Arsenal 1-1 Birmingham – 12/01/08 – (Premier League) 12 January, 2008
Posted by lasagnechef in Premiership.trackback
What went wrong? I mean, the first half went so well. We played Birmingham off the park. The one nil lead wasn’t a lot but everyone felt sure we’d finish them off in the second half but they equalized in one of their very few attacks. No way in hell did they deserve to go back to Birmingham with a point against the league leaders (not anymore).
Walcott started ahead of Rosicky as he got sick last night, other than that it was the team everyone expected. We started really well and the visitors could hardly get out of their own half. We should’ve scored inside the first quarter of an hour. Gallas had a free header but it was soft and straight at the ‘keeper. Eduardo and Adebayor also had chances they didn’t convert but we were certainly showing the promise of a goal.
Just when I was thinking in my head that Birmingham haven’t had had an attack, they did, and it was quite a decent one. Cameron Jerome broke through the defense and shot across goal but Almunia did well to get down to his left and tipped it out for a corner.
A few minutes later Eduardo had a brilliant chance to take the lead. Hleb played a perfect cross in from the left, right onto the head of Da Silva. He met it well but it was right at Taylor, anywhere else and we were one nil up.
In the 22nd minute we did finally take our deserved lead. Eduardo was fouled in the area by Stephen Kelly; I think he might’ve got some of the ball but they were lucky not to be losing anyway. Adebayor put the spot-kick right in the corner, Taylor went the right way but he missed it by a few inches. 1-0 to The Arsenal and I was sure there was more to come. We couldn’t manage another goal before the break but we were cruising.
We had kick off to start the second half and you could obviously tell that Wenger had said that the one goal lead was too fragile and we need to add a second asap to make it game over. Every player sprinted into good positions but we sloppily lost the ball. We fought for it back but we gave away a corner to Birmingham. And would you fucking believe it Garry O’Connor scored. I haven’t seen the replay of the goal but the ball went in the back of the net with everyone looking in disbelief. I’ve read that Fabregas got a bad deflection on it and Almunia had no chance, it didn’t look like there was a lot wrong with our defending though. Their goal was completely against how the first half had gone. I couldn’t believe it.
No matter, lets pick our heads up, we’ve got a whole 40 odd minutes to take the lead again. We really pressured Birmingham, attacking with everything we had but we just couldn’t score. We brought Bendtner on with 25 minutes to go in the search for a goal.
Everyone was trying to score. Sagna and Clichy even had some decent shots on goal. As time ticked away I thought this might not be our day especially with Maik Taylor in goal.
With a couple of minutes to go we had a fantastic chance to get the goal. Hleb pulled the ball across the face of the goal but no one could stick a foot on it, I’ve heard Gallas just missed it diving in. Also in injury time Fabregas had a long range effort go wide. He scored a few of those earlier in the season and we could’ve done with one today.
It finished 1-1 and Gooners were left very disappointed. If this game was earlier in the season we would’ve won, it felt like I was watching play last season. Also it seems like forever since Cesc or Hleb has scored, a couple of months ago the goals where coming from all over the team, now we seem to be relying on just the strikers.
It wasn’t a particularly bad performance. The first half was really quite good, and the second half was just us pushing and pushing with Birmingham all behind the ball. I’m still quite upset by the score, with losing our place at the top of the table it’s been quite a bad day for us. We’ve got a chance to move on next weekend against struggling Fulham. A comfortable win there would really do us some good.
We’ll move on from this though, at least we didn’t lose. I just can’t believe we didn’t win. Speak to you soon.
Maybe this has been coming. We’ve not had our usual fluency for a while now. I thought we’d be ok today with Cesc, Flamini and Hleb back, but you can’t turn good form on and off like a tap.
It reminded me of last season too. Loads of good possession and quality football spoiled by a single defensive lapse (there was a lot wrong with our defending of that corner). Then loads more good possession and quality football, but not quite enough composure to break them down.
Hope it doesn’t become a habit again!
Walcott was terrible, he needs to grow up fast if he wants to play in the first team. Kept trying to take on their whole team and losing the ball feel sorry for Sagna.
You can blame Walcott all you want but by pressing Arsenal very high on the pitch Mcleish acheived a masterstroke.It was bold and could have backfired seriously but didnt and made our play look laboured.Walcott actually tried to do some things off the cuff when we needed it but it didnt come off but he tried. Fabregas looked completely out of sorts and had a stinker off a game and once again we looked for that illusive plan B that didnt occur.Something is very wrong when you can dominate a game like that 78 to 22 percent and still not win…………….sort it Wenger.This is not the time to crumble.
bad luck there.
walcott will take the blame for the loss, the way song did against fulham last year. and truly, walcott was terrible. but otherwise that was just some bad luck. I thought senderos was decent and flamini was once again awesome. let’s get a deal for him!
