Liveblogging Wolves v. Arsenal
Pre-match snews –
Wenger has explicitly stated that Almunia is going to be number 1 for Arsenal from here on out, unless he gets another chest infection. I guess he was out with a combination of a chest infection and some kind of family tragedy, which the rumor mill had pegged. We should be a little careful here in jumping on Almunia, I think, give him a chance to get back to his best. Yes, I know, he’s not Akinfeev or whomever scored highest in FIFA 10, but he’s our keeper until January at least, so getting too vitriolic isn’t helpful.
My favorite quote from Wenger about keeper goes like this:
Goalkeeper is a position that is guided by fear more than any other. You have only negative stress. A striker has a positive stress. He thinks, ‘I can be a hero’, but the goalkeeper thinks, ‘I don’t want to be a villain today’.
As someone who has been forced to play in goal I can agree with Wenger here. In fact, I was asked once what it was like to play keeper and I described it as “44 minutes of boredom and 45 seconds of terror.”
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Lineup –
Looks like some pretty major lineup changes according to YouAreMyArsenal’s twitter: Almunia, Diaby, Sagna, Fabregas, Vermaelen, Eduardo, Gallas, Van Persie, Ramsey, Arshavin, Gibbs with a bench of Senderos, Rosicky, Nasri, Song, Silvestre, Mannone, and Eboue.
Interesting choice there, Song must be on the bench to avoid a yellow ahead of the Sunderland match on the 21st where his strength and size will be critical.
Moment of silence
Well done there, not a single person acted up.
Kickoff — And Wolves get us started. I liked Wolves better when they were sponsored by Doritos.
4′ — Wolves playing VERY physical to start, Rambo fighting back nicely. This camera angle making me a bit seasick…
5′ — Mindless mistake from Diaby, but Vermaelen recovers with a great tackle.
8′ — Rambo is our holding midfielder today. Does Wenger see him as a viable solution to the Song Conundrum?
10′ — Gallas with the Yellow and Arsenal are reeling. Wolves have a ton of belief and are buoyed by the crowd here. Arsenal need a goal, stat.
14′ — Stonewall penalty denied, that was a knock on effect from Sportsmail’s “anti-diving” campaign against foreigners.
17′ — Yan is the first one in the comments, only to say that he can’t watch the match. Damn, sorry Yan. Meanwhile, Arsenal get lost on a free kick and Wolves blow a wide open header.
20′ — It takes 20 minutes before Arsenal are able to hold a shape and get an offside. Rambo is playing hard but Wolves have a little bit more belief at the moment and a lot more energy. Arsenal attacking a bit and put a little pressure on Wolves end. More of that please.
23′ — Arshavin gives away a free kick while Diaby is off with a knee injury. Fuck. Song on, he needs to not get a yellow, we need him against the beasts in Sunderland.
26′ — @WC — Song was being reserved because he’s on his 4th yellow, one more and he’s getting a suspension .
28′ — Own goal to Fubar. 1 nil to the Arsenal. Frankly, I don’t care how it happens, should take the wind out of them a bit, and sure enough, Arsenal are on top right away. Let’s get another! Rambo, now with two shots!
32′ — Arsenal clicking now. I like the combo of Rambo and Song, there’s a lot of strength and talent in that pair.
While we’re in a lull, would anyone care to explain what constitutes a foul in the air? I can’t for the life of me figure out how they make these calls.
36′ — Arsenal defend very well and Wolves leave a huge gap of space which is exploited by Rambo and Eduardo chips a shot which is defelcted for the second own goal. Dudu raises his shirt and it says something that I don’t understand. I wish Yan had seen it, maybe he could translate.
40′ — Arshavin yellow, professional foul.
44′ – @WC, that all makes sense, what about when a player is backing in to another player? DAMN! Rambo is everywhere, both putting in great tackles and poor headers!
46′ — Arsenal football at its best, Fab to Sagna (Fab keeps running), Sagna to van Persie, who lays off for Fab, who just makes a nice goal. 3-0 to the Arsenal!
