In a six-match mini-league Arsenal wanted six points from CSKA Moscow and would have been happy with four.
But they lost 1-0 last night.
They now have 13 days to learn the lessons of the Lokomotiv Stadium.
If they spend those 13 days squealing about a disallowed goal they might lose 1-0 to CSKA again.
Over the 94 minutes last night CSKA were tactically superior. More mature, more organised, more aware. In the first 20 they swarmed round Fabregas, took the ball off him, forced errors in the middle third.
CSKA think as a team and run as a team and play as a team. They’re not as classy as Lobanovsky’s Dynamo Kiev in the Shevchenko-Rebrov era but they’re a disciplined outfit.
Arsenal’s quick passes carve holes in most Premiership defences but CSKA, the Russian champions, were too shrewd to allow that. They had three at the back against Henry, never gave him space on the left flank, and with two up they could hit longer passes than Arsenal. Maybe 4-5-1 will never work against 3-5-2.
Daniel Carvalho scored from a free-kick in 24 minutes.
CSKA broke away and kept the pressure on and Arsenal could not clear the ball. Lehmann whacked Djourou’s backpass away but it went to a Moscow player and then Dudu beat Gilberto and played his pass before Djourou clattered him.
Then Arsenal showed us how NOT to defend a free-kick in the D.
Gallas distracted the wall by going back on the goal-line then coming out again.Arsenal had a wall in which Fabregas was the last man, and two blockers who would, in theory, charge down the free-kick.
The ball was rolled square to Carvalho, which should give the charger a good chance of blocking the shot. But Djourou and Fabregas were not concentrating, Carvaldo hit a thunderous shot, Djourou turned his back and the shot flashed between him and Fabregas and beat Lehmann.
At the crucial moment Rosicky and Djourou were looking behind them, so they reacted late. It was amateurish. Why? Because Arsenal obviously don’t work on this stuff.
You thought : Why have a two-man wall if they bottle the chargedown? Why have chargers if they can’t concentrate on the man taking the free-kick? Why not have just one charger, a gutsy specialist, like Scholes or Ljungberg. Better still, maybe, let Lehmann see the ball.
Managers like Wenger and Benitez often say that this kind of match is won and lost on a detail. That detail was neglected.
Five minutes later Vagner Love set up Carvaldo for a dipper which Lehmann tipped over.
Then Love stabbed in a low cross but he was offside and the goal was disallowed.
By then we could see that CSKA were not Watford. They have width and depth and technique.
When van Persie had two breakaways, at the end of the first half, he wasted both.
On the first he gave the overlapping Gallas a bad pass. On the second he was half-looking to pass but mainly looking to shoot and could not make up his mind and so allowed Akinfeev to tackle him with his foot. A current international strriker should not allow a goalkeeper to tackle him with his foot and take the ball off him.
So it was 1-0 at half-time and CSKA had outplayed Arsenal.They had outplayed Arsenal more thoroughly than any side in the last two years.
Lining up in a 4-5-1 with van Persie on the left is a fudge. It’s neither one thing nor the other.It’s not the best way to use the Dutchman. If Arsenal line up like that and beat a bad team it doesn’t make it right to do the same thing against good team.
Second half, Arsenal came out and, for ten minutes, attacked with a lot more composure and belief and it turned into a good game with attacks and counter-attacks.
In that period I was thinking : CSKA are a very good side at home, so drawing the second half 0-0 would be a kind of success.Both sides created half-chances.
Adebayor replaced RVP in 67 and when Walcott came on for Rosicky in 79 and won a free-kick and a corner.
FABREGAS was well below average in the first hour but superb in the last 20 minutes, forcing the attack and chasing back to win a great tackle in his own box.
That he could come back and play so well at the end was extraordinary.
Thierry Henry had done nothing for 85 minutes, squandering a couple of promising situations, and then CSKA brought on a sub for Vagner Love when the game was stopped for a free-kick to Arsenal.
Toure measured a long free-kick which beat the jump of Adebayor and bounced to Henry, who controlled the ball on his stomach and stroked the equaliser sweetly past the keeper.
No defender appealed for offside or handball. The nearest defenders, and the keeper, all thought it was a goal and accepted it. None of them protested
But the Spanish referee Mejuto Gonzalez disallowed the goal for handball and gave Henry a yellow card !
After being booked for scoring an excellent goal, a legal goal, Henry’s interview was magnificent in its indignation, as you would expect.
But Henry has to put that behind him now. Forget it !!! Don’t whinge about it. You were robbed of a legitimate goal by a Spanish referee who made a big mistake. The whole world knows you were deprived of a fair goal and a point. OK ! We all saw it and we all know you were cheated. Now forget it !
Incidentally, the same referee gave Jan Koller a soft penalty in 2002 after he dived over David Seaman – and Rosicky buried it for Borussia Dortmund.Arsenal lost that game 2-1.
By now Arsene Wenger should know better than to whinge about the referee’s decision to give CSKA the free-kick from which they scored.It was a clear foul by his player, Djourou.
The Professor should be bigger than that. He should have grown out of whinges like that long ago.
His team conceded a free-kick in a very dangerous area and then could not defend the free-kick So Arsenal conceded a goal. It was bad defending in a game that was, fortunately, NOT a must-win game
The job now is : beat Reading, beat Everton, and work out how to beat CSKA on Wednesdsay November 1.
When defending a free-kick in an important game, use a charger who will make sure the ball hits him rather than one who makes sure the ball doesn’t hit him.
Mainly, forget about the disallowed goal and learn from the goal that was scored.That was the lesson of this game : learn from the goal that you conceded.
That way, Arsenal will get something valuable out of last night’s game.
Did Matchday 3 prove my 2002 theory that the Champions League is ultimately about whether my Brazilians are better than your Brazilians ?
Well, not really.
But Kaka scored the only goal for AC Milan against Anderlecht in Brussels, skipper Juninho scored the first in Lyon’s 3-0 win in Kiev, Robinho scored the third in Real Madrid’s 4-1 victory over Steaua in Bucharest, and Carvalho scored the only goal against Arsenal.
Brazilians are everywhere in this competition. More every year.
CSKA MOSCOW (3-5-2): Akinfeev; Vasily Berezutsky, Ignashevich, Alexei Berezutsky; Semberas, Aldonin (Krasic, 90), Rahimic, Dudu, Zhirkov; Love (Olic, 85), Carvalho (Taranov, 89).
Subs not used: Mandrykin (gk), Kochubei, Salugin, Grigoryev.
ARSENAL (4-5-1): Lehmann; Hoyte, Touré, Djourou (Clichy, 75), Gallas; Hleb, Rosicky (Walcott, 80),Gilberto, Fabregas, Van Persie (Adebayor, 68); Henry.
Subs not used: Almunia (gk), Denilson, Song, Aliadière.