Huge win today! Doing the double over Spurs in one season is extremely enjoyable! (Triple if you count the FA Cup:)!! I am not going to lie, for the first 65 minutes of the game today i was screaming at the TV and pulling my hair: #1) we should have scored two more goals on the counter and put the game away #2) Tottenham could have scored at least 3 themselves!
I know it was a strange game simply because Rosicky decided to score the prettiest goal of his Arsenal career in the 2nd minute of the contest! Obviously, scoring that early changed our mindset and we sat back a lot more than we probably would have otherwise. But for large periods of the first 65 minutes, i didn't think we belonged in a title fight: we weren't pressing enough and we allowed too much space for the Spurs players to operate in. On top of that Oxlade wasn't able to score (or at least pass to Podolski) during a lightning counter attack. I felt that this is a Spurs team really shaky at the back and we couldn't take advantage of that, or at least put them under more pressure!
I know it was a strange game simply because Rosicky decided to score the prettiest goal of his Arsenal career in the 2nd minute of the contest! Obviously, scoring that early changed our mindset and we sat back a lot more than we probably would have otherwise. But for large periods of the first 65 minutes, i didn't think we belonged in a title fight: we weren't pressing enough and we allowed too much space for the Spurs players to operate in. On top of that Oxlade wasn't able to score (or at least pass to Podolski) during a lightning counter attack. I felt that this is a Spurs team really shaky at the back and we couldn't take advantage of that, or at least put them under more pressure!
But to their credit, everyone settled down around the 70th minute and we kind of closed shop at the back. The last 20 minutes of the game i felt that we were defending very calmly with the exception of the constant booting of the ball up field, instead of stringing a few passes together. Wenger actually made good substitutions considering how thin our bench is and we were able to close the game out!
I have been mentioning this a lot lately, but i still feel that Arteta continues to struggle big time in the middle of the pitch. For playing such an important holding role his speed is a huge concern, i would play him a bit higher up the pitch because when he loses the ball deep in our half, he just can't recover. I wonder if Kallstrom will be a better alternative if he is fit enough? Oxlade continued his excellent play even though he was asked to play a bit further back today. His speed allowed him to burst forward whenever he had the opportunity and he had chances to double our advantage on more than one occasion. Hopefully his finishing will be sharper next time. Rosicky was outstanding and his goal was unreal! The guy is capable of shots like that, it was great that today his aim was spot on! Cazorla was lively throughout the whole game and even though he had some uncharacteristic giveaways, he had a solid performance.
I have been mentioning this a lot lately, but i still feel that Arteta continues to struggle big time in the middle of the pitch. For playing such an important holding role his speed is a huge concern, i would play him a bit higher up the pitch because when he loses the ball deep in our half, he just can't recover. I wonder if Kallstrom will be a better alternative if he is fit enough? Oxlade continued his excellent play even though he was asked to play a bit further back today. His speed allowed him to burst forward whenever he had the opportunity and he had chances to double our advantage on more than one occasion. Hopefully his finishing will be sharper next time. Rosicky was outstanding and his goal was unreal! The guy is capable of shots like that, it was great that today his aim was spot on! Cazorla was lively throughout the whole game and even though he had some uncharacteristic giveaways, he had a solid performance.
The back four were outstanding today! Mertesacker won pretty much every high ball in our penalty area and almost scored on the other end! One of his best performances in an Arsenal shirt. Sagna was also outstanding. He had to deal with the speedy Rose the whole game and to be honest, i feel that he wore him out, because towards the end of the game Rose was not flying forward as much. Gibbs and Koscielny were also very solid and Koscielny blocked what looked like a sure goal after Szczesny had a sloppy attempt on the ball. Other than the mentioned casual mistake that Szczesny made, he also had a good game.
Podolski worked hard all game and had Oxlade rolled the ball to him in the first half, he would have had a tap in goal. Surprisingly though, he was out of gas in the 70th minute and Wenger did well to sub him. I don't know if he is not a 100% because he was a sub for a long period of the season but he has to bring his fitness level up, so he can last 90 minutes! Giroud was almost invincible for long periods of the game, but to his credit in the last 15 minutes when we were booting everything up field, he won a ton of high balls and won us a lot of extra seconds.
All in all, a tremendously important result for us because it leaves us in the title race!!! We definitely need a better performance against Chelsea next week, but hopefully the team gets a lot of confidence from this win and steps it up. If we play with more purpose going forward and do a better job of taking our chances we can pull off a result at Stamford Bridge! But if we allow them too much space and time on the ball like we gave Tottenham today, we will have a tough time getting a result there. C'mon You Gunners!!!
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