Blackburn 1 – 2 Arsenal

The Team Sheet

Almunia

Sagna – Koscielny – Vermaelen – Clichy

Diaby – Song – Cesc

Walcott – van Persie – Arshavin

The anticipated first starts for Cesc and Robin, meant that Wilshere and (surprisingly) Chamakh were relegated to the bench, while Walcott kept his place.  Song’s return to midfield pushed out Rosicky, who played so well last week, and must have been disappointed to miss out.  I also had a feeling on Friday that this wouldn’t be a game for Arshavin, but with him and Walcott flanking van Persie,  Wenger was clearly looking to take the game to Blackburn early on.  The best form of defence, and all that.

The subs bench (comprising Fabianski, Gibbs, Eboue, Rosicky, Wilshere, Vela & Chamakh) was similarly attacking, with no central defensive cover, but plenty of additional fire power if required.

Early Doors

Blackburn were always going to bombard our goal with high balls from free kicks, corners and long throws.  Their game plan, as we’ve seen in the past, was to crowd out the keeper and bundle the ball over the goal line.  In the first half we were letting them bully us too much in the area, and although they clearly knew what to expect, our defence looked nervous.  Before the first goal, they had already lumped  in 11 balls to our box, 5 of which found a Blackburn player, and only a goal line clearance from Cesc kept us  level.

We could have taken an early lead to settle our nerves though; a short corner was half cleared to Diaby who drilled a low shot through the crowded area, only to deflect off Vince Grella a few yards out on to Robinson, who knew nothing about his goal line save.

Walcott (20″)

Man of the moment Theo Walcott did give us the lead though in the 20th minute, busting the net (literally) after a move that began with Almunia with his now trademark finish, from the right side of the area slid across the keeper and into the far bottom corner.  It’s nice having a striker with a trademark finish again, Vela is trying to do something with his little dinky-chip, but Henry was the best at it; coming in from the left, curling it agonisingly around the keeper and clipping the post as it went in.  I don’t know how many times he did that, but in my head it was every goal he scored.

As the half wore on, Song and Cesc in midfield began to get sloppy, misplacing passes to the opposition and putting the defence under more unnecessary pressure.  In fact Cesc was way off the pace the entire time, hopefully he’s just rusty after a prolonged summer break, he hasn’t had a pre-season, but a solid 70 minutes against Blackburn will have done him good.

Six minutes after taking the lead it was level again when El Hadj Diouf out-muscled Koscielny on the right hand side, and played an inviting cut back for Mame Diouf to tap in.  Koscielny has spoken ever since he joined us about beefing up for the physical challenge of the Premier League, and for their goal he demonstrated the work that still needs doing.  But apart from that he coped well with what Blackburn could offer, he tackled well, won headers, and his technique for a defender is remarkable.  It’s easy to see what attracted Wenger to such a cultured young defender.

A familiar sight at the half hour mark, van Persie was down and in pain after a fairly innocuous challenge saw him take a kick to the foot.  Despite trying to play on for a few minutes he was obviously not comfortable, and off he came, replaced by Chamakh.  Afterwards Wenger played down the injury, the player will go for scans today and all being well Robin should be back in a fortnight, missing Holland’s first Euro qualifiers, and probably our next home game against Bolton.

Arshavin (51″)

After the break we actually looked more assured, less nervous under the aerial bombardment from Blackburn.  Chamakh’s defending at corners was just imperious, manhandling Samba exactly the way he would do to us at the other end, even Almunia was having one of his good days.  And not long after the break we regained the lead.  Another move that swept the full length of the field, from Almunia, via Koscielny, Cesc and Chamakh to Sagna, who burst into the Blackburn box and squared for Cesc again.  His shot hit Theo and rebounded into the path of Arshavin who poked home the winner.

From then on it was a bit of a rear guard action, as Samba became an auxiliary centre forward and more balls were aimed into our box.  As a fan these were nervous moments.  Jack Wilshere should have spared us some nail-biting when he replaced Cesc, a three against two Arsenal break ended with the ball worked to him 5 yards out with just Robinson to beat, but little Jack was off balance and fluffed his finish to keet us hanging on.

At the end of the day…

To have lost a goal to these bullies right at the death would have meant we start questioning ourselves again.  Has anything changed from last season?  Do we have the stomach for the fight?  Overall we proved that we did, and I was more delighted with the result than a victory over Blackburn really merits.  A win like  this builds confidence in the team, after two tough away trips where many will go and get turned over, we have drawn with Liverpool and beaten Blackburn, and yesterday we topped the table, albeit briefly.  It’s tough to keep momentum going after an international break, but we will need to pick up where we left off against Bolton in two weeks.

Player Ratings

Almunia – solid, dealt well with what he needed to – 7

Sagna – worked hard and was influential in creating the winner- 7
Koscielny – shown up for the goal, but grew into the game – 6
Vermaelen – marshalled the defence well, leader at the back - 7.5
Clichy - caught napping a little for the goal – 6

Diaby – the most assured of our midfield three – 7
Song - wayward at times but strong in the tackle – 6.5
Cesc - way short of usual his standards - 6

Walcott – dangerous and direct, he looks confident now – 7.5
van Persie – world’s most breakable man – 6
Arshavin – scored the winner, didn’t do much else – 7
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Chamakh – his physical presence at corners was invaluable – 8
Rosicky – couldn’t pick up the pace of the game – 6
Wilshere – flew in to a couple of tackles, but missed a great chance – 6