I spoke Arsenal pre match about Theo Walcott making a difference to this game and in the 11 minute match, he was the player that made the difference. Our first real attack of the game saw van Persie clip a pass into the stride of Theo Walcott who raced through ahead of former Tottenham defender Sébastien Bassong, Bassong rather clumsily bundled Walcott over in the box and the referee made the correct decision by awarding the penalty. As Bassong prevented a goalscoring
Manchester City were pushed into a box in their own half and were not allowed to get out. The likes of Yossi Benayoun, Tomas Rosicky, Alex Song and company forced them to turn over possession time and time again. Manchester City only managed one shot on target in the whole game. As good as our defence were on the day, they did not have to perform heroic clearances off the lines or last ditch
Arsenal team”, the same people also called for Wenger’s head and called for a new manager at Arsenal, it’s worth pointing out that even before our recent form, we had a run from Oct 21 till the end of December where we only lost 1 game in the league and that was a narrow loss to Man city away. It bothers me that paid journalists failed to spot the correlation between our injuries and our form that was so glaringly obvious for all to see, yet still, most journalists and pundits alike don’t point this out and still call this Arsenal side “The worst ever” While reading the match reports this morning, little
Ramsey was one young player who many Arsenal fans would have expected to step up this season with the key players departing and Wilshere injured. However his form has been indifferent which is understandable considering he is still only 21.Some Arsenal fans have already written off Ramsey on the basis of his recent performances which i think is really harsh. He had a pretty decent start to the season but struggled to maintain that form. The biggest criticism of his game was his inability to finish off chances. Also he would often try to overplay by trying some back heels and fancy flicks when
Thomas Vermaelen made errors that cost us the game in the end and when our offensive game is suffering then it can only lead to defeat. Vermaelen dived in at Adel Taarabt and the Moroccan skipped past him and curled past Szczesny for his first Premier League goal of the season. It is ok to dive in when you have Koscielny on the cover behind but when you are
The left attacker is the only position in which I have to guess Arsene's selection. Against Everton at Goodison park, Arsene chose Aaron Ramsey to add that extra bite, that extra body in the middle of the pitch to win the midfield battle. Against Aston Villa at home, Arsene played two natural wide attackers as I am sure he was confident enough of dominating the ball. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain is another option but I am guessing that it will be between the former options. Gervinho put in a superb defensive performance against Aston Villa
I remember first paying attention to Alex Song's delivery when he chipped over a pass to Eduardo to score that back healed volley but it has become a little more than a holding player contributing a few assists for his team. It is almost becoming the strongest part of his game and I wonder if that side of his game should be utilised more than it already is. Currently the midfield rotates and they all take turns in supporting the attacking trio but given how we press further forward I wonder how Alex would fair spending more time in what is