Written by George Sezer Monday, 02 May 2011 00:18

GunnerTalk Blog

By George Sezer

Arsenal young guns reminded us that it is not all doom and gloom for the future of our club. It was very encouraging to see that the boys played like they had a point to prove and showed us once again that they are very capable of beating the very best. We must take it into account that Manchester United is the on-form team at the moment and this result was not only what Arsenal needed in the current climate of the Gooner community but proof that the team is fully behind Arsene Wenger. It was also a reminder to Sky Sportzine that this team are NOT bottlers as they stated in their biased magazine.

The big match day hadn’t started very well as we lost our Captain Fabregas to a injury. Little did we know that his replacement Ramsey was going to produce a match winning performance that stated he is well and truly back to his very best and is not suffering from Eduardo syndrome.

Arsenal started bossing the game straight from the kick off with Song playing like we all know he can. He shielded our defence and nullified Rooney with great success and made sure that he fulfilled his defensive midfielder duties. The Cameroon international is a very important player for the way Arsenal play and one of our failings this season is due to having to rely solely on him in this crucial position. It was him that started the move which ended impressive Wilshere screwing his low drive wide after Van Persie and Walcott caused havoc in United’s defence.

Walcott squandered a great chance from close range when Clichy put a very dangerous cross in but to be fair on the young forward he was always stretching for it.

Wilshere playing with a bit more freedom almost set up Walcott with a low cross but for a last ditch interception by Evra who was soon to realise it was no longer boys against men.

Next came the most ridiculous non-decision by the refs; Walcott, a thorn on their side until he was replaced by Eboue in the 79^th minute, whipped in a lovely cross in from the right, it was destined for  Van Persie’s head in the six yard box before Vidic’s outstretched  arm deflected the ball away from the Dutchman. The referee had an unobstructed view from behind and more amazingly the assistant ref chose to ignore it when he was positioned perfectly in line with the cross and looking directly at the incident. A stonewall penalty and a red card for Vidic that would‘ve meant a suspention for their main center back for their all important game next weekend.  Even the Sky panel could not find a valid explanation for the linesman’s selective blind spot.   

Arshavin replaced the injured Nasri for the second half and it was a sight for sore eyes seeing throwing himself into tackles, tracking back and most importantly talking and telling his teammates what to do. He won 3 out of 3 tackles, made 2 interceptions and 2 clearances.

After Szczezny made a good save from a Rooney free kick we scored our winner. Man of the match Ramsey started and finished the move with a well placed side foot shot into the bottom corner when he received a lovely return ball from our captain of the day, classy Van Persie.

United tried but could not breach our determined team, even an injury to Djourou who was replaced by Squilacci in the 69^th minute did not disturb the team’s organisation which was very refreshing to see.

We did have a major scare towards the end of the game when Clichy who had one of his better games tripped their sub Michael Owen just inside our box but luckily the referee missed the foul or maybe he was just trying to make up for that awful decision much earlier in the game.