Resident Blogger : SimonSEEZ
Really does it hurt any less because it’s a Capital One Cup exit or the manner in which it came? To be fair to the team there were spells of that game that we had the momentum going forward and it did look like we were going to get back into the game. Santi Cazorla huffed and puffed, Rosicky tried severally to put in balls through to Ryo and Bendtner to no avail. The two weren’t just good enough either to take those chances or read the pass correctly.
Wenger put out a stronger team than most of us expected and we were all excited about it, the team sheet gave us a huge sense of believe going into the game as our midfield was strong, Jack, Ramsey and Rosicky are all quality players, our defence was ok on the night on paper, Captain Vermaelen, Jenkinson , Koscienly and Nacho, that’s a premier league defence on a normal day. It was going forward we really had doubts and those doubts proved to be real.
Bendtner, earlier in the day I tweeted that this game was meant to be some sort of an audition for him. Everyone was watching, it was going to be his first start in almost two years for Arsenal, he was playing against top quality opposition and had an opportunity to prove that he still possessed the quality to play in any top European side. Did he take it? Hell no, completely awful, at some point especially in the first half he seemed completely disjointed with the team, he wasn’t getting any balls and he wasn’t going to look for it either.
Every top quality forward now does more than just sit there and wait to be fed, you need to get involved. Few minutes we saw Giroud and it was evident why Bendtner would never ever ever start ahead of him and should never ever ever start for Arsenal again. Faced with a golden opportunity to redeem himself in the second half after been fed a wonderful pass right in front of the goal keeper, the Dane passed the ball back like he was a fucking Chelsea defender. Gervinho was maligned by everyone for his miss against Bradford and maybe that miss killed his Arsenal career but this one by Bendtner was just as awful. Two players needed to prove themselves last night, Mata and Bendtner, why Mata needs to prove himself is just unbelievable, this is a player that should have walked into the Ballon D’or awards and he proved himself yesterday, Niklas on the other hand showed why he should be playing in the only place he knows how to play, ship this dude to the Danish league please!!
It wasn’t all just Bendtner though; Jenkinson didn’t cover himself in any glory. What was he thinking when he headed the ball back to Fabianski. We all go he did a Nastastic yesterday but to be fair to Nastastic, Jenkinson even had a better view of both the ball, the keeper and the player running behind him and still chose to do the number one thing he shouldn’t have. This was just Sunday league defending and if you think giving the goal away was bad, then you should watch his overall game performance, awful crosses, killed every form of attack the team had that ended on his feet, infact he had one of those days in the office when you just want to jump so high a ceiling fan slices your neck off. He is a good player, always seems to want to do well and he works hard. Is his talent failing him? Only time will tell.
Overall the more established players did well in the game and were let down by the actions of a few. Heading into the run of games we have now, we need to forget this defeat and move on. The manager has an arduous task of getting momentum back into this team as Liverpool visit this weekend and that game is not just about three points its now about showing that we won’t fall every time we meet top quality opposition.
Almost time to get to work but before I end this post, for those of us who don’t live in London or anywhere near where we can get to watch the game live we were inundated with ‘off to the Emirates’ tweets yesterday. Almost everyone was off to the Emirates helped by the record low prices which the club must be thanked for as United still sold as normal rates I hear, but Chelsea had 9,000 fans in the stadium and the announcement during the game said 59,000 people were at the game last night. How is that from the first minute of the game till the end of it those 9,000 fans were louder than our fans. At least that’s what I heard on TV in far away Nigeria or did I hear wrong?
Have a great day Gooners!!!
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