Arsenal 2 – 2 Man Utd: Thoughts & Reflection
Add comment November 5th, 2007
So, a little late, I’m finally able to reflect on the events of Saturday lunchtime’s match. It wasn’t the classic many naievely anticipated, but it did have it’s fair share of thrills and spills, including a late late equaliser from our own William Gallas.
There was plenty of incident and arguably even more fall-out, so I’m just going to throw my thoughts out there in a messy, bullet-point format. Essentially, I’m feeling a bit ill and don’t think my brain has the capacity to roll it into one nicely rounded piece:
- A draw is a decent result. Defeat would’ve been damaging, especially because United looked much more penetrative going forward. If they had won, they’d be able to claim they’d come and beaten us at our own game, and who knows what that might’ve done to our youngsters’ confidence. This way, our momentum continues.
- We got the formation wrong, and Arsene was intelligent enough to admit that himself. Adebayor was isolated and only in the second half, when Fabregas was given free reign to get into the box, did we look dangerous going forward.
- William Gallas put in an outstanding captain’s performance. Not only was he solid at the back, but he found himself way up the field in stoppage time and scored one of the many crucial goals that have littered his career. His “never say die” attitude will be crucial if Arsenal are to win anything this season.
- Aleksandr Hleb has improved immeasurably as a player, and the confident swagger of his performance against United is evidence of that. From kick-off, he gave an indication of his intentions by attempting to run the pitch (and nearly managing it). We can only hope his form continues.
- Manuel Almunia was desperately unlucky on the first goal, but made a bad decision on the second. It was, however, his first bad decision in about ten games, so I’d be amazed if he was axed by Arsene.
- Cesc’s good form continued with an eleventh goal of the season. Quite, quite remarkable. His finish was incredibly cool in the circumstances – he obviously learnt something from that bad miss at Anfield.
- Finally, a note on Alex Ferguson. He’s clearly decided it’s time for the mind-games to start already, and has even enlisted Owen Hargreaves to help him make his point. He’s attacked two of our great points of pride: our stadium and our style of play. Well, first of all I’d like to share with him in the sentiments of Cesc Fabregas in this clip, but secondly I’d like to hope that our players will, even at such a young age, know well enough to ignore Fergie. Much as I loathe him, he knows how to wind people up, and getting reactionary about it is just granting him the smallest of victories.
Slavia Prague away on Wednesday. See you tomorrow.
