Freak Goal

By Boris Mellor
September 19 2010

Apart from Almunia, Sagna, Squillaci and Koscielny this was a poor performance by Arsenal that should have ended in a win. Forget all the deserve nonsense, deserve has nothing to do with it. You have a penalty you score, its 2-0 and late goal doesn’t matter. I knew in advance that Rosicky would miss the penalty.

 Players who can’t score in open play don’t have the confidence to score penalties, why wasn’t it given to Chamakh?

The match itself is easy to sum up, Sunderland dominated the first half and Arsenal went ahead with a freak goal. Ten men Arsenal dominated most of the second half, and Sunderland scored after Clichy panicked and failed to clear the ball properly. End of story.

Shape of things to come?

The big question people want an answer to is “is this a blip, or the shape things to come?”. Last year Arsenal lost this fixture, went to Chelsea and lost 3-0. The next fixture is West Brom at home, but its Chelsea is away after that; and here lies the rub, the Chelsea game comes after FK Partizan away. This was not a good performance Arsenal, and Man U and Chelsea come to that, are often poor away after a CL fixture.

Arsenal were hung over after beating Braga, it seemed that they were finding reality  hard to adjust to. It will be even harder to adjust to after a hard match, and return flight, in the Balkans. On October 19^th Arsenal play Shaktar at home and on the following Sunday Man City away. On 23 November it’s Braga away, followed by Villa away on the Sunday. On December 8^th Partizan at home, followed by .... wait for it ...... Manchester United away. Call me a pessimist but all those matches are hard enough without playing a CL fixture beforehand.

Winning without Cesc?

If Cesc hadn’t scored his freak goal yesterday no one else would have scored for Arsenal. Arshavin, Wilshere, Rosicky and Chamakh could not settle themselves for a final shot that counted. Arsenal had more shots on target than Sunderland but failed to score. I saw one blog claiming that Arsenal had created nothing; maybe it makes them feel better to exaggerate the situation. However the truth is somewhat different, Arsenal had 7 shots on target and a missed penalty, there were also 9 shots off target. This reminds me of being one nil up at Burnley and drawing one-one, Cesc had gone off with a hamstring injury before half time. Déjà blooming vu.

Not worst of results

Before anyone slits their wrists in despair Sunderland have only lost 3 games at home in 26 games. It could be argued that this is an improvement on last year. Also without Vermaelen the defence did very well. Squillaci and Koscielny were very composed under a lot of pressure (Sunderland had 11 corners), and that must augur well for the future.

Wenger shot in the foot?

Did Wenger shoot himself in the foot with his call for protection from referees? Song got sent off for not very much, a tackle where he got the ball, and an obstruction. As far as I could see very nasty tackles on Sagna and Wilshere went unpunished. However, Song needs to improve his act, he is playing further up field but lacks pace. So if his man is going past him he has started to use professional obstruction, not worth a red, but often a yellow. He will need to find a new solution.

Bad day at office

It was certainly a bad day at the office for Arsene, He lost his captain to a hamstring injury, Song is sent off, both his nominated penalty takers were off the field, Nasri declined and Rosicky missed. Then a goal is conceded in the 5^th minute of four minutes injury time. I bet the referee was laughing all the way home.