Arsenal, Porto, CSKA Moscow, Hamburg
93 comments August 24th, 2006
Not too bad. Chelsea have Barca again, which is hilarious.
Oh, and looks like Arsene was telling the truth about Reyes.
Archive for August 24th, 2006
Arsenal 2 – 1 Zagreb: Theo helps make the difference again
17 comments August 24th, 2006
Two things about this game are important: 1) We are in the Champions League, and 2) we have our first win at the Emirates Stadium. Everything else is pretty inconsequential, and that’s probably for the best. It enables to put our several things to the back of our mind: notably our nervy defence, Cesc’s stuttering passing, and Emmanuel Adebayor’s shocking miss. This was not a classic performance, and for 77 minutes one couldn’t find much argument against a Zagreb lead earned by a typically effective counter-attack.
Then a Robin van Persie cross was headed in by Freddie Ljungberg, which will hopefully set his goalscoring ball rolling. Finally, in the very last minute of the game, substitute Theo Walcott’s cross was stabbed home by Mathieu Flamini, from a position where it would’ve been easier to miss (except, arguably, for Adebayor).
2-1 it was and our passage into the group stage had been assured. Like I said, not a memorable performance, but one that helped to get back some of the sharpness we’ve been lacking.
Jose Reyes was absent with an “injury”, and today is being linked with Athletico Madrid. However, Arsene’s comment that the bid is “nothing serious” leads me to believe that they too lack the funds to meat Arsenal’s asking price. For now, Jose’s homesickness goes on.
Oh, and Chelsea lost, which is always a good note on which to end.