Seemed like it was 10 men vs 12 men for birmingham. All I saw was Walcott continuosly giving the ball to birmingham, at least give Randall a chance instead of Walcott coz clearly he doesnt derserve it after a perfomance like that!
This draw really frustrated me more than I thought it would. At home against a relegation fighting team, we should win. After our first half, we should win comfortably.
Then it all crashed down on us in the second half. We had 16 shots, they had 2, we had 16 corners, they had 3. I would agree with bad luck like sanfrangoon said, but we usually create many more clear cut chances. We didn’t today.
We played narrow, we didn’t finish them when we had the chance in the 1st half, and our last 15 mins didnt feel like our other games when we knew we had something coming. Bendtner did well when he came on I think in helping improve our movement at least.
Anyway, the curse of the “manager of the month” struck again I guess.
good game for senderos and the flamster but can’t say the same for everyone else… I might even say that we got lucky to get the penalty since the bham defender seemed to have gotten a touch on that ball. Loads of possession but nothing to show for it….smells likes last season
I think wenger will need to review his transfer plans. He needs to buy a right winger at least. Bringing vela might help. Without rvp we look toothless in atk. Now this is my transfer prediction: a right winger + some kids.
Extremely dissapointed with the result. There were two major problems. Fab is out of form and AW made a tactical error. Once Birmingham scored, and even before that, everyone knew that they would slowly but surely drift back into a ten man defensive wall on the edge of the box. So take off Eduardo and put on Bendtner who can cause more trouble in situations like this. So where there is no room to thread the ball along the ground you have the option of playing it in the iar for Bendtner. it is another option. Some more shots from outside the box would also create more havoc than defending subtle triangles of Fab, Hleb and Eduardo once of course they decided to defend en masse. I would even have gone for Diaby over Fab. Why can’t they mix up the corners. All Fabs corners went into the keepers hands. Of course with VP it changes but what an even better reason to give the corner to Sagna, Clichy, Flam, just to mix it up. Walcott played poorly but I would have kept him on becuase at least he tried to prise open the defence whereas most players were just innocuous. And Manure beating NU makes it even haredr to digest. This is the score we should have won by against Birmingham. Why doesn’t every team seek to play Manure and Chelsea they way they play Arsenal?
I always beleived Rosicky and to an extent Hleb were lightweight. I cannot see the use of having a player like Rosicky who is so injury prone. It just upsets the team as he was in the squad up until last night or the morning. The same I am afraid seems to be the case for van Persie.
The recent article on the online gooner about Walcott comparing the perception of him to the emperors new clothes story is on the money. Not only is he not good enough but he has actually failed to improve to any degree in his time at arsenal. Now I don’t expect him to be a world beater at 18 yrs of age but we should expect a degree of improvement. If anything he has regressed. He is not good enough for arsenal. I doubt he ever will be but one thing is certain- at the moment he should be playing for the reserves cos he is a liability on the first team. Wrong decisions, giving the ball away, poor distribution etc. Because he is english he gets little stick. If wenger had spent that kind of money on a 17 yr old french lad and this was all he had to offer the fans would be asking serious questions. Eboue gone to ACN, Thomas ‘Sicknote’ Rosicky unavailable again- we need anothwer option. I agree about Randall- simply looks a better option than walcott at the moment- give him a go pls Mr Wenger.
YOU MUGS! NONE OF YOU LIKE ARSENAL MORE THAN ME! SING UP AT THE GAMES YOU MUPPETS! ARMCHAIR SUPPORTERS!
The lads are human and they will rebound next game.
ditto
Fuckers,
Read a quote by Anelka in the fucking Guardian today. I admit, I’m putting words in his fucking word-hole, but; He quoted Bergkamp as his favourite partner; He said he didn’t appreciate what he had when he was younger; He said he had to play at a big club, any big club, even those Russian fuckers at Chelsea. Fuck me down if that fucker didn’t all but scream out that leaving the Arse was the worst fucking decision of his fucking life.
We could’ve used a fucker like him against Birmingham. It makes me weep with fucking sadness that that fucker isn’t plying his trade over at Emirates. Fucking hell, he’d be as good as van Persie, and healthier, too. Ye fucking Gods and little fucking piglets, Wenger even said Anelka was the biggest fucking regret of his whole fucking career.
Connolly’s fat Agent,
He’s been mediocre everywhere he’s gone. Pops up with a few great goal every now and again, bit so did Ronnie Rosenthal.
Now eat my ass hole
Connolly’s fat Agent,
He’s been mediocre everywhere he’s gone. Pops up with a few great goal every now and again, bit so did Ronnie Rosenthal.
Now eat my ass hole