Yesterday saw a must win game for Arsenal at the Emirates. The fact that we are talking about must win games only 4 games into the season is a scary thought in itself but I won't go into that as I'm determined this is going to be a positive blog.
Swansea City came to town full of intent to take advantage of a frail Arsenal and felt confident they could not only score their first goal in the Premiership but maybe take their first win too. The men from across the bridge looked good. They were sharp, attacking and well organised, I'd even go as far to say if they were playing the team we didn't put out when we didn't play Man Utd a couple of weeks ago that they would have won the game.
As it turned out they didn't, Arsenal did. The goal itself was a very odd goal, it's not something Arsenal fans aren't used to seeing, it's just the fact that it went for us rather than against us that left the crowd perplexed. The Swansea keeper, eager to start another attack rolled the ball out to his right back only for it to bounce back off his heel to the feet of Arshavin on the side edge of the penalty area and he managed to keep his cool and slotted the ball home into the back of the net producing the only goal of the game. The little Russian is constantly coming under a lot of criticism but when you step back and look at the facts, his goal and assist records are excellent. Yes, he appears lazy
Now, if we're honest then we have to say that the teams performance wasn't one of the best anyone will have seen at Ashburton Grove. We still lack that killer instinct that is needed to be a top, top club. Confidence is nowhere near as high as it needs to be and we still have players that are performing way under their full potential. However, as I said at the beginning, this is going to be a positive blog. First point is that the fans were excellent during the whole game, especially the last 10 minutes to see the result through. There were glimpses of lovely free flowing football throughout the game. We had (admittedly very short) spells of short, quick passing and movement that made me think back to the football Arsenal FC have become famous for under Arsene Wenger's reign. When confidence returns to this team we could be looking forward to something very special and with our next few games all being games that - on paper - we should be picking up maximum points from then hopefully that confidence will be returning sooner rather than later.
Another big thing people were watching for yesterday was of course the performances of our new recruits. Arteta and Mertesacker both started the game whilst Park, Benayoun and Santos took their places on the on the bench. Arteta looked like he had been playing with his new team mates for years. He fitted in perfectly to our midfield, interestingly he took a deeper role than I expected with Ramsey taking responsibility for the more attacking role in our midfield trio. Our new number 8 still managed to enforce himself on the game and was fundamental in most of our attacking flurries.
Mertesacker on the other hand looks like he will need a little longer to settle. On a few occasions his lack of pace and inability to turn as quickly as needed almost got him into trouble but on the positive side, his positional awareness was excellent and his input to the overall defensive organisation was there for all to see. Benayoun was the third player to make his debut when he replaced Arshavin in the second half and looked sharp and competitive and I think he will become a very useful addition to the squad.
At the end of the day Gooners, we won and that is surely the most important thing. We get just as many points for our 'lucky' win against Swansea as Utd did when they beat us and replacing Blackpool with Swansea, we are only 1 point down on the same fixtures last year. On top of all this we have Vermaelen, Song, Wilshere and Gervinho all to come back, all of whom would have started the game and two of whom will be back for our next game.
The team's minds now need to turn to the Champions League and Dortmund before we travel to Ewood Park to face Blackburn. Now our squad is settled they need to string together a series of wins and with the confidence that will provide the performances we are used to seeing from players wearing our cannon will quickly return.
Till next time,
Goonerfish.
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