A Game Of Two Halves
Jul 19th, 2008 by 'holic
Thank you, football is back.
At Barnet we witnessed just why Aaron Ramsey cost five million pounds. The summer capture from Cardiff was the shining light in an otherwise extremely disappointing first-half performance. His range of passing and impressive workrate stood out as many around him were clearly in need of this first outing.
Credit where credit is due, the other highlight of the opening period was a tremendous goal by Barnet from a set piece. Not for the first time Havard Nordveit was a little clumsy in the challenge and from the resulting free-kick Kenny Gillet curled a beauty in at the near post.
Eleven changes were made at half-time as the remainder of the second string were given an opportunity to salvage the contest. That they succeeded was almost entirely down to the vision and energy of sixteen year old Jack Wilshere.
Just after the hour he picked out the intelligent run of Jay Simpson who finished very well indeed. The pair combined again ten minutes later to set up Nacer Barazite for the winner. It was no more than the spirited youngsters deserved for raising the tempo in the second period.
Criticism of those who didn’t shine would be misplaced at this early stage, and hyping up the displays of Ramsey and Wilshere in a pre-season friendly would also be overdoing it. However, as things stand there are a couple of places up for grabs when the Premier League season kicks off and good performances now could just earn someone a chance.
So the Gunners are back and another couple of friendlies down the line we will hopefully be taking shape as the serious stuff gets closer. The beer will taste even sweeter tonight. I have missed my Arsenal.
14 Responses to “A Game Of Two Halves”
Totally agree ‘holic – I’ve seen a few people too ready to read into the performances in this game, which were actually pretty meaningless. It was just great to see players wearing the red and white, kicking a ball around a field for the first time in ages!
I’m not too pleased with the performance, and of course, I won’t base on this game at all. Even the size of the pitch made it a little uncomfortable for some of our first team men to show something. It’s the Emirates Cup we should be looking at. But it’s all good, a win is nice.
video highlights at: http://www.arsenalspot.webs.com
performance wasnt 2 gd first half was ok lacked shooting secodn was great its just a frinedly hey we won manu drew 2 kaizer chiefs lol
….and I thought the new kit looked OK too.
Theo Walcott is a man of extremes. His good is brilliant but his bad is awful.
Today, it seemed to be mostly bad.
It drives me nuts to watch him back off when an opponent looks like making a challenge. He seems to want to wait and see what happens, rather than make things happen.
This season, I am expecting to see more of the ‘brilliant’ from him but today wasn’t a good start.
its very very early to start evaluating players……. i would say the emirates cup and the ajax tournament will give us a good view on whose in shape, who looks sharp and everything. at this stage its all about getting the fitness back and stuff like that so we have to expect that players like walcott and clichy and every1 need abit of time, they havee been away for a while.i know for us supporters we always want our team to do soo well in every match but my advice would be we shouls forget about results and individual performances in our next few matches and then hopefully by next month everything will start getting better. just hope alot of the fans understand that and not start gettin worried over lets say walcott or whoever. its very very early for that
Oh for fuck’s sake
You heard the man. ‘for fuck’s sake’. Exactly. Apt.
Close, Jackster, close.
And many thanks, Mister ‘holic. 😉
I think Kenny boy, who’s like Gaël Clichy’s best mate, may have mentioned scoring about Arsenal when he was interviewed with his pal for French TV two months ago.
Well this game was certainly mentioned anyway.
Good to see some football again, it’s strange how the football addict weens him/herself through close season. When it all ends you tell yourself, “well, there’s still the play offs.” Then it’s “well, there’s the euros.” Then they end and the fixtures come out and you think, “first pre season friendly is not far away.” Now the CL Qualifier draw will be the next landmark. Anyways, very impressed with Wilshere but I’ve a feeling that might be a bad thing, he’s played three reserve games and one friendly and there’s already so much hype. It’s not hard to see why young English players get ahead of themselves. I remember Bentley’s cameo against Oxford when he was 18 and the hype was phenominal. Now look at him, mediocre, egotistical bellend.
It would be a tragedy if Wilshere went down the same road as Bentley LD. Hopefully he has got more to him than that and will put in the work and be patient enough to wait for his chance.
Surely Wilshere is not half the c*nt Bentley is. Last heard he was fucking off to Sp*rs for a ridiculous amount.
A pint of Double Dragon? Oh, go on then…
Whether Wilshere becomes a colossal twat like Bentley is probably just as much down to us as it is down to the lad himself.