I've overslept this morning. It may have something to do with me eating my own body weight in mini baby bells and spending the night in a sort of half way dream zone which has led to me waking up hungry and annoyed.
Anyway, Arsenal played Blackburn yesterday in the FA Cup and lost one nil. It was another awful performance by a team who seem to have perfected the art of making a rod for their own backs. The Arsenal team is not full of top class talent but even our perpetually injured and persistently not good enough reserves had far too much for a Blackburn team who really didn't have anyone.
The team had been changed around and a few players got their chance to prove how good they aren't and an opportunity to rest some of the other players. Arsenal started brightly if a bit slowly and methodically. We dominated possession in the first half without really looking to trouble the Blackburn goal. Plenty of sideways passing around the opponents box, it gets passed to someone on the overlap and they then cross it in to the box with no arsenal player in it. Standard meaningless stuff.
For all our dominance and approach play I can't remember us generating a decent shot or forcing their keeper to make a save. I might have forgotten one or two but I haven't found the time to watch anything back yet. Blackburn looked fairly dangerous on the very few occasions they came forward. This was mainly due to us making them look good, that they could cross the ball and the ball then got attacked in the box and that arsenal look like they can concede at anytime on days like theses.
It was the newly returned Gervinho that had the best chance of the game. Played clean through by Tomas Rosicky just before half time. He managed to scuff his shot wide of the far post. I appreciate that you have limited time to make decisions and you might be knackered but really you have got to at least force the keeper to save it. The strike was poor.
Start of the second half and Blackburn started the stronger. Arsenal looked lethargic, short of ideas and thought we'd pass the opposition in to submission without anybody taking any responsibility for the run or the final ball that would have broken the deadlock.
With about 20 minutes left Wenger brought on Santi, Theo and Jack and took off 3 of the 10 underperforming outfield players. It was a big gesture. It was intended to reinvigorate the misfiring gunners and intimidate in name if not physical stature and overwhelm the Blackburn players, as well as introducing 3 players who have this season taken the responsibilities needed to win games.
As soon as they came on Blackburn scored. They knocked a long ball down their left wing, found the Blackburn attacker who had a decent shot, this was palmed horribly straight back into the middle of the box by scezechny. It fell to a Blackburn player who scuffed his shot into the ground, it bounced up and hit the far post and it went in. One nil Blackburn. I can't say I was dumbstruck or shocked, it was on the cards from this fumbling faltering arsenal side from the beginning of the match.
The rest of the game petered out. Arsenal didn't really do anything much. A few people had long shots that were never going to go in. We had a few moves where we passed it round the edge of the box for somebody to cross in to nobody.
The game ended and the Arsenal fans roundly booed. They booed the underperforming players, who are less than great but still far better than the Blackburn side; booed the manager who's words seem less believable and brilliant early management of the club seems miles away from where we are now and booed the board who seem to do and say nothing about the problems the club has faced over the last seasons.
For all the chat, its not getting better, its getting worse.
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