Things started to knock us out of our stride in the warmup, when apparently Senderos got injured, forcing Gilberto to make his first start of the season after an extended summer holiday. Within 25 minutes, Bakary Sagna had also limped off, so Flamini was at right back, Gilberto at centre back, and Fabregas and Denilson in the centre of a midfield that could definitely be described as skilful, but not exactly very good at the physical side of the game. This constant change of plan obviously didn't help the team put in a fluent performance, and the game struggled to really get going. A cross which flashed across the face of goal, but eluded all Arsenal attackers, was one of the few memorable parts of a stop-start first half. But, with the sun blaring down on a glorious day, at least the tan was coming along, even if the football wasn't really.The second half got a bit more lively, as Kasper Schmeichel came to the north end of the stadium, to get a bit of friendly abuse from the Arsenal fans. In truth, I thought he looked a bit unsure of himself on a couple of occasions, and he doesn't seem like the biggest of guys. That was until the otherwise excellent Micah Richards tripped Hleb, and the ref gave a penalty.
On his previous attempt this season, Robin Van Persie absolutely crashed his penalty into the roof of the net - almost breaking the net, and leaving no chance at all for the keeper. That made this penalty all the more strange, a fairly tame kick which was ideally placed (both height-wise, and in being nicely central), for the keeper to save. After that, Schmeichel got all his confidence back, and made a few decent saves when called upon. Not a great day at the office all round for Van Persie, he was unlucky on a few occasions, and the penalty miss ensured that his head was well and truly down when he was substituted a few minutes later - but the crowd gave him a big ego boosting ovation nonetheless.
Given the lack of fluency from Arsenal, many around me were beginning to think that we were on for a 0-0 draw - although Arsenal had probably done more than City, we weren't looking particularly likely to score. That was until Cesc Fabregas found himself in a very crowded penalty area, and drove a pretty unstoppable shot through what seemed like the only gap in existence - right into the roof of the net. The relief both in the stands and on the pitch was obvious. Kasper Schmeichel gave us some amusement in injury time when he came forward for a corner, and got a header onto it, but other than that, Arsenal managed to close out for victory with relatively little fuss.
All this means a pretty decent start, with 3 wins and one draw from the first 4 games in all competitions. A quiet but solid start, and one that we'd all have taken before the season began I'd think. City were deposed as League leaders, and Arsenal fans sang "Top of the League, you're having a laugh". Arsenal fans do confuse me sometimes - because the team that took over at the top of the League were Chelsea. Are we happy about that? I really do hope not, so why were singing a song that points it out, and almost celebrates it??!
Arsenal fans also spent some of this game shouting at Alexander Hleb (again), despite his winning a penalty, and setting up Fabregas for the winner - and his scoring the winner in the previous home game against Fulham. I must admit, he does sometimes seem to take an age on the ball, and this often results in him being surrounded by opposition defenders before he can do much - but it really does surprise me that lots of Arsenal fans can't see his obvious effectiveness. It can be frustrating to watch, but 2 goals and 2 assists so far this season really do make the Hleb-haters sound like fools. Martin Samuel dedicates his match report to the man, and deservedly so in my view - he might be frustrating, but he played a massive part in winning us the game today.
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