Evening everyone.
So, we drew with City. Was it a point gained or two lost? I'm leaning towards the former option, looking through the prism of the last ten minutes, but the simple fact remains: Arsenal has only taken 6 points out of 4 games. There were both positives and negatives to our performance today, so I'll just break the review down in parts, as I usually do.
The set-up
Rainbow laces campaign aside, I thought our squad was pretty unexpected. Both Gibbs and Arteta started the game on the bench, in favour of Monreal and Flamini respectively, Ozil started on the left once again and Cazorla remained an unused sub throughout. In a positive twist of events, Wilshere played right from the off under our shiny new buy Welbeck.
City's team also held a couple of surprises. Sabaleta, Milner and Lampard all started, while Toure was nowhere in sight. Injury, probably. Aguero spearheaded the attack, with Jovetic out.
The first half
Arsenal started brightly, retaining possession of the ball and should have gone ahead in the 12th minute. Welbeck was sent clean through following a defender's mistake, but his clever chipped effort hit the inside of the post and rebounded into play. I had a bad feeling we would pay for such wastefulness and, unfortunately, I was right.
After some hassle in midfield, Navas picked up the ball on the flank, ran half the field and clipped a low pass towards Aguero. The Argentine, unmarked for some peculiar reason, had the simplest of jobs.
We could have been 2-0 down minutes later, but, luckily, Silva's effort was brilliantly saved by Szczesny. 1-0 down after 45 minutes.
The second half
Arsene made no changes during the break and, much as was wrapping my head around this decision, I couldn't find fault with it. Who should AW have subbed? A lively and threatening Ramsey, even though the Welshman was a bit erratic? Flamini, our only holding midfielder, after the Frenchman was preferred to Arteta? Ozil, who was far from his best, but still produced moments of magic?
Once again we could have conceded on a counter. Silva's pass found Clichy, but his chipped effort went just wide. Thankfully, cause Szczesny was well and truly beaten. At this point I started having my doubts about Arsenal relishing even a point from the game, but then Wilshere made his grand entrance.
After Jack interchanged passes with Ozil and, subsequently, Ramsey, he found space in the box, swept the defender aside and sent the ball into the far corner. 1-1.
We started pouring men forward, sensing City's weakness and Debucht should have put us in front, only for his effort to skid wide.
And then, suddenly, we were 2-1 up. Some scuffle near the box resulted in a headed pass from Wilshere and Sanchez was on hand to smash home a beautiful volley. The Chilean ripped his shirt off in celebration, but our joy was premature, unfortunately.
Just minutes after the goal, Debuchy was stretched off the pitch. The Frenchman landed on his ankle and sprained it, as a result. He left the field to a standing ovation and Chambers came on.
Despite his brilliant form, Calum was unable to prevent an equaliser seven minutes from time. Silva crossed from a corner, Demichelis met the cross with a powerful header and the ball went in. This was the case of Szczesny doing too much, as Flamini was ready to clear his lines, but you cannot blame Wojciech for being too much of a goalkeeper. It's his job to save shots, it's in his blood to react to such efforts.
City could have nicked a win in the dying minutes, twice hitting the post and even scoring from an offside position, but ultimately we've escaped with a point and it's a point well-deserved.
The aftermath
on Welbeck’s performance
Finally, on Debuchy's injury
That creates a dilemma for me, as to who should play on the right. Playing Chambers is risky, as he's our only CB back-up. However, playing Bellerin can prove riskier still, as he may just not be ready to play on that level on a regular basis. We'll ponder this as the Dortmund game draws nearer.
Phew, that's it for today. Don't beat yourself up because we drew - the Invincibles drew 12 games in 2003-2004. I'm sure 9 draws and 25 wins will do the trick for us.
Until later
Follow me on Twitter (@AlexBaguzin)
P.S. For some reason, the desktop version may not be working properly - just view the blog from your mobile device and it should be fine
So, we drew with City. Was it a point gained or two lost? I'm leaning towards the former option, looking through the prism of the last ten minutes, but the simple fact remains: Arsenal has only taken 6 points out of 4 games. There were both positives and negatives to our performance today, so I'll just break the review down in parts, as I usually do.
The set-up
Rainbow laces campaign aside, I thought our squad was pretty unexpected. Both Gibbs and Arteta started the game on the bench, in favour of Monreal and Flamini respectively, Ozil started on the left once again and Cazorla remained an unused sub throughout. In a positive twist of events, Wilshere played right from the off under our shiny new buy Welbeck.
City's team also held a couple of surprises. Sabaleta, Milner and Lampard all started, while Toure was nowhere in sight. Injury, probably. Aguero spearheaded the attack, with Jovetic out.
