Arsenal were very good, Denilson got his once yearly shot from outside the box on target, and Song frequently sprayed balls all over the shop, frequently to no one, lots of niggly stupid tackles aswell but as always throughout last year, when the opposition midfield is simply not there, they don't look bad. When the opposition has some players, they look pathetically poor. The rest of the team was good throughout last year but the midfield fell apart to any team that pressured.
I've never rated Everton's midfield, if you remember they started off poorly with everyone saying Fellani was woeful, it took him some time but when he hit form Everton were a different side, they had bite in midfield, goals and a threat in the air. Fellani looked like early last years player, not one of there best 3 players as he looked for most of last year, that virus and dropping poundage really showed, he was just non existant today.
Problem is when Fellani isn't there, the massive size of Pinaar, Osman and Cahill means, well they suck badly, very very badly.
Arsenal's attack was superb, Bendtner started the play and "did" his man to set up the first goal, won the freekicks for goal number 2 and 3 and was just solid throughout. As with Eboue Bendtner gets the ball turns and finds a pass or runs towards the goal, rather than Ade's recieve the ball and look for the nearest safe pass.
Arshavin was quality throughout, Fabregas grew into the game. Early on with the game more of a contest at 0-0 he was frequently if not always the deepest of the central 3, he works very hard there winning the ball and getting it up the field safely. However early on RVP looked incredibly isolated with Fabregas so deep, lots of long balls hit up to him that resulted in very little. After the goals the game turned into a mauling and non contest, Fabregas moved much further forwards and our attack linked up much better. Aside from the goal and a few freekicks we didn't create many actual chances in the first half as Fab was so deep. Second half with Fab further fowards we looked far more fluid and created a lot more chances from open play.
The only not great performance I thought was maybe Sagna, quite a few fouls, out of place a lot which Gallas had to cover, people ran in behind him quite a lot and a couple very poor clearances, seemed to be lacking his usual pace aswell.
Great start from Arsenal, but we had those games last year, its when we don't play the smallest/unfittest midfield in the league that Denilson/Song looked completely out of depth.
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. Will see how we are doing after 4 games before i start getting excited. Hope we give Pompey a stuffing next week as my Daughter wants to see some goals!
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