Only goal

By Boris Mellor
April 20 2013

When Sidwell was sent off, after only 12 minutes, we all cheered the Russian broadcast to the echo, surely we would win this without any problem at all. Maybe that’s what Wenger’s team thought, for although a great result it was not a convincing performance.

It’s possible that last year the Gunners might have lost this game, but then they have lost similar games this season, hence the mad race for the finish line.

Indeed it is an open secret that Szczesny believes that his team mates are not always quite up for it at away matches against inferior opposition, although defeat at home by Blackburn may indicate that the malaise has been even worse than that.

Arsenal had to work really hard to get the first goal, without much help from the strikers, whoever they might be. It took until almost half time before they finally broke their duck, and then it was the centre backs that played the main role with a significant cross by Walcott, but the assist belonged to Koscielny. Perhaps Theo thinks he is the new Beckham and that as long as he provides one killer dead ball a game then its job done, which it was on this occasion.

So why wooden Wenger? I don’t think he reacts tactically to changes in a match quickly enough, a sending off at 12 minutes may have been too early to make changes, but I can’t help thinking of Mourinho making his immediate substitutions when Man Utd went down to 10 men in the CL to devastating effect. Now, as I wrote above 12 minutes may have been too early to make changes, but it seemed obvious in the second half that the hand brake had gone on and the players were looking nervous, so why leave it until 71 minutes to make an important changes?

Indeed by then Fulham were revelling in the space afforded by being reduced to ten men that the new boys found it hard to get into the game. Surely with Fulham down to ten men Arsene could have afforded two strikers for longer than 19 minutes.

Thus with 20 minutes to go it was Fulham that looked more likely to score, as they piled on pressure and corners. One enjoyable moment was when Fulham scored a goal that was ruled offside, a closet Fulham supporter revealed himself by standing up and roaring YES!! He had failed to see the line officials raised flag, oh what fun we had as we all stood up and roared YES!! Oh how we laughed, but it was about the only light moment after the single lonely goal.

Instead we had to watch Woj being examined more thoroughly than Schwarzer, and still I can’t understand why Wenger didn’t snap up Berbatov.

With a minute to go Ramsey, who had a very good game broke away and found himself facing an open goal. Ah I thought a chance to make the game safe, but I had forgotten that he is on an accumulator to hit row Z more time than RvP scores goals. However, it didn’t matter as the whistle went 30 seconds later.

Positives

A sound defensive display with a touch of steel about it, 1 Nil to the Arsenal eh?

Negatives

Too much Tikka Takka in front of goal. Giroud’s sending off which to me seemed very harsh indeed. He seemed to get the ball, and the speed of the opposing payer was possibly a factor in mistiming. Surely a yellow was enough? No doubt Mr Hansen will give us the benefit and definitive answer on this issue.