During this post Im going to elaborate on my experiences of watching the last two games and stressing out.
After our impressive win at the Emirates against Porto we travelled up north for a evening kickoff with Phil ‘Orange man’ Brown’s Hull City.
I started off watching the game and was impressed that our form had continued from the Porto game. Furthermore our lazy Russian Arshavin scored after ghosting through several Hull players and cooly finishing with the outside of his right foot to put us 1-0 up with only 12 mins gone. I thought to myself that if we continued to dominate this game then it could be 4 or 5 nil.
But nooooooo, 14 mins later a ball over our defence to an ‘offside’ Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, a chasing back Sol Campbell jumped on to the back of him and was adjudged to have not denied a goal scoring opportunity (because the ball was behind him), was given a yellow card and a penalty was given. Bullard stepped up and buried the ball into the net.
We pushed and pushed until the non stop pressure from our players wound their players up and Boateng was booked for being annoyed at Bendtner and deciding to poke him in the eye. Somehow Bendtner was booked to for his part, maybe for shouting at him or something.
Boateng was later sent off for studding Sagna on the knee, which could/should have been a straight red itself.
We kept them in their half for the remainder of the game, threw on Eduardo and Walcott. Their introduction nearly made an instant impact with Theo setting up Bendtner to have his shot deflected over by Hull defenders being committed.
Then in the 90th minute a Denilson shot from 30 yards was not handled well by the Hull keepers and he parried it to Bendtner who had to deal with a bouncing ball at waist height and showed composure and technique to knock it past Byhill.
Full time 2-1
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The next game against West Ham I watched in London with my friends after beating them all at ten pin bowling. So to make my day, all I needed was a win against the Hammers to make my day.
This was a game of the first 5 minutes and the last 10 minutes. The first 5 minutes saw us playing some quite beautiful football and continue to dominate the half, with West Ham troubling us once or twice with a free kick and Mido nearly latching on to a cross.
But then before the end of the half, our defence was caught napping and a ball over the top saw Franco and Vermaelen chase it down, TV5 was gently holding the Hammer’s man shoulder and Franco, being Franco an ex Villarreal player collapsed to the floor and the ref (on the half way line) gave a penalty and sent TV5 off.
Diamanti, a dead ball specialist stepped up and sent his kick to Almunias left, which he streched out and palmed the ball away. “YESSSSS” I shouted. The half time whistle was blown and Wenger was waiting at the edge of the tunnel to moan and should abusives at the officials.
Song moved back into the defence to partner Sol Campbell and Denilson played the holding role in midfield.
So at half time we was 1-0 up and we were down a man. Not looking too good….if you were any other fan except an Arsenal fan. For some reason we seem to be able to play as well, if not better than we would with 11 men. I guess it does not change our system too much with leaving one man up front and the midfielders get the chance to join Bendtner at every chance they can.
Diamanti continued to try and make up for his penatly miss with a few shots from distance. We also tried our luck from distance with Denilson and Fabregas testing the Hammers defence.
Wenger brought on Diaby for Bendtner to protect our lead, and us not to rely on Arshavin to chase back and defend. He was allowed to stay up front and conserve his energy.
Carlton Cole who started on the West Ham bench (thank god) came on and barged his way through the defence to drive a low left footed shot on to the outside of Almunia’s post and our keeper celebrated like we had won the game. Great to see passion like that from our players.
I then was stressing out about them nicking a goal in the last 10 minutes. But a poor pass by one of the West Ham defender was intercepted by Cesc which landed at the feet at Eboue who ran at their defence and layed a ball through to Cesc. With his first touch he chipped it towards ex-gunner Upson who handled the ball to stop our captain running on to it. Penalty.
Our spainard grabbed the ball placed it on the spot and showed nerves of steel to launch the ball into the net.
2-0 Game over. THANK GOD THAT IS OVER.
Great character in the past two games, which really has shown me we have what it takes to win this title. I kept saying to myself, if we win this we really have got what it takes to win the title. I am not saying these remaining games are easy, Birmingham away, Man City at home and the scum away. Tough games who have got to fight for everything to stay up, get in Europe or just get their own back on the reverse fixture against us (think Everton).
So hopefully we can keep winning games and show the title winning mentality to win the title and bring it back to North London.
(picture courtesy of Daily Mail, Accessible: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1259614/Cesc-Fabregas-bans-Barcelona-talk-focus-title-charge.html)
I'm no Nelson Vivas but... 