Saturday, February 4th, 2012 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade
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By Walter Broeckx
Well we all know that feeling. You come home Friday afternoon from work. But you have a cold feeling a bit shacking, a bit feverish. You then go to bed and you have a bad night. You can’t breathe properly and when you have to cough your chest and lungs feel like on fire. You get up in the morning feeling even more feverish. You cough is even more painful and your head feels as if you have been drinking a whole barrel of beer on your own. This was me this morning. So no chance to write a game preview. Sorry about that.
You go and sit on the sofa to watch the game still feeling sick. But hey look about that. Right back Coquelin gives the ball to Walcott who pushes it in the path of Robin Van Persie who can’t miss from that distance. 1-0 after well just over one minute played. Talking about taking our chances.
Then followed a long spell of Arsenal possession but it was as if the team wanted to make sure they didn’t do anything wrong. You could see that confidence was a bit low and we did try to score a second but kept the handbrake on. In the first half hour Blackburn had not shots at goal at all. But then they got a free kick just after that and must say Pedersen is one who can curl it in. One can but admire the goal as it was a great free kick from one of the players that is capable of scoring them like that. I thought the bin bag brigade was jumping up when Blackburn scored.
This was the wakeup call the team needed. Suddenly the players went on with the game with more energy. And when Song gave a lovely ball to Walcott he once again laid it off to Robin Van Persie to score his second goal. Two goals from Robin, two assists from Theo. Blackburn had hardly recovered from this blow when Robin Van Persie turned from scorer to provider. A lovely ball to The Ox who rounded Robinson and put the ball in the empty net. Ref Marinner did what he had to do after that when Givet lunged in with a two footed frontal tackle on Van Persie. The apologizing hand towards Wenger from Givet told enough: he knew it was dangerous and luckily Robin could jump out of the way a bit. 3- 1 at half time and Blackburn a man down. This is what happens when you take your chances a bit and the ref does his job.
The second half was more one way traffic. Arsenal pushing on to make another goal and when a corner was cleared the ball came to Arteta who let go a low shot from just outside the penalty area through a forest of legs. 4-1 after 51 minutes.
Time to add some more and Walcott started a long run which ended with a pass to The Ox who put the ball in the goal. His second of the day. Not bad for a player that had to face a fitness test to know if he could start. And apart from those goals he was incredible in that first quarter of the second half. He ran with the ball, dribbled, crossed, went past his opponents as if they didn’t exist. Oh my God, do we have another great young prospect to cherish. I wonder if some people on some blog will want to remember how they shouted abuse at Wenger when bought him for £12M. It looks to have been a great deal if you ask me.
Coquelin, who had a great game at right back, then gave a low cross and Robin Van Persie blazed in his third with the right foot. A Robin Van Persie hattrick was done with 62 minutes on the clock.
Then Wenger got the Ox, Song and Koscielny out of the field and brought on Henry, Sagna and Benayoun. It felt as if the players didn’t want to hurt the Blackburn players anymore. Was it the desperate look on Robinsons face that made them feel sorry? I think at that time Robinson asked the ref to not add any extra time once the 90 minutes were full.
So Arsenal didn’t put the foot on the throttle anymore and it was more just playing the ball around a bit.
But in the last minute of extra time (the ref didn’t listen to Robinson apparently) Henry stole the ball from a defender, laid it to Van Persie who could have gone for his fourth but the captain showed what a great human being he is and gave the ball back to Henry who could score his goal and the 7th goal for Arsenal.
Then ref Marinner called it a day and both teams were glad he did. Arsenal was happy because of the big win and Blackburn was happy that their torture had come to an end.
Arsenal dominated the game from start to finish and the big difference this time was that we took the chances when we needed to take them. We can hope that this victory will give the much needed confidence to the whole team that not only the defence looks very stabile (almost nothing given away and the goal from Blackburn was a beautiful goal and nobody to blame) but also that we can score if we keep calm.
And I must say that after the game I didn’t realise anymore that I felt sick. But now after typing this, I feel something coming back. My head hurts, I can hardly breathe through my nose. My muscles are hurting me. Oh my, I think I will quickly publish this and then go back lying on my sofa. Still sick but feeling great.
PS: for those who want to comment for the first time take note that we have to approve your first comment. I don’t know how much I will be on line for the rest of the day but will try to keep an eye on it. And well anyway usually after such a win a certain part of the fans doesn’t come around here “for the first time”.