Arsenal Review – Great chance missed at Utd but pretty good week
So after what was a very good week of football for the Gunners with two very important wins against fellow Premier League contenders Liverpool, and Champions’ League group rivals Borussia Dortmund respectively; it all turned down to Manchester United on Sunday at Old Trafford, but unfortunately we couldn’t produce the same sort of result and bowed out in a 1-0 defeat.
The result was perhaps not entirely fair because it was a game of two halves. Manchester United had the first half in the bag as Arsenal struggled to produce any real effort on goal, whilst we were also quite prone to becoming worried when United were on the attack. However it was a completely different game in the second half and at some stage Arsenal had 68 per cent position compared to United’s 32. However percentages do not win you games because at the end of the day, our opposition was clinical on one set piece chance, coming from ex-Gunner and seemingly public enemy number one Robin Van Persie, compared to Arsenal who had several chances in the second half which because of a few players we failed to really take advantage of.
Bendtner was one player who had a fantastic chance, as did Gibbs and most notably Giroud, who could have had a decent crack at goal on several attempts. Our midfield was really missing from the game as the trio of Ozil, Cazorla and Ramsey failed to perform. Sagna was on his game as was Gibbs and I thought Vermaelen did relatively well after being thrown into the mix with Mertesacker’s absence.
The thing that has made this defeat all the more annoying is the fact that elsewhere in the league the results were so good for Arsenal. Chelsea’s draw and defeats for Spurs and City respectively put Arsenal in a pole position to extend the lead even further however we couldn’t take advantage and instead Liverpool are just two points behind the Gunners now.
The thing is, although it’s disappointing to lose to United when we were so confident that we could finally take some points away from Old Trafford, at the end of the day, it’s not all over because we still lead in the premier League and I think the wins against Dortmund and Liverpool were more important that against United.
Now we have the international break, before returning to Premier League action with Southampton. The Saints are sitting nicely in 3rd place so again it’s a very tough test for the Gunners, however it’s vital that we knock them back and in fact pick ourselves back up because otherwise we could start to see what so many people see of the inevitable decline.
