Well, this scoreline made me sit up and look at the Bolton’s team sheet. It pained a lot more after I looked at that team sheet and found out that not a single player in that side would make it to the Arsenal starting XI. (Maybe a case can be made for Anelka and Nolan, but even they would struggle.) Before, any postmortem is done this Arsenal side should be told that a lot of Football matches can be won or lost in the mind. And in the first half the Gunners lost it in their head.
Let’s face it, we were just poor in the first half. Pathetic defending from Adebayor lead to Faye scoring the goal from the corner in the 9th minute. I wonder what Adebayor was doing running away from the goal rather than with Faye. It was really poor. And the only defender in that area was Fabregas who is hardly capable of holding off Nolan and Faye together. The second Bolton goal was just too good. There was no way Lehmann could have stopped that shot from Anelka. From a defensive point of view you could argue that Anelka should have been closed down quicker, but I will give it to Anelka and take absolutely nothing away from him.At 2-0, it was game, set and match for Bolton. At least a lot of people thought so, but Gilberto had other ideas and scored from a corner. So, it finished Bolton 2 – Arsenal 1 at half time and with Arsenal scoring just before half time, the atmosphere in the dressing room would have been much better.
I don’t know what was said in the dressing room during the break and who said it. But, in the second half Arsenal came out and played Football as it should be played. In the first half it looked like they came out with the idea that Bolton are going to come out and play a more ‘Direct‘ game. And since they had such an idea they were crying and pleading with the referee to book the Bolton players everytime they were tackled. In fairness, Davies should have been sent off, but they should realize that there are many ways to play football and the way Bolton play it is one of the ways. In the second half they came out thinking that they had to play football and they did an wonderful job. There was spirit, enthusiasm and even beat Bolton in their physical game a few times. Adebayor, Ljungberg and Fabregas hit the woodwork and were quite unlucky. Had the first two chances gone in the scoreline might have been different, but ‘ifs and buts’ don’t win you games. And when Anelka scored the third goal the game was beyond us. There might have been a hint of offside, but there was no daylight between Senderos and Anelka.
Yesterday, I wrote that a ManU win will be good for us and I still maintain that even though it would leave us 12 points behind ManU, provided we win the game against Wigan. The only sour point the result is that we will not be able to exert any pressure on United or Chelsea unless they drop a few points of their own. We have lost 8 points at the Emirates itself, which should be corrected with time. Later, Arsene Wenger wrote us off the title race saying that
We are too far behind. If you look at the number of points we have
dropped and the way we have played it is really difficult to take.
He would surely be thinking about the chances that Arsenal have had in the games and even a conversion rate of 1 in 5 chances would have served their cause.
Looking at the performances yesterday it looks as if Ljungberg doesn’t do much other than crib to referees. I can’t remember the last time he made those incisive runs into the box or beat a player. Freddie, perform on the pitch before talking about others. Adebayor and Flamini looked out of sorts. Walcott and Eboue looked pretty comfortable on the right hand side while Fabregas and Gilberto played their part.
Baptista doesn’t looked a Brazilian player for me as he seems to lack control on the ball. But, I would like to see him in the side if Arsene sticks to playing 4-5-1 system. Since, Rosicky is injured play Hleb-Fabregas-Gilberto-Baptista-Van Persie with Henry up front. Wenger said that Adebayor bring in physical presence to this side. Yeah, he occuppies space physically, but that is it. His noticeable contribution came in the ManU match, but after that he hasn’t impressed at all.
Yesterday, I wrote that Henry’s absence might be a blessing in disguise. But, I realize how wrong I was. Even if Henry doesn’t play well, he is capable of one or two of those magic moments and the teams also rallies behind him well. I think Wenger might bring back Bendtner back in January even though he has said that Birmingham can keep him till the season end. Bendtner might bring the physical presence required in the penalty area and we sorely seem to be missing it. Maybe Wenger should think about playing Baptista as a striker more than a midfielder.
I wish this Bolton game acts as a wake up call for all the players. If we play in other matches for 90 minutes as well as we played in the second 45, teams will really struggle to beat us. I feel that this is the low point for the season and things should get better from now on. And from now on the graph should only go upwards.
Picture Courtesy: BBC
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