Blackburn brought down to earth

Spurs must have been delighted yesterday, well, apart from their back to reality home defeat to the mighty Wigan that is, with the Carling Cup draw for the third round giving them a September cup final to look forward to. And, with Arsène promising to play his kids, dare I heretically suggest another possible DVD opportunity for the cave dwellers?

Now that's out of the way, we can talk about the events that took place yesterday afternoon, although I didn't get to watch the game until late yesterday evening as I spent the day with Jo, my sisters and parents. We went to the Globe theatre to see an excellent production of The Merry Wives Of Windsor. Lest you all think I've gone totally soft, let me remind you about the circumstances that led me not to blog on Tuesday afternoon. We all needed some family time yesterday, it was just unfortunate that it coincided with the Arsenal match.

Spending all day not knowing the result wasn't the distraction it might have been in the past. I was pretty confident that we'd get the result we needed and, I think, we thoroughly deserved it. Particularly on an immensely controlled second half display. Arsène deserves great for sticking with Walcott and Arshavin who scored the goals when he must have been tempted to introduce Eboue to toughen the side up. My team prediction from Thursday was 10/11, with Rosicky being the one dropped out to accomodate the return of Fabregas and Arsène largely got that right too because I thought Abou Diaby had an excellent match in central midfield. Fabregas and Song seemed to misplace a lot of passes, but perhaps that was down to Blackburn's aggressive pressing game. That said, Cesc must have been doing something right because I think we did lose a little control when he was replaced.

I guess the first half was exactly what was expected, with the Arsenal looking to get the ball down and play at every opportunity, Blackburn subjecting us to an exacting examination of our defensive strength; Paul Robinson leading an aerial bombardment. I think we seemed to cope with it quite well actually. Not that I didn't expect us to, the hue and cry over Blackburn's triumph at the end of last season completely ignoring the fact that we were a broken side by that stage of the season, mentally and physically. But we were committed and aware yesterday, Fabregas clearing a Nelsen header from the line early on and whilst Blackburn won their fair share of ball in the area, they didn't produce much with it.

After the preamble to the match, it was perhaps ironic that their equalising goal came about through some very nice attacking play, Samba striding out of defence to release El Spitter Diouf down the left, he outmuscled Koscielny (get thee to the gym lad and quick!) before cutting the ball back for the other Diouf- on loan from Manchester United- to tap in. Gaël Clichy had let him go with some pretty awful ball watching.

But we were 1-0 up by then. And a very Arsenal goal it was too. The ball worked through central midfield via Song and Arshavin to RvP, who released Walcott down the right, speeding into the area Theo dispatched his shot into the corner of Robinson's goal with such ferocity that it broke the net. That's four goals in two matches for him and, to me, he looks a completely different player to the one we've watched for the last four years. He looks confident, purposeful, stronger. In short, he looks like he knows what he's doing now. As an aside, having been made to look a mug by Theo's performance and then carved up by, of all people, Alan Shearer yesterday perhaps the sheepish Alan Hansen might want to consider whether he has a "pundit's brain" anymore. .

The only other incident of note in the first half was the loss of RvP with an ankle injury. This one doesn't sound like a season ender for him, which is something I suppose. And Marouane Chamakh has shown enough to suggest that he might be a very capable deputy. He might have scored in the second half, having been teed up by Cesc, his shot was blocked. Arshavin had already put us 2-1 up though. The goal came when Sagna set off down the right, just like last week, running into space created by Walcott's run inside, his cross found Cesc whose goalbound shot was blocked by Walcott. Last season the ball would have probably gone out for a goalkick, how's your luck, it ran to Arshavin who drilled the ball past three defenders and into the corner.

We had chances on the counter, Walcott firing over from about twenty yards and setting up Wilshere for a great chance yards out, with just minutes on the clock. The young midfielder fell over in the act of shooting and the chance was gone. For all our control, we couldn't quite put the game completely beyond Blackburn, we might have paid for that had David Dunn managed to put the ball past Almunia rather than down his throat in the last ten minutes. By and large we seemed to content to keep the ball and run the clock down. Annoyingly, in the middle of such a period with about three minutes left, the ball went back to Almunia who promptly launched it downfield gaining territory but conceding possession- that would be my only complaint about him, by the way, he was impressive yesterday. This time, though, there was to be no sting in the tail and Arsenal had a deserved victory- one that must be a huge boost as we go into international week.

Only Sam Allardyce could sit through a match where his team has barely tested the opposition goalkeeper for 45 minutes, had 40% of the ball and claim that his team deserved anything out of the match. It would be fair to say that Arsenal didn't quite test Paul Robinson as much as they have in the past. But, being much stronger defensively than in the past, we didn't have to. Of course, being 2-1 up for most of the second half might have helped too. For me, if there was going to be a fourth goal in the match, we looked the likeliest to get it. I do think Laurent Koscielny didn't look as comfortable as he had against Liverpool, but I reckon it's for games like yesterday's Sebastien Squillaci has been signed.

I bet Squillaci can't wait till Arsenal get to the Britannia Stadium. I can't. Although, I've just checked and we'll have to wait till May 2nd. The bare faced cheek of Tony Pulis to complain to Arsenal and the FA about Wenger's "rugby" comments about his football team and Ryan Shawcross is staggering. I don't know if I imagined it but I seem to recall reading that Pulis, having said that everyone's entitled to his own opinion, has suggested he might sue Arsenal over these comments. Comments, words, quotes. Nothing that has caused any lasting damage to Stoke and Ryan "not that kind of player" Shawcross, nothing that has resulted in Ryan Shawcross losing a year of his career. Can you see where I'm going with this? You can? Good, I don't need to say anything else about it then, do I?

Just one final thing, it seems as though the "dead" transfer market Arsène referred to yesterday might be about to jerk back into life, with Shay Given apparently set to sign for Fulham on loan, thereby freeing you know who up to sign for us. Not long left now...

User Comments

User Comments

• Got something to say?
• Read comments

Vs chelsea