Ok Not as comfortable as we would have liked but in this League there's no such thing as an entitlement... what you see is what you get..like i said in the preview i didn't think Palace would be a walkover and so it proved. No sooner had the game kicked off did we realize what we were in for..Palace set up themselves for the familiar defensive lock-out, with perhaps the hope of snatching the odd goal and pulling of a Swansea vs Man U on us. We labored to create anything tangible and like it happens all the time during games like this, the lack of goals started to create tension in the stands that trickled over across to the players on the pitch. Misplaced pass after misplaced pass became the order of the day and suddenly we weren't looking so comfortable as we did in the Charity Shield. Arsene started with Sanogo as the point man in attack and though the Young french-man has shown promise in that department, today he was comprehensively dealt with. The combined experience of Hangeland and Kelly ensured he had no joy upfront. It was Hangeland who gave Crystal palace the lead with their first Corner, steering a back header into the bottom corner after catching our defenders cold. If our game was off, going by how ponderous we had played until then, going behind only made things worse as we were now suddenly facing defeat in the eye. But Up-stepped the man who grabs big-goals when we need them.. Koscielny. The CB timed a lovely chipped freekick from Sanchez and headed us level..1-1..cue relief across the emirates.
Crystal palace for all their graft and hard work resorted to time wasting which infuriated me..if they hadn't done that, i would have been more than happy to give them credit for their performance. Their greatest undoing though was going a man down with less than 4 minutes to go. Jason Puncheon receiving his marching orders after a second bookable offence. That event would go on to have a significant influence in the final few minutes of the game which saw the visitors under massive pressure. Because when a loose ball fell in the box after a corner wasn't properly dealt with, an unmarked Aaron ramsey poked home the winner 2-1, and the points were ours. Puncheon may have been marking Ramsey had it been 11 v 11...
so 3 points and after the weekend run of results we sit in 2nd position behind Mancity who tamed Newcastle 2-0. For us all our attention shifts towards securing a UCL place by dispatching Besiktas. It looks on paper another easy tie, but Turkish sides are no pushovers...The build up to that will be put up later..until then ciao
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