Written by George Sezer Sunday, 21 November 2010 15:34

GunnerTalk Blog

By George Sezer

The twitchy jerk from our noisy neighbours said after the game; ‘the title race is wide open and we can win it’. Another jerk, this time that Scottish commentator from Sky Sports uttered ridiculously premature words; ‘are we watching the shift of power in North London’ just prior to final whistle. You know, I don’t even blame them as you cannot change what people are like - once a jerk, always a jerk and all that. The only blame has to be attached to our own team for giving them the opportunity to open their mouth and start chattering nonsense.

The obvious question is; how come this team keep losing commanding leads? It has happened over and over again in recent times.  Complacency, not knowing how to close up games, immaturity, defensive frailties, goalkeeper, management, take your pick. Probably combination of the above mentioned, but for me the last one sticks out; the management must take the blame, for not getting it tactically right or not installing right mentality to the players or not addressing the problem areas in the team because of  their transfer policy......... The most annoying thing is we are so close yet so far. Can you see Chelsea or Man U giving away points like we do after going 2 up at home? NO!  When either of these teams go a couple of goals up, I almost want to switch over and watch something else, knowing the game is as good as over.

It had all started so well, we were playing our devastating brand of football, making them chase shadows. Fabregas was running things in the midfield, Nasri was at his usual best, and even Arshavin was having a good game.

It took us 9 minutes to open the scoring when Fabregas played a wonderful pass over the top for Nasri. The on form French international’s first touch wasn’t the best but Gomez hesitated and that was enough for Nasri to recover and knock the ball around the rushing keeper before somehow squeezing it in from a very tight angle.

Things got even better when Chamakh poked in a dangerous low cross to near post from the left in the 29^th minute. 2-0 Arsenal... But never over. It would have been if Chamakh made the most of another magic ball with outside of his right boot by our captain marvel.

2^nd half couldn’t have started worst for us when substitute Defoe out jumped Clichy to knock on a long clearance from their back and found Van Der Vaart in alot of space. He had time to stall a bit and release the ball for Bale to beat Fabianski all too easily. After watching it several times, I still don’t understand how our defence can lose an aerial battle to Defoe, all 5’6” of him!

We were on the back foot as a result as they had their backs up. Modric shot narrowly wide before being awarded a ridiculously harsh free kick when Sagna was too strong for him. Then again I wouldn’t expect any less from Phil Dowd.  From the resulting free kick Fabregas one of the members of the wall raised his hand for some reason, clear hand ball and penalty, Van Der Vaart,  2-2, 67^th minute.

In fairness team’s response was very admirable as they tried to get out of the hole they dug themselves in. Van Persie replaced Chamakh and orchestrated a very well worked free kick but at the end of it all Squillachi was rightly called off side; unfortunate. Fabregas pounced on a loose ball just outside of their box shortly afterwards only to watch his brilliant goal bound curler pushed away by Gomez’s out stretched arm as Arsenal pushed for a winner.

Van Persie, heavily involved in the game produced a sublime ‘on me head son’ cross with his chocolate foot after a typical piece of ‘shuffling the ball between his feet’ skill. Unfortunately the player at the end of it was Koscielny and his header was as clumsy as his tackles, missing the target by some distance from a close range.

It was Koscielny who gave away a free kick on our right with one of his mistimed tackles. So predictable what was to come next; Arsenal conceding a headed goal against the run of play from the resulting free kick when Kabul met Van Der Vaart’s free kick. Fabregas and Van Persie were marking their centre back instead of one of our centre backs who were marking the empty space.

Maybe Arsene Wenger should get some tips from WBA manager Roberto Di Mateo about not conceding from headers as they are yet to concede a headed goal this season although they play a similar type of football to ours.