Yesterday Arsenal FC played against the Smurs.
Arsenal started well. A good chance fell to girod who was free, he turned back onto his left allowing the covering defender to get a challenge in. A sign of things to come. He was rubbish all game and I don’t think completed a pass.
Arsenal dominated the first half only for smurs to score with their first meaningful attack. Humanzee made a good run, was found with a decent ball and finished quite well after szczesny had come out but couldn’t get there. Its the sort of goal you can concede, no big issue. The fact that it was smurs first decent attack is a real issue. How many teams score against us with their first attack? Far too many.
Seconds later a similar routine had smurs 2-0 up. Lennon this time with the goal. Nacho had problems trying to contain Lennon all game. He had watched the run of lennon and had him tracked but then stopped to hold the line trying to play off side. It didn’t quite work. A mistake by a guy who looked nervy all game. Completely understandable. Needed more help and it wasn’t until after the break that carzola started to come across to help him out.
The rest of the half was arsenal trying to remember that they were a set of international footballers and not a local park team who were unsure of where people were playing and what they were suppose to be doing. Arsenal kept it to 2-0 more by chance than by any control of the game.
Smurs had a completely underserved lead. Arsenal gifting them a massive advantage in a crucial derby game. Really not good enough. Tired of hearing excuses and over doing the positives. For whatever reason and I’m sure it numerous, rather than simply allowing steve bould to show them videos of the 1990-91 season, it stinks. The personal we have there should be better than that. It’s a real problem that they seem unable to not concede at almost any moment. Its all well and good Wenger saying we had the best away defensive record but those that watch the games know that’s not the whole story. We’re pretty awful at the back and we seem far far too permeable for a team that has designs on winning anything.
Second half kicked off, arsenal continued to play well. Forced a free kick near the corner flag and Per scored one of the two goals we needed to get back level in the game. 40 minutes of normally time still left. Game on.
The rest of the half was exciting stuff. The next goal would have been crucial. We came very close after we scored. Wenger made some changes and Rosicky looked alright, Poldi looked alright. Arsenal could have nicked a draw, smurs could have gone 3-1 up. It ended 2-1 smurs.
Arsenal were probably better, completely let down by our inability to defend as a team. Its easy to look good going forward if you pay no attention to defending but at the most basic level of football you know, that over the course of a season, that sort of mentality is no good. You’ll smash a few poorer teams heavily (see Newcastle
I’m not sure what the plan is but its going badly and has been for sometime. If we’re pinning our hopes on FFP coming in and levelling it all up I think we’ll be a long time waiting.
Not to leave on a sourer note: special mention to Jenko who put in a massive shift at right back and Rambo, probably not the best technical players we have but stood out for us.
The chase for champions league football is on. I’m with the Gunners and I’m looking forward to laughing and singing about it at the end of the season.
Come on you reds.
Snips
No comments:
Post a Comment