Arsenal 0 – 2 Villa: Clichy 70 og, Agbonlahor 80
Today didn’t start well for Arsenal, we lost the coin toss, and Villa chose to switch sides, so we were attacking the north end in the 1st half, the players prefer to attack the north in the 2nd! Overall I witnessed a a very disappointing Arsenal lose to Villa, with two goals in the last 20 minutes.
It could have gone better for Arsenal, we had most of the possession, but we couldn’t break into Villa, who defended in numbers, and cut out our passes. In the first half Villa got a penalty which was badly taken and Almunia saved, but apart from the goals they didn’t have many chances. Villa’s goals came on the break, both times an Arsenal player was fouled in the build-up.
The refereeing was shocking all game, Denilson got a yellow within minutes of kickoff, while Villa went unpunished for their fouls for much of the game. One of our best chances of a goal was ruined by Riley stopping play for a VIlla player down, while Sagna went down seriously injured in the second half and play didn’t stop – leading to Villa’s first goal.
Agbonlahor and Young’s pitiful celebrations right in front of our section didn’t really do much for my impressions of them, Agbonlahor taunting Arsenal fans, and they wonder why people throw things at them?
I think all in all we can say that Arsenal aren’t consistent enought to win the title this season. We still have defensive frailities which haven’t been resolved, and when we have Adebayor and Van Persie both out we don’t look like scoring.
Bendtner is a player with potential, but he can’t play on his own up front. On that point, I don’t think we got the tactics right today. Starting with 5 in midfield and Bendtner upfront worked against Man Utd, but we could have exploited Villa’s weaknesses better if we had started with Adebayor and Vela paired, which is what the Boss did at the end of the game.
A poor result, a 10 years ago we were a very different team, and I wouldn’t expect us to drop points at home. We are now 9 points adrift. Arsenal can challenge for the title still, but right now we haven’t got any consistency at all. I’ll leave you with Wenger’s comment (BBC):
“We can play very well, but at the top level performances have to be consistent. I always say the first sign of quality is consistency, so this was frustrating after beating Manchester United.”
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