On the face of it, the game was a thriller – end to end stuff from the off, a terrifying penalty shoot-out and some dreadful near-misses.
And, somehow, we are in the Champions’ League Quarter Finals. Onwards and upwards.
Watching it, it was without doubt amongst the most boring Arsenal matches I can remember. It may have been end to end, but by the time it got to the relevant end, the attackers seemed to lose interest and feebly gift possession to the opposition. We carried absolutely no threat, even against a central defence which featured Riise for large periods. Robin was hopelessly isolated up front and whenever the ball reached him he snatched at it, aware that he needed something extraordinary without a supporting team-mate within 40 yards.
We had nothing. They had nothing. Between these nothings emerged a game so bad that poor Grabber almost lost his faith, not just in Arsenal, but in the point of football as a leisure pursuit. It was truely turgid fare – the first half was bad enough, by the time an hour had been played it was rare to see a pass reaching its target and both managers had slumped into their Club class seats in the dugout, sulking visibly and peering out occasionally between their lapels.
Something to get off my chest:
WHAT A STUPID FECKIN GOAL TO CONCEDE, I MEAN REALLY, YOU’VE WORKED YOUR BALLS OFF FOR A 1-0 LEAD AND THEN WITHIN 9 MEASLY SODDING MINUTES THE BALL’S IN OUR NET THANKS TO UNFORGIVABLE DEFENDING. NOT GOOD ENOUGH.
I BLAME GALLAS. AT LEAST TOURE TRIED TO GET TO IT. [that's enough shouting - Ed]
Observations: easy to say this with hindsight but a mistake to go with identical system/personnel to the first leg. Roma were clearly going to approach the game quite differently.
In a midfield which stunk pretty hard, Diaby had an especially smelly game. Roma were bereft of Perotta, De Rossi and (though he featured at the end) Aquilani. We ought to have been able to dominate from midfield as a result but, well, didn’t. I wonder if Song might have added something? Call that an outrageous piece of speculation about a player not much-beloved, but perhaps it would have been his night. It would certainly have freed up Denilson a bit from his defensive job, which was scrappy at best.
Gael and Bacary played OK, I thought, though Gael was mighty lucky not to concede that penalty when he hauled down Motta on half time.
Beyond that, I’d be fascinated to hear your views on the match and on its possible significance for our season. Wenger did his usual thing and built it up (remember his puff about “getting on the train and staying on it” for the triple header with Liverpool last season?) saying that the match would be “definitive”. Definitive of what? Ineffectuality? Or gritty, grinding victories?
We’ve started a new Arse-Poll (top right) to see who our knowledgeable readers believe to be the worst exponent of the Islington Shuffle. For those who might not know, the Islington Shuffle (IS) is the complex tactical ideology employed in recent seasons by Arsenal whereby possession of the ball is maintained in close proximity to the opposition penalty area for long periods of the game through a series of intricate lateral passing movements which amount to nothing. There can be no shooting, crossing or box-busting, surging running for the True Shuffler. Personally I thought tonight Diaby made a very strong case for the accolade of our foremost shuffler with some particularly fruitless shuffling.
Ooh, and don’t forget to enter our brand-new Phillosophy Football competition to win a Herbert Chapman t-shirt! Simply send the answer to the following question to admin@philosophyfootball.com, together with your name, address and t-shirt size: What was the formation that Herbert Chapman pioneered while he was at Arsenal? There’s five to be given away, and we’ll be announcing the winners at the end of the month.
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