As you can tell from the title after watching the Arsenal v Burnely FA Cup I was impressed by the performance of not Eduardo, not Carlos Vela, not Eboue but Alex Song. Don’t get me wrong I never knew why we brought this cousin of a former Liverpool player. After having him on loan for a season, we decided to pay Bastia £1 million for him. Which I was confused at because I thought he was awful in the time I saw him. However, after some impressive displays at center back in the Carling Cup, I grew to like him and to some degree wonder how he did it all.
He was not the tallest or the fastest, but he kept winning the ball in the tackle on the floor and out jumping some tall strikers. But still I was not fully comfortable with him in the side. Untill this season…Wenger has shown faith in him and often played him center midfielder. Looking at some stats, he has played a total of 30 games this season which is 5 more than the player who always seems to be in the team Denilson. He truely is reaping the rewards of playing so much football. In the position he plays, he is never going to get the headlines (except mine) but he has put in some top class displays this season, including today and from what I remember he had a very good game in our win at Chelsea and our 0-0 with Spurs, when Eboue got sent off he was seen supporting the only striker in the 80th min.
Like I said he is not the tallest yet he out jumped Emile Heskey several times in our game against Wigan this season. He is great at timing and being strong in the tackle and I don’t think its possible for anyone to say at the end of the game that they have seen Song being bullied in a game.
His lazy looking attitude can be annoying towards Arsenal fans and other fans alike, but it is just the way he plays. His passing is the only thing that has let him down, sometimes a 10 yard pass to a team mate is not completed.
You’ll struggle to see him getting any assists Woops…Today saw Song create two assists.
So today saw Arsenal again boss a game in which they should do. The first goal came after 25 mins, when Andrei Arshavin gained control and played a ball to Carlos Vela. Vela with his first touch put the ball through the legs of the on coming Steven Caldwell and beat two Burnley defenders for pace, one of which had his shirt, and then cheekily lobbed the opposition beast of a keeper.
The second goal came when Song played a lovely ball over the top of the Burnely defence and Eduardo timed his run perfectly and then somehow hit a volley with the outside of his left foot and it nestled in the far top corner. 2-0 on 51 mins.
Theo Walcott started the game on the bench and left it on 71 mins to play upfront with Van Persie who also entered the game from the bench. Walcott created a chance for RVP but Robin mearly swung his foot and sliced the ball wide. Walcott was then put through by Arshavin and Theo could not find a way past Jensen in the Burnley goal.
In the 84th min Gallas played a ball through to who was on the egdge of the area and produced a magnificent back heel to the ‘third man running’-Emmanuel Eboue and as I was screaming ‘don’t put your foot through it like you usually do and it goes over’- well i wasn’t really I was nearly thinking it. He took it in his stride and put the ball in the bottom corner. 3-0 Full time.
Positives from the Game include:
- Alex Songs performance
- Another goal for Eduardo
- Carlos Vela showing the finishing he showed earlier on in his Arsenal Career
- Theo Walcott getting minutes under his belt, ahead of the game against Roma in which he could play a vital role from the bench if we are chasing the game
So we won the game and if we beat Hull at the Emirates in the next round we go on to play Chelsea at Wembley. Lets not get ahead of ourselves but it will be good to see Arsenal at Wembley again.
A long post so Im not going to go into my two weekend games in which we lost the first 4-1 (should have been less) and then today I lost 3-1 in which I have to admit their second was my fault. But it was only a cup game and they are in the league above us, so not the end of the world. Thats all folks.
[…] with Alex Song, who I was not orginally the greatest fan of, now as you who read my blog can tell, he has impressed me an incredible amount this season. He has developed from a young player who we did not know if he was a CM or a CB to a pretty darn […]
It’s not Carlos Vela’s fault that he is a Mexican, and I have no doubt that he is fiercely proud to be one