Villa 0 – 0 Arsenal: Would you back Big Sol against Rooney?
Add comment January 28th, 2010
Aston Villa 0 – 0 Arsenal
Highlights | Arsene’s reaction
I suppose Arsene would admit it was an unfortunate sequence of events: you try and sign a promising young centre-half from Fulham only to be gazumped by Man United, and just as he’s signing autographs at Old Trafford our best defender, Thomas Vermaelen, limps off at Villa Park with a suspected fractured fibula. Chris Smalling will now engage in some midtable huffing and puffing before completing his move North in the summer – in the meantime, he could have been playing Champions League football with us.
If Vermaelen’s fibula is indeed fractured rather than just suffering from a tweaky nerve, he could miss the next three months. It gives us Arsene five days to ponder how he replaces him: does he move for a replacement before the transfer window closes, or can he put his faith in the man who replaced Vermaelen yesterday – Sol Campbell?
I don’t think any of us envisaged Campbell being called in to Premier League action so soon, but all reports suggest he coped with the threat of Heskey and Agbonlahor admirably in his hour-long shift. Whether or not his fitness is yet at the level whereby he’d be able to recover in time to play on Sunday is one question – another is simply whether or not you’d fancy him against the Footballer of the Year-elect, Wayne Rooney.
By the time Sunday rolls around there may well be other options available: Mikael Silvestre could have returned from injury, and Alex Song could be ready to step in to the defence having arrived back from Angola. However, if Vermaelen’s scans are anything like we fear, Arsene will be going back to the list whereon Chris Smalling was Number 1 and making a few very pressing phone-calls about Number 2.
Last night’s match looked to be a strange one. Neither side managed to play their best attacking football, and chances were limited. In the first half, Cesc Fabregas side-stepped two Villa tackles and fired a shot against the post. Unfortunately, Tomas Rosicky and Aaron Ramsey got in to a muddle over the rebound and the chance was gone.
In the second half, an Arshavin dart past two defenders saw his shot saved by Friedel. When the ball came out to Fabregas, he showed an awareness Rosicky and Ramsey hadn’t to slip the ball to the former, only for the Czech’s powerful effort to cannon off the crossbar.
In a rare piece of good fortune, all of Aston Villa’s chances seemed to fall to Stewart Downing. ‘Relief’ doesn’t do it justice.
Still, I said before the game that a point wouldn’t be a bad result, and a clean sheet at Villa Park is no disgrace. Only the width of the woodwork prevented us from coming back to London with three points, so we oughtn’t despair. It does, however, make the two games against United and Chelsea all the more vital.
Even if Wenger decides he needs to splash out on a centre-half, they won’t be in place by Sunday. It’s starting to look as if the United game could be the climax of the most unlikeliest of comebacks in the career of Sol Campbell.
More tomorrow.
