Superb Saturday morning in London. The sky was blue and the weather was really cool. The mood inside the tube was spetacular. Given I left home a bit earlier, I had enough time to spend at Arsenal, eating, drinking and chatting at Gillespie Road, before joining the atmosphere inside the Emirates. My seat was waiting for me at the Club Level today. The fans were all confident about a good perfomance, given our 4-0 victory over McClaren's side. They were all keen on bouncing back after that deplorable perfomance at the Cottage.
Differently from the game against Twente, we started the game very well. We dominated Newcastle since the very first minute. Our midfield was more efficient given our concentration. Cesc's presence was crucial, making a big impact in the heart of the pitch while we were very fast on the wings, as usual. Nasri was as sharp as always, and Eboue, who started instead of Theo. Yet, I was delighted with our effectiveness up front. Robin was sharp and fresh, whereas Adebayor looked more a support striker than the Dutch, curiously.
Just after the fifteen-minute mark, Adebayor tryed to cross, and N'Zogbia (who was linked to Arsenal a couple of weeks ago, heh) touched the ball with his arm. Van Persie took the penalty-kick and netted our opener. After taking the lead I've to admit it looked as if Arsenal calmed down. As I got a bit nervous, Owen almost scored the equaliser, what would've changed the game. Then the players felt the pressure and decided to make some impact again. On the right wing, Adebayor broke into the box, passed the ball to Eboue, who breathtakingly flicked the ball to van Persie, who scored our second goal. It was fantastic to see that almost the whole team celebrated with Eboue, recognising the crucial role he played during the goal. Nice to see the players are united and the friendship is that visible. And by the way, I'm really proud of Eboue. When his name was announced in the starting XI, I could see some fans behind me complaining about his presence, and then didn't even saluted him. Anyway, life's like that, and isn't it just awesome? When Robin scored after being brilliantly assisted by Eboue, I turned back so I could see the smile on the face of that guy. To complete such a great day, a superb change of balls between Nasri and Adebayor and then Denilson ended up in our third goal. Denilson, honestly, didn't have a great perfomance. Though he was effective defensively, he's far away from being a Cesc in the passes. However, he deserves the goal, due to the fact that I'm sure it'll have a big impact in his development as a player.
Overall, it was a perfect perfomance. Though, evidently, we made some mistakes, I'm pretty sure we'll achieve something if we keep playing this way. Finally the partnership between Kolo and Gallas worked and they looked solid. Clichy and Sagna not only were good attacking, but defending as well. Robin van Persie had a brilliant game. He not only scored twice, but created lots of chances and was a bit unlucky as Given saved his free-kick brilliantly. That's the van Persie we see playing for Holland and that's the player we want to see in Arsenal colours. We all know his capacity and that's why we want him to be on his top, playing the football he knows to play very well. And what to say about Adebayor? Simply fantastic. It was a pleasure to sing his two chants again, and seeing him perfoming so well was amazing. As I said above, he looked more a support striker today, or maybe a winger. He played wide open instead of playing in the centre, spot in which van Persie played more. The Togolese was the resposible for the three goals we scored today, and despite of the fact he didn't score, he played a crucial role for us today and was the man of the match, in my opinion.
It's impossible not to feel confident after such a perfect display. We scored 7 goals in the last two games and most importantly, playing very well. After seeing United being defeated by Zenit yesterday and Liverpool scoring only one goal with five minutes to go against Standard Liege last week proved the world that we're in the title race and ready to shut up pundits, managers and whoevever says we're not going to have a great season. Yes, we played very well, but to consolidate our high ambitions, signing one or two players until Monday is something imperative for us.
Carry on, you mighty Gunners.
Primary and Secondary for Arsenal
2 comments Posted by Arsenal F. C. Community at Saturday, August 02, 2008-By Fuad Khan
When we take into account a club like Chelsea, we can clearly witness that Winning there, is taken as primary objective of the club or wait, let me rephrase it ; 'winning-everything' is primary but when we talk about Arsenal there is still some confusion as to what is primary for the club and what is secondary, winning or attractive play ? I for one feel that since football is more about entertaining than winning-the-game-at-all-cost, none are so special as the Gunners, who epitomize what the beautiful game stands for.. People may think that since Arsenal have won nothing for quite some years it is relatively easy to say that for Arsenal all that matters is playing stylish football.. When people say Arsenal have won nothing over the years, they are quite mistaken.. Through the beautiful game, Arsenal have emerged and developed an image of a World-Class team with a lot of potential.. Youngsters from any part of the world would be ready to join Arsenal's Youth Setup, a treat *for the neutrals* to see Arsenal play, great players regard Arsenal as the perfect embodiment of Beautiful Football.. Now if thats not an achievement, I don't know what is..
"When I Want To See Cabinets Full Of Trophies I Go To Madrid, Milan Or Manchester But When I Want To See 90 mins Of Pure, Magical and Spellbounding Football I Go And Watch Arsenal" - The Great Pele
When I say that Stylish play is primary for Arsenal, I don't really mean that Arsenal wants to play good football and winning doesn't matter to them. For a fan, thats not acceptable.. But the fact that some clubs value winning over EVERYTHING else is just not right.. I would rather prefer Arsenal playing some great and stylish football and not winning than actually winning by *parking the bus infront of the goal* =) With the very same entertaining-style Arsenal performs week in week out, it was a shame we ended up winning no trophies, but its not long when we have silverware in our hands.. It was more to do with luck than anything that saw Arsenal close their highly-entertaining season on a low..
In the end I just want to say that for all I care, we might not win anything this season aswell, but if they thrill me with the brand of football that they normally do, it's good enough for me.
The future is bright. The future is now. The future is Arsenal =)