Arsenal 6 - 2 Blackburn: The Art of Flattery
0 guns December 24th, 2006
The final home game of 2006 was arguably the strangest. One nil down within two minutes, three one up at half-time, in danger of being held to a draw with 85 minutes gone, before ending up winning by four clear goals. And that barely does it justice. In the words of Arsene Wenger: “It is never boring here”.
As I say, within the first few minutes, it was deja vu, and we fell behind. David Bentley went through on goal, and appeared to pull Kolo Toure to the ground. However, the ref saw fit to give a penalty, which Shabani Nonda duly dispatched. You could almost feel the team thinking, “not again”, and if you couldn’t, you could certainly hear the fans saying it. However, certain individuals had other days.
Over the past few weeks, Gilberto has revelled in the captain’s role, scoring some crucial goals to boot. Today, he rose to plant home a Robin van Persie corner with the confidence of a man who was notching his seventh goal of the season.
Emmanuel Adebayor, alongside Gilberto, has emerged as a critical member of the first-team in the past few weeks, and yet again he took it upon himself to drag us back into the match. A clever flick into the path of Alex Hleb allowed the Belarussian to drag the ball inside the defender, and neatly tuck the ball beyond Brad Friedel. It was an exquisite finish - the sort that makes it even stranger, when, as he did just a few minutes later, he elects to pass when scoring seems the easier option.
Adebayor was soon at it again, playing in Robin van Persie. Gilberto, recognising the Togolese forward’s contribution and confidence, handed Adebayor the ball, and he did not disappoint, coolly firing home to make it 3-1. Like Gilberto, this was his seventh of the season, allowing them both to join Robin van Persie as top scorer - for a short while…
As the second half started, we were playing come brilliant attacking football. The returning Tomas Rosicky was showing his ability to break at pace, and with Blackburn needing a couple of goals, there was plenty of space to exploit. However, with Rosicky having a close-range effort deflected onto the bar by the otherwise hopeless Andre Ooijer, tension began to mount.
And jitters among the Arsenal fans increased further when a brilliant Brett Emerton cross and some panicked defending allowed Nonda to hook home a second, and make it 3-2. With Morten Gamst Pedersen and David Bentley both looking dangerous, even the most loyal fan could be forgiven for thinking we might be about to throw it away.
Fortunately, it was not to be. In the 85th minute, Robin van Persie picked up the ball wide on the right - you could only feel sorry for the backpeddling Andy Todd. He was turned inside-out, back-to-front, and round and round before Van Persie bent the ball low beyond Brad Friedel’s despairing dive for 4-2.
At this point, Blackburn’s heads dropped. In fact, they nearly fell off. A surging run from Adebayor proceeded a clever through-ball to Fabregas, who squared for Van Persie to score. In the week where he outlined his determination to reach 15 goals this season, he had now reached nine.
And then Cesc Fabregas had a brilliant idea. The idea was to completely humiliate that most deserving of enemies: Robbie Savage. He flicked the ball up, pulled out a stepover or two, and then produced a delicious nutmeg to leave Savage looking nearly as foolish as he is. Fabregas, meanwhile, skipped into the box, and had a shot saved which rebounded for Mathieu Flamini to add a sixth.
The scoreline was, ultimately, rather flattering. 3-1 would’ve been fair, or perhaps 6-4. Had Jens Lehmann not been in such excellent form, the latter could very well have happened. We were fantastic going forward, and fairly disorganised defensively. Still, there was something brilliant in our performance. The creativity and power we displayed in attack was breathtaking, and again Emmanuel Adebayor was at the centre of it. Interesting too that we deployed a 4-4-2 formation - whilst it left us slightly exposed at the back, we had plenty more options going forward.
Elsewhere, after being France’s answer to Andy Gray, Remi Garde is now coaching at Lyon - still a close friend of Arsene, don’t be surprised to see him turn up at Arsenal again one day.
The final story I’m just going to mention is this fascinating transfer exclusive - Arsene’s response to a question about reported interest in Gareth Bale. Prepare yourself for this astonishing candour:
“All I can say is I know him”
26 Comments Add your own
1. Gelbs | December 24th, 2006 at 2:04 am
Respects. Look up a surgeon in Brazil. ETS doctor Joao Bosco Duarte lol. NHS is still bullshit. Britiain is is a whole. I love being drunk!
2. Gelbs | December 24th, 2006 at 2:08 am
P.S. I too could nutmeg someone and whack a decent pin-point 30 yard pass. Flash in the pan.
3. Gelbs | December 24th, 2006 at 2:11 am
And Maglolia is a fucked up film.
