As the whistle sounded and Borussia Dortmund earned a 2-1 away win at the Emirates, a collective scream was issued from rooftops from Tottenham, Chelsea and as far away as Manchester. Surely this was the start of the Arsenal demise. Arsenal were poor, lacked quality, and were finally exploited by a much better team – or so they would have you believe. What game were they watching? It surely was not the 90 minutes played at The Emirates that I watched!
Yes, we lost slightly unluckily 2-1 to an extremely strong Borussia Dortmund who less than 6 months ago lost to Bayern in the Champions League final and currently sit 2nd in this year’s Bundesliga. But to say we were outclassed? Might be harsh. The first half wasn’t Arsenal’s best football by any stretch. Let’s learn from it and move on. I’m so loving the banter from the fans of some of Arsenal’s noisy neighbours by the way, who are so quick to take their shots when they can, but really, they can just pipe down now.
In my opinion the Dortmund match was just a small hiccup, much like the Villa defeat on opening day was. Despite the loss, it’s important to take some positives from Tuesday’s match. Santi Cazorla coming back from injury gave us that extra touch of class. His movement and vision have been missed, and did figure into the match. He was so unlucky with that shot that clipped the bar.
Regular readers of my blogs know how highly I rate our frontman Olivier Giroud, who quite simply has been outstanding all season. His game is well rounded as he expertly passes the ball to go with his patented crisp slices in front of goal to finish. He continued his scoring and is slowly padding his very impressive stats. Like you, I’m still finding a way to get back to YouTube for another view of that flick for Jack Wilshire last Saturday – that was otherworldly. I thought Laurent Koscielny was very solid without any frills, and Mikel Arteta did a great job with Mathieu Flamini out injured.
Of course there are negatives as well to be fair. Ozil and Ramsey who have both scaled ridiculous heights of recent weeks had an off game, neither really dominating as we have become accustomed to. But one bad game doesn’t make a season.
So as the team was going through their first set-back since opening day, it was important to play strongly in league play yesterday against Crystal Palace – which they did. Ramsey and Ozil were back on track, both playing well. Ozil does look a bit fatigued though, and could use another rest, or at least to be brought on late. Ramsey’s pass to Giroud just begged to be put home, and the Frenchman obliged. Now that was a thing of beauty. When Arteta was sent off with a straight red (which was harsh for me), the team buckled down and did needed to be done. It’s those kinds of wins which build character.
The important thing here is that the team is back in their winning ways, and Arsenal still sits atop the league table.
As Arsenal have an important clash against Chelsea mid-week, it will be the first true litmus test since the win against Spurs early this season. It will be interesting to see if Wenger decides to give some star players a rest or whether it will be all-out attack.
Until next time, Up The Gunners!
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