It was a very good game of football, and a very even one at that. Both sides had their moments and it really was nip and tuck for long periods. 51% possession vs 49%, plus 5 shots on goal for both sides shows how evenly matched this contest was. Strangely some Arsenal fans seem to think we were terrible but I think the statistics back up my stance, we were decent and in the game, it is just sad that our terrible defending from set pieces cost us the points.
The dropping of Per Mertesacker for Kos looked an error before the game, and afterwards it looked a massive clanger. The combination of terrible defending from Kos and weak inexperienced keeping from Mannone saw us undone twice by simple set pieces. It was very frustrating as other than these howlers, Chelsea didn't really open us up or threaten Mannone much. The second Chelsea goal came from a very soft free kick, Torres diving under gravity again, as a team they really did go to ground very easily all day long.
We huffed and puffed, despite going behind twice to these poor goals. Gervinho's excellent spin and shot got us level just before half time. Then in the second half we pushed Chelsea so hard, really we deserved an equaliser, a mixture of good goalkeeping, poor finishing and bad luck cost us our second equaliser of the day. Podolski's header was expertly saved, Cazorla had a great chance after Gervinho teed him up, Cech pulled off some other good saves, while Giroud's one on one which he narrowly blazed wide was the best chance of the lot.
Diaby's injury is a massive concern and exposes our lack of squad power in the central midfield area, perhaps Coquelin and Frimpong will have to be given some games if this injury is not minor. We need Szczesny back soon, as Mannone is not up to it, he will continue to cost us points. It hurts to lose to such a disgraceful football club, a club that is summed up by the joyless and pathetic cheating of their striker, Fernando Torres. Still, we can bounce back from this, it was really could have been very different with some luck and better defending.
2 comments:
We continue to chase players from free kicks instead of the ball.
I understand why Wenger decided to rotate the CenterBacks it's a manager's call, it backfired but I have no problem with it. Today we needed good goalkeeping.
The only decission from AW I thought was wrong the minute I saw it, was to bring the Ox instead of Walcott, AOC is more talented but is younger and his concentration comes and goes, there were long periods in wich he did not seem to be there, I think Walcott's experience as well as other atributes would've given us better results.
Time to move on and win a few "easier" games in a row, the others will drop points too.
Post a Comment