By Boris Mellor
April 14 2013

In the greasy spoon before the match, Syd the Cabbie and me discussed our predictions, over Chicken Shish for a change. I thought it was time we had a clean sheet again so went for 3-0, whilst Syd looked into his crystal ball, he saw lots of sideways passing as the team struggled to score. It will be level at half time, and Arsenal will not score a goal until final ten minutes and will eventually win he soothsaid.

I should have paid more attention, because Syd won £120 on his soothsaying, but it didn’t save me from the anxiety of watching a mostly toothless performance for 80 minutes.

If the BBC are to be believed Arsenal had only two more shots on target than Norwich in the whole game, although most of the Canaries shots came after the Gunners equaliser, there again so did the home team’s. The BBC also claims Norwich had more possession.  True or not there certainly was a lot of crab football, plus if the time wasting by the Norwich keeper counts as possession then they waltzed it. There was 6 minutes added time at the end of the game, and there is nothing more likely to infuriate the Gooner faithful than time wasting.

Missing Rosicky

Arsenal had started brightly enough with a Wilshere pass almost reaching Ramsey for an early strike, but after that the Gunners became more circumspect, losing tempo and directness. Wilshere, understandably,  lacked fitness and sharpness. Norwich defended deep and in numbers and Arsenal struggled to produce many effective strikes at goal. Arsenal were clearly missing Rosicky’s directness, and even, I never thought I would say this, his effectiveness in the box. So it was hardly a surprise that at the end of the first half it was 0-0.

If the first half had been poor, worse was yet to come and on 56 minutes Norwich, who had hardly attacked all game, went ahead after conning a free kick. My 3-0 prediction went down the plughole with yet another example of poor Arsenal defending.

Norwich then parked the bus, and also used some dubious tactics including time wasting, none of which seemed to bother the referee that much. The crowd kept behind the team, and the bringing on of Walcott and Podolski finally made Arsenal’s play more direct. On 85 minutes after a contested corner for Arsenal the ball seemed to have been cleared but the linesman was signalling the ref. There is nothing like actually  being at a football match for not knowing what is happening, but apparently a penalty was being awarded by the linesman. From 27 rows high in the North Bank we could not work out why, but it was welcome nonetheless.

All Praise Arteta

Norwich did everything they could to put the Spaniard off, including barging into him as he waited for their keeper to leave the D and go back into his goal. It was a disgraceful show of poor sportsmanship, I can just imagine the pontificating on MOTD if the Arsenal had behaved that way. It might not have been Arteta’s greatest penalty ever, but it was enough to put Arsenal back into a game they had increasingly looked like losing.

Suddenly the Canary keeper was keen to get the ball back into the game, oh how the crowd enjoyed the irony of that. Cheering his every move, as Norwich finally discovered some ambition. On 88 minutes Giroud tangled up with a defender and  scraped the ball into the net, well apparently it was him, but it was a bit of a scramble. The crowd celebrated as if Arsenal had won a trophy.

On 90 minutes the 4^th official's LED board went up announcing 6 minutes added time, there was a slight groan, too long to play corner pin, and not long enough to recover if there were any slip ups. Fortunately Podolski was prepared to risk Wenger’s wrath by shooting from outside the box on 90 minutes. Good and true it sailed past the keeper, “he scores when he wants” crowed the crowd knowing at 3-1 it was game over. Why doesn’t Wenger use him more often?

With Walcott, Giroud and Podolski all playing up front Arsenal had finally looked a threat, but it had taken a Norwich goal to get to that position. Is it really necessary to have only one man up as a striker against a team that had come to either draw or nick the game? Over to you Wenger.

Another great result but not the greatest of performances, hopefully the run can continue on Tuesday, but it may need a lot more direct football than was played for the first 80 minutes against Norwich.