Blackburn vs. Arsenal
Normally a fixture like this appears in arsenal’s calendar on a cold winter’s night in January but thankfully this year it was only three games in when the terraces at Ewood Park are above zero degree Celcius. Arsenal have a poor record against Blackburn in recent years and even worse one against Sam Allardyce with no wins from nine games so an away win was anything but guaranteed.
The game started as expected, with a high tempo and the inevitable aerial threat from Blackburn. It was immediately obvious that Blackburn were intending to play very much like Tony Pulis’ side, looking to score from long balls and throw-ins placed directly into the box at every opportunity from Morten Gamst Pedersen. Arsenal dealt with the early threat very well with all of the back four winning most aerial battles from free kicks, corners and throw-ins. However Arsenal were lucky not to go 1-0 down when a header was cleared off the line by Cesc Fabregas. The game then settled and Arsenal were allowed to play their free-flowing football, which created the opener when Robin Van Persie’s pass allowed Theo Walcott to drill home a cross-shot past Paul Robinson and actually break the net! This was a stunning finish that surely backed up Theo’s argument to the question of why was he not in the world cup squad after his performances last season?
"come on fab, don't wind me up, waddya mean I'm not going?! I've got my shirt on and everything!"
Credit to Blackburn though, they continued to press and replied almost immediately. El-Hadji Diouf muscled past Laurent Koscielny on the left and Mame Biram Diouf tapped home from close range. Arsenal continued to move the ball about well and had the majority of possession in the second half. Our possession and sheer determination to get all three points eventually won us the game when a counter-attack starting from the edge of the box created an opportunity for Cesc Fabregas to shoot but his shot was deflected off Walcott’s back right into the path of Andre Arshavin, who placed the ball neatly in between two Blackburn defenders. Full time Blackburn 1 – 2 Arsenal.
The only blight on the day was an injury to Van Persie. Apart from that, this was Arsenal's afternoon. The three points were valuable of course but the confidence instilled from this type victory may be much more important.
Arsenal are looking like title contenders this season but Chelsea will clearly take some beating. I will almost certainly be a West Ham fan next week!!!
Submitted by James Griffin
3/9/2010
