Saturday, October 29th, 2011 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade
By Walter Broeckx
How many times in the past 6 years (an obviously random generated number) have we played a great game in a top game only to end up with empty hands at the final whistle? More than enough.
And the critical part of the fans went out and said that playing pretty doesn’t count if you cannot win the game. Maybe even a fair point of view. But I must say that I always have liked the past 6 years because we always played to win. In almost each and every game (I know there have been a few exceptions but I can only count them on the fingers of one hand) we went out and played our own game. Based on skill and technical ability. We just tried to score more goals than the opposition.
And sometimes when we didn’t score enough or things just didn’t work on the day we got punished for our open football. With losing two of the best players and the problems at the start of the season we have been working on a new Arsenal. Today was, as Wenger pointed out, the first real test in a real top game for this new build Arsenal team. A team that has only started on September 1st.
Now we are 2 months further and what do we have? The new players are coming in the team and are showing what they are capable of. I said in an article this week that I noticed that the team was willing to work real hard. Maybe in a way that we haven’t seen in the last seasons. Maybe the way the players are showing their hunger and desire to win each game is the main difference between now and the seasons before.
Maybe in the last seasons the team was relying on the brilliance of Cesc or Nasri to bring the game home. And maybe they were thinking that they could win the game on their brilliance or some special moment. But now we maybe are lacking the brilliance of those players but we have been gaining a lot in work rate and desire. And maybe this is the difference. The way we not just try to play our own game but also the way we are wanting to fight on the pitch.
Is everything perfect in the team? Oh no. Far from. But that is just part of football: a team is never perfect. Apart from the invincible during their 49 run maybe. People who want to be critical will have a go at Mertesacker today. Yes he didn’t get to the ball for the first 2 goals. For the first goal I had the impression he lost his footing a bit just when he wanted to jump. Losing your footing is something that can happen on a former coal shed. Isn’t it so, John? [Yes Walter that is a very impressive knowledge of footballing history, but just remember that I am the official historian around here, ok? – Tony]
I think the second goal was not just Mertesacker getting beaten by Terry. The ball was dipping and in fact came in very low. It shouldn’t have gone past the first defenders in my opinion. And when you look at the replay you can see that a defender on the first goal post should have made an easy clearance. But if people just want to have a go at Mertesacker for those two goals they should also mention the fact that in the second half he played really strongly and worked hard.
But what was important was the fact that even with the score going against us in the first half we never got outplayed by Chelsea during long periods in the game. You could always feel that we were capable of scoring. In fact we should have been 2-0 up before they scored. How on earth did Gervinho and RVP miss those two chances within the 13th minute? Both Theo with a great assist for those chances by the way.
But after going down we just went for the goal. And what a great combination that was. Ramsey to Gervinho who unselfishly gave the goal to Van Persie. Chelsea had a few chances themselves after that but we also could have scored another. The goal just before the interval was a hard blow and we went in the dressing room being 2-1 down. Now would come the biggest test for this new team: 2-1 down at Chelsea at half time, how could and would we respond?
Well we blew them away in those first minutes after the interval. Again we could and should have scored a few goals. But you just felt that the confidence in the team was not gone. We would fight hard to gain something from the game. So it was no surprise that we were equal within 5 minutes after the restart. Santos went unnoticed by the Chelsea defence and the ball from Song was perfect. And the Brazilian left back showed that he is a good finisher. I think he got already more goals in the few games he played than Clichy got in all in years at Arsenal. Not bad to have a scoring left back.
The next goal was an utterly amazing piece of skill from Walcott. Going through two defenders, a brilliant piece of trickery by fainting to lose your feet but this was only done to made the Chelsea players wonder what he was trying to do. Then he quickly got up and went again past 2 defenders and produced a great finish past the Chelsea keeper. Suddenly we were 2-3 up after only 10 minutes in the second half.
And then our real team effort began to show. All our players were really fighting for each and every ball. There were moments that I thought some players would collapse on the field when seeing them run back to shut out the danger. But no, they just kept on running and well Chelsea didn’t create that much. Until 10 minutes from time when Marinner was giving Chelsea all the freedom to regain the ball and Mata had a wonderful shot for the 3-3.
The not given foul on Santos (who gave the ball away seconds before that) was adding to the feeling of injustice being done. And so the football gods decided to make up for this. The slip from Terry was the best slip I have seen for a while. And then the agonising moments before the meeting of two of the best players in the PL. RVP against Cech… it felt like the gunfight at the OK corral. But the way and the confidence shown by Robin to round Cech was amazing. The pictures of the Gooners behind the goal was great to watch.
Chelsea threw everything at us but the defence threw all they had in front of the ball. And when the ball broke loose and we started a counter with even Santos joining I wanted to scream: stay back Andre, stay back. But once Van Persie had the ball in control he had only one thing in mind: kill them off. And he did. What a majestic finish and Cech again was without any chance to stop that powerful shot.
3-5 what a game, what a performance. And most of all: what a collective performance by every single player on the pitch. I really also liked the fact that captain Robin called his team mates after the final whistle to go to the away supporters and celebrate this victory together. This was a victory to be celebrated by the Gunners and Gooners together.
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- REF WATCH:Chelsea v Arsenal
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