Aston Villa 2 Arsenal 4
A winning game hopefully will bring another winning game tonight, especially we need a good win at HOME to reverse the unusual trend of Arsenal's home form.
Lets start a good run from now on as they will face Fulham at home , then final MUST WIN group game of CL at home next Wednesday and then playing away at Old Tradford on 13 dec.
http://www.arsenal.com/news/news-archive/tv-online-aston-villa-v-arsenal-highlights
Manchester United 7 Blackburn 1
Newcastle 1 Chelsea 1
Spurs 2 Liverpool 1
Aston Villa 2 Arsenal 4
Arshavin 39, Nasri 45, Clark 52,Chamakh 56, Clark 71, Wilshere 90
Arshavin really stepped up to the plate at Villa Park.
When given a bigger role, the Russian responds. Arsenal’s passing was as fluent as we’ve seen this season and, prompted by Arshavin, they swarmed all over Aston Villa.
The little man was creative right from the kick-off and made a mesmerising run as late as the 85th.
Early on, Arshavin played in Chamakh but Brad Friedel saved well at pointblank range,
With half-time approaching, former Aston Villa centre forward Andy Gray said, “Villa have defended the penalty area very well.” Seeing the first goal coming after Luke Young and James Collins went for the same ball on the halfway line, a Fabianski clearance, I said, “Here we go! The Russian magician is gonna wave his wand."
Arshavin had been twinkling for 39 minutes, using his low centre-of-gravity to menacing effect and conjuring passes of surgical accuracy, making the game look easy. As Richard Dunne came over to right back, Arshavin cut inside the Irishman and fired his shot low and hard between the legs of James Collins, who had covered a lot of ground to get back. Brad Friedel got a hand to the ball as it went in.
The first player to congratulate Arshavin was Wilshere. Immediately, Chamakh came deep, bringing Collins, and Arshavin played a defence-splitter. Nasri arrowed onto his pass but couldn’t quite score as Friedel narrowed the angle. The American knew he couldn't get the ball and he also knew he couldn't take Nasri out. Friedel just had to hope that the shot hit the side-netting. And it did.
Six minutes later, Arshavin pinged an outrageous corner high and hard to pick out Nasri, who smashed his volley into the ground and the ball flew in for 2-0 at HT. Gerard Houllier’s decision to start old men Carew and Pires as his strikers was bizarre and self-defeating. Villa were woeful and showed why they're in the bottom half of the league. They didn’t even use the energy of their young midfielders to press Arsenal players in possession, preferring to cede 70% of the pitch for most of the first half.
Second half, Squillaci headed the ball up in a slow arc and Cieran Clark was in the D and the nearest defender to him was Clichy. He was five yards from Clark. What did he do? Did you see what the clueless Clichy did? He backed off !! He backed off from an opponent who was about to have a shot. Good defending is good habits. What the hell was he doing? Is he a man or a girl or a clockwork mouse?
When the centrebacks saw Clichy backing off, they started to run towards Clark and Squillaci, who was further away than Kos, overtook his partner, if we can call him that. But by the time Squillaci got anywhere near Clark, the ball was in the back off the net.
Of course Carew was offside, and the goal should never have stood because he was in Fabianski’s line of sight. But the job of Clichy and Koscielny is to get as close to Clark as possible to put him off. Instead of doing that they watched Clark (1) chest an awkward ball which had d ropped from 20 feet and (2) let it bounce in the D.
And the Phrench pussycats were still nowhere near him. Ashley Cole would be in his face before that ball hit Clark's chest. Even now, at the age of 46, Lee Dixon would get closer than Squillaci did. If the shot hits you and deflects into the bottom corner, that's football. If you stand and watch, it's netball.
Chamakh has scored 10 goals already. He's a brainy striker who glides, links, lays it off, reads the game well, and knows how to wait for a nice pass while staying onside. When Rosicky gave him a nice pass, he produced a rapier finish for 3-1.
Then Dunn beat Koscielny to a deep corner and his header reached Clark, whose header went over Fabianski for 3-2. Clark has captained England Under-20s but has an Irish mother and will play for Ireland seniors.
So Arsenal were rocking a bit at 3-2.Then, at the death, Jack Wilshere started a move and got the ball back again and fed Chamakh on the left and when Denilson's shot rebounded to Chamakh again, he crossed neatly to the far post and Wilshere headed his first Premier League goal.
Jack’s deadly from three yards and it was nice to score in the 93rd because it gave Villa no time to come back.
I backed BTS because I know Arsenal can’t keep clean sheets. Both teams to score doesn’t pay much but it’s a sure thing and 4-2 suited me.
VERDICT : OK, Arsenal can play without Fabregas, but they can’t defend without Vermaelen. So they need four goals to win a game of football.
Write this in your diary now : Arsenal will NOT score four against Fulham. And they won't score four against Manchester United or Stoke or Chelsea either.
After Anderson flew to Brazil without telling Sir Alex, we wondered whether he would ever play for Man United again. On Saturday the midfield powerhouse came back and gave the red devils the dynamism they’ve been missing. An ebullient, rugged ball-winner who can break at pace with the ball, Anderson adds a lot of tempo to a team, as Flamini used to do for Arsenal when they were top of the table for six months.
When Anderson is bad, he’s a loose cannon, unreliable, unproductive, annoying - and he never scores a goal. When he’s good, he’s exciting, galvanising, a catalyst. Where Anderson sprints, Denilson jogs, so Denilson can never galvanise, never be a catalyst.
News : Anderson and Rooney, two stocky sprinting warriors, are back in business. And United are league leaders again. “It is good to have Wayne back,” said five-goal Berbatov after their 7-0 thrashing of Blackburn. “He knows how I play and I know how he plays, and we understand each other’s game well.”
The one-touch passing of Berbatov & Rooney was reminiscent of the glory days of Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink & Harry Kewell at Leeds, and Gudjohnsen & Hasselbaink at Chelsea.
I wrote to one of my readers two days ago saying that Rooney needs three more games to start scoring in open play. This was his first.
Manchester United’s next five games are West Ham (A), Blackpool (A) Valencia (H), Arsenal (H) and Chelsea (A).
Spurs v Liverpool was a good battle with many chances missed at both ends. Spurs lost Rafael van der Vaart to injury after 10, lost the first goal to a Skrtel toepoke in 42 and lost Kaboul to injury before half-time. I lost my bet after 10, having backed RVDV each way to score.He didn't let me down, his hamstring let him down.
Keeper Pepe Reina was looking for his 100th clean sheet in the Premier League and when Defoe hit that penalty wide I thought the keeper would claim it. Immediately, Modric made an enterprising spurt through the defence and his cross to Crouch went in off Skrtel, who thus scored at the same end for both teams.
The winner came from a Route 1 ball by Assou-Ekotto, a bit like the Bale goal against Arsenal. Crouch and sub Kyrgiakos both missed it and Aaron Lennon chested the bouncing ball and zoomed into the box and buried the one-on-one to grab his first Premier League goal in a year. William Gallas and sub Bassong both played well against Torres.
In the end, football results are usually about players and the absence of players.
Chelsea's Alex started badly at Newcastle with a jabbed backpass that beat the advancing Cech and give Andy Carroll a tap-in. The backpass was an Alex own-goal if Carroll had not reached it. Very close to half time, a swift Kalou- Mikel- Malouda move found Kalou again and he checked square of Sol Campbell and fired his shot in off a defender's toe. It was 1-1 at half-time and at the final whistle
Fabio Capello now sees Rooney and Carroll as his England strikers.
We don’t have a problem with that, do we? I just hope Jack Wilshere will supply swift passes to release them
Nov 29, 2010