Watford 1-2 Arsenal – 26/12/06 – (Barclays Premiership) 26 December, 2006

Not a very convincing win but a great day-late Christmas present none the less. I managed to get a ticket in the end, went down to the ground very early and waited around for a while outside the Arsenal area. One guy offered me a ticket for £250! TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY QUID? I just laughed and told him he’s never going to get that. When I went to Arsenal vs. Real Madrid without a ticket someone offered me one for that, even then it was a ridiculous price and today was Watford not Madrid. 45 minutes before the game I overheard someone saying he had a spare because his son couldn’t go, I asked him if he would sell it to me and he gave it to me for face value. Fucking brilliant! Such a nice bloke not to make me pay tout prices, it was only £35 in the end.

It was the same team that put 6 past Blackburn on Saturday so I was pretty confident we’d beat Watford comfortably. We started slowly and I accepted that because it was cold, we had a game a few days ago and the Turkey was probably still uneasy in the stomach. However we didn’t really pick up our game and we were not dominating like we should’ve been. Watford certainly created the most in the early part of the game, they didn’t look too dangerous but that had the majority of attacks. That was the thing that kept me going, although Watford had more chances they lacked quality whereas the quantity of our attacks was made up by the quality of them. Foster made a few good saves from close range and probably kept Watford in the game.

It took us until the 19th minute for us to score. The goal came from a Tomas Rosicky corner which was whipped into the near post, Toure knocked it on and captain fantastic had a free header by the far post to make it one nil to The Arsenal. That’s 2 headers from corners for the Brazilian and that goal was his 8th this season. One nil up against Watford it should be game over but credit to the home team for pushing on.

I expected Arsenal to take confidence from this goal and go on to get a couple more however Watford equalized 5 minutes later to let us know they weren’t just going to let us walk all over them. Bouazza got down the left and Toure deflected his cross but it went straight to Tommy Smith in the area and he shot passed Lehmann to make it 1-1.

It was pretty much all Arsenal up to half time but we were still not playing well. That beautiful football that we saw in the second half against Blackburn seemed like years ago, you wouldn’t believe it was the same team and only a few days ago. Watford had a chance with Bangura who shot just passed the post before half time.

Senderos came on for Djourou at the interval, I still don’t know why but Big Phil had a great game and was rock solid in that second half. We started with ambition after the break and we looked like we were going to take the lead soon. Rosicky forced a good save out of Ben Foster early on and then a few minutes later Tomas put in Adebayor who was through on goal if it wasn’t for an interception from Shittu.

However that momentum soon died down and the second half became very tense viewing. As in the first half the majority of attacks were going Watford’s way but the real goal scoring chances were ours; however we couldn’t convert anything. Theo Walcott and Julio Baptista came on to try and get us a late winner. Both substitutes had a big influence on the game and The Beast nearly scored with his first move of the game. Theo is always a lift for the team when he comes on and he was getting down the wing and playing some good balls like he normally does. Julio was playing a more forward position and was looking dangerous too, he nearly scored a few times, one shot went just wide of the post; his second goal for Arsenal is only a matter of time away. Hopefully he’ll get a few more chances from Arsene and with a performance like today’s and with RVP and Adebayor looking tired towards the end I wouldn’t be surprised if he started in Sheffield.

It looked as if we were not going to get the winning goal, we had many chances but nothing would go in. At this point our front two looked absolutely knackered, they’d done well all game and chased down everything. They were feeling it though and it was difficult for them to make a difference in the late stages. Adebayor was still trying though and went to the ground in exhaustion a few times, Robin looked as though he’d giving up though and we needed him to play. Then, 7 minutes from time RVP came up with the goal, it was typical Van Persie: having a quiet spell in the game and then to come up with a goal. However the credit for the goal has to go to Theo Walcott, Gilberto picked up the ball in a defensive position and saw Walcott open out wide and played him through. Theo sprinted and played a through ball to Van Persie who took the ball into the box and shot round the ‘keeper causing the away section to explode. It was a good goal and classic counter-attack Arsenal.

We could’ve scored one or two more in the final minutes with some good chances coming close to a goal. However we had to be careful that the team in 20th place didn’t nick a last minute goal. The final whistle seemed to take ages to come, but in the end it did and Arsenal were 2-1 winners on Boxing Day taking us up to 3rd. It wasn’t a good performance but it was three points and isn’t that all that matters? I spoke yesterday about how inconsistent we are and we proved it again, it would be nice to pick up and bit of form and carry it on week-in-week-out but a win is a win.

We have Sheffield United in four days so some build up to that one to come. Until then.