Written by Simon Monday, 29 March 2010 12:23

GunnerTalk Blog

By Simon

Heartbroken. Crestfallen. Disappointed. Any gooners not feeling this way are probably not awake right now. The talk of the opportunity to slay some demons from little over two years ago went by the wayside. Instead, THAT old French word Deja-Vu irritatingly rings through the head. Trust it to be an Arsenal fan in Kevin Phillips
to inflict the slip on Arsenal's race to the Premiership summit.

It was a very different atmosphere at St. Andrews today amongst the Arsenal faithful. An atmosphere that hadn't been present this late into the season away from home since Tottenham away 2004. It was not just a case of get behind the boys,
there was a real desire, a real belief and, a real willigness to suceed. Forget tempting fate, it was there to be spoken about.

It's there to be won. The Premiership is up for grabs!! After 15 minutes, us fans became agitated, impatient,desperate to see us get a goal. Every minute is like an hour when the goal doesn't come, and this was made more intense by the fact that the tempo was VERY slow. A few minds on Barcelona perhaps? Maybe, maybe. I'm not one who likes the idea that players save themselves for forthcoming fixtures, because once you drop physically in one game, it is then difficult to pick it back up for the next. It's all about momentum.

Nothing really happened in the first half, but the faith was strong. Why wouldn't it be? Include all the obvious that has happened since Diaby flew forward like he
was fired straight out of a cannon to connect his afro with the ball against Liverpool, our bench had more than an air of real quality about it. Not young players who were looking for a debut or getting used to being around the team, but guys who've been around, playing recently and the types that can make the difference. Arshavin, Eboue, Eduardo and of course, Mr. S. Nasri. When the first 15 of the second half were no better than the first 45, Arsene rolled out the cavalry.
It was as though Sam and Andrei had seen what we'd seen, we needed URGENCY!!! We had been nothing more than steady. Substitutions made, Arsenal start to show what they are about.

It's never easy playing against 12 men, and when Howard Webb ruled out the excellent Diaby's clean cut goal, you would have been forgiven for thinking ''That absolute you-know-what is gunner ruin it for us as usual cos we ain't Man yoo''. But There was significance to that moment; we had got at Birmingham and were pressing on. No more lathargical play. The fans got behind them, they responded. However, we couldn't help but keep looking left to the clock, 70mins, 75, 75 and a half minutes, 76 minutes. The paranoia that has dominated gooners for the last month (where it seems late goals are the Arsenal way) set in. ''Keep going keep going'' is all that was going through my mind. As they say, it doesn't matter how you do it, as long as you DO DO IT!!! (Anyone remember the FA cup Final 2005 - our last trophy? I rest my case.)

A great quote from Patrick Vieira rang through my head as Sammy Boy lashed that ball into the net - 'Sometimes you need someone special to do something special'. Mr. Nasri, take a bow son. The elation from the gunners faithful was ELECTRIC!!! Birmingham had missed a glorious chance from all of 2 yards (I couldn't see who it was from where I was sitting, and I haven't seen any replays yet) and we took full advantage of the blessing handed to us!! Brimingham hadn't done a thing and were looking like getting the 0-0, but Nasri's goal was something well out of the top drawer...

AND NOW YOU'RE GUNNER BELIEVE US, WE'RE GUNNER WIN THE LEAGUE' roared around one quarter of the 27,000 people in St. Andrews. YES. News had filtered through Chelsea were caneing the 'Let's sh*t ourselves in March' Aston Villa, but who cared? We could not invisage throwing this one away ('throwing' being the operative word - I'll get to that). for a good 7 or so minutes we were jumping, right behind the team. Birmingham had pushed up to the halfway line, not creating anything and there was space in behind. Pick 'em off and we're on our way! Walking wounded, Fabregas picked out Nasri and as Samir raced through, we all went a bit Michael Jackson: THIS IS IT!! But there was no ''eh-hee'' to follow that move. Not for us anyway. When that move broke down, somehow, Birmingham scored from a wack upfield from England hopeful Joe Hart. Out of nothing.

No more than 120 seconds left I believe. Dammit!! I'm not saying this because we conceded, these were said at 1-0 by many around me - 'TAKE IT TO THE CORNER', 'KEEP IT' etc. the last thing we want is to have to camp on our 18 yard line with just a couple minutes to go. We just didn't deal with it. I'm always of the motto, If you can't keep clean sheets when all is going well, how can you keep them when things are tough? Think about it, we conceded at Everton when we were 6-0 up, Blackburn at home we scored 6 and still conceded 2. A Fabregas 'handball' V Liverpool, a woeful miss from Kenwyne Jones 5 weeks ago and a penalty miss last week meant we didn't concede in recent games, but today we ran out of luck. It's hard to take, that feeling that we just don't really KNOW how to see out the last minutes when long balls are thrown at us. It happened in Alkmaar in Europe, and we hadn't learnt our lesson. Diaby lost the first ball and the second ball turned into howver many balls and they score. Almunia is culpable, it has to be said, he might as well have done a Bruce Grobbelar. I don't think he's a gambler though so I will not hold judgement.he could have eradicated all the problems that happened before by dealing with it and didn't. Great.

At this stage of the seaon it is difficult to find any real positives when the result is not what is required. I'm gutted. Have been all day. The only saving grace is this can turn around in a week. THE game at Old Toilet is next week before we entertain Kevin Doyle n Co. A draw followed by us doing our job means it the table goes back to how it was 24hours ago. With the Blues having to go to White Hart Shame and Man Citeh entertaining Yanited, it would mean it's all to play for again.
However, the key thing is us doing our job. The lads could feel the pressure today, you could see it. None of them have really been there before to go on and claim a title in intense situations, but they have to learn. Learn as a group. To come through this will bode well for the future. But this is football at the top level. Big pressure. Big pressure equals big reward. There is a big job to do. But it has to be done. It can be done. Today we battled, we were strong, espeically the man mountains of Song, Sol and the brillaint Abou Diaby. We weren't cr*p today. Far from it. I'd be worried if we were. Due to next weeks fixtures, the window of opportunity is there. Someone above us WILL drop points. Wolves aren't to be sniffed ain't but they will be a damn sight easier than Barcelona.

It's all heart-stopping, but I don't want the beat to slow down. We want to feel the tension, the fear, the excitement, the buzz, the panic - because if the heart beat is slow we're doing something wrong. This is the beauty of being involved in the race for the Premiership.

We move onto next week, things can all change, there's another 180 minutes (United- Chelsea, Us-Wolves), another couple of games, for things to turn and make our hearts beat again.