Arsenal – WBA, what an enjoyable game « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager
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“Making the Arsenal” – the only book of Arsenal’s decline and rebirth
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By Walter Broeckx
Now did you enjoy this game today against WBA or not? Well if this game couldn’t be enjoyed from an Arsenal point of view then you might as well give up and stop watching football at all. In fact this was so very much the Arsenal we knew from the last seasons that well…. did we miss Cesc and Nasri today? At no point I felt that we lacked their contribution.
A great team performance once again. And as last week we won a high paced game with two attacking teams this time we have see another team bus being parked in front of the goals at the Emirates. I’m not that familiar with the WBA personal but did they play with an attacker? Well it certainly didn’t look like they had a striker in their team. It looked as if they had 10 defenders playing.
Even last season we sometimes struggled against such teams. Er..like has been said in the preview last year we lost again them and we also struggled against such teams. So after 5 minutes of watching a game of attack versus defence I wondered how the new Arsenal would cope with such a game.
We played the ball and at times it looked we played too slow but then suddenly we changed pace and side and after some 15 minutes you could see that the team had something of: Okay, we are playing against the bus today and this is how we will do it. Being patient, being strong, being calm, being aggressive when losing the ball. And we passed the ball until we found an opening, an great ball to Theo who ran to the keeper. The keeper did well to block the shot but with a striker on fire like Van Persie you just felt he would be there to put the rebound in the net.
Szczesny could have stayed in the dressing room up till then and in fact almost till the end of the game. He hardly had anything to do. We kept our composure and didn’t stop playing our own game after we took the lead. And when Song dropped the ball back in the box after a half cleared Arsenal corner it was Van Persie who played the ball back in front of the goal. And who other than The Verminator to side foot it calmly but firm in the net. I could see a lot of relieve and joy on his face after that. The Verminator is Back. 2-0 at half time and WBA didn’t have a shot on goal during the first half.
In the second half we controlled the game. WBA came a bit forward but still not very much. We didn’t commit ourselves blindly which could have made us vulnerable on a possible counter. No it was a game of controlling the ball and suddenly stepping up the throttle and made WBA suffer. In fact in the second half we missed a few chances before Arteta smashed in a great lay off from Van Persie to put the final score on the scoreboard.
And then it was time to let Szczesny earn his pay check this week. A good safe on a header in the 86th minute was the first time I noticed we had a keeper on the pitch.
But maybe this was also because of the whole team was working very hard to keep WBA away from our goal. Not just the 3,5 defenders. But also the 3,5 midfielders worked very hard. And the 3 forwards also defended very well. I remember seeing Theo and Gervinho covering at right and left back when our backs had pushed forward. It was this combined team effort that made me the happy Gooner I am right now.
I’m not that kind of a Man of the Match type of person. I usually feel more for a Moment of the Match. And the moment of the match came with about the only chance WBA had in the whole game. We were 3-0 up and cruising to the end of the game. Tchoyi for once had found some space behind Koscielny and Vermaelen and raced in to the penalty area. Vermaelen was meters behind when he entered the penalty area. He steadied himself to shoot the ball with his left foot and then came Vermaelen and he threw himself in front of the ball. Tchoyi saw him coming and waited a split second before he took his shot in order to avoid the outstretched leg from Vermaelen. But Vermaelen threw himself while on the floor a bit further and made a great block and the ball went out for a throw.
It was the determination of our Verminator who was indicating with this action that he would not let the opponents score whatever the score line was at the time that was my moment of the match.
I admit I am a great supporter of my compatriot and after meeting him in person I know what for a nice and humble person he is outside the field so maybe I am a bit biased but I can tell you one thing: THE VERMINATOR IS BACK! And my God, how did we missed him the last season…. Another moment that I think: what could have been if he had stayed fit.