4. Good to be a GOONAH!! | December 24th, 2006 at 4:48 am
you are a sad git, Gelbs…
5. Oo 2 Be | December 24th, 2006 at 7:37 am
Where have our reserve games gone?
6. WillyG10 | December 24th, 2006 at 9:20 am
Good game,and I really really enjoyed Fabregas making savage look like a fool
7. buggie | December 24th, 2006 at 9:46 am
Dont agree with 6,4 with all chances taken 9,4 would be more like it. savage will have nightmares all chrismas about that nutmega good couldnt happern to a nicer person really.
8. Gelbs | December 24th, 2006 at 1:01 pm
Fabregas can learn to score goals. Anyone got a link as I missed the nutmeg.
9. Good to be a GOONAH!! | December 24th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
Respects.. its VERY EASY to jump on the bandwagon when things are going well…
nice of you to join Gelbs in NOW rating Adebayor… but given the ferocity of your comments against the player a mere week or so ago, I feel you really have no place to make comment…
10. Little Dutch | December 24th, 2006 at 1:30 pm
Haven’t posted on here for aaaaaaaaaaages, but for those of you who were slating Adebayor can I just say a classless and undignified, HA HA HA…. That will be all, merry xmas.
11. Gelbs | December 24th, 2006 at 3:06 pm
As I said. Credit where credits due. At least it is decent to praise someone when you have before slated them rather than hide away and not say anything. Besides, anyone can have a good few games. Adebayor and co. now have to make sure they show it almost week in and week out. Who needs Henry as well? We do, but makes you wonder if we play better when that arrogant dick at times is playing. Even though I love him as a player. Plus I like Adebayor for the way he appreciates his life as I saw in the paper the other day. Unlike these other cunts who totally abuse who and what they are and take it all for granted.
12. Gelbs | December 24th, 2006 at 3:06 pm
Plus you always moan when I complain. So I am now showing my other side lmao.
13. Gelbs | December 24th, 2006 at 3:08 pm
And I never thought Adebayor was that totally shit neither. Just crappy and average. But if he keeps this up then he will be a quality player.
14. vavavoom | December 24th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
glebs i think u have right to criticise any arsenal player who doesnt perform,,,,,about adebayo i think he’s decent player but i wonder wen henry back how wenger’s gona use adebayo i think he may go bk to 451..wat u think
15. lasagnechef | December 24th, 2006 at 5:34 pm
arseblog is broken I’ll have to go here. Good game yesterday, hope we do the same to Watford
16. Michael | December 24th, 2006 at 5:39 pm
Adebayor was brilliant, I’ve not seen a striker chase balls like that since Wrighty. The fans love him cos he works so hard.
On another point, we had trouble dealing with quick balls into the box (eg for the second Blackburn goal) - is this because our attackers don’t do that sort of thing themselves, so can’t test the defenders on it in training?
17. lasagnechef | December 24th, 2006 at 5:57 pm
Yeah, Ade was great. Didn’t like him much last season buut he’s a legend now, had a great game imo
18. barry fantastic | December 24th, 2006 at 7:38 pm
HAPPY XMAS to Gunnerblog….What’s Arsene buying you in the January sales then ?…….
19. lasagnechef | December 24th, 2006 at 10:28 pm
Toys are Reyes!!! haha
20. RockinRobin | December 24th, 2006 at 11:50 pm
Respects…. in another post you made a comment about Arsenals chances in Champions League, we were NOT good enough for the CL cos we got no more than 7 out of 27 points from playing crapteams, I`m sure you remember….
I`ve to contradict you on that, we`re not playing crapteams in the CL…
Make your own PL- table with the FOUR ENGLISH sides still in the CL and you`ll see another side of the coin…
Change of mind?
21. joshin69 | December 27th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
RR i Agree with you there are only good teams in the CL. The possability of going along way is a real one.
22. nqsdhkkjyz | July 3rd, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Hello! Good Site! Thanks you! ynnlokmasbc
23. site&hellip | August 1st, 2007 at 4:48 pm
hello
will read it later
24. Arsenal ukoncentrerede mo&hellip | April 29th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
[...] fordi han er bare er Cesc, men især fordi, at han igår spillede overfor Robbie Savage aka “the most deserving of enemies.” Fornøjelsen ved igår var nemlig, at samtidig med, at han var igang med the [...]
25. Arsenal 6 - 2 Blackburn: &hellip | October 6th, 2009 at 8:00 am
[...] the magic (for it truly is) of Sky+. I could’ve been forgiven for thinking I was watching the 06/07 fixture, were it not for the new personnel and system that so stamped their authority on this [...]
26. pene | October 7th, 2009 at 4:42 pm
we are in 2009, wouldnt it be cool to go back and forwards in time ?
amazing arsene…
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