The first half
Arsenal started brightly, retaining possession of the ball and should have gone ahead in the 12th minute. Welbeck was sent clean through following a defender's mistake, but his clever chipped effort hit the inside of the post and rebounded into play. I had a bad feeling we would pay for such wastefulness and, unfortunately, I was right.
After some hassle in midfield, Navas picked up the ball on the flank, ran half the field and clipped a low pass towards Aguero. The Argentine, unmarked for some peculiar reason, had the simplest of jobs.
We could have been 2-0 down minutes later, but, luckily, Silva's effort was brilliantly saved by Szczesny. 1-0 down after 45 minutes.
The second half
Arsene made no changes during the break and, much as was wrapping my head around this decision, I couldn't find fault with it. Who should AW have subbed? A lively and threatening Ramsey, even though the Welshman was a bit erratic? Flamini, our only holding midfielder, after the Frenchman was preferred to Arteta? Ozil, who was far from his best, but still produced moments of magic?
Once again we could have conceded on a counter. Silva's pass found Clichy, but his chipped effort went just wide. Thankfully, cause Szczesny was well and truly beaten. At this point I started having my doubts about Arsenal relishing even a point from the game, but then Wilshere made his grand entrance.
After Jack interchanged passes with Ozil and, subsequently, Ramsey, he found space in the box, swept the defender aside and sent the ball into the far corner. 1-1.
We started pouring men forward, sensing City's weakness and Debucht should have put us in front, only for his effort to skid wide.
And then, suddenly, we were 2-1 up. Some scuffle near the box resulted in a headed pass from Wilshere and Sanchez was on hand to smash home a beautiful volley. The Chilean ripped his shirt off in celebration, but our joy was premature, unfortunately.
Just minutes after the goal, Debuchy was stretched off the pitch. The Frenchman landed on his ankle and sprained it, as a result. He left the field to a standing ovation and Chambers came on.
Despite his brilliant form, Calum was unable to prevent an equaliser seven minutes from time. Silva crossed from a corner, Demichelis met the cross with a powerful header and the ball went in. This was the case of Szczesny doing too much, as Flamini was ready to clear his lines, but you cannot blame Wojciech for being too much of a goalkeeper. It's his job to save shots, it's in his blood to react to such efforts.
City could have nicked a win in the dying minutes, twice hitting the post and even scoring from an offside position, but ultimately we've escaped with a point and it's a point well-deserved.
The aftermath
"I think we produced a game of top quality. It was a game of top quality between two very good teams, played at tremendous pace, especially in the first half. We were unlucky to be 1-0 down in the first half and we did something remarkable to come back and be in a leading position. The only frustrating thing for me is that we didn't manage to keep the lead and gave a cheap goal away. That's where we have room for improvement because it was a very encouraging game but the way we conceded the second goal nearly killed our game."Arsene Wenger's take on our performance and I agree with it completely. We had an outstanding attacking display, the best we had this season, but fell short of winning the game. Our three most damaging trends resurfaced: conceding from a first shot on target, conceding from a counter and conceding from a set-piece. This is really something we have to work on.
on Welbeck’s performance
"He did well. I believe that he needs to develop his link play with our players but that is a bit normal. It’s sad that he couldn’t take his chance but overall every time he had an opportunity to find some space he looked dangerous. There are some things to work on with him to integrate him well into our game but I’m happy with his first game."I'm in two minds about his performance, actually. He was unlucky not to score, but faded away as we tried to find our rhythm. Reappeared again in the second half, nearly made it to Sanchez's low cross and had some nice touches, but nothing extraordinary. Maybe he was valuable in an other, less pronounced sense. Like we don't always know how well Arteta fared, but can rarely find flaws to his game. He's the cog that makes Arsenal tick. Maybe it's the same with Welbeck.
Finally, on Debuchy's injury
"Debuchy has a badly sprained ankle. How long will he be out? I don't know, but it doesn't look good. People told me they need a bit more time to assess how long he will be out but it's a bad ankle sprain."It's reported Debuchy will spend 4-6 weeks on the sidelines and it's bad news. Leaving aside the fact that it's our fifth ankle injury this season (Gibbs, Arteta, Ozil, Giroud and now Debuchy), we're down to five senior defenders. One more than we need, right?
That creates a dilemma for me, as to who should play on the right. Playing Chambers is risky, as he's our only CB back-up. However, playing Bellerin can prove riskier still, as he may just not be ready to play on that level on a regular basis. We'll ponder this as the Dortmund game draws nearer.
Phew, that's it for today. Don't beat yourself up because we drew - the Invincibles drew 12 games in 2003-2004. I'm sure 9 draws and 25 wins will do the trick for us.
Until later
Follow me on Twitter (@AlexBaguzin)
P.S. For some reason, the desktop version may not be working properly - just view the blog from your mobile device and it should be fine
No comments:
Post a Comment