As I touched upon in my recent piece, the past week had been nothing short of a horrendous car crash if I’m honest. With the battering at Chelsea and the dismal performance against Swansea, there was obvious signs that there were questions marks over the man in charge of Arsenal, and even if the players could pull their spirits strong enough in time for a crucial date at Wembley. With the flying blue side of Manchester coming to a sun drenched London to play The Arsenal, the majority of the Emirates faithful were left with nightmares of what they could be victims to. Leaving a minority hopeful of a point or a replication of Mikel Arteta’s wonder strike two years ago.
Arsene Wenger made one change to his side that drew against Swansea with a fit and firing Lukas Podolski coming in for Kieran Gibbs, whoops, I meant Oxlade Chamberlain. Easy mistake. City, on the contrary, lined up with a fearsome and deadly eleven of Hart, Zabaleta, Kompany, Demichelis, Clichy, Fernandinho, Toure, Nasri, Silva, Navas and Dzeko leading the line-up top. Goals were flowing left, right and centre in this City side and it was clear from the earliest of stages that Arsenal were going to have to pull out all the stops to prevent this side.
Straight from the word go both teams were flying out with real penetration and desire, but it was Manchester City who really looked to set their feet on the game as they flew out of the blocks quicker than Usain Bolt. It only took two minutes for Zabaleta to get in behind Gibbs through a pass from Navas, only for his menacing ball to be cut out by Arteta, when he probably should have shot after reviewing the replay. The sky blues were relentless and kept knocking at the door of Arsenal – getting in behind a high line again only moments later. As I said beforehand, both teams were attacking and Arsenal were also knocking on the Citizens door, slowly but surely. A one two from Arteta and Cazorla let the minuscule Spaniard in behind, only for his efforts to be rewarded with a corner. Another trademark darting run from Tomas Rosicky set the Czech free on goal from a Cazorla pass. The midfield dynamo was brought down inside the box and left an Emirates Stadium euphorically delighted (including myself) with the thought that their side had won a penalty, only for an oxymoron of emotions to conclude after as a realisation that Mike Dean had given a goal kick. I was adamant, from the Clock End might I note, that it was a penalty, only for me to be told at half time by my mate watching it at home, that is was in fact, a dive.
All of Arsenal’s laboured work in the first 15 minutes of the game became unjust as yet another catastrophic goal was conceded by a once so assured Arsenal backline. A hampered Lukas Podolski was caught in possession inside City’s own half and the Arsenal midfield were left chasing shadows as a rampant City pounded forward through another miniscule Spaniard in David Silva. The petit playmaker was left to run and run at Vermaelen and Mertesacker, before laying the ball off to a pealing Edin Dzeko at the edge of the box. The brute of a Bosnian struck the ball with real venom, it cannoned off the post into the feet of Silva, leaving him with an easy tap in and leaving the fans in dismay, again. To the delight of myself and the rest of the fans, there was a spirited response from the Arsenal players and they began to play themselves back into the game. Leaders on the pitch were forming and they continued to proceed in chiselling away at the opposition backline, fronted by captain Vincent Kompany. Surprisingly, the double pivot of Flamini and Arteta was remarkably dynamic for once, with the former making more of the deep runs of which we had all desired for in the past couple of months. A ball was swung in by Podolski down the left hand flank and passed through a sea of blue before landing to the feet of Flamini at the back post. The tenacious Frenchman turned the ball into the back of the net, but it was to no avail after it was correctly ruled offside by the referee’s assistant.
It was ever present attack from both sides as the likes of Nasri and Podolski all came vaguely close to scoring, but neither chance was enough to produce the second goal of the game. After 15 minutes of deliberation of what could be, the teams reappeared for the second half under the night sky of North London to play on the floodlit turf of Ashburton Grove. It was a story reminiscent of the first half with both sides coming to the party and going all out for that vital next goal. City game close yet again as Navas whipped in a delightful delivery into the corridor of uncertainty, which led to Szczesny spilling a loose ball into the path of Dzeko. Thankfully, the ricochet of the Bosnian rolled wide for a goal kick. A minute later and Arsenal were in and hammering at Joe Hart’s relatively untested goal. The Gunners were ever growing in confidence and they were slipped in down the left hand side as Podolski gathered a ball from Kieran Gibbs. The young but veteran of a German crossed yet another ball that was begging to be slotted home. And it was! Flamini the scorer! A beautiful controlled finish from the Frenchman with his weaker foot, using the pace of the ball to guide it home to the left of Hart. The scorer full of passion and hunger celebrated as if he never left during those lonely some years. It was almost he was looking right into the eyes of each and every one of us. Despite his criticism, the man is still as much as a fan as we are. He loves this club. Being so close to set pieces and defensive positioning, the likes of himself, Arteta and Mertesacker are always barking orders with no mercy at their off the pitch friends. It’s great to finally have that balance of leaders and characters in the squad now, even though I did talk about the lack of leaders recently. So I am contradicting myself slightly. But who cares.
Arsenal had the upper hand now and were continuing to create chances. Another gorgeous delivery from Sagna created a half chance but it lead to nothing and the Gunners were still grasping at half chances. Arsenal’s best chance to win the game was left to Lukas Poldolski, the man everyone would want for this sort of moment. A fortuitous ricochet landed at the feet of Podolski, but his low driven shot was brilliantly stopped by Hart as half the ground thought it was in. As before, both sides pressed and pressed, created and created, tackled and tackled. But all of this was proved to no avail as the teams were left with a good point each considering the circumstances they were under and the chances both sides had throughout the duration of the game.
That concludes today’s blog. I hope you enjoyed the read. It’s a vital few weeks coming up in regard to the all so familiar 4th place trophy and a real trophy, the FA Cup. Oh how exciting. I won’t be writing until the 15th or so after we play West Ham. However, I will be at Wembley, so if you do see me, don’t be afraid to say hello. Don’t worry, I don’t bite.
