New Arsenal Era Starts With An Old Arsenal Scoreline
Nov 25th, 2008 by 'holic
The opening half set the scene. Arsene surprised, nay delighted, many by picking Carlos Vela and opted for a diamond behind him with Robin van Persie as the attacking point, and Alexandre Song as the ‘sitter’. The visitors opted for two strikers and were extremely well organised, ensuring they defended in numbers but closing down in the midfield with great vigour. Would they be able to maintain that level of effort for ninety minutes?
In truth there were few clear cut opportunities before the break. William Gallas was involved in the nearest efforts at both ends. A costly slip in the right back berth was fortunately not punished by Bangoura, and as the half drew to a close the former captain netted at the right end but was rightly adjudged to be offside. Otherwise Arsenal’s best moments arrived from van Persie set pieces and one wonderful cross from Vela which Aaron Ramsey couldn’t finish under pressure.
There seemed to me to be a subtle change to the formation in the second-half. Van Persie and Song appeared to have been pushed forward so we matched Kiev’s 4-4-2, and possibly the contest could have gone either way. Inevitably Gallas was involved as he unintentionally blocked a van Persie effort, but Arsenal were indebted to Manuel Almunia for keeping them in the game when he reacted to block a Milevskiy effort as his central defenders ‘slept in’,
The substitutions clearly helped Arsenal. When the goal finally arrived it was Nicklas Bendtner who scored, but the talk was all about the assist from the new skipper. Cesc Fabregas played an uncontested drop ball into the path of the big Dane, and given the Ukrainians had continued playing when Djourou was injured that seemed fair enough.
There was just enough time for Aliev to pick up the red card that seemed to be his destiny, and a rousing chorus of ‘one-nil to the Arsenal’ to ring around a rapidly emptying stadium. Fair play to the home support who stayed relatively positive throughout.
Is this a turning point? Probably not, but assured qualification takes a lot of pressure off the side for the final Champions League group contest in Porto. A good job jobbed, as a mate used to say.
29 Responses to “New Arsenal Era Starts With An Old Arsenal Scoreline”
1st?
Champagne! Champagne for everyone!
(On the house, of course!)
I shall partake in your offer herts…
Overall a good performance considering the current situation.. I was somehow confident that we wont lose this game..
Great job, getting the report out so quickly mate! New captain, good result and I for one am going to bed imagining that we MAY have turned A corner. Before that, I would love some of that champagne hertsgooner is clamouring for!
Don’t tell anyone chak, but I cheated. The first half was written up in the half-time break. Champagne is running low but I have some excellent Cava, every bit as good.
No, really 🙂
I want to add to what chakravo just said, great job posting up a well-written report so quickly after the game. As usual. Thanks again ‘holic, you never disappoint.
Half the price, twice the quantity then, landlord! 😉
a very lucky lucky win despite the as dodgy as usual song and paceless but hardworkin denilson…
they gave away too much possession and given our tendency not to get the ball away from outside our box by the defence, its just thanx to kiev’s lack of clinical finishing and manu’s save that kept us in for the win later on.
hope things gets better from here..cheers
Nice win. Would have loved to see a red sooner for ALiev though. That was a scandalous bit of possum.
who do you think were the best players holic?
I thought Cesc was gr8 and he played some gr8 through balls. i wonder if we can beat chelsea at stamford Bridge?
I don’t think the win was lucky so much as we got the breaks pete. They have been going against us for much of the season so we’ll not tempt the fates too much.
I think your underlying point though, that we were not totally convincing, is a fair one. Denilson and Ramsey are not wide players, but deserve praise for persevering. Song I thought was excellent just in front of the back four in the first half, and diabolical in the second! RvP showed a bit more enthusiasm than he has of late. That is a positive to draw from the night.
The central defenders scare the living daylights out of me though. They were solid for so long, but a couple of lapses of concentration were evident again.
i think arsene should take i guess a gamble instead of playing denilson next to cesc play song. Play song against chelsea. Song is a DM and is stronger and can lay a better tackle than denilson. i thought ramsey was ok but denilson gave the ball away to much for my liking.
Drink. Feck. Arse.
I’ll have some cava please. Bring on the chavs
Cava it is then! If there’s enough of it, I might go get meself some bright p**k shoes…hic!
You can say pink on here. The Lord only knows there has been a lot worse 🙂
Although I’m happy, I thought Wenger is testing the patience of the fans, and his luck in picking the team correctly.
I read everywhere that we need a center back, midfield player and a goal keeper, but on our last matches I thought Arsenal was exposed to the lack of wingers.
No body can call Nasri, Diaby, Denilson, Ramsey, Eboue, Fabregas, Toure wingers, although Hleb, Rosicky and Walcot succeeded in a way.
