then a quick one-two often gives us a shooting opportunity.

Bendtner was in the right place at the right time to tap in Eboue’s run and cross, a goal that will do the big striker no harm at all.

Bendtner had a few half chances that he didn’t manage to convert, one deflected effort that clipped the bar and one dragged effort wide.

We had many near misses but it seemed clear that we lacked sharpness, probably to do with Wednesday’s game in Portugal.

Although I was nervous in the latter stages, I almost felt like I didn’t want the penalty awarded because this could mean that we will not have another one for another 6 months. Funnily enough we must have had at least 10 much more clear cut decisions not given since UEFA were made to look stupid by our club over the Eduardo debacle.

Cesc who had missed our only other penalty since that day against Stoke, slotted into the bottom corner for 2-0 and game over.

Arsenal are now only two points behind Manchester United, who still have to play against Chelsea. So unless Manchester United are ruled out of the title then Arsenal are also very much in with a shout.