Morning Gooners,
2011 is here so surely the whole world has now changed for the better. Everything that normally bugs us will not happen anymore and the world will be nothing but Rosy for an Arsenal fan..... What? you're questioning the truth in that statement, how very dare you!! Lets look at the evidence shall we, the new year is only one day old and so far Man Utd have played some of the worst, ugliest football I have seen for years...and won a game that in fairness they should have lost, Torres scored in front of the Kop with a Gerrard assist, the media are up in arms about cheating Arsenal whilst almost ignoring several horrible challenges on our players, Spud fans are shouting about how they are now an established team in the top four and the gap between the north London teams is ever shrinking or in some cases Spurs are now the bigger club, Harry 'twitch' Redknapp is talking about another almost retired footballer as though they are the brightest prospect in modern football in the hope he can sell more shirts, or maybe a new DVD and Wayne Rooney still looks like Shrek after losing a cage fight. Ah well, same old shit for another year it is then!!
I need some cheering up, how about a lovely 3-0 win Mr Goonerfish, why thank you very much that'll do nicely.
Arsenal turned up to St Andrews yesterday with less than fond memories of recent visits. In previous years we have experienced the beginning of the end of a title bid with the horror injury that in fairness ended Eduardo's hope of a long and successful Arsenal career followed by Gallas' ridiculous sit in protest. More recently, last year Kevin Phillips scored an injury time equaliser to rob us of our hard earned points.
If our players were not looking forward to the visit then they didn't show it. We were treated to a wonderful team display by the same team that turned out against Chelsea. Fabianski continued to improve his reputation with some fantastic distribution, especially from his throws and added some strong decision making and a top class save from Larsson's first half free kick. Our defence was solid apart from that niggling habit we have of turning to mush when defending set pieces, Brum should have got a goal from such an occasion in the first half when our back line just fell to sleep. Djourou fro me gets better every time I see him, if he can stay fit and keep his run of games going he will be immense for us.
Jack Wilshere had a happy birthday quietly doing what he does and dictating the pace of the game through clever passing and an incredible ability to read the game, still can't believe he's only 19.
RVP should have had a hat-trick in the first half but his lack of match sharpness showed with some poor first touches and decision making. He got a lot of stick for earning the free kick that he scored to put us 1-0 up with his first goal since May. Yes he made a lot of it but there was contact so surely that comes under exaggeration rather than simulation. Bottom line, there WAS a foul, we got a free kick, we scored from that free kick, I don't see where the issue is. Robin then pushed himself into the highlights again with a clear handball in the box which wasn't given but I had to chuckle at McLeish moaning about it in his post match interview considering the fashion of Birmingham's equaliser against the Mancs.
Samir Nasri was epic. He is slowly becoming an absolute legend in an Arsenal shirt he is just the right mix of Freddie and Pires and is another player that is getting better with every game, at the half way spot he is definitely my player of the season so far. Nasri scored our second with a lovely placed shot into the bottom corner and from that point we never looked back. There were some lovely interchanges between Nasri, Fabregas and Van Persie all the way through the game and when you consider Cesc and RVP are still finding their fitness the potential partnerships that could develop between that trio is mouth watering, then add in the skill of Arshavin or the pace of Walcott or the brilliance of Wilshere and you finally get a glimpse of how exciting our future is.
It was a lovely run from Walcott that started the move for out third and ended in Fabregas smashing a shot into Foster's chest which came back out, took a double deflection and somehow ended up back in the net.
You may notice that I have neglected to mention the challenges that our players were subjected to but truth be told, you can read a review of any Birmingham vs Arsenal game and you read the same thing. Bowyer in particular seemed to have an issue with Sagna as he assaulted him on several occasions. The sooner the FA get to the bottom of this problem and really punish challenges that could in some cases seriously injure the opposition the better. I would say it won't happen until someone gets seriously hurt but the names Eduardo and Ramsey come to mind so maybe it won't happen until someone English such as a Lampard, Rooney or Gerrard get seriously hurt.
All in all we got the three points we needed, we saw a solid team performance, we saw a clean sheet and no one got injured so I would have to say it was a good days work.
Thoughts now head to the last game of the hectic festive period against Manchester City. Both teams are in good form so it should be a good game, hopefully ending in an Arsenal victory.
Till next time,
Goonerfish.
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