Arsenal’s season over..? Match review

Arsenal’s season over..? Match review

I guess the result was something of an anti-climax in the end. In the build-up we had news of Van Persie’s back stabbing move into bastard country, leaving the last eight years of his footballing career in a brown and putrid mess on the floor. He assumed that our ship was sinking and hopped across to one he thought was sailing comfortably towards the horizon, leaving his mates behind to bucket out the sea water and patch up the holes from when we hit Ferguson’s transfer sniffing nose. I don’t know what the antonym for “mutiny” is, but that’s basically what our Captain did. The opening game at Ashburton Grove was going to be the big middle finger thrust firmly in his direction, a resounding “we don’t need you anyhow” bellowed up the M1. We could then sit back, enjoy Match of the Day this evening and wait eagerly for Persie to roll his ankle in his first match on Monday night, getting the working week off to a good start.

Yet rather than the game being read from that particularly well written script, the match turned into more of an impromptu improv session which didn’t rouse too many laughs. Even though we dominated the ball and held 70% possession, even though we our passing completion was over 90%, even though we had far more efforts on goal than they did, we took away the same number of points when Chris Foy chirruped his whistle. While Sunderland will be looking at their point with eyes glistening with happiness, most Arsenal fans will be casting our point a sour scowl. The result didn’t do too much to silence those who claim that we will be nothing without the Flying [north] Dutchman.

I don’t wish to join in the throngs of over-reacting fans who take to Twitter, Facebook and other online media platforms, slating missed chances, a lack of ambition etc blah and so on. It was the first game of the season; we dominated the ball, should have scored and looked comfortable at the back. We looked a little out of practise as you’d expect, but the recent additions bedded in well and looked at home in their new surroundings, suggesting a short acclimatisation period to come. While three points would have been the ideal start, the performance and the individuals that weren’t available make for an exciting month or two ahead. Sagna is set to return to right back in the coming weeks and having the driving forces of Wilshere and Oxlaide through the middle of the park is certainly no bad thing. As someone on Twitter mentioned, this time last year we drew 0-0 and had two players suspended for three games in the aftermath, so today’s result is a definite improvement.

The nature of internet football streams often means that the viewing of a game is anything but smooth, and as a result I may have missed the odd moment where a player did well or did poorly. From what I could gather however, some players did perform particularly well. 

Cazorla seemed to play with a level of comfort that belied his virginity on English soil, nipping in and out of opposition players to create space and link with our three forwards. His pass to Giroud was superb, cutting their line and creating an opportunity to score that really ought to have been taken, but our nouveau Frenchman spurned the chance that should have provided us with the three points. It was a shame because his movement to link with Cazorla was fantastic, so I'm hopeful that this partnership will be one that thrives in the coming weeks. 

From what I have read online, a lot of people seem to be put off by Podolski’s performance, yet I thought he did well in his first start. He acted as a surprisingly good target man, holding off O’Neill’s defenders and helping to link our forward play. He didn’t really get on the end of many moves (bar one which ended up going out for a corner), but he’s got undeniable ability and doesn’t seem like the kind of player who needs many opportunities to score. He was lunching off left overs for most of the game and didn’t have any clear cut chances, but if any fans are going to ignore how good he has been over the last six years and focus only on yesterday’s debut, then I’d say those fans are thicker than clay cake.  

Gervinho was our most effective player aside from Cazorla, and if you compare his efforts to Theo’s then there's only one winning performance in my opinion. Gervinho took players on, hit the by-line on multiple occasions to pull back crosses and genuinely made a nuisance of himself. While he did still commit the odd deadly sin (running the ball out of play for example) I was encouraged by what he brought and hope to more of the same in the coming weeks.   

  

For the rest, we look like a team that needs a game or two more to really come together and develop the clinical nature that games like yesterday required. While we had 23 shots on goal we only managed a less-than-poor 3 shots on target. Teams come to Ashburton Grove to park the bus and it’s our prerogative to break them down and get the result we need. We normally accomplish this but we stalled yesterday; the car isn’t broken, it’s just lost a couple of parts, gained some new ones and needs a couple of miles to run smoothly again.

However, was yesterday a symptom of a preseason focused more on marketing than football preparation? I’ll give that a bit of thought and get back to you.

Again, thanks for reading.

@halls_dja