Birmingham 1-1 Arsenal – 27/03/10 – (Premier League) 28 March, 2010

Well what a disappointing day yesterday was. Us conceding in the last minute to drop two points in the title race and Chelsea and United boosting their goal difference with big wins against Villa and Bolton. We’re making it very hard for ourselves this year but we’ve come back from behind before so you never know we might do it again. Next weekend there is a game between the top two which I cannot choose a word from my thesaurus to describe the size of. However by the end of that we will have some idea what our chances are.

I’d just quickly like to explain the late match report. I’ve currently no internet connection, which makes it very difficult to update the blog. The next two weeks or so aren’t going to be very productive blog-wise I’m afraid. I also decided the other day that I am going to Barcelona – a 27 hour coach to Barcelona which means leaving Sunday morning and getting back Thursday evening so I will be away most of next week too but more on that nearer then.

I went to St. Andrews yesterday but the lack of a proper computer set up means I can’t upload any photos from the day! (There’s a couple on twitter though). The train left Euston at quarter to 12 and arrived in a surprisingly sunny Birmingham for lunch. I met up with some guys from the Arseblog forum with whom I helped put up the Arseblog ‘Do It For Aaron’ banner, I hope you saw it.

The game started off quite cagey and neither side produced that many chances in the first half. Howard Webb was doing his best to stop play whenever he could and seemed blind to Birmingham’s dives and quick to blow the whistle at any contact from Arsenal. It was almost as if he was distracted by a voice in his headset… Alex Ferguson perhaps?

Anyway our best chance of the first half fell to Theo Walcott who gambled on chasing down a long ball and it paid off as the ball bounced and spun into his path. However Joe Hart was off his line fast, Theo tried to get the shot away as soon as he could but by then the ‘keeper was almost in front of him and couldn’t steer it either side.

0-0 was probably a fair reflection of the first half. Although I’d say we were the better side we hadn’t done enough to merit a lead really. However that wasn’t my biggest concern at the break; after about half an hour Cesc took a clattering to his knee and was hobbling about all over the place and looked certain to come off. However the captain simply walked it off, went to the sidelines for a bit of magic spay and played on. He didn’t look himself though and for the remainder of the half you could see him carrying the knock. I was almost certain he would be taken off at the break, especially with Wednesday in mind but it didn’t happen.

We were better in the second half. We started to get the ball going and creating more chances. However it was still 0-0 and the nerves were starting to kick in. There’s been a lot of talk recently about us scoring late goals but pretty much since the hour mark went I was a nervous wreck pacing around in circles in the stand, sitting down, standing up again and generally looking like an idiot. I don’t care if we’ve got a record to boast about – if we’re not leading with less than half an hour to go I start to get worried!

It went on and on and I was looking over to the bench every two minutes wondering when we were going to do something to change the game. We had Arshavin, Nasri and Eduardo all warming up on the touchline nearest me, any of them would’ve done the job. I thought Fabregas would’ve come off by now but it just shows you how important Arsene thought yesterday was. Despite clearly injured and not playing well he kept him on in the hope that he could do something special and help us break the dead-lock. He’s now a doubt for Wednesday night which is just brilliant isn’t it. In the end Nasri and Arshavin were brought on with 20 minutes to go and it added a bit of pace to our play.

Samir is in fine form at the moment and he made a real difference straight away. Not to take anything away from Arshavin who looked much improved when there was an urgent need for a goal but Nasri was fantastic. He looks completely apart of this team now, he and Diaby were great in midfield and were involved in most of the moves we were creating.

Abou had the ball in the back of the net but the whistle blew before he shot. It was a good finish but most of us knew that it was disallowed before it went in. No one seems to know exactly why though; at first I thought Webb had forgotten about playing the advantage and were awarding us a free kick on the edge of the box where Fabregas went down but to my disbelief it was awarded the other way. The only man who knows why is a Scottish voice in Mr. Webb’s ear.

The 80 minute mark came and it was still goalless. We had to really go for it now and Eduardo was ordered to get ready. However just as he was pulling off his tracksuit we had the ball in the net again and this time there was nothing the ref could do about it. It was from an identical position as Diaby’s but this time Nasri shot and the finish was just as good as the previous, across the face of the goal low into the far corner. I went fucking mental, all those minutes of stress and we were finally in the lead with 9 minutes to go. Eddy was told to get his tracksuit back on.

We looked like we’d won it and we really should’ve consolidated it soon after. We had a few really great chances, one was a squared ball to Arshavin who spooned it wide, Fabregas hit a good free kick but was too close to Hart and there was one more which I think was a Nasri chance but I can’t remember – I didn’t feel like watching the highlights back.

Birmingham looked like they were going to witness a rare loss at St. Andrew’s until the very last minute when fuck knows what Almunia was thinking. I still haven’t watched it back and I only caught a bit of the replay of the goal scored down the other end of the pitch. Almunia seemed to block a shot that somehow went over his head and then fell into the net with it. I couldn’t fucking believe it. Everyone was speechless and there was probably quite a bit of damage to the ground after yesterday with everyone kicking seats and punching walls in frustration. I’ve heard that the flag should’ve gone up for offside before the goal was scored but I don’t even want to know about it.

So in the end it was a very familiar trip to Birmingham City, gifting a point in the very final minutes of the game and it might end up being where our title challenge disappears just like in 2008. It’s just so disappointing when we had it almost won like that to lose two points.

We’re still in the race but we’re heavily relying on the top two dropping points now. We probably could’ve afforded one draw in this run in and many believe Birmingham Away was our toughest test. No one in the top six has won there this season so when you look at it like that it’s really not the end of the world. We’ve just got to keep our heads up and keep going as we were. Next up in the league is Wolves at home, which should be a perfect opportunity to get back on track.

Before then though there’s the small matter of Barcelona on Wednesday, what a game that’s going to be. I’ll preview that at some point in the next couple of days, until then.