Up For Grabs Now

So a slim 1-0 lead to take to Rome but, I feel, a lead which ought to make us strong favourites to progress to the quarter finals.

It should have been more. The tie should be over.

Let’s get the missed chances out of the way first off, principally a howler from Eboue who decided to fanny around inconsequentially when one-on-one with Doni before sidefooting wide. Then there was Bendtner who somehow managed to clear the crossbar from about 8 yards and loads of time. There were other good chances, of course, but those 2 were the ones that you really have to nail in a tie of this magnitude.

I thought we’d be punished tonight, let’s just hope we don’t regret those misses too much in Rome.

Yet apart from their glaring misses, Bendtner and (especially) Eboue had played well. It was a strange decision from the Boss to start Nasri inside with Bendtner wide left and Van Persie alone up top, but it unsettled the Italians and while Bendtner’s individual performance left a bit to be desired, the tactical threat which he carried was considerable. Eboue had a strong game defensively and seemed to have got over the concentration deficit which has plagued him so often. His charges forward were pretty regular and, like most teams, Roma didn’t really know what to do.

Unfortunately, neither did Eboue once he got himself into a position to really cause some damage.

You sometimes get the feeling that people who talk about Arsenal’s ‘Total Football’ have got it all wrong. Total Football is about players who are comfortable in loads of positions and can basically execute whatever skill is required of them. Many of our players simply don’t have this. They are passers and providers who have worked so much on that aspect that they seem to have lost the ability to shoot, or simply drive past the final man when you’re charging forward and he’s backpeddling. Surely it’s not that hard, and if Wenger did a bit of shooting practise with the likes of Denilson, Eboue, Clichy, Sagna I think we’d see quite a few more goals.

Obviously they’re never going to be our main scorers, but in situations like Eboue found himself in this evening, it would be nice to be hoping he would score rather than waiting for him to miss.

Also, and I know a lot of fans will have had this thought, but since we have a player with such extraordinary close-control and ability to shoot on the turn as Van Persie, the Islington Shuffle is especially counter-productive as an effective way of scoring goals. We got the penalty after 2 quick, central passes ended up at Van Persie’s feet and the defender couldn’t deal with it. We always used to pass quickly, but right now we aren’t trying to walk the ball into the net (the common misconception) but are in fact executing a complex routine of goal-threat avoidance. I just wish they wouldn’t.

Still, a strong performance overall from the boys, who made Roma appear very ordinary indeed.

Their defence looked pretty suspect and Mexes should really have been sent off with a second yellow for the penalty. Roma will carry a definite attacking threat in 2 weeks time, but without an away goal or the suspended Daniele de Rossi, they will really need to come at us, which should provide lots of counter-attacking opportunities for the MAJESTIC Robin Van Persie to blast contemptuously into the net and then repeat his dandruff-brushing routine.

We always play well in Italy.

PS Don’t forget to enter our brilliant Philosophy Football competition. You could win an extremely elegant t-shirt.

Tags: Arsenal, Robin van Persie, roma

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 24th, 2009 at 10:24 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.