Arsenal 1 Aston Villa 1
Senderos og 27, Bendtner 93
You can only play as well as you are allowed to play.
Aston Villa were better than Arsenal.They didn’t allow them to play as they would like to play at home.
Crucially, the pace of Villa’s wingers, Young and Agbonlahor, nullified the pace of Arsenal’s full backs, especially in the first half.
So it was an insipid first half showing, an own-goal by Senderos, a bad miss just before the break, a last-gasp equaliser in stoppage time.
Why did Arsenal play so badly? Was it Milanitis? Fatigue telling on a small squad?
Saturday was one of those days when every Arsenal player got a 5 : Flamini mediocre, Senderos clumsy, Diaby taking too long to pass, Hleb anonymous, Walcott lively in the first half but switched wide in the second, Adebayor missing a sitter by heading over from six yards, Clichy asleep on his flank when he should have been two yards further forward with his arm in the air.
As Agbonlahor zoomed down the channel, Gallas appealed for offside.He should have played to the whistle and got tighter. But Agbonlahor had been cutting in on his right foot and this time Gallas gave him room to cross low and left-footed and the ball went in off Senderos at the near post. Gallas later made some superb tackles in the box and led the charge at the death by moving up from the back.
Almunia had a good game. Punched one cross a long way, tipped a Shaun Maloney shot onto the post, came off his line well, made a good save from hulking sub Marlon Harewood
Fabregas had his worst game ever and missed Arsenal’s best chance in first half stoppage time, sidefooting over the bar. There was too much feeble shooting by Fabregas, Flamini and Hleb. Put your foot through it once in a while!
First half, Arsenal looked flat, tired, hungover from the Eduardo’s horrific injury. After Brentdner came on for Diaby it was 4-4-2 and more promising and eventually Clichy’s pinpoint cross was nodded down by Adebayor and Bendtner equalised from six yards. With two seconds of stoppage time left! That’s the second best time to equalise. The best is before the other team score, as a famous Irishman once said.
In his programme notes Arsene Wenger said that he will not buy a striker in the summer because he has Carlos Vela coming back from loan. Vela now plays for Osasuna in La Liga. How many of the teams Vela faces every week are as fiercely competitive and organised as Aston Villa?
Some Villa fans were singing, “Eduardo used to have silky skills, now he walks like Heather Mills.” Such morons shame their club and they even shame the underclass that spawns them.There was trouble and bloodshed after the game.
The Villa centreback Curtis Davies was carried off with a ruptured achilles tendon and will be out for six months.
Why did it take Arsenal 93 minutes to score? Because Aston Villa were the better side. At Birmingham last week, Arsenal were robbed. At the Emirates, Villa were robbed when they were two seconds away from a 1-0 win on Martin O’Neill’s 54th birthday. And O’Neill will think : We’d have won if Reo-Coker and Davies hadn’t gone off injured.
Clearly, Arsenal are not playing well.
This was four games without a win but Wenger said the late goal will be a big point. If Arsenal become champions, he will be proved right. But their season now looks fragile, precarious, close to meltdown. Sky’s Sunday morning hacks wrote off their title chances, as you would expect.
But Arsenal are top after 28 games with 10 games left to play. They are one point above man United. And they go to Milan as league leaders.They will still be league leaders when they fly home.
United coasted to a 3-0 at Fulham and I won two bets on that game. I always win bets on Saturdays and lose them on other days. We didn’t know that Chelsea would beat West Ham but they strolled it 4-0 with Joe Cole and Ballack back after being dropped for the Carling Cup Final last weekend. Cole scored two goals and Ballack one. They were 3-0 up when Lampard was sent off, rather harshly, on his old manor, after a bit of argy-bargy with the provocative Boa Morte.