Written by George Sezer Saturday, 05 March 2011 20:50

GunnerTalk Blog

Match highlights

George Sezer

Another 2 points dropped, another chance not taken to close in on the Manure. How many times are we going to pass on the opportunity to win this league? I hope this wasn’t the last chance saloon.

Arsenal were strangely subdued in the first half of this game for some reason. I can’t give you any viable explanation for players not being up for a game of this importance and that is what hurt me the most about the first half performance. How much more motivation did they need after what happened during the last week? I know we were missing 4 massive players from the spine of the team but they weren’t playing in the vastly improved second half, were they?

This was definitely a game of two halves; we could blame the dismal first half showing on the personnel selection. The vast majority of gooners will agree that Denilson did not deserve a place in the squad let alone in the team and only Wenger knows the reasons behind him selecting the ‘out of sorts’ midfielder repeatedly. I don’t think it is a coincidence that our much better second half performance was due to the changes made by Wenger when he replaced the Brazilian with Chamakh and Diaby with Rosicky.

Although missing 4 big players AW still had a lot of options for the team he selected before the game. As many if not all GunnerTalk Shouters stated “anybody but not Denilson” for the position vacated by Alex Song’s absence due to injury. He could have played Chamakh upfront with Bendtler on the right which would have freed Nasri to play in the centre midfield or play Eboue on the right and again move Nasri into the Fabregas role which would have allowed Wilshere to play in his usual role but no he had to play Denilson and just to accommodate him he moved Wilshere into a much forward position which was a clear mistake. Denilson is not a Defensive midfielder; he is weak, never wins 50/50’s, can’t tackle, is not tenacious and to top it all he is not on form. Even Ramsey who was available after a loan spell would’ve been a better option.

I have no complaints about the second half performance apart from the referee’s. No, I am not trying to find a scapegoat for the 2 dropped points but in a game we struggled to find any kind of rhythm, last thing we needed was a referee to chalk out a perfectly good goal by Arshavin for off side and dismiss a stonewall penalty when the Russian was pushed by both hands of Titus Bramble from behind in the area, causing him to miscue his shot wide from close range. Is it me watching the game behind my Arsenal glasses or is it that every time we got close to their player he awarded them a foul but nothing when they clattered our players? Also, why is it that every goalkeeper has to have the game of their lives when they play against us? In the last weekend’s CC final Foster had a blinder, he was awful in today’s PL game against WBA and in this game their RESERVE goalie Simon Mignolet had an inspired day, producing a world class save from a brilliant Nasri free kick.

It is true that to win the League you need to have the rub of the green but unfortunately we are not having any, at the same time, fortunately even after all the setbacks we are only 3 points behind the leaders and yet to play them at our home ground.

There were some positives to take from this game too; I thought Koscilny was immense, he played like a player who wanted to make amends for his mistake in the last weekends final. Chesny pulled off a great save from Welbeck towards the end of the game and had a very solid game; just what he needed after his part in the same incident.

I am an not much of an optimist when it comes to Arsenal but this time I am going to see it as glass half full by saying; we have crawled another point on the Manure.

I leave you with a selection of shouts during today’s game from the Gunner Shout : 

bostongooner  - Big game today guys....Let's Go Gunners! 

Filip - We must get rid off Denilson, useless! 

Vic - denilson was poor in this half, but all the team has to up the pace, it's so slow 

Vic - right, denilson out, chamakh in, nasri in the midle and nick on the right. hope wenger make that

Marv - i keep talkin bout this kid, he drives me nuts! get rid of him an bring on Rambo! denilson is this season's silvestre, he's got 2 go! we need 2 get Jack on d ball more an up d tempo.

bostongooner - god damn! that was a pen! why cant we get any calls!!! 

Filip - That WAS NOT offside you idiots!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

bostongooner - NOT OFFSIDE!!!!!!!!!! OMG!!!!!!!! WTF!!!!!!!!!! 

Vic - the quality of the team after the 60th min clearly shows wenger's team selection was an error but refering was SHIT !!! 

George -  You are so right BG, we weren't at our best today but still should've won by at least 2 goals but for the poor ref and some poor finishing and bad luck. 

Linds - That midfield was shocking. No service bar mr consistency JW. Diaby great twisting and turning then passes to the opposition. Ref was awful but we should have made more. Another Fergie ccrony doing him a favour. Thank god for Chesney or we could jave lost. I'm doing the Gooner podcast Monday. Great got to talk about that shit.

Bakha - In the first halh our play was typical of arsenal alot of possession wwithout penetration and thats bcuz of denilson the guy only passes back and aside.He can't pass without controling the ball first slows our game.soulf have played ramsey instead of him.The biggest problem with denilson is that he can't defend and he's not a threat going forward, so basically he's useless !! 

George - we must not forget that we were missing 3 massive players from the spine of the team and still should've and could've won the game