Well, that was a game of two halves. The first half was one that we would like to forget about pretty quickly as it had all the hallmarks of a typical Arsenal team. We started off brightly and had a couple of half chances but didn't press high enough up the pitch and lacked tempo in our attacks. This allowed Aston Villa slowly into the game and then Arsenal defending decided to kick in from a corner. The corner was taken short and instead of two men going to close down the two Villa players, we decided that Ramsey going alone would be enough. Unsurprisingly it was not enough and Keane easily crossed the ball to the back post where every Arsenal player seemed to get sucked under the ball or backed away while Dunne drove straight for the ball and wanted to win it at least 10 times more than any Arsenal player. The second goal was a quick counter but we still had a few players back to deal with the problem and Fabianski probably should have pushed Bent's shot out for a corner, but it was his first first team game in a few months, so you can understand a bit of rustiness.
I admit at half time i did not think we would get back into the game and the 7/1 offered on us winning didn't seem long enough to me. I would have expected it to say double that, but good on whoever placed that bet as Arsenal came rushing out the blocks straight from the whistle. Mertesacker once again had a header cleared off the line; eventually he will score from a powering downward header. We had a couple of half chances falling to Walcott and Ramsey which were straight at the keeper but it was the later who would get us back into the game. He ran through onto a Song through ball and Dunne came flying into him, a stone wall penalty and how it wasn't a second yellow is beyond me. I was shouting for a straight red, let alone a yellow (on second viewing it definitely wasn't a red but was easily a yellow). Van Persie stepped up to calmly slot the penalty past Given and it was not to be the last time that happened in the 90 minutes. Before that could happen a second time, Walcott dribbled past the Villa fullback and was amazingly allowed to run along the byline all the way to Given's feet, he tried a neat little flick inside Given's near post but he was equal too it, luckily for Arsenal and Walcott it landed straight to Hutton who hoofed it straight into Walcott who knew nothing about it, but it landed in the back of the net. Arsenal where level, but were not finished quite yet. Koscielny rampaged forward down the left flank and into the box where Bent brought him down before getting a foot to the ball. Another stone wall penalty and another classy finish by Van Persie.
So there it was, the game of two halves. Nothing much else happened in terms of chances, but it was Arsenal who had managed to score an extra goal in their half. I would say we deserved the win, purely because we created some chances in the first half and for 20 minutes in the second half, absolutely dominated Villa and were creating chances at will. I believe the possession stat was at a whopping 89% at one point. I can't remember the last time Arsenal had a possession stat that high and luckily we also put it to good use.
My first bit of praise goes to Koscielny, he is an absolute beast at the center of defence and he is becoming a world class center back. He is now above Vermaelen in terms of being my favourite Arsenal defender and i can't wait to see him and Vermaelen as a center back pairing with Santos and Sagna on either side. I think we will have to wait a long time for that to happen though as Santos is not back to at least March and then we still need all the others to remain fit. It was good to Sagna back though and going into some 50/50 challenges and coming out on the other side. Hopefully he can get a couple more training sessions under his belt and maybe start against Bolton, although i think Coquelin did very well at right back and was full of energy. He provided a much better balance to the team than Djourou playing there.
I thought Ramsey had a good game and was much better than other games recently. He started to dictate play much better in the second half and was full of running, to often in the first half Van Persie was the only player running to close defenders down, which is pretty futile when nobody helps. I also give praise to Rosicky, who i have been harsh on in the past. He was full of running as well and provided some good passes although he still needs to up his assist rate and score some goals. The same can be said about a majority of our midfield though.
There was one majorly sour point that happened before the game, which was the booing of Arshavin and Walcott before the game had started, when they were reading out the team shit. I think it was appalling to witness and i hope it was just a pocket of stupid people and not something that was happening around the whole stadium and certainly hope it couldn't be heard on TV. How anyone thinks booing a player is useful before they are even remotely near coming on the pitch is beyond me. I can understand the booing last week when Chamberlain was taken off and i can understand booing at half time during the Villa game, because at least in those cases you can see it is the wrong decision or that the team as a whole is under performing. I just don't get how you can single out a single player and then expect them to feel motivated to come on the pitch. Like i said, hopefully it was a pocket of fans rather than a new general consensus amongst the home fans.
Wenger says Wilshere's injury is not as bad as first feared although i don't really believe that. Until he is back in the team i am going to take a Vermaelen stance and rule him out for the season. Miyaichi is staying in England otherwise he will lose his home grown rule, which seems logical enough to me. I would like to see him loaned out to a Championship team or League One team where he can get consistent playing time for the rest of the season. Aneke has extended his loan spell at Stevenage till March but won't be able to play against Spurs in the next round of the FA cup which is a shame. We have got Sunderland or Middlesbrough away from home. Not an easy draw but at least we avoided the big teams, especially as it is 3 or 4 days after the Milan away leg.
Right, that is it for today. Tomorrow i will bring any team news ahead of the Bolton game on Wednesday and i will also talk a little more about the FA cup and 4th place.
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