Anyway, the game yesterday wasn't televised over here so you had to watch it streaming online somewhere and the quality of my stream wasn't great. But I could gather through the stop start, pixelated, 3:4 inch display that it was a cracker of a game. It was end to end and fast, the pace and the quality were excellent with great play going forward from both sides, everyone had something to prove last night it seemed. And the game produced 3 great goals.
They responded 8 minutes later with a wondergoal of their own. I suppose it was a wondergoal, had it gone in either corner it certainly would have, but I guess that it fit in that small gap between the keeper and the crossbar right in the middle makes it impressive none the less. Babel cushioned a great header down for the on rushing Ensua and Bendtner was far behind him as he controlled and volleyed from 30 yards beating Fabianski who was perfectly positioned under the circumstance.
From then on it could have gone either way, we rushed forward, they rushed forward and there was some real quality. We probably should have scored in the goal mouth scramble from one of our corners but in the end Bendtner could only shoot straight into the keeper after his original shot was hacked off the line.
5 minutes into the 2nd half Bentner scored a good goal after some fine play from the midfield. Merida was wide on the left, he cut inside and played the ball inside to Ramsey and after a moment of confusion with Bendtner, the Dane came away with the ball, held off his defender as he dribbled at goal and smashed the ball into the roof of the net, a very good forwards goal.
Liverpool had two great chances when the fat and bootleg Manu Petit played 3 1-2s with Degan and then shot just wide; the other when they came forward and took apart our defense but Babel couldn't make contact with the squared ball with the goal at his mercy.
Eduardo made a chance for himself with an excellent turn just inside their half and then a great turn of pace took him in on goal, but he hit wide. Liverpool had a good case for handball late on with Acquilani tried on an overhead kick and it came off Senderos arm, which was extended away from his body. We didn't get ours agains West Ham and Liverpool didn't get theirs last night so football karma has evened out in the strange way that it does.
And that was it for the game. We came out on top in a fairly even contest. It was entertaining and exciting and some of our boys put in great performances, Gibbs and Gilbert in particular but so too Merida and the brave returning Sami Nasri, who we're all very happy to see back, my girlfriend especially.
Wenger spoke about Merida, who I admit to having a great soft spot for. He said:
I kept him because I felt he had the quality to break through, but when you look at all the players who did not play, of course the competition for players is very difficult. Fran came to us at a very young age, but our school is in line with the way he was educated. He suits perfectly the way we want to play football. It is always difficult to convince people we do not need players, but when you see them tonight, you understand why.
So we're off to the quarter finals of the Carling Cup. I'm not sure when the draw is but Man U, Chelsea and Tottenham all await.
There's some stuff in the news about Gibbs being on Capellos radar for the World Cup. There's not really too much to this, I'd be very surprised to see Gibbs go to South Africa. There's some other stuff about Almunia coming in to reclaim his place against Tottenham. This is an interesting situation, Fabianski is back and while he didn't exactly impress against Liverpool, he didn't make any mistakes to speak of and looked fairly comfortable over all. His displays in the last part of last season won't do him any favors but Wenger rates him highly anyway. Mannone was on form for a few games but I think it's obvious that he isn't turning out to be any new kind of wonder kid and with a few half mistakes under his belt and the overall feeling you get that something disastrous could happen any second will likely keep him out should Almunia come back in. Almunia doesn't seem too happy about being left out but maybe with Fabianski pushing him compounding the time he spent on the bench, he'll pull out some performances and get back on form. My feeling is that Almunia will get injured or be dropped at some point and Fabianski will come in as number 1 around March after some good performances in the FA cup.
That's about that really.
Until next time,
Highbury86
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