To quote the famous singer Meatloaf, “All revved up with no place to go”. That sums up us against Chelsea.
What can be said about a rather mundane 0-0 score line after so much hype? Well Chelsea made 8 changes from their uninspiring victory over Barcelona on Wednesday, and we started as expected. With Mikel Arteta’s injury Wenger opted to start Ramsey in the midfield and surprisingly he put The Ox in the starting line up.
The stage was set for a classic London Derby.
Did that happen? Not really to be honest. We started brightly with a lot of possession, but no penetration in the final third. Chelsea seemed keen for a draw from the outset and it was obviously up to us to take the game to them. We came relatively close with RVP hitting the post off a Walcott free kick, but apart from that neither side looked hungry to take the points.
Defensively Arsenal looked solid, with Koscielny making some brilliant last ditch tackles to keep the tame Torres at bay. Chelsea had a penalty appeal when Sagna nearly touched a player who fell over as though he had been shot by Ashley Cole’s air rifle. Fortunately Mike Dean waved play on. Apart from some suburb tackling by Kozzer and the not-in-a-million-years penalty that wasn’t given, there isn’t much to be said about the first half. The battle in midfield however continued, with Song the primary candidate giving the ball away cheaply. Ramsey as usual, took too many touches and our problems came from those two.
The second half started as the first left off. Ineffectuality was the name of the game and possession was wasted by both sides. We got a free kick that RVP took, Kozzer made a run that gave him a free header which hit the post.
Story of the day, really.
The most notable aspect of the second half was the end of the season for Theo, according to his stats he should be nominated for Young Player of the Year, and despite his frustrating performances, I believe he has been good for us this year. Gervinho was as useless as his English counterpart and the game continued in the same vein. Wenger then bought on Diaby for the final 20 minutes or so, and he played like somebody who has been out for the last three seasons... Oh wait, he has been out for the last three seasons. The game then largely petered out, and the 0-0 that occurred is certainly deserved from both sides.
So where does this leave us?
As it stands we are 3 points in front of Newcastle and they have a game in hand. They have also not lost a game in their last 5. This suggests to me that we cannot afford to mess around anymore, and that we need to win our remaining fixtures if we want to maintain that top 3 spot.
I also think this game showed us that we need to cope without the influence of Arteta in the side. While Ramsey offers us an alternative option in the midfield, he doesn’t give us what Arteta does. Arteta is the dance to the music that is Arsenal, and without him we lack one thing, our conductor: our penetrator, and that is why we drew with Chelsea today.
Our next game is against Stoke, a side that has never been compared to music, unless it’s grunge metal. I only hope we can put together an orchestrated performance that will lead us to three points, because without those points, we may end up out of Europe and out of over 20 million pounds worth of revenue, something that Arsenal cannot afford. It’s time to bounce back with a performance of football that puts all critics to bed, and puts Newcastle, Chelsea, and Sp*rs where they belong: behind The Mighty Arsenal.
Follow me on Twitter @Young_Matt21
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