There is no doubt that Arsenal are in a sensational form. Considering how they were written off at the beginning of the year, the current squad is definitely proving a lot of people wrong right now. Arsenal pushed their unbeaten run to 9 games after beating Borussia Dortmund 2-1 at the Emirates.  Yet another brace for Robin van Persie helped Arsenal qualify for the next round of Champions League and finish on top of group F with one game remaining.

One man team?

Robin van Persie added two more goals to his already impressive tally in 2011. He now has 33 goals for 30 games after scoring both goals for Arsenal tonight. Many football fans, currently believe that we are a “one man” team since Robin is in such a fine scoring form. Although he is scoring a lot of goals currently, I don’t think that that the play of the rest of can be underestimated. Van Persie spoke about the importance of assists that the rest of the team is giving. Many of the goals that Robin is scoring right now have to do with the way that Arsenal as a team are playing. On many occasions it is Walcott, with his improved play, crossing in balls that find Robin and he is able to finish them. Of course van Persie has to put the final touches on the ball, but the quality of crosses that he is receiving makes it a whole lot easier for van Persie to finish.

Song

I have on many occasions criticized Alex Song for not being a true defensive midfielder as he always ventures into the offensive end of a rush and leaves a whole on the defensive end. However, today I think he put in an excellent performance. Although he was fairly anonymous in the beginning of the game, he certainly picked up his play towards the end of the first half, and continued that through to the second half and right to the end of the game.

Alex Song started the second half with a bang. After making an excellent run with the ball, in which he dribbled past three Dortmund defenders, he then made an almost perfect cross right to van Persie with which van Persie made no mistake. From that point on Song played probably his best game of the season. He was all over the pitch making great tackles, pressuring the Dortmund attackers, and through those tackles was even starting rushes from deep in the Arsenal half.

Strong Defence

At no point in this season has Arsene had the luxury to put out the back four he wanted. With Vermaelen back from injury, this is probably the closest Arsene has come to being able to put out the back four which he considers perfect. With Sagna and Jenkinson hurt, Koscielny played at right back for a second straight game and was impressive yet again. Considering the amount of time that Koscielny has played at centre I am sure it was not an easy switch, but he has certainly done well enough to temporarily patch things up on that right side. In left back, Andre Santos was handed another start as Gibbs is still recovering from injury. I think that the left side of our defence was particularly weak and had Dortmund been successful in exploiting that we would have been a lot of trouble. Santos enjoys attacking the other team and taking on defenders, which is great, but I don’t think he picks the right moments to attack. He often loses possession through a failed dribble and is not quick enough to recover from that. In the centre Vermaelen and Per were paired together again, and were solid for pretty much the entire match, stopping most of Dortmund’s dangerous attacks. I think that going into this match many people expected our defence to be tested a lot. However, because of Gotze’s injury I don’t think we were tested a whole lot. The few times that we were tested I think that the defence held strong, as they have done recently, the only blemish being the one goal that Dortmund pulled back.

MOTM

Although Robin van Persie scored two goals, and is still on a great run, tonight’s Arsenal Latest MOTM is Alex Song. Song played wonderfully in attack and was one of the best tacklers in tonight’s game and he definitely deserves recognition for his play today.

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