Tonight’s game saw a weak and defeated Montpellier side play an Arsenal team riding high on confidence after a superb victory against Spurs at the weekend.
Last year when we got the same result, we went on a brilliant run of form and it was essential that this continued.
The first half was a poor display of football from both sides; the only real moment of excitement was a good header from Koscielny that ricocheted off the bar.
Neither keeper had very much to do and I found myself frustrated at times as players (notably Jack and Giroud) gave the ball away far to easily. Podolski became infuriated as Giroud failed to pick him out on more than one occasion.
The second half told quite a different story. Goal number one saw Jack score his first goal in some time for the gunners with a neat finish after some good build up play. He showed his ability to finish under pressure and really looks to be getting back to full fitness after a long spell out.
Our second goal was in my opinion one of, if not the best goal of the season by an Arsenal player.
A great bit of passing play between Giroud and Podolski led to a supreme volley by the German machine whose shot pounded past the keeper into the back of the net. A great finish that secured the game for the Gunners and due to other results, secured our qualification once again from the Champions League group stages.
As I have just alluded to, the other game in our group finished Schalke 1 Olympiakos 0. This meant that both Arsenal and Schalke go through to the last sixteen. This is not as pleasing as it might seem. Had the Schalke game ended in a draw as it looked like it might for a lot of the evening, there would have been a strong chance of us topping our group. As it stands, we would need to get a win in Greece as well as Montpellier getting something against Schalke. A big ask.
Nevertheless we are once again through to the knockout stages and arguments that suggest we need to finish top to avoid the big boys are to some extent trivial.
This is the Champions League; we’re not going to get far avoiding the top teams.
At the end of the day tonight’s result was a good one for the Gunners and hopefully we can really put a run of games together now. My man of the match is Lukasz due solely to a wonder goal that we might be seeing for some time!
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