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| Courtesy: The Telegraph |
I've spent a good deal of money on The Arsenal. It certainly does not compare to what most avid Arsenal fans spend, going to every other game. Yet, after quite a few trips to the Emirates, I felt a sense of entitlement to see the REAL Arsenal. By that, I mean some flowing passes, good possession, and as a bonus - a victory. I got most of that today. Every single penny I spent was worth it (this is compared to my previous visits ONLY of course), mainly due of the genius of Robin van Persie. A flowing move for the first goal before some of the Emirates faithful had even warmed their seats, a sublime chip that came off the post and a brilliant late free kick again from the skipper sealed a deserved win. It did for a long time look uncertain after a nicely taken free kick by Seb Larsson, which I didn't see in real time to be honest.
I've been on a barren run in terms of victories for the teams I support during 2011, but the tide seems to be changing. Very very slowly, mind you. On the cricket and football front it's been dreadful, so for starters I hope India knock the living daylights out of the Poms in the remaining ODIs, after a solid start. Speaking of Arsenal, I'll be a little more cautious, considering the kind of run we've been on. Anyway a win is a win and today I felt really good after the game unlike my experience at the Swansea game when we got a nice helping hand from the visitors.
Talking about the game itself, it looked like Arsenal bossed it (at least from where I was sitting), except for a few minutes before half time when someone accidentally pushed the Arsenal self destruct/handbrake button. I didn't realise Sunderland had scored until the only noise in the stadium was from the 'away' section made me look up from what I was doing (I was busy taking this picture of the skid marks made by Robin on the turf while he celebrated the first goal... yeah... I know!). Sunderland came out in the second half, clearly looking for a draw (strange) and that made Arsenal look better.
Couple of observations/thoughts during and post-game.
1. Why did Arsenal have different people taking every free kick? Surely it's got to be either RvP or Arteta. I know nothing about Andre Santos to be perfectly honest, but Theo Walcott? No. No. No. THAT should never happen. Maybe it's something Arsenal are working on during training, but personally I've never felt Walcott could be good with free kicks. With reference to Walcott in general, this comment I read somewhere made me chuckle - "His deliveries are worse than a blind Royal Mail postman."
2. I'm not whining but it's pretty obvious that we're very reliant on van Persie. If the number of times I've mentioned him on this piece is any indication, he's the only one that seems capable of propelling us towards a top 4 or close-to-a-top-4 finish. Another sterling performance from him means that the papers of course will NOT be talking about it as they will sell more copies if they keep harping about his contract. It's too early to say, but if I was the manager (first of all we'll be relegated to division two) I'd let him run down his contract i.e. if he didn't want to sign a new one. It's very different from the Nasri situation we had. We bought Robin for something like £3 million and he's now been with us for 7 years (with amazing service). He'll also be 30 in 2 years. Make up your own mind on that. Oh, and in response to all those reports of him putting his house up for sale, I read in today's official Matchday programme where in his interview van Persie laughed it off saying the incident happened ages ago and was not even remotely related to his club future. He's settled into another beautiful house... yes... in London. Hopefully when he retires, he's still living in that house.
That's about it then from me in this "match report". My next game at the Grove will probably be Arsenal v Dortmund which will be special as I have a friend coming down to watch the game all the way from Germany. Hopefully I'll be the one calling the shots at the end of it while we down a couple of lagers. Have a great week ahead everyone.
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