How crucial will that goal be?

How crucial will that goal be?

Would Arsenal's title challenge have ended today if Nicklas Bendtner hadn't scored that late, late goal?

The way things have gone for the top sides this season, you can never say for sure that we would have been out of it, but with Chelsea beating West Ham earlier today it was important to respond and not hand them the psychological edge.

And it says a lot about Arsenal's title credentials to come away with a win in what was a very difficult game.

Okay, so when every game is as important as they are at the moment, they all feel like the most difficult game of the season, but this one genuinely felt like the toughest remaining match on our fixture list; relegation strugglers fighting for their lives...an AWFUL pitch...no Song or Fabregas (as well as long-term absentees van Persie and Gallas) and this Arsenal side rarely being capable of winning more than four games in a row this season.

To be honest, I couldn't see us scoring a second goal. No one played particularly well for us, and didn't seem to have any interesting ideas about how to break down the wall of orange shirts filling the Hull penalty area.

When the goal came, it came about in the most logical way; I was crying out for our players to shoot into the crowd of players, because a lucky deflection into the goal or into the path of one of our players was the only way we were going to get anything.

So credit to Denilson (you won't hear that from me very often) for testing their relatively unworked goalkeeper with a powerful shot that moved in the air and making something happen. Well done to Bendtner for being there and showing more composure than he showed last week against Burnley. Those misses won't be bothering him nearly as much now. Two or three goals at the Emirates last week would have made an easy win easier, but just the one scrappy goal today was enough to keep us in the title race.

I think we'll win all our home games, so the away games are the ones to look out for. Wigan away stands out as a potential banana skin to me. Luckily we're playing them in April rather than November, so their pitch might be half decent, but chances are they'll still be in a relegation dog fight and be desperate for points.

It's good that we'll have a week off now as some players seem tired, and we need any fitness boosts we can get from our current injury list. A player I really want to see back is Gallas, because Campbell is starting to have a few shaky moments. He clearly wasn't signed to play as many games as he has been.

And it'll be nice to have a week to enjoy this win. If we do win the league, this could be one we'll remember for a long time.

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Written by Mark Brus on Saturday, March 13, 2010

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