Unfortunately one of those days

Sometimes one huffs and puffs, one huffs and puffs some more, but the house just won't blow down and that's just what happened against Wolves today.  There may be an element down to slight weaknesses in our squad, Rosicky and Benayoun are very similar to each other and both started today, but I have to say the main problems today were Wayne Hennessey, bad luck and poor finishing (probably in that order too).

We dominated in both halves, the opener was deserved and it was nicely finished off by Gervinho who rounded the keeper and neatly finished with his left foot.  Wolves' equaliser had more than a shade of fortune about it, a lucky deflection landed on Fletcher's head, his instinctive header left Szczesny without a chance.  We cranked it up in the second half and Wolves held on by the skin of their teeth.  Hennessey made some top notch saves, there was a very lucky block which stopped RVP's goal bound shot after Per's header had been saved, RVP miscontrolled twice when in on goal, Arshavin was a whisker away and on and on.

23 efforts on goal and 13 corners, the pressure was there, the performance was pretty decent too, it's just a shame we couldn't get the second goal that we deserved.  This is life and this is football, sometimes the ball just doesn't run for you, you have to accept this and move on, it doesn't change the fact that it hurts though.

I won't blame Stuart Attwell for the dropped points, his general incompetence was there for all to see but it didn't massively help or hinder either side.  We had a good penalty shout in the second half which he ignored.  To his credit he did get the big decision right when he sent off Milijas for a nasty lunge on Mikel Arteta, Milijas was in no position to safely challenge for the ball, he was on the stretch, he recklessly slid in with a straight leg and studs up, he was out of control, definite red card.

Other than that dangerous tackle there wasn't much else nasty in the game, but it did start to boil over partly due to Attwell's incoherent decision making.  Part of the blame for the loss of control must go to Wolves though, they sat deep to absorb and were inevitably fouling more and more as the game progressed, they were struggling to stay in the game without fouling.

We have some issues, for example we desperately need some higher quality backup for RVP, Chamakh probably only scares himself when he looks in the mirror.  I also think another pacey wide forward would be useful given that Gervinho is going to be away for a few weeks in January.  We badly need three points against QPR on new year's eve, let's cross our fingers that our luck improves by then........