Everton 1-0 Arsenal – 18/03/07 – (Barclays Premiership) 19 March, 2007
Posted by lasagnechef in Premiership.trackback
How the fuck did we lose that? I tell you what we should’ve lost at Villa and won at Everton so I suppose it’s levelled itself out. It was a very quick start to the game, whenever the ball was won heads got down and there were quite a few decent attacks in the opening of the game.
We had Baptista and Aliadiere up front who were working well with the midfield doing some good passing moves. Diaby was superb again in my opinion; worked his socks off and did a brilliant job. Gallas also had a good game but his partner at the back Gilberto was having a shocker. Nearly gifted a goal to Andy Johnson but Lehmann recovered well diving and push the ball away from Johnson.
We were having more attacks than Everton but theirs looked more dangerous than ours. Every time they got forward into our half they looked confident and we looked shaky. Going forward we weren’t bad, but we lacked just that very final quality again.
I was very surprised that it was still 0-0 at half time; I expected us to be winning but in reality the home side could’ve been too. They’d hit the woodwork, had a decent penalty shout and tested Lehmann.
I was pretty confident that we’d win this one, the goal hadn’t come yet but I was certain it was on its way. However as the clock ticked by with the scores level I began to doubt it. We were coming to close to scoring, Aliadiere got on the end of a couple of runs but couldn’t quite steer the ball in.
When the board was put up for three minutes of extra time I thought to myself ‘Oh bollocks Arsenal you should have won this one, we’ll never catch up with Chelsea not taking three points at fucking Goodison Park. We’ll I suppose the one point will be okay oh hang on there a bit of dang…shit.’ Everton have to go and score don’t they. The cross was whipped in and there was a bit of a goalmouth scramble. In the end the ball laid off for Andy Johnson about 5 yards out and he just smashed it into the back of the net. A few players tried to throw their bodies in the way but it went straight through. Lehmann just missed it but he would’ve needed a very strong hand behind it to have stopped it from going in.
It was a crappy game to lose but in the end after I’d calmed down I thought it doesn’t really matter any more because we’re not exactly in the title race or anything. 3rd and 4th will be closely contested but at the end of the day there’s really not much difference between them. However I think we’ll finish above Liverpool anyway. We’ve got to play them next in two weeks time, next week is internationals. Woohoo…look forward to another week of fuck all news. See ya.
How the hell did we lose this game? I tell you how we lost this game we were beaten by the better team, I have to admit that if we had beaten them it would have been harsh! Sorry but I’m just speaking the truth, even our manager realised this without maybe going as far to admit it but he certainly did not moan about it. They showed more guts and Johnson caused us problems when he was running at our defence. One other thing Lehmann is a good keeper but bloody hell he should have been concentrating where the ball was instead of pretending he was hurt before the corner kick was taken that led to the goal! We have injuries at the moment and it showed but we will beat Liverpool in two weeks no problem.
Can’t say I was too surprised about the result. Once Everton started getting those set-pieces in the last few minutes, I kept expecting for Bolton, PSV, Blackburn to repeat itself all over again…and it did. So with that said, what did we learn from this game?
Baptista: It’s possible he could turn the season around and score 30 goals with his big toe alone, but this game felt more like the final nail in the coffin of his career at Arsenal.
Diaby: Looking better and better. very direct which we need, but his final ball never came. he held onto it until he was dispossessed. once he cures that, he really is going to be great.
Gilberto: Let’s hope we get djourou or toure in central defense, cause we need him in midfield, not at the back.
Hleb: sure he came back from a recent injury, but he seems to have take a BIG step backwards.
Beyond that, we just have to hope that adebayor comes back in raring form. Our midfield are actually playing pretty decentish, but we are missing our strikers so much right now it’s ridiculous. So to all those who now want us to splash 40 million pounds on Eto an sack wenger and save the whales, just go away. we lost. It’s our first loss of this year. it’s not the end of the world.
i had big hopes for baptista, but that was before he kicked a ball for us. Once he did i said he wasnt good enough to play for us and I just don’t know why oh why wenger persists with him…. i guess wenger now has no choice… Diaby, looks good but his first touch is off, i guess its the long lay off thats caused that.
Baptista… he’s still a maybe. That said, could we get someone more definite? Yes. I don’t think we will though so we have to hope he comes good. If he actually started to put away easy headers we’d be happier (and still in the FA Cup and Europe?!)…
Aliadiere is OUTTA here. I’m glad he has gotten his chance before being sold. But it has merely confirmed the suspicion that he just is not good enough. No excuses for that shot he skied over the bar and it’s all too familiar from him.
Diaby’s first touch isn’t the issue, it’s Fred’s! I do wonder if he’ll have a renaissance. It’s not impossible. I just wonder if it’s probable. But it is lousy and often puts us under pressure.
Hleb… he worries me. Sometimes excellent, sometimes awful. Kinda like Baptista. We can’t tolerate that inconsistency. I would be surprised if he left though unless a decent bid came in.
it’s funny but very early on this year, the sometimes right/sometimes wrong/always amusing football365 noted that we were relying on our strikers way too much for our goals. They then wondered what would happen without them…well now we know.
The Everton game was really crushing, but the reason I felt decent about it was: a last-minute goal in a blizzard doesn’t exactly mean we sucked the whole game despite what some of the whingeing fans thing.
Plus, diaby was excellent. And it looked to all the world as if Cesc has watched a few game films of Lampard and decided he was going to pump in 4 or 5 shots per game from outside the box. That’s exactly what we need him to do! As Fat frank shows, sooner or later you get lucky, and if cesc can give us 6 or 7 goals a year, we’ll be top of the league.
taxi for Aliadiere!!!