Written by George Sezer Sunday, 24 October 2010 21:57

GunnerTalk Blog

By George Sezer

I was quite nervous before the kick off, more than the usual. It was like one of those feelings you get in your bones that this game might be one of the important moments in our season.

Djourou looked and played like he had the same kind of nervousness as me in the opening stages. No surprise there as we all know he had been out of the game for a long period of time and it takes time to get up to speed  with these  type of games. Koscielny was on the bench presumably not fit enough to start having just come back from injury himself.

The Swiss defender was at fault for the first opening of the game when he mistimed his slide tackle on Tevez, where the order of the day would and should have been to stay on your feet. The little Argentinean nearly punished us by putting a dangerous cross into our box for Silva whose clever goal bound flick was brilliantly saved by Fabianski.

We saw Arshavin being called off side wrongly when he was put through in goal before the pivotal moment of the game in the 4^th minute; Fabregas demonstrated why he is one of the best midfielders in the world by playing a wonderful through ball for Chamakh. The impressive centre forward was clattered just outside the area by Boyata when he was clean through at their goal. There was only one outcome, a red card for the defender and a free kick for us which Fabregas wasted by playing it short to Arshavin instead of having a pop at their goal.

Credit to Man City, they played out of their skins to make sure playing a man short did not affect their game, putting lots of effort and tackles in. It didn’t stop us going in front in the 20^th minute when my man of the match Nasri played a lovely one-two with frustratingly bad Arshavin and smashed it into the net at the near post for his 6^th goal in 7 games.

The referee getting caught in the atmosphere booked all our centre midfielders for ordinary fouls, trying to even things up in a crazy period of play then pulled himself together.  He rightly awarded us a penalty when Fabregas was tripped by Kompany just inside the right hand corner of the 18 yard box but our Captain Marvel watched his spot kick saved by Hart. It was a good save but I thought the height of the ball helped the England’s no1.

In the second half Arsenal started playing and I mean playing the Arsenal way, passing the ball intelligently pulling the opposing team all over the park. That’s how you play against a team with a man sent off and I knew as the game went on they would run out of steam chasing shadows.

Fabregas had missed a great opening when he tamely shot into their goalie’s hands when it seemed like all our other forwards refused to take shot before him after another great Arsenal move.

Even the introduction of Ihateabayor did not change the course of the game. I was strangely relaxed and I am never relaxed when I watch Arsenal.  I must have sensed the killer second goal coming; Arshavin’s cross field ball found Nasri on the right, he laid the ball back to Fabregas just outside their box, the Spaniard played one of his through balls to Chamakh again. As the classy forward  hustled and bustled with two defenders for position, the ball broke loose and Song who seems to make a lot of forward runs these days was on hand to slam the ball to the top corner in the 65^th minute, 2-0, game over. It is funny though, Arshavin, having an awful game, still had a hand in our both goals. He was replaced by Rociky shortly afterwards.

The opposition had nothing more to give as we continued to create chances. Chamakh should have got his well deserved goal when Fabrigas found him in the area after a great darting run, but he skyed his shot.

Djourou warmed up and had a much better second half, Fabianski had another very good game (long may it continue...please), Chamakh worked tirelessly and ran himself to the ground and was replaced by Bendtler along with Walcott for Fabregas in the 84^th minute. It was the Danish forward who wrapped things up when he scored his 50^th top level goal, after great work by who else but Nasri , when the French midfielder somehow kept the ball in left outside touchline and found the forward.

Second in the League and looking goooood!