Sorry Arsene, but ‘turning points’ come before the 77th minute
25 comments November 24th, 2010
Braga 2 – 0 Arsenal (Matheus 83, 90)
Highlights | Arsene’s reaction
Like arseblogger, I had planned to watch this game on a delay. Only on the way home from work, I accidentally looked in to the window of a pub, whose giant screen revealed to me that it was 0-0 with twenty minutes to play. Guessing, correctly, that I probably hadn’t missed all that much, I sat down to watch the remainder of the game.
Obviously I have a skewed impression of the match, but it does seem as if all the significant action took place in that closing quarter of the game. Emmanuel Eboue and Cesc Fabregas were withdrawn with injury, leaving us down to just ten men. Then Carlos Vela was wrongly booked for diving when in fact he should have been awarded a penalty. And, of course, Arsenal conspired to concede two goals on the counter-attack, and lose the tie.
I think the main reason we lost the game was our team selection. I’m surprised Arsene’s decision to leave out the likes of Sagna, Clichy, Song, Nasri, Arshavin, Van Persie and Chamakh hasn’t provoked more discussion. This team was of almost equivalent strength (or weakness, rather) to those we’ve sent out in the Carling Cup. You can’t take that kind of risk away from home in Europe and expect to get away with it.
You can blame ill fortune or individual errors for us conceding the crucial goals, but it’s not as if we had the Braga goal under siege before that. Arsene’s focus on the penalty incident is a knowing distraction from the fact that we barely created a chance in the game. Arsene called it the ‘turning point’ – I’m sorry, but the pivotal points around which the dynamic of an entire game revolves don’t tend to occur so late in the game. Being denied a penalty was no excuse for what followed.
Both goals were poorly defended. We were caught high up the pitch, with Denilson covering in the centre-back role and not covering himself in glory on either occasion. Whilst both Matheus finishes were impressive, he ought never to have been afforded the opportunity.
Not that I think the defeat matters all that much. A win at home to Partizan Belgrade will take us through, and if we can’t manage that then frankly we don’t deserve qualification. Many will point to the fact that finishing second in the group would mean we’d come up against some tricky opposition in the next round. Well, this is the Champions League. You can’t win it by playing a series of micky mouse teams. If you can’t get past a decent team in the quarters or semis, you might aswell go out now and focus on the competitions you can win.
Speaking of which, it’s time to try and refocus on domestic matters. It’s been a horrible few days, but if we can win at Villa Park on Saturday afternoon we’ll go top of the Premier League. The following week, beating Wigan at home will take us to a Carling Cup semi-final. It’s not all bad.
We’ll probably have to try and win those two games without Cesc Fabregas, who I suspect will be missing for at least a fortnight. It might be no bad thing. So far this season, he hasn’t quite looked himself. Samir Nasri, meanwhile, has been in blistering form. Let’s use this opportunity to give Cesc the rest he seems to require, and deploy Nasri in his favoured central role. Personally, I happen to think that at the moment Cesc’s lack of fitness and form is denying him the half-yard of pace he needs to make a success of that number ten role. Nasri currently has no such problems.
The one bright spot in a dark few days has been the return of Aaron Ramsey, who played 45 minutes for the Reserves last night. Manuel Almunia also began his comeback, though to be honest I don’t expect to see either in the first-team for quite some time – admittedly, for very different reasons.
Right. Enough for now.
