Written by George Sezer Saturday, 28 August 2010 18:33

GunnerTalk Blog

Blackburn 1 – Arsenal 2

By George Sezer

The score line above sounds much more pleasing to my ears than it should, as Blackburn and their immensely annoying manager supposed to have found a way of beating us with their ingenious tactics of physical, sometimes illegal approach and their long ball play. Arsenal don't like it up ‘em they said.

Well, they tried it but this “not so young anymore” Arsenal team is a different kettle of fish these days. Diaby has showed great physical strength in the middle of the park at last, Song is not a light weight by any stretch of the imagination and we all know that Cesc is as strong as an ox despite all his silky skills. If you add the physical presence of Chamakh along with his aerial ability, the tigerish young gun Wilshere, Verminator and Sagna to the equation we don’t come across as a soft touch and a  ‘pretty-pretty only’ team anymore.

Fabregas and Van Persie started the game instead of unlucky pair Rocisky and Chamakh and within 4 minutes a short corner by RVP was cut back to Diaby on the edge of the area by Walcott, his vicious shot was somehow saved by Robinson who didn’t know anything about it and incredibly ricashayed to safety by one of their defenders who also had no idea what was going on.

Typical Blackburn aerial bombardment to our goal was not a surprise.  Almunia palmed away a cross brilliantly from their left just before Samba was about to head the ball in at the far post and the same player headed a decent chance over. At that moment I was thinking if it was a wise decision by our manager not to play Chamakh with all his ability in the air and Van Persie looking a little rusty.

My thoughts were shoved back to my brain by a vintage Arsenal goal soon enough. A short kick by our keeper started the move from inside of our 18 yard box in the 20^th minute. The ball ended up with Song in the centre of the field who had his usual trustworthy, solid performance.  The young midfielder found Arshavin who in turn slid a smart pass to RVP; he proved that le Boss was right to start the game with him and that the class is permanent by playing a through ball of the highest quality in the path of Walcott’s storming run into their box. Boy didn’t he finish it well, slamming ball into the far bottom corner with a vicious, right foot drive, breaking the net in the process. Henry-esque, dare I say.

A bad defending or an unusually good play from Blackburn’s point of view led to their goal in the 27^th minute. Koscielny lost one on one with El-Hadji Diouf when I thought he was favourite to win at our right back position and crossed it for an easy tap in by his namesake who made a little run inside Clichy, catching our left back ball watching. Unfortunately our new Defender had a few shaky moments after losing his confidence but pulled it together for the later part of the game.

We lost our Dutch star when he twisted one of his glass ankles in the 34^th minute and was replaced with Chamakh. This probably was a blessing in disguise as his physical attributes are very suited to a game of this type.

The Moroccan international was instrumental in our winner 6 minutes into the second half of the game. He received a wonderful ball from our Captain before finding Sagna breaking from the right. Man of the match full back, rode off a couple attempted challenges and pulled a lovely ball to Fabregas who magically appeared just inside of their box after initially starting the move. His shot was destined for the goal until it hit Walcott’s backside but luckily Arshavin pounced on the rebound and scored with a well placed shot although there were few opposition bodies flying around in front of him. Well deserved goal for the little Russian who started the season well in my opinion. It was nice to see him busting his gut to run back to cover for our centre halves when we they counter attacked us in the first half.

We were not in real danger of losing our lead apart from once where Sanga’s brilliant tackle saved us when the ball was played behind our centre backs. On the contrary we had few chances to kill the game off; especially when Wilshere was put through one on one with Robinson after a great play between Chamakh and Walcott but the youngster fluffed his shot when he slipped in the vital moment.

With Fabregas and Diaby marshalling the midfield Arsenal coped with Blackburn much better in the second half. Added height of Chamakh also helped us deal with their set pieces. Walcott having another great game on the wing caused them all sorts of problems all through the game. But I was mostly impressed by our willingness to do the unpleasant side of the game; chasing up the ball, closing up and harassing the other team when we didn’t have the ball.

I have to mention that the substitutions Rosicky for Fabregas and Wilshere for Arshavin in the 67^th and 83th minute respectively were very well timed. Well done boys and Arsene Wenger.