Wolves 1 – 4 Arsenal: Arsenal cruise into second place
Add comment November 8th, 2009
Wolves 1 – 4 Arsenal (Zubar og 28, Craddock og 36, Fabregas 45, Arshavin 66)
Highlights | Arsene’s reaction
When facing the league’s biggest goalscoring threat, you don’t want to set yourself on the backfoot by scoring an own goal. Or two. Yet that is exactly what Wolves did, throwing away an impressive start with some haphazard defending.
First Ronald Zubar (presumably named after this West End establishment) nudged a Fabregas corner into his own net under pressure from Eduardo. Then the Croatian joined Aaron Ramsey in a two-on-one breakaway. Receiving a pass from the Welshman, Eduardo’s chipped effort on goal looked to be drifting wide before it clipped off Jody Craddock’s head and dropped in to the top corner.
If there had been a degree of fortune about our first two goals, there was nothing lucky about the third. A storming run up the right by Bacary Sagna ended with him crossing towards Van Persie. With Cesc Fabregas rushing into support, Van Persie killed the ball dead with his weak foot, meaning the Catalan barely had to break stride to tuck in his ninth of the season. It was a stunning goal, and the sort of moment that makes you realise why the likes of Cesc and Robin really do love playing in this team.
Our fourth was another smash-and-grab. A corner from the left was punched out, but met immediately by a precision volley from Andrey Arshavin, which nestled neatly in the bottom corner.
Conceding is frustrating, but when it’s the last minute and you’re 4-0 up it’s hard to have too many griped. Craddock, who can’t seem to stop scoring at either end, got away from Vermaelen to plant a header into the top corner.
So another stonking win and we’re up into second place. After Chelsea and United face each other today we’ll not only have a better indication of how strong the competition is, but we’ll also have our game in hand back.
As City and Liverpool fall away, we’re keeping pace. The press and the public are waking up to the idea of this Arsenal side as contenders. Now it’s the job of the players to make sure we keep in it after the forthcoming International break.
