The view from the stands: Bolton vs. Arsenal match report « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager

By Phil Gregory

Well, 0-0 versus Bolton was a disappointment and a serious blow to attempts to haul in Tottenham. The odds on that front are getting near the stage where it would be irrational to expect us to overhaul our neighbour should we not shrink the gap over the next few games. Fortunately Chelsea aren’t doing much better, and the gap to fourth remains only five points.

As for the match yesterday, drawing 0-0 when you hit the woodwork twice is always a bitter pill to swallow. All the more so when you’re in the stands via a four hour round trip in possibly the coldest place on Earth, as I was on Wednesday night. Home by 1am, I still got up to put together my brief match report before my lunchtime classes: dedication to the Untold cause if there ever was.

Save for the two woodwork incidents, I didn’t get the impression we consistently cut Bolton open in attack. There were some good chances, but for a game we should be winning fairly comfortably, we have to be creating more good chances. We have been too reliant on clinical front men recently: we need to give them a bucketload of chances so that on days where it is simply not going in, we maximise their opportunities to score. Van Persie’s chance onto the crossbar was symptomatic of this.

Part of this was our passing. I got chatting to a Bolton fan at one of the stations on my way home, and he praised Arsenal’s passing football. We did move the ball well, but compared to our usual standards there were many more wayward passes than there should have been. Unnecessarily conceding possession will only have reduced our opportunities to attack the Bolton goal, and no doubt a purist like Arsène will have been equally irritated.

On that point, Bolton also played quite a high line, at least initially. I was expecting a park the bus approach, but they attempted a high line and some rudimentary pressing. The pressing didn’t really cause us any problems, and we really should have taken advantage with our pace of the space in behind their defence. Unfortunately, while our retention of the ball was good the through balls were less so – an area where I will admit we greatly miss Fabregas. Ramsey is growing and developing, but I wouldn’t be against Tomas Rosicky having a go at the playmaker’s position – we need a little more creativity in terms of forward, searching passes.

The big difference between Walcott and Chamberlain was the speed of the latter in attack. By that, I don’t mean outright sprinting, but speed of action. Chamberlain would get the ball, weave, run, turn, shoot. Theo seems to get into positions and then take just a little too long to act, giving the defence time to recover. Theo Walcott’s one on one chance was also disappointing, perhaps an indication of a youngster short on confidence.

Unfortunately for the first time i got to see the legendary Frenchman in the flesh, Thierry Henry offered very little coming off the bench. No doubt he’d been brought on to finish off a chance, but for an Arsenal side who weren’t creating enough, removing Chamberlain was a risk in my view. Though only 18 and likely not yet ready to play 90minutes of high intensity Premier League football, Chamberlain is definitely a starter in my eyes, and when Gervinho comes back it would well be Walcott that makes way…