Saturday, December 22nd, 2012 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager
By Tony Attwood
In the week when a prominent member of the AAA announced that real supporters of Arsenal should be hoping that Arsenal drop out of the top four this season, we’ve actually moved in the opposite direction.
Of course the position is false in that most clubs (at the moment I am writing this) have a game to play, and Chelsea have two. In a few days time the position will be reversed – with our Boxing Day game off, we will be the ones playing catchup.
But fortunately the real supporters, but which I mean those who don’t glory in the failure of Arsenal, will have a rather pleasant few days thinking of nine points out of nine.
And yes we were playing a team that regularly struggles – indeed I think every credit must go to Wigan, a team with very limited support, who manage to stay in the top league year after year. And let’s not forget that defeat they imposed on us with the early goals at the Ems.
It is interesting that while we filled the away end, there were lots of spare seats elsewhere. I wonder why Wigan don’t make more of the ground available to away support. I remember Wimbledon doing this. OK it kills the atmosphere for the home team, but it brings in more money.
I felt Oxlade Chamberlain did very well, which was good given that Cazorla was more quiet than recently. And I also felt that Koscileny and Coquelin played well as subs – a couple of minutes from the end of normal time Coquelin did a superb defensive job and Kos did a good clearance in the few minutes that he was on the pitch. (Interesting also that the AAA were saying that Kos is one of the great failures of Wenger’s purchasing policy.)
So, a good result, another bash at centre forward for Theo. It may be about beating a lower team, but the fact is we won, and the team is looking better.
And this is a team in crisis apparently. (Incidentally I don’t hear too many people saying that Newcastle are a team in crisis – and remember they are supposedly a top 4 challenging team).
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