Bitter Taste In Seville But It Is Only Temporary
Nov 27th, 2007 by 'holic
One of the great things about being a bit of a fossil is that no matter what misfortune becomes the side I have seen much worse down the years. Certainly a defeat against the other strong team in Group H, particularly given the make-up of the team, is not something I’ll be losing sleep over.
The Gunners found their best form in the opening twenty-four minutes, and led when the impressive Bendtner set up Eduardo for the opener. There is no doubt that the performance of the Dane was the biggest plus on the night for the visitors. Emmanuel Adebayor now has genuine competition for his place at the head of the attack.
Midway through the half the rustiness in the returning players led to a disastrous equaliser. Miskicks from Senderos and Gilberto, both clearly not match fit, set up Keita for a wonderfully taken equaliser. Ten minutes later Fabiano exploited sloppy marking from a set piece to score with a superb header.
After the break, although Sevilla had clearly taken control of the contest, Arsenal were denied a clear opportunity to equalise when Eboue was upended in the box by Poulsen. Once again the Ivorian exhibited the best, and worst, of his character. He has so much to offer and yet you cannot help but feel that referees tend to disregard genuine fouls when he spends so much time defying the laws of gravity.
The referee rubbed salt in the wound when he attempted to award a penalty against Senderos for a chested clearance. Fortunately common sense, and an alert referees assistant prevailed, but the inevitable spot-kick duly arrived in the last minute. Toure and Sagna, caught the wrong side of Kanoute, combined to bring him down and the striker calmly converted for 3-1.
At the end of the night it is best to hold your hands up and say the better side won. They didn’t match our clear three goal drubbing of them at the Grove so we could still top the group, although that is now out of our hands.
I also take some heart from the fact that the likes of Hoyte, Traore, Denilson, and Bendtner have gained valuable experience against one of the most attacking teams in Europe. It will have done their development no harm whatsoever.
7 Responses to “Bitter Taste In Seville But It Is Only Temporary”
Fabregas injured? I saw him limp off but I can’t find anything that states whether or not he’ll be missing for any period of time. Arsenal can’t play without Fabregas, especially with Hleb out for another three weeks or so. This would be awful, awful news given the upcoming fixtures.
Apparently it was just a precaution because he felt his hamstring BKK. I’m glad he had the sense to signal and come off rather than stay on and make matters worse.
A gamble worth taking with the fixtures we’ve got coming up. The league must always be our priority.
I agree the better team won, but I have to say I was a bit disappointed with the amount of diving and kicking exhibited by Sevilla, not to mention the way they surrounded the referee after the ball clearly hit Senderos in the chest. I even saw one of their players calling for the ref to show a card for whatever reason. Their second goal came off a free kick given after an Alves dive. He would fit in well at Chelsea.
So good to see a sensible, balanced write up of last night’s events. Some people seem ready to slit their wrists over it as though they’ve only been Arsenal supporters since our current unbeaten run started!
Sevilla had their best XI players out, were playing at home and needed at least a point to qualify. We were already through to the knock out phase and were without the majority of our best XI, so it’s not the end of the world that we lost.
The benefit of the big match experience and match practice for the fringe and rusty players cannot be underestimated as that could not be replicated on the training ground.
I’m not an Eboue hater, I think he brings some good things to this team and he’s still getting the hang of his new role on the wing, but his ‘theatrics’ seem to be giving him a reputation, which sees us lose out on clear penalties when he is involved. Perhaps he should watch Alves more closely to learn how it’s done in a less ‘obvious’ way!
*****
I suspect Senderos won’t be boosted by his performance, and will be giving the manager a nagging worry about what to do when Kolo goes to the ACN. Generally I don’t think Senderos has ironed out the problems in his game..
He looks to be a bit more bulky but has very little acceleration…something you just can’t get away from. I think about everytime he’s played he’s had one or two wobbly moments that just have the effect of spreading jitters into the other defenders.
IMHO, Centerback is the top position where we must strengthen in January – or we could well end up with egg on our face come may…..
Phatrick – I agree completely that AW will have to splash cash in the January window for a world class CB. Just think, what if Gallas gets injured in January… YIKES!!!