Arsenalist

Convincing win. Villareal didn’t test us as I thought they would. The game was wide open to start and after Adebayor missed a chance set up by Fabregas, I thought we had missed a great opportunity. Walcott’s composure on the first goal was sublime, almost Velaesque. Villareal didn’t create enough chances and their attack was fairly benign. Adebayor’s goal came minutes after he was caught offside on an Arsenal counter-attack. He’s unbelievably crappy and equally brilliant within moments of each other, his missed header in the first half should’ve made it 2-0 (see first half highlights below) but still, I’m happy with his overall game. His goal reminded me of the Henry goal against Spurs. The foul which led to the penalty wasn’t a penalty at all and it resulted in Villareal losing their discipline and the match.

I thought Song was especially good in the middle, he had some great fights for possession which he won. Our back four of Eboue, Gibbs, Toure and Silvestre weren’t tested so that was good. Gibbs picked up an injury late which could be big for the FA Cup semi-final this weekend.

Enjoy the goals and the win. That dance has to go, there’s even a clip of Arsene Wenger doing it after the Adebayor goal. It’s Manchester United in the semi-final. Don’t forget to click on the sponsor, here’s the Match Report.

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Wenger Presser :: Wenger Interview :: Fabregas and Walcott Interview

Full UEFA Match Highlights:

Setanta Sports Full Time Highlights and Analysis: Watch :: Download

Theo Walcott Goal (Download)

Halftime Highlights: Watch :: Download

Emmanuel Adebayor (Download)

Robin van Persie Penalty + “Foul” on Theo. Terrible decision (Download)

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Great second half performance. 9 points clear of Villa who are playing Everton tomorrow. If Arshavin weren’t cup-tied I’d feel a lot more confident about the Champions League. Silvestre and Djourou make me a little nervous, not exactly stable components in a back four. We were poor in our set pieces and that’s something that needs to be tightened for Wednesday. Let’s just enjoy this win for now. MOTD Highlights will be posted when they become available. Here’s the Match Report. Here’s the sponsor.

Arsene Wenger’s post-match interview. :: Another with Sky Sports

MOTD Highlights

First Half Highlights and their goal: Watch :: Download

Walcott 1-1: Download

Silvestre 2-1: Download

Arshavin 3-1: (Adebayor’s pass didn’t have enough weight but another Wigan mistake sets it up for Arshavin) Download

Song 4-1 (horrible defending): Download

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Arsene Wenger :: More Wenger :: Mark Hughes :: Match Report

MOTD Highlights

Adebayor goal + very good first half highlight pack: Download

Adeabyor makes it 2-0 after clever sighting from Fabregas: Download

Quick Full-Time Highlight Pack

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So we got an 8-game unbeaten streak which hasn’t done anything for us in the standings. Can we please start to win some games? And if this Arvashin thing is doing to happen, now’s the time. Everton was a bit depressing but I’m still not over Cardiff City yet.

MOTD Highlights

Match Report

More dropped points at the Emirates. The only good news is that Villa tied and the scum lost.

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Can’t afford to take these games lightly. Bad display, bad result. We got a little too pass-happy in the first half and it cost us. Hull City didn’t even put 10 people in the box like they were expected to and yet we still didn’t manage to crack them open. Bad, bad result. There was little fluidity in our game and I can’t even count how many passes were intercepted, we didn’t play wide enough and allowed ourselves to be closed down rather easily. Once again we let a goal in through a set-piece (Gallas being the offender). Our defense is not good, we got away with it the last few weeks but its an area that needs to be addressed in the January transfer window.

Own goal: 1-0: Watch :: Download

Giovani: 1-1: Watch :: Download

Cousin: 2-1: Watch :: Download

MOTD Highlights

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Enjoy:

Robin van Persie 1-0: Watch :: Download

Emmanuel Adebayor 2-0: Watch :: Download

Requested Video: Entire goal again with all the passes that lead up to it Watch :: Download

Emmanuel Adebayor 3-0, Penalty + Foul: Watch :: Download

Emmanuel Adebayor 4-0: Watch

Halftime Highlights: Watch :: Download

MOTD Highlights: Watch

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The Gunners look to open a up a 5 point gap at the top of the Barclay’s Premier League…stay tuned for highlights.

Senderos ’4 – 1-0: Download

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=Kp6Tixfi-Ds]

Adebayor ’90 – 2-0: Download

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=lMIjwD7T6Eg]

Arsenalist’s Arsenal Feed

Arsenal.com Match Report

BBC Match Report – Ends up having PG interviews

Complete domination of Fulham. After the Birmingham result this is exactly what we needed. Adebayor’s two unstoppable headers and a blistering run by Eduardo to find Rosicky put us up 3 goals on an afternoon where we only needed one. Unfortunately Reading couldn’t hold off Manchester United at home and fell 2-0 making the gain for the weekend a +1 in goal differential. I highly doubt it’ll come to that when it’s all over, but it is a gain for the weekend, however small. The GD stands at -6.

