Hopefully the first goal (although heavily deflected) will help Eduardo’s confidence. Nasri’s initial work on his goal was great. Typical Arsenal goal, tons of passing and an exquisite finish.
After a slow start, Arsenal score off their first corner. Some bad marking fro ‘M’Brough leaves Ade open who powers a downward header. Arsenal look shaky but get the lead.
We’re missing Walcott on the right side, the opportunities to carve them open were there but Denilson lacks the quality to take advantage. His passes into the box are usually lower than they need to be, lack pace and are generally of a poor quality. We didn’t have anybody who could run at Boro’s back four and they defended us rather comfortably.
Arsenal were in cruise control from the first minute of the game, almost expecting the goals to come and the 3 points to follow. Boro was the more motivated side and played with a zeal that the Gunners lacked. Wins against Chelsea and Man Utd are worth nothing if you can’t take care of business against lower table teams. The goal was the result of a bad clearance by Clichy and although he doesn’t make many mistakes, the ones he does make prove to be fatal.
Song makes me as nervous as Senderos used to and that’s no good thing. Him and Silvestre in the back line do not exude any kind of confidence in their play and they’re very touchy-feely in the way they deal with long-balls, runs down the middle and worst of all they leave their challenges rather late. January can’t come soon enough for us, we need to invest in our defense and midfield more than at any other time. Rosicky is out till 2046 and Samir Nasri is in and out of the lineup, leaving the talented by often anonymous Abou Diaby to fill the creative role and that’s not what he’s good at.
Eduardo is making good progress in training and could be part of our league fixtures late in the month so I’m not too concerned about our strike power, Walcott and Nasri’s absence makes them look poorer than they actually are. The game was low on chances for both sides and we have the lack of quality in midfield to blame for it.
Gunners drop two points, title chances keep fading. I have some match highlights but don’t feel like putting them up, what’s the point. MOTD Highlights will be posted later, check the Match Report.
A very sad day for the Gunners. After taking the league on a deserved Adebayor goal, William Gallas inexplicably puts his arm to the ball and gifts United a goal. After that our defence falls asleep and allows the overrated Hargreaves to fool us on a freekick which was given because of a phantom foul.
But ignore all that, the problem was still something very familiar: Arsenal’s inability to take easy chances. Adebayor being the guilty party yet again. We shoulda coulda woulda been up 3-0 in this game if we had a striker the quality of Henry up front. I don’t know why RVP was playing in midfield for most of the game, I imagine his finer finishing ability would’ve been put to good use up front.
We again dominated 75% of the game but somehow managed to lose off of set pieces, a problem that’s been there for quite some time. There’s very little solace in knowing that we were the better team yet again. Wenger needs to fix up the defense for good this summer. Alexandre Song starting in place of Senderos for such a crucial game is testament that we have very little depth in the back four.
The season ends with Arsenal playing some brilliant football for the first half, getting decimated by injuries to key players and finally putting forth a commendable effort to finish out the season. Unfortunately, the ref ended our Champions League campaign and its fitting that we lose at Old Trafford by gifting United a goal and being passive on a set-piece.
This year has been a learning experience and has allowed us to identify exactly where we need to get stronger: defense, concentration, experience and leadership. Its up to Arsene Wenger to address those issues in the summer. What would’ve been the outcome of this season if Eduardo, RVP, Sagna and Rosicky would’ve been healthy? For the most part, I do think we have the talent to compete, its the intangibles that seem to be missing.
