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| Heart stopping moment |
Arsenal do not look ready to be champions of the EPL. Much as it hurts me to say this, on the evidence of what transpired last night it would be hard to put up any kind of argument to the contrary. 0-0 unfortunately wasn't the reassuring result i expected the team would go all out to achieve following Chelsea's draw two nights ago. Instead what it shows is that Arsenal as a team have a serious psychological problem as far as Manchester United is concerned. Despite being at home at the Emirates in front of 60,000 plus adoring fans, we could not find the fire in our bellies to do what we needed to do. Yes Manchester United adopted a rather unfamiliar negative approach to the evening, but what champions do is they find a way irrespective of their opponents tactics.
In my opinion there was nothing wrong with the starting line up. i was upbeat when i saw it, few would have complained at seeing Rosicky start along-side Ozil and Cazorla. The back five were of-course our strongest usual suspects of Koscielny, Mertasacker, Gibbs and Sagna. While Wilshere,Giroud and Arteta make-up the list. That i felt ought to be enough to trouble a Man utd side whose defensive woes were well known to everyone. Instead we could muster only few half chances in the first half. I watched sadly, as the players labored to find each other, something they do easily when confidence is high. It was either a misplaced pass here or a mis-control there. There was one moment Wilshere found Rosicky with a rare ball over the top in the united danger area, instead of the expected shot Rosicky chose the baffling option of passing to Cazorla, who was crowded out. Which brings me back to the confidence thing. We had like zero confidence nearly all game. Even the Boss acknowledged that much. As far as i'm concerned, its an excuse to mention nerves, these guys are not Kids, but tested experienced players. Its the race for the title.. not a territory for the faint hearts.
Take a bow Szczesny for saving our blushes with that save..i leave it to you readers to imagine the consequences if we had conceded then. Giroud was yet again exposed as a light weight striker in terms of facing the big sides. As altruistic as his mono-style of backing the opponents goal and looking to bring others into play is, it has not worked against quality opponents. And the numbing feeling before us now is we may rue our January transfer market inactivity. Wilshere also had a less than stellar evening. His number of turnovers on the night was worrisome, especially as he is supposed to be one of the more assured players in possession. He started brightly but then got sucked into making those fouls and getting in the referee's face. Look any keen watcher of Arsenal knows when that starts to happen to Jack, forget it he's done. You want your big players turning up on big nights like yesterday, but sadly for us we had no one take responsibility to win the game for us. Wenger said he choose not to make subs because he wanted first to not lose the game as opposed to going for the win. He also mentioned that the subs were not necessary as he thought he had enough offensive players on the pitch. 17 shots at goal but only a paltry 5 on target shows we were firing but not near dangerously enough. Also Possesion stats of 57.3% for Arsenal and 42.3% for the visitors means we had the ball more than them, but ultimately not much to show for it.
So where does this result leave us? not in a crisis situation but also not in an encouraging one too. As a fan i'd have liked to believe we could rub shoulders with the Big boys in this league. After all we are considered a big side ourselves. We are now possibly faced with a situation where if we (God forbid) get knocked out against Liverpool at the weekend in the FA cup, we may be staring at a another trophy-less season. Not even worth considering...We desperately miss our match winners Walcott and Ramsey. But with the former out for the season and the latter due back in March., my confidence is brittle indeed. Only time will tell.
Take a bow Szczesny for saving our blushes with that save..i leave it to you readers to imagine the consequences if we had conceded then. Giroud was yet again exposed as a light weight striker in terms of facing the big sides. As altruistic as his mono-style of backing the opponents goal and looking to bring others into play is, it has not worked against quality opponents. And the numbing feeling before us now is we may rue our January transfer market inactivity. Wilshere also had a less than stellar evening. His number of turnovers on the night was worrisome, especially as he is supposed to be one of the more assured players in possession. He started brightly but then got sucked into making those fouls and getting in the referee's face. Look any keen watcher of Arsenal knows when that starts to happen to Jack, forget it he's done. You want your big players turning up on big nights like yesterday, but sadly for us we had no one take responsibility to win the game for us. Wenger said he choose not to make subs because he wanted first to not lose the game as opposed to going for the win. He also mentioned that the subs were not necessary as he thought he had enough offensive players on the pitch. 17 shots at goal but only a paltry 5 on target shows we were firing but not near dangerously enough. Also Possesion stats of 57.3% for Arsenal and 42.3% for the visitors means we had the ball more than them, but ultimately not much to show for it.
So where does this result leave us? not in a crisis situation but also not in an encouraging one too. As a fan i'd have liked to believe we could rub shoulders with the Big boys in this league. After all we are considered a big side ourselves. We are now possibly faced with a situation where if we (God forbid) get knocked out against Liverpool at the weekend in the FA cup, we may be staring at a another trophy-less season. Not even worth considering...We desperately miss our match winners Walcott and Ramsey. But with the former out for the season and the latter due back in March., my confidence is brittle indeed. Only time will tell.
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