Our back four was hardly bothered today and Almunia had to do very little if anything, our midfield dictated the game with Hleb having another phenomenal performance where his prime footwork was on full display. The MOTM had to be Adebayor and his deceptively quick headers which wrong-footed the goalie twice, aren’t you glad Togo didn’t qualify for the ACN?

The RVP injury is bad news, right now we have arguably our most talented player and our best defender out for an extended period of time. It’s critical that the Gunners see this stretch through without further injury or setback.

Up next in the league we have Newcastle at home while Manchester United deals with Portsmouth in Manchester.

Here’s the Arsenal.com Match Report and the BBC Match Report which ends up having post-match interviews. Make sure to grab the feed.

MOTD Highlights

Adeabayor ’18, 1-0: Download

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=LG8HHlzImhk]

Adebayor ’38, 2-0: Download

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=fAJpfSMTvlA]

Rosicky ’81 3-0: Download

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=ah8R1fKsa7A]

Isn’t Turf Moor the coolest ground name in English football? I think so. Anyway, Eduardo continues his fine form with a calm, cool, collected, composed, compassionate and creative finish. Did you expect anything less? In all seriousness, we played like shit and are lucky to have survived the Burnley pressure after they were whittled down to 10 men. I’m not too sad to lose Eboue to the ACN after this one, as the halftime guy from ESPN (idiots, all of them) pointed out, “It’s like he’s wearing a colored uniform, keeps giving the ball away every time”. Eboue needs to understand what his limits are abide by them, his departure will mean more time for Walcott who is just about due to score his first league goal – I can’t take the suspense anymore!!

Senderos didn’t look completely shaky which gives me some confidence that he just might be able to fit Kolo’s size 50 shoes while he’s gone. The thing that’s scary about Senderos is that he has that look about him that says “you know I’m going to screw up sooner or later and when I do it’s going to be large” and every time I look at his mug I think back to last year’s FA Cup against Blackburn. This is usually where the Senderos supporters point out his contributions in the CL in 2006 and I say yeah, but what have you done for me lately? I know, I’m a bitch.

This might be the last we’ve seen of Jens Lehmann who I’ll be sad to see go. He’s done mulling over an offer from Dortmund which he’s a fool to reject because it doesn’t look like Wenger will ever forgive him for his early season gaffes. The man sure holds a grudge. Here’s the Arsenal.com match report but you also want to check out Third Gen – he likes to write and write and write.

Many thanks to the Arseblogger for finally adding a link in his sidebar. Feed.

Eduardo ’9 Download

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=unQck2Ip5e0]

Bendtner ’75 Download

[youtube=http://youtube.com/watch?v=hCsLroC6HcY]

Match Highlights: Mega Video

The 4-4-2 with Eduardo and Adebayor just didn’t work. Many felt that paired up with Adebayor might’ve been the best thing for the Arsenal attack but we were all wrong. Eduardo was anonymous in an Arsenal reverse that sees them hang on to a single point lead at the top of the table – still something I suppose. We’ve been hit hard by injuries with van Perise, Fabregas, Flamini and Hleb and have been struggling our last few games in the Premiership and Champions League, this is not a coincidence. We played really bad today and spent most of our possession trying to pass the ball between our back four and midfield which is struggling without the vision and creativity of Fabregas.

Just like Wigan, Boro played extremely well and pressured us from the beginning and got full support from both their fans in the stands. Kolo Toure made a play that was an anomaly for him and ended up bringing down Aliadiere after Almunia came out to defend for no reason. There was no way Aliadiere could’ve scored (he just doesn’t know how) as he was moving away from the net but Almunia made it difficult for Toure to maintain his pressure and forced a bad tackle out of him. The penalty probably should’ve been saved, see video below.

We were a little better after Walcott, Denilson and Bendtner came on but even then never looked like scoring a goal. There was more hoping for a Boro mistake than an Arsenal moment. Fabregas is the linchpin that holds Arsenal together and transitions the game from Kolo to Adebayor and without him there just isn’t a way to build a proper attack. Missing a playmaker like Hleb hurts in these games where we’re being pressured in midfield and seem to do nothing about it. No matter how much Sagna tries to go forward and for all the creativity of Rosicky, it’s befitting of them to try to create for the strikers on a regular basis.

Adebayor’s finishing has always been questionable and RVP can do much better, but that’s not why I miss RVP the most – it’s the freekicks, we are just dreadful on set plays and often just smash it right into the wall. The crossing from Eboue, Sagna and Rosicky was also poor today so Ade never really got any chances to score or waste. He probably should’ve done better in the first half on a semi-free header but managed to smash it wide.

Arsenal lose. Let’s get our players back and pour it on from there. Here’s the match report. More later…

Penalty Decision + Downing Goal (Goes under Almunia, WTF?) ’4: Download

[vimeo 424289]

Tuncay ’72 Download

[vimeo 424349]

Rosicky ’90 Download

[vimeo 424376]