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| A dejected Robin van Persie last night. |
We just never seem able to do things the easy way.
Victory last night would have sent us eight points clear of Sp*rs and Newcastle, and ten ahead of Chelsea (although they all have a game in hand). But as it now stands, we remain just five and seven points clear of them respectively, and our fixture against Chelsea this Saturday now has a whole lot more riding on it than it would have done had we beaten Wigan Athletic last night at the Emirates Stadium.
But what’s done is done, and there’s no point cursing over what could have been. And to be fair to Wigan, they completely deserved everything they got last night; three points.
In truth we didn’t start badly. It took a while for me to adjust to the fact we were playing from the opposite end we’re use to in the first half, and I’ve often wondered how much being switched around before kick off and taking the players out of that comfort zone of what they’re use to really affects them. Probably not very much. But it’s the first time for a long while it’s happened, and you know, we lost, so percentages add up and all.
After an early thumping drive from Thomas Vermaelen, and a very well saved header from Yossi Benayoun, it appeared we were in the mood for a rout, so it was a complete shock to the system at just how easily Wigan broke away from our shockingly poor corner to take the lead.
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| Franco di Santo puts Wigan 1-0 up. |
One of my pet hates on the football field (from the playing point of view, as there are a lot of pet hates to do with the officiating of our game) is when professional footballers, paid tens of thousands a week, are unable to beat the first man from a corner. It’s possibly the simplest thing achievable. And it’s amazing how many set pieces are wasted because of it at every level.
Robin van Persie’s corner did just that, then a mixture of Bacary Sagna giving the ball away, Mikel Arteta getting injured, and Benayoun signalling that injury to the bench all resulted in the easiest possible break away for Wigan, which Franco di Santo ultimately finished despite Wojciech Szczesny’s best efforts.
Within a blink of the eye, it was 2-0. Sagna was this time at fault for getting beaten far too easily by the impressive Victor Moses, who’s ball across fell to Jordi Gomez, who required two attempts to bundle the ball across the line. Szczesny probably should have done better after the first shot, but it wasn’t very good defending from Arsenal full stop. Not for the first time this season either.
| Jordi Gomez celebrates Wigan's second. |
So 2-0 down within ten minutes, and most of those in attendance (including the Wigan fans themselves) as well as those watching on TV, were scratching their heads wondering what had just happened.
Arsenal responded though with a ‘Sagna v Sp*rs like “fuck this”’ from Vermaelen, who found some space in the box to head home a well delivered cross from the ever impressive Tomas Rosicky.
It wasn’t the first time we’d needed to recover from 2-0 down at home this season, and with the best part of 70 minutes remaining after we pulled one back the mood inside the Emirates was still positive enough to believe we could go on and win it.
Chances fell to Benayoun again, before van Persie, Rosicky, Andre Santos, and even Johan Djourou all had goal scoring opportunities that on any other day could and maybe should have gone in.
Wigan continued to pose a threat going forward though as the game went on, and probably should have re-established their two goal lead after Moses went through one-on-one with Szczesny, but he took his chance too early and it was a comfortable enough save for our Polish ‘keeper.
The game played out without us really having any further serious chances, disappointingly, and the second half was rather flat. Wigan wasted time at every available opportunity, but you can’t really blame them given what they’re fighting for at the bottom of the League. It’s frustrating to see it happen, but it’s up to the referee to ensure the game is actually being played, and given that Andre Marriner barely showed any interest in the speed of the game until stoppage time, you can hardly fault Wigan for exploiting it.
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| Thomas Vermaelen and RVP, after pulling a goal back. |
It finished 2-1 to the away side, with the vast majority of the stadium already empty before there was the opportunity to clap the teams off, aside from the 200 strong Wigan supporters who were understandably having the time of their lives.
There are various theories going around for what went wrong last night. The three c’s of complacency, concentration, and consistency are all fairly valid arguments, although I think it’s the latter two that have more merit in this instance. And even though the players looked sharp enough out of the blocks, I think there were some reoccurring issues with our tactical preparation before the match.
Wigan had a system that we didn’t quite do our homework on, and it was also an obvious case of that good old Wenger mentality that we play our game as usual, and the result will take care of itself. As of late this has often been the case, but Wigan were set up to exploit our formation by defending tight and attacking us wide where there was often space due to our forward running full backs. You’ve got to credit them for that. We couldn't break them down, and we had no 'Plan B' aside from substitutes that largely had little effect.
It was an all round poor performance by us (other than Rosicky, who I thought was excellent), so I don’t want to pinpoint individuals in this piece. I do however want to mention Aaron Ramsey, as once again he was on the receiving end of hefty and completely unjustified abuse post match.
Mikel Arteta went off with what appears to be a season ending injury, which occurred in the build up to Wigan’s first goal. Arteta has been just about our most consistent player in the past couple of months, so of course his loss was likely to create some imbalance, yet Ramsey went on with a point to prove, but visibly low on confidence.
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| Aaron Ramsey in action last night. |
Now he didn’t have a great game, make no mistake. But he ended the game as our leading passer, and he didn’t shy away from getting on the ball and trying to make things happen. Just this time, nothing did happen for him. And he wasn’t alone.
To blame him for the defeat, and to abuse him to the extent that I saw in some tweets last night, is simply indefensible, morally wrong, and goes completely against the ethos that we have at Arsenal Football Club. Need I not remind people that with Ramsey on the pitch, we actually won the game 1-0.
This is a 21-year-old man, who is already the captain of his National side, despite the fact he missed the best part of a year after breaking his leg. Give him a fucking break. And also, he was one of the only positives we had during our early/mid season fuck ups. He never went missing in any game, led the midfield, and made some cracking assists. He’s got a way to go yes, but his potential is so abundantly obvious that we shouldn’t write him off after just a few off performances.
It seems a lot of Arsenal fans need a permanent scapegoat, and unfortunately Aaron is taking on that mantle now that Andrei Arshavin has gone, and Theo Walcott is back in form. It’s wrong, and if you’re abusing him you should take a long hard look at yourself in the mirror.
Moving on though, and next we host Chelsea, where no doubt Aaron will be heavily involved. A positive we can take into this game is that after an equally shocking performance against QPR two weeks back, we responded in style to beat Man City. So let’s hope the same mentality is used this week in training, and we prepare well and turn up on Saturday to beat Chelsea, because after last night they are right back in the hunt for 3rd place. And we can’t afford two home slip-ups in a row, especially with a trip to Stoke City RUFC coming up too.
Still, nine wins out of 11 is pretty damn decent form. Form of which any of us would have taken after the horrific January we had. 3rd place is still in our hands, yet there’s a lot of work to be done before we can be celebrating it yet.
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