After a few months of depressing League form, it was great to have Champions League football back - possibly for the last time for a while, if the League form doesn't improve. That said, I suspect the Champions League may be our best chance of a trophy this season, as the playing style suits us much better than the "English" style. Our biggest danger is probably when we meet another English team to knock us out! I am one of those Arsenal fans who loves the big European nights at home (as opposed to the crap European nights) more than anything else - and on an unseasonably warm evening, the atmosphere was much better than usual inside the stadium.Roma had had a season of two halves so far, really struggling in Serie A for the first few months, but then coming good in the last 10 games or so. Meanwhile, they had been doing well in the Champions League, getting a win and a draw against Chelsea in their group. Given how good they can be, I was surprised by how poor they were in this game. They had their moments - a couple of chances in the first half, some fleeting moments in the last 20 minutes or so, and a very tense last 5 minutes plus injury time. But for the rest of the game, Arsenal pretty much dominated. A surprisingly poor showing from the visitors.
However, that probably shouldn't take anything away from one of the best Arsenal performances in a while. The team was set up to attack, with Van Persie up front on his own, Nasri in central attacking midfield, and Bendtner and Eboue given licence to roam on the left and right. Roma just didn't seem able to cope with the four of them, and for large periods of the game, Arsenal were first to most of the loose balls - with sharp passing, good possession, and a number of great chances created. For the first 15 to 20 minutes of the second half especially, Arsenal seemed to be mounting wave after wave of attack.
The goal came not long before half time, Van Persie being fouled in the box, and getting up to despatch the penalty pretty emphatically, despite some Roma gamesmanship to try to put him off. The other good chances in the game came all over the place, but Bendtner and Eboue both missed very good chances indeed. Bendtner missed 2 within a couple of minutes - the easier of which he didn't even manage to hit the target; and Eboue later took an age to finally shoot, before missing when he should have done better - even accounting for the fact that he is a defender.
Overall, though, there were plenty of positives from the game. Nasri was absolutely outstanding throughout, and this was a really big game for him. Scoring 2 against Manchester United earlier in the season, and now this - he looks like a player who can really do it when it matters. Toure and Gallas are starting to look like proper defenders again, to the extent that you almost fancy us to keep the clean sheet we need in Rome in a fortnight. Both the BBC and the Guardian reports talk about how we could have scored more - that is true, but the clean sheet this evening is the thing that could well be more important. We go to Rome in decent shape, I think. It could have been better, but it could also have been a lot worse.
No comments:
Post a Comment