A winger is a tricky player that can open defenses with ease, like Cristiano Ronaldo, Robinho Or a player that got a quick legs who attacks denders with his pace and can cross the ball like Walcot, Traore and Lenon.
In other word you cant put a slow player and play him as a winger, he will be …..
All Arsenal’s bad performances had the same problems of lack of wingers, yet any Arsenal would have suggested that Wenger plays Simpson or Wilshere on the right wing and Vela or Gibbs on the left wing.
Its not rocket science, just we need pace and creativity to have any chance of winning, yet Wenger stuffs the wingers positions with center midfield players.
A genius player like Fabregas needs player to make a run to spark to life.
Either Wenger buy experienced players or give the young players the chance to slot in, but not any player.
The likes of Simpson, Wilshere, Vela and Gibbs would give the team a more dangerous shape, which worryingly we have already lost completely.
I found it really funny that our problems run deep to the reserves and the younger teams at the club.
Wenger buys a lot of young players in each position but never try’s to improve the wingers position in his all teams.
Even Walcot is not a winger by Wenger’s words, neither is Nasri, so he is not trying to balance the team?
I don’t believe we don’t have the money to get a decent center half and a decent winger.
I’m a big supporter of the Manager for 12 years now, but he should take a step back and look honestly and fix the problems that he created in a team without a balance every week.
God help us till January, but with this obvious weakness we don’t have a chance for winning anything this season at least.
Not one of our greatest performances but a result all the same. Due to the mounting injury list I thought we looked disjointed at times. Not a lot we can do about that until players return.
Why is it that Bendtner always seems to be twice as effective when he comes off the bench? Thought he injected some energy to the front line and took his goal really well.
Great to see Wilshere get a run out. He looked as if he had played that role for years.
Qualified with a game to go. We would have settled for that at the start of the campaign. Nice also to see the crowd reacting positively to Gallas.
Onwards and upwards.
Vela,
That is some of the most moronic shite that I’ve had the bad luck of reading in quite some time.
Sorry, forget to add about their number 8. That has to be some of the worst sportsmanship I have ever seen. That was right in front of where I sit and was just dreadful. I do not want to get all self righteous but that is the sort of thing that FIFA and UEFA need to clamp down on hard. Shocking
Not a cracker by any means. Difficult not to be a bit critical of some of our play. Overall, and once again, not the quality, sparkle and excitement that this season promised. I can hardly believe how leaky the defence has become. We’re susceptible to much that should be of no consequence.
Still, the record books will show “One Nil to the Arsenal”, a qualification with a game in hand and a strong likelihood that a very young squad will be despatched to Portugal to capture at least a draw and gain some great experience in the process.
It can only get better can’t it? We’ll start to PLAY again soon won’t we? It’ll certainly help to have Sagna and Ade back. We miss Bacary’s defensive attackingness and Ade’s ability to unsettle defences.
Err, am I the only one who thinks that the Senderos out, Silvestre in move is a baffler? Silvestre is doing nothing that Swiss Tony wasn’t. Remember the Milan games last season when Senderos was solid as a rock? Probably why he’s at the San Siro now.
Vela,
AW was never played the ‘classical’ winger types that you are describing. Robert Pires and Freddie Ljungberg were amazing in their respective positions and neither of them were ‘classical’ wingers. The bottom line is that the team was extremely successful utilising that structure.
It’s just unlucky that Walcott, Nasri, Eboue and Rosicky are all injured at the same time.
PINK MAGIC!!!!!
How many of u thought he will score…great display on this particular move…..
Well in hertz, thanks for the champagne.
Sniff,
(cough) Overmars (cough)
You can trust Fabregas to change the game in the blink of an eye. The sign of a great player. What a fantastic pass to Nicklaus.
lol “hol
haha nice one ‘holic
that feels better, a bit like having a good dump. we needed that win
Nice report ‘holic.
I think the only proper winger in recent times was Overmars, Wenger more often uses wing-backs as is the modern trend. If you look around the premiership I think you’ll find very few traditional, pure wingers these days, I suppose Lennon is probably one of them. I suspect that true wingers are considered too much of a luxury.
I thought that both Denilson and Ramsey worked hard but are far better suited to central positions. Song I thought did well covering and sweeping in the first half. I don’t know what happened at half time but he looked totally lost and baffled for a large part of the second half but he stuck at it and had settled back in by the last 15 minutes or so of the game. I am not sure he will ever be great midfield dynamo as he seems to lack pace and stamina but he could perhaps be a decent CB or holding midfield player in the Makelele role because he is quite a good tackler.
Great save from Almunia to keep us in the game. He is a player who gets a lot of criticism but not often the recognition for the good things he does in a game. I think he is a sound ‘keeper – not world class but good – and I don’t recall seeing the kind of howlers from him that we have seen from Van der Sar, James and Green on occasion!
Great win, well done the team!