HT — Wolves lasted 20 some minutes before Arsenal’s class just shone through and since then they’ve been at 6′s and 7′s. Early on, Arsenal looked crazily disorganized and Wolves had a very clear chance on goal which was wasted. They’re also executing their plan and getting loads of free kicks in our area but they can’t get anything on them. Frankly, I’ll be surprised if Wolves don’t get a goal out of this match. It will be down to the start of the second half and how hungry Arsenal come out of the tunnel. They need to want the clean sheet, they need to grab this game by the throat and force a clean sheet, however you want to put it. Mick McCarthy will have this Wolves team geed up and an early goal might give them belief, get the crowd back, and Arsenal could lose some of the attitude they garnered in that first half.
The first 10 minutes of the next half are crucial.
@nycgunner: Robin van Persie, half man alligator half shark, all BergkampHenry.
46′ — I don’t want to take anything away from Diaby, but watch how Rambo gets both forward and has the positional awareness to get back. He may be one of the smartest players on the field.
51′ — Arsenal all over Wolves, they need a goal to cap this spell off and put this Wolves to bed. I was worried that Wolves would come out and show some fire, but they really just look tired.
56′ — Mooney comes a long way out and claims a free kick. Arsenal’s defense looking very organized, Wolves will find it very hard to break this down.\
59′ — Fabregas scythed down and the ref calls a foul, giving a card to Gibbs. Yes, well, he deserved it for a late challenge. This is followed by another yellow, this time for Wolves, who put in the “Dorito Crunching Tackle of the Night” on Sagna.
65′ — Wolves sub, meh. Come on Arsenal, get a goal… Arshavin with a shot forces a great save.
66′ — There it is: Arshavin fires Hennessey’s clearance into the lower left, clean goal. 4-0. I fancy a 6-0 line, with goals from Eduardo and van Persie.
69′ — Vermaelen lucky to escape a yellow for a high boot that hits Doyle right in the nose.
71′ — Rosicky on, Eduardo off. Fine, let Rosicky get the 5th. By the way, Goonerholic is at this match with his son, taking the boy to his first Arsenal game. What a first game eh?
74′ — Rambo looking jaded, was a bit ponderous with the ball and lets someone disposses him from behind, but overall he’s been remarkable tonight and shows it as he tracks back and makes a good tackle. As for the goals scored, yes, it’s 55 in all competitions so far, and 36 in 11 Premier League matches. I WANT MORE, X-BOX 360 ON EASY STYLE.
78′ — Arsenal working hard for the 5th goal, blown chance from Cesc, but you can sense that this team wants to score as many goals as possible.
84′ — Refereeing the scoreline, as Cesc marauds forward while Mancienne is dragging him back and gets no call.
85′ — Commentators are criticizing Robin for beating the keeper twice and not having a shot, but he didn’t have a shot because Wolves got back and defended well. Maybe he could have done a bit better but not much really.
88′ — Correct DF, we’re seeing the harvest of young talent at Arsenal this year and it is bountiful indeed!
Come on boys… I know it’s more symbolic at this point but a clean sheet would have been nice.
FT — Well, a great performance all around. I kinda wish that we’d kept the clean sheet, but as I said a few weeks ago, this team is just not built that way. Plus, you can’t really be too upset when they concede at 4-0 up.
Yes, I’d like them to be ruthless but we don’t know how they felt at the end there, were they tired, risking injury? I’d rather we played a 4-1 win and don’t suffer an injury to a key player like Vermaelen or Cesc, than get a clean sheet.
Also, shout out to Gibbs and Ramsey. Sure, they made some mistakes but so too did our experienced players; Eduardo and van Persie. In the end it’s not the small things, but the score line that matters.
Finally, earlier this week I called for a decisive away win to show our title challenge credentials. Our away record has been mediocre but today I think we announced ourselves with a decisive win against a motivated team.
Right, now we have two weeks before proper football. Arsenal in second place, a 4-1 away win… not a bad way to enjoy the Nationalism breaks.
See you tomorrow!