Generally speaking, I like Christmas football, and Boxing Day football in particular. Strange things tend to happen, and you tend to see some weird results. Today, we just saw a great game of football - really exciting, and what makes people say nice things about English football. I went to Birmingham in full expectation that Arsenal would lose to Aston Villa (possibly quite badly), so the eventual result was better than that as well. The first half was a masterclass of Aston Villa's ability to create high quality chances, and Arsenal's total inability to defend against a decent team. Villa hit the woodwork at least 3 times in the first half, and created a stack of other chances too. The worrying thing throughout was that you could see lots of the chances coming from a mile away - the dangerous free kick that you just knew would find a Villa head and lead to a chance on goal, for example. Arsenal often had all 11 men back defending, but seemed totally unable to prevent such opportunities turning into occasions where the defence was evaded, the keeper beaten, and only the post saved Arsenal from going behind.
Having had such a rotten first half (other than a slight sniff for Van Persie, we did not look like we had a hope in hell of scoring), it was a very pleasant surprise when we scored about 5 minutes before half time. To describe this as "against the run of play" is a huge understatement - when I saw the ball hit the back of the net, I was too surprised and disbelieving to actually celebrate properly! It was a decent finish from Denilson, but completely undeserved on the balance of play, so it made for an amusing time in the away end.
After a half time break spent discussing how lucky we were, we went 2-0 up after a few minutes of the second half! A good move, this one - Diaby was having one of those rare moments where he looks like Patrick Vieira at his best (I did say it was rare). There was some great work by Eboue on the move as well, setting up Diaby for a very good finish. This goal was celebrated properly on the pitch and in the away end - we had an amazing and very lucky 2-0 lead, which prompted shouts of "we've only had 2 shots".
Even more stupidly, after going 2-0 up, we briefly became the better team in the game - some good passing, a few decent moves, and about 5-10 minutes where we looked in control of the game. Van Persie hit the post with our best chance of this period, but it didn't last too long. We were brought back down to earth with the award of a penalty to Villa on the hour - which looked justified enough both at the time, and watching on TV later. Barry took it very well indeed, it gave Villa a huge lift, and prompted Arsenal to resort to hoofing the ball into the upper tier of the stands in desperation again!
After all that, it wasn't a surprise when Villa eventually equalised, after yet another defensive lapse from Arsenal. It was in the 91st minute - always a time where you expect this Arsenal side to concede. But overall, I have mixed feelings about this one. Of course, it is very frustrating to have been 2-0 up, then 2-1 up on 90 minutes, and still to "only" draw the game - especially when it isn't the first time that we have let a lead slip recently. But we didn't deserve 3 points from this game, by any stretch of the imagination at all - so one cannot be too upset about not getting what we never really deserved. A point was better than I expected from the game, less than we could have got, and less than ideal. But, hard to complain at the end.
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