Liverpool vs Arsenal

To those of you who have read this blog more than once, it might seem that i am a grumpy motherfucker who is never happy with Arsenal's wins but believe me: It's not true. I was ecstatic both this Saturday when we beat Liverpool and last week when we beat Tottenham. As a fan i am always happy to see my team win!

But as a blogger and a person who really wants their team to be one of the best, i can't say that we deserved to win against Liverpool, heck, even a draw would have been too much for us the way we played most of that game. As i watched the first half, i couldn't believe how disorganized and sloppy we were with the ball. We couldn't keep possession (the one thing we do well even when we suck) partly because Liverpool were doing a great job of pressing us as soon as we got the ball, and our defense was being toyed with for most of that first half.

What drives me nuts is that Wenger can obviously see what's happening (this is his quotes after the game) " Liverpool had a very good first half and we were not in the game - what was flattering for us was to be 1-1 at half time.  Liverpool played with a rhythm and pace above us in the first half and our fluency was not there at all, we gave them too much room.  ". Let me re-read the second line: "we gave them too much room". We give too much fucking room to everyone we play against!!! This has been our problem for so many years and if he can see it, it would be nice for him to do something about it. I took some pictures in the second half of the game because i couldn't take it anymore. In the first half, Downing was firing crosses from the left non stop and Sagna (who actually had a good game) would just give him room to keep crossing the ball with no pressure on him whatsoever. How hard is it to close the distance and not allow a guy who is good at crossing to cross the ball? Even when Liverpool had possession in our half of the pitch we would still sit back a few feet away from them and wait for them to pass the ball around. Because i couldn't take it anymore, in the second half i took the pictures below:

This is Vermaelen in front of OUR penalty area being pressured by Henderson, he passes to Koscielny...

...and Kyut is already there closing down on him. The result was that the Koscielny kicked the ball forward and we lost posession...

...now compare the above picture to this: the ball is in our OWN half and look at the room Diaby has given to the guy with the ball...

76th minute - we are still not closing down on opposing players who are about to cross the ball, can Henderson have any more space to cross?

My whole point is that, too many times we allow teams do have space and time on the ball instead of closing them down. That creates pressure on our defense and if we weren't so lucky this Saturday we could have lost 3 or 4-1. So yes, i am very happy we got an ugly win but our luck won't last forever.

I was really disappointed with Benayoun, Rosicky and Arteta. The last two had a great game against Tottenham, and on Saturday they couldn't string two or three passes in a row. I expect more from senior players like them, not one good game and then a complete meltdown. Benayoun was even more disappointing   to me because he started a 2nd game in a row (most of us think he needs more games to show his true potential) and not only he didn't improve from the previous game but he was unnoticeable the whole game. Theo was not great either. Szczesny was the man of the match with Van Persie right next to him. They both played great and gave us a win we didn't deserve. I definetely want to mention Sagna's cross for the first goal because i always bash his crossing, i hope he keeps proving me wrong. And Song deserves mention for another creative pass, for a defensive midfielder he keeps showing great touch and vision in the final third.

Last but not least: i really hope Wenger makes some changes for the AC Milan game, these 11 guys are tired and some of them injured, we need some fresh legs and this is a great opportunity for guys like Miquel and Park to step up. Hopefully Djourou won't play because we don't need clumsiness on the field on Tuesday. Huge game against Newcastle coming up as well. C'mon you Gunners!!!