Ok i'll do my best to hold my excitement inside after yet another professional and gutsy display by this awesome team. BUT WOW! These guys are making blogging fun like crazy for me right about now. Even as i type this, my ''football numb'' better-half who has endured my many tears of disappointment in seasons' past is rolling her eyes sarcastically and saying its only just 6 games. True, but who cares? We are Top of the league and playing some really really matured, effective stuff! Listen, i'm an experienced enough watcher of the premiership to not get carried away and start handing out plaudits too early but you gotta appreciate what this handful of fit players are currently doing regardless of our Current injury travails. I must say, many of us owe the manager, Arsene Wenger an apology. When he was taking shots from left,right and center from angry fans, the media, and basically everyone with an opinion he remained unshaken and expressed his implicit confidence in these players. Yours truly wasn't left out, i came down hard on him too. In such a position others of weaker mettle would've lost their cool, sold off players who weren't fan favorites or even resigned. But not the old fox. He knew the kind of team he had. And you know what? Its as obvious as Man united's Weak Midfield that the players are now repaying him for standing behind them through all the Tough times. Seriously if you are topping the league with as many Top players injured as we have, you have got to give credit to the manager for being able to fire up his team with the kind of motivation to play out of their skin and be as consistent as we have been lately.
The line up was Szcesney,Bac,Kos,Per,Gibbs,Flamini, Wilshere, Ramsey,Ozil,Gnabry and Giroud. Many pundits, fans and antagonists harbored fears for Arsenal over this tie citing Swansea's fine current form and recent results against us. But like i said in the preview, Swansea is the kind of inconsistent team we really should be swatting aside in the kind of form we are in. Yes they are a good passing side, comfortable on the ball yaddi yadda but they haven't got the killer instinct to go with their expansive style of place. I know there's Michu but beyond him who else? nadda.. Having said that though, they started off the more dangerous side when the game kicked off. Dwight Tiendalli put Jonjo Shelvy through but his long range effort was wide off the mark. In the 7th minute it was the turn of Michu, he bore down on the Arsenal danger area but the man responsible for picking him up in the form of Mertasacker was quick to shepherd him away from the goal as Koscielny mopped up. It was only in the 12min that Arsenal showed the first signs of settling down. Mesut Ozil found Giroud with an exquisite pass on the edge of the Swansea penalty box but as he was trying to steady himself, the Orlando Bloom look-a-like Chico Flores managed to toe-poke the ball before Giroud could find his bearings. Man of the moment Ramsey was not to be outdone as he followed suit with his trade mark right footed grass cutter in the 15th that wasn't that far wide. The first half intrigued without ever taking your breath away in any form by its pace. Both teams where more concerned with being tactically switched on to avoid getting caught out rather than going gung-ho at each other. The half ended with us carving the best goal scoring chance. The impressive Gnabry who after a shaky start, began to grow into the game ran through the Swans defence then laid off a brilliant pass to Giroud whom despite being well placed showed the composure of a hippo on Roller skates as he went for power and flashed his left footed shot well wide. Its just the only aspect of the Frenchman's game i think he needs to work on...His Composure in one-on-one situations. The Boss proffered a reason as to why the 1st half was flat. He felt we were 2nd best to most of the 50-50 challenges and were preoccupied with not making any defensive errors. At half time he must have implored, his men to remain patient and trust their game. Whatever he must have said it worked because we flew out the blocks at once. Gnabry reveling in his new found confidence powered his way through the swans defence yet again but got fouled as he aimed to pull the trigger with the swans defenders clearly panicked. He was not to be denied though, as in the 58th min we carved the home team open with Ramsey ending a flowing move with an inch perfect pass to the young German who made no mistake from 11yards. It was reward for his brilliance thus far in the game, coming in for the injured Walcott and showing why the manager rates him so highly. His compatriot should have doubled our advantage immediately,Ozil found himself in space in the box after a swift counter attacking move but could not finish past Michel Vorm. Arsenal were not to wait very long though in what was a good spell, as we eventually got that 2 goal cushion . Ramsey firing into the roof from 14 yards with Swansea passed off the pitch. It would be a goal he must have enjoyed scoring in his home country against his old Club's rivals. At this point, the smart money was definitely on us getting all 3 points given how we've suddenly become the masters of closing out games. However it wouldn't be Arsenal if we didn't find a way to make things tense at the end. Mertasaker was caught flat footed as a lobbed ball by Boni was allowed to get to Davies who bundled the ball past Szcesney. Cue the last minute charge on our penalty area as Swansea abandoned the fancy stuff and hoofed ball after ball into our Defence area looking for any slice of luck. But no dice. The guys rallied to ensure the points where ours.
A massive 3 points given the fact that United, Chelsea, City, and Spurs stuttered in their games. Arsene said it was added pressure for us knowing the results of those games and yet still deliver but, Kudos that we did.
So its on to Napoli now and a chance to take leadership of that group going into the Winter. Confidence is sky high now and asMesut Ozil tweeted, ''there is happiness in the camp''. Fabulous win i'm so proud of the guys...Back later
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