Gunnerblog

Midget gems run riot for on-Song Arsenal

352 comments March 9th, 2009

Arsenal 3 – 0 Burnley (Vela 24, Eduardo 51, Eboue 84)
Highlights here, Arsene’s reaction here

Occasionally, Arsene Wenger picks a side that serves only to exacerbate a healthy pre-game appetite to the point that it becomes full-blown hunger. By the time 1.30pm rolled around yesterday, I was positively salivating at the prospect of seeing Andrey Arshavin, Carlos Vela, and Eduardo da Silva in the same line-up.
Well, all that amylase was not secreted without just cause: the trio were terrific, and far too good for a spirited Burnley defence. After spending much of the season watching a frontline containing the comparatively oafish Adebayor and Bendtner, or awaiting the completion of the gigantic turning circle of the undoubtedly talented Robin van Persie , seeing these gnomish* figures zipping about the final third was enthralling.

It was like a footballing flea circus, and the ringmaster came in the surprising shape of Alex Song. The oft-maligned, occasionally mal-aligned midfielder was everywhere – crunching tackles at one end, and perceptive passes at the other.

However, it was the miniature Mexican, Carlos Vela, who opened the scoring. The ball broke to Arshavin just inside the Burnley half, and he played in Vela, who held his run just long enough to allow him to nutmeg Clarke Carlisle and race through on goal, where he was confronted with the rotund figure of Brian Jensen, whom Burnley fans have apparently nick-named “The Beast”. Julio Baptista famously earned that nickname because of his capacity to terrify opposition defenders. Jensen appears to have been awarded the moniker on account of his ability to consume an arresting number of pies in an extremely short space of time.
Vela, clever lad that he is, improvised. When you can’t go round a goalkeeper (for doing so would take longer than the allotted 45 minutes in the half), you go over him – and Vela did just that, with a delicious chip. He’s turning out to be a very chippy chappy. Inevitably our fans will come up with some ingenius and apt nickname for him. Like “Chip”.

It was in the second half that the Song crescendo truly occurred, with two assists to his name. The first was a beautifully clipped ball over the defence, which dropped towards the unmarked Eduardo. The striker is regarded by some as the best finisher the Premier League has to offer, and not since Ashley Cole was arrested for being drunk and disorderly has a reputation been so justified as when Eduardo produced this breathtaking effort, flicking the ball straight into the top corner off the outside of the ankle that he broke so badly little over a year ago. What a way to cap a day for which he’d been awarded the armband.

Arsene Wenger must have felt very satisfied sat on the sidelines. However, perhaps not even he could have envisaged that the third goal would represent the apotheosis of his faith in Song and Eboue – the former backheeling for the latter to fire home.

Were my glass half empty, I would say that this was only one game against a Championship team. However, seeing as I’ve taken more than one swig from it and it still appears to be at least half-full, I’ll say instead that I hope the likes of Song and Eboue can carry this form forward into the rest of the season.
The day got even better, with Theo Walcott coming on for a cameo and his first appearance since November. We’re assembling a collection of midget gems upfront that’d give that’d give sweet manufacturer Lions a run for their money, with Walcott joining Vela, Eduardo, Arshavin, and even Nasri in our stable of vertically challenged but outrageously talented schemers. The future looks small, and not only because we’re looking at it from a distance.

Now we move on to a Quarter-Final against Hull, where victory could see us move on to face Chelsea in the semi-final at Wembley. It’d be a tough game, but having had a fairly kind draw so far, we can’t really complain.

Yesterday was thoroughly enjoyable, despite the murky weather. I don’t expect Wednesday’s game in Rome to be anything like as one-sided. More on that in the coming days.

*I had to use gnomish to avoid ‘gnomic’. Arshavin, Vela, and Eduardo are many things, but I’m not sure that they’re either epigrammatic or cryptic.