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Wednesday, November 07, 2007

Slavia do a lap of honour and Arsenal stumble to qualification. Plus player ratings

By 1970's Gooner

It was a disjointed performance in wet conditions with dreadful whether. Yet this is no excuse for a dreadful display by admittedly a Carling Cup side.

You would have at least expected a repeat of the fine display away at Sheffield United with a commitment to the passing game that all Arsenal sides under Wenger are well known for and the creation of some chances; even some half chances come to that.

But no nothing. Diaby was on the ball a lot but was not doing anything with it and he kept trying to use his body instead of adding to his game his undoubted skill.

Walcott reverted to running like a headless chicken and was largely ineffective and Denilson did not assert himself enough in the middle of the pitch. Up front Bendtner and Eduardo were largely anonymous and did not play as a pair.

The only one who can claim he had a good match was Almunia who made two excellent saves. In the first half he tipped the ball over the bar from a strong shot from outside the box but more significantly rushed out of his area to save what looked a certain goal after the Slavia forward escaped Gallas’s attention.

Lehmann's exclusion from the first eleven does tend to point to his departure in the january transfer window.

The result left both teams satisfied. Slavia avoided another humiliation and bagged a point; they did a lap of honour afterwards! And Arsenal got the draw that was needed to qualify.

Almunia; back to form 9

Clichy; his usual purposeful and energetic performance 8

Diarra; played as well as he did at Sheffield United but was not penetrative when going forward 7

Gallas; made one mistake which nearly cost us a goal 6

Song; strong and determined. Had a good game 7

Denilson; did not dictate play as well as he can 6

Gilberto; his usual strong and calm performance 7

Diaby; frivolous in possession and largely ineffective 5

Walcott; was not penetrative enough and did not pose any significant threat 5

Bendtner; below his best and did not connect well with his partner in attack 5

Eduardo; was largely anonymous 5

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think that this is a very harsh article, this was not an away game with Sheff Utd, it was Prague who previously had beaten Ajax(home & away. We will not always score 7 and i think you should accept that given the team the conditions and the fact that Prague were always going to try extremely hard to make up for the humiliation at the Emirates that a draw was an acceptable result.

ihsan_huhu said...

i fully agree with the article...

i really hate diaby after that game..

Anonymous said...

To the first comment poster:

I see what you're saying and I don't think anybody would dispute a point was a reasonable return given the circumstances, the disappointment though was in the fact that besides the fact largely speaking our defense was pretty solid and Almunia was good, Arsenal were bitterly poor. They barely kept the ball for long, players never knew when to pass and when to take it on (diaby was sellfish way too often), the formation was a stupid 4-5-1 which rarely ever gets the best from the players and Wenger should have known better. The tactics were bad, the formation was bad and the performance was bad.

The only redeeming things from the game were Slavia played some enjoyable football here and there and generally played quite well and that we are now certain to qualify.

But result aside it was a shocking show from Arsenal.

Anonymous said...

It was a poor performance from Arsenal last night. But we have to accept that we will see games from Arsenal like this from time to time. We cant expect swashbuckling football every game. Perhaps, we have been spoiled by the brand of football that we play and expect it all the time. Slavia grafted and made it a battle, lets give them credit. We're through and thats the important thing. Wrighty7.

Anonymous said...

The last comment summed the game up

Anonymous said...

game pour yes
players didnt do well yes
pick each one and put in the starting 11 and u will see a better performance.
and i dont think you all appreciate the fact slavia wasnt going to roll over

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