MOM?

By Boris Mellor
October 25 2010

A sheikhy city defence and a sending off means we will never really know how good the plucky billionaires of Oil Lands could have been on this occasion. Fans often complain of Wenger’s lack of tactical nous, but who would expect an Italian coach to get it so badly wrong?

The choice of Boyola against an Arsenal with Fabregas playing proved to be a big mistake. I thought I had been optimistic in predicting a 1-1 draw, but with Man City down to ten men after only four and half minutes I realised my error. But Mancini’s mistake was far more important, true it was brave to go to 4-3-2, and at times his team stretched the Gunners, but at the end of the day it was a suicide note.

This was a great result, and a good performance, but playing 10 men for 86 minutes makes it difficult to make a definitive conclusion about the balance of forces between these two teams.

However, Arsenal badly fluffed playing against ten men at Liverpool, a very poor result as subsequent events proved, after all beating Liverpool isn’t that hard these days, but this time the team got its response spot on. True they rode their luck at times, but even so Fabianski gave the team an appearance of being invincible. Indeed within a minute he made a great save against Silva. If he hadn’t we would be discussing a very different game, goals and red cards change matches.

Nonetheless, this was a very gutsy performance from Arsenal, when was the last time we saw at least four players, in away game, who deserved to be Man of the Match? Fabregas was awarded it by Sky, but what do they know?

Yes he was good, but was he better than Nasri, or Fabianski? Indeed if Song had played as well in the first half as he did in the second he could have walked it, which is what he does most of the time. Chamakh was superb, always available, and forcing errors out of the city defence. Perhaps it was Fabregas’s role as Captain that tipped it; his organisation of the team was excellent. His missing of the penalty could have been a disaster, the third Arsenal have fluffed this season in the Premiership. But this time the team refused to become downhearted and kept the ascendency.

Mancini complained bitterly about the sending off, but what does he expect? Clattenburg got it right for once; meanwhile City fans rang up 606 to complain that Fabregas had been the real bully. I can only assume that they didn’t notice De Jong’s regular and violent assaults on Fabregas and others.

Considering that Arsenal had all three midfielders on yellow inside the first 20 or 30 minutes, this was a well controlled performance. Once again Arsenal refused to score anything but the perfect goal. Nasri, Song and Nik all scored blinders, yet there were times that everyone in the Bank was screaming “shoot”. But if Arsenal can set up three perfect goals every game I can live with the walk in technique.

Only Chelsea have scored more goals than Arsenal, meanwhile the plucky billionaires have scored 12, and Spuds eleven. There must be something to be said for Wenger method. Indeed the problem has not been goal scoring, but defence.

It is too early to declare that Fabianski is the real thing, but yesterday he did make it look a possibility. If the keeper situation can be resolved, and Vermaelen returns then a defence that has already conceded 10 goals, five times as many as Chelsea, could become more solid.

 The best thing about this game may prove to be that Arsenal kept a clean sheet. Even though City were down to ten men they did put some questions to the Arsenal defence. Questions that, with a little bit of luck, Arsenal answered to satisfaction.

The defence also got support from midfield, when Clichy went AWOL it was Arshavin that covered for him. When do you last remember the little Russian tackling back? However with Tevez playing poorly, partly due to injury and Silva fizzling out it wasn’t the full examination. But if this doesn’t get rid of a few inferiority complexes nothing will.