Late Portsmouth Review

I'll go right ahead,

We lined up against Birmingham at home with Mannone keeping his place over the healthy again Almunia, Gibbs deputizing for the slightly injured Clichy and Sagna on the bench for a rest while Edoue slotted in at right back.  Vermaelen and Gallas continued to partner in the center of defense and our current midfield trio of Song, Fabregas and Diaby lined up in the middle.  Up front Walcott started his first game of the season on the outside of van Persie, while Rosicky played on the other side of the front three.

After a couple of good chances for the increasingly important Rosicky that went begging because of an unusual flaw in his technique, Theo was clattered hard in a challenge from Liam Ridgewell.  It wasn't a terribly unfair tackle but I doubt it would have been made against a Blackburn Rovers player.  It's the kind of tackle our boys have to take on all the time in every game and it's put Theo back out of commission, although we don't quite know for how long.  Before it did though, Theo came on some after treatment and sped past Ridgewell and down to the corner of the box after controlling a searching pass from Fabregas hit a great curler over to the far post the keeper did well to tip over.

We continued to dominate, they didn't really have much of a chance against our awesome passing, again we were playing super narrow with the occasional wing play from Walcott on the right.  He limped around the right side until he was replaced by Arshavin in the 33rd, a shame really, hopefully he's not gone too long.  Before he went off we got our first 2 goals.

We had been putting on the pressure and they played a poor clearance straight to Alex Song who dribbled forward nicely very well past a couple of defenders and played a ball just behind van Persie who controlled expertly to put the ball in front of him and finish low in the far corner for his 4th of the season.

2 minutes later Diaby put us 2 ahead after Eboue played Rosicky in on the right side of the box, he hit the ball low across the box and Diaby came in late and smashed into the top corner.  At that point it looked like we would go on to score another 5, as Birmingham could hardly touch us. 

But it wasn't to be, towards the end of the half an innocuous cross was headed straight upwards by Vermaelen and then Mannone was super weak coming out and dropped the ball for Bowyer to put away and make it 2-1.  Theo had gone off by then and Arshavin almost put us 3-1 up but Harte saved well at his near post.  Birmingham played with more verve and urgency but still couldn't do us much damage. 

The second half wasn't the reclaiming of the game performance we had hoped for.  van Persie hit the bar from an indirect free kick 10 yards out and that was about it until Arshavin scored a nicely taken cheeky curler.  We could have made it 4 but Harte made a great save from Diaby's close range shot and that was that.  Another 3 points.  Our 7th win in a row and we've climbed into 4th place, 1 point behind Spurs with a game in hand that'll put us into 2nd, a point behind United, should we win it. 

Again we played rather narrow and high up the park.  All the play came through Fabregas who was very good, and some through Diaby and Song who were both in decent form.  Gibbs and Eboue played well enough, although I would have liked to have seen some more forages forward from Gibbs.  He was at his best last season when he was climbing up the park with quick and mazy dribbles forward. 

Our forwards are scoring goals and Diaby has pitched in with a few from midfield, perhaps balancing out the contrast between he and Denilson.  Where Denilson rarely gives away possession and makes interception after interception, he doesn't score as many goals or get us forward as much as we'd all like.  Diaby gets us forward enough with some good and powerful dribbling but he gives away possession like nobody's business, so popping in with a few goals is a serious counterbalance. 

I've just discovered that Theo will be out for 4-3 weeks, which with Theo could mean anywhere between 3 and 8 weeks.  It sucks for him, he's pushing for a World Cup spot and we're pushing for trophies and we need Theo back for both but the boy's targeted every game and can hardly get a break.  This could still be his true break out season but he'll have to stay fit for longer than a week at a time for that to happen. 

There's some other stuff about Wenger not signing Barry or Alonso and he explains his buying senior players kills youth players stuff, and that's all really. 

Liverpool's crazy beach ball incident has put them in a bad position indeed.  You have to think that 1/2 more losses and they're out of the thing for sure, maybe even out of the top 4 and you can't see them avoiding defeats the way they're playing this season.  Chelsea's loss puts them on 2 losses like us, Man U's and Man City's ability to hang onto draws has kept them going but still they've dropped points where we've been picking them up.  We're on a good roll and have 5 games until Spurs.  Our league games are very winnable, as are our Champions' League games, our only really tricky fixture between now and then is Liverpool in the league cup.  I'm guessing they may put out a more experienced side in order to try and win some silverware and so we'll have to see how our younglings do. 

I'm excited for the 31st! 

We're climbing up the table and scoring goals for fun.  Come on you Arsenal.

Highbury86