Let’s all laugh at Tottenham 19 October, 2008

I don’t know how they manage it.

Oh Tottenham Hotspur you do make me laugh sometimes.

Arsenal 3-1 Everton – 19/10/08 – (Premier League) 19 October, 2008

We’re back to winning ways thank god, but we got there in an odd fashion. We had injury problems going into the game so this was the team Wenger set out:

Almunia
Song – Toure – Silvestre – Clichy
Eboue – Fabregas – Denilson – Nasri
Adebayor – van Persie

Not the greatest and not the one I would’ve picked to be honest. Not sure why Song was playing right-back, with that 11 I would’ve moved Eboue in there, Denilson out wide and play Song as the defensive midfielder.

I’m not really sure what Wenger picked worked to be honest. I think Denilson was supposed to be the ‘Flamini-type’ player with Fabregas roaming but it ended up with Denilson all over the place and Fabregas having to make loads of ground just to pick up possession.

A perfect example of this starting line up not working is when Everton opened the scoring after 9 minutes. Osman made a run towards the box and he was Denilson’s man, he just let him drop off and when Song wasn’t capable of holding the left winger it was a simple squared ball and tap in.

The build up to Everton’s goal was just horrible to watch, we let them pass it around as much as they liked and then we picked up no one as Osman slid in the opener. You have to partly point the finger at Denilson and Song, Denilson just didn’t even try to keep with Osman and Song should’ve really done better.

It was the worst start, and with Sunderland and Hull fresh in the memory I just sat there with my head in my hands. I thought, ‘oh no, here we go again’. We needed a goal quickly, I couldn’t go through us losing again.

We came so close to that equaliser just 5 minutes later. Cesc delivered a fantastic long ball from behind the half way line into van Persie. He took a touch to get to a 1-on-1 situation but in the end it was a good save from close range. Complete luck, Howard knew nothing about it at that range, van Persie should’ve stuck it inside the near post.

We were trying the long ball a lot but it wasn’t always working. It was quite scrappy at times, there were a few goalmouth scrambles that went unfinished and we lacked that final quality.

It was quite an open game, Everton were getting forward too and exploiting our mix-and-match defence. With 8 minutes to go of the first half Everton had about their 10th corner of the game…and they were getting closer and closer with each attempt.

Almunia came to claim it but didn’t even get close and Lescott rose to head into a seemingly open goal. Thankfully Clichy was back on the line to clear the danger.

Before the whistle went there was still time for Fabregas to hit a powerful long-range drive but that went just wide of the post.

So half time came and the boos rang around the Grove. I was booing the absolutely hopeless referee, however I bet a lot of those boos were for the team. They didn’t deserve that so I hope it was just for the officials. They were all hopeless, the linesman on my side was awful, he couldn’t keep up with Everton’s attacks and missed so many offisides. Also the referee gave some really odd decisions and was very inconsistent. He was doing us no favours.

Something needed to be sorted at half time. Arsene brought on Walcott for Toure who has suffered an injury earlier in the game. Eboue went to right back and Song moved into central defence.

Theo’s impact was immediate. He picked up the ball on the right and stormed down the wing despite pressure from three Everton defenders. He was eventually fouled and van Persie’s dangerous free kick (pictured above) was put out for a corner. That was whipped it and Silvestre found it at his feet just outside the box. He left it for Nasri who stepped up and smashed it low across the ground. Luckily it found its way through the legs and passed Howard into the back of the net.

1-1, and another decent strike from Nasri. This was the start we needed in the second half. The fans really needed a pick up and from here on to the end there was an incredible atmosphere inside the stadium. It was like the sort of thing you hear against United or Spurs, good stuff. Shows we can make some noise when we’re up for it but why don’t we just do it all of time?

We were really up for this now. We had our Arsenal back. With that goal and the encouragement from the fans we were looking for that second. It got a bit heated at one point when a load of tackles went flying in to win possession. One or two lost their heads and you knew that a bad challenge was on its way. Tony Hibbert was the offender and Denilson took the blow, Clichy reacted straight away and was punched in the face by Hibbert as you can see in this photo then the rest of the players started piling in.

In the end Tony Hibbert only got a yellow for his challenge and some how the ref justified that with a yellow card for Clichy. If you click on that link above you can clearly see the punch going in and the referee being right in front of it. How on Earth those two players received the same punishment is beyond me but there you go.

We had all the possession and all of the attacks but we were finding it hard to get that second goal as Everton had 10 men behind the ball. However after all that pressure we found a way through after 70 minutes.

Fabregas put Ade right through on the ‘keeper with a great little ball but for some reason he didn’t get the shot away. He kept possession though and played it back for Fabregas, his shot was saved but it looped up and van Persie nodded it in to make it 2-1.

Everton were never going to come back now. They’d lost. You could tell they were physically and emotionally exhausted. We kept the pressure on but tried to play with a little more caution, even still, Everton never really threatened.

I think their fans also realised it was game over and turned to the home fans for entertainment. I’m not sure how it all kicked off but there was a proper brawls going on down between the away fans next to the barriers and the Police. I’ve never seen anything like it inside a stadium in England before. Something must have happened to really set them off.

Left is a bad photo of it all but you can still kind of tell the police and steward presence down there trying to hold this back. Gilbertosilver from Gunnerblog was sitting down that end of the ground and he told me that the Everton fans were chucking coins and whatever they could get their hands on.

After a few minutes pretty much the whole stadium had clocked on to what was going on and all heads were turned to what was going on down in that corner; hence minutes 75-85 are a bit of a blur to me.

We made it 3-1 right at the end through Theo Walcott. He started the move off himself playing Diaby down the right to the by-line. He cut it back to Walcott who drove it low across goal into the corner. Another great finish like that from him and a well-deserved goal to reward his great second half impact.

So 3-1 the final score and three points finally in the bag, and with Liverpool, Man United and Chelsea all also winning it was vital we picked up the points. It was a really enjoyable game, much better than the last one I came up for. It was everything, a comeback, great goals, good football, lots of goals, fantastic atmosphere and a home win.

Next up it’s Fenerbahce on Tuesday night and it’s not looking good injury-wise. To add to all of those names that were out for yesterday’s game, Nasri and Toure also limped off. We’ll find out tomorrow the extent of those problems but we could be in trouble.

Thanks for reading. Speak to you soon.