Arsenal 1-0 Udinese: A Shaky Win is Good, But More is Needed.

By: jg | August 16th, 2011

A pretty important match, no doubt.

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Well, we won something. 2 games into the season and we’re undefeated, we won the crucial first leg of the CL play-off tie, and we have yet to concede. The bad parts come in once you start looking in depth at our performances, and of course, the return of that unwanted friend: Injury.

The match started in near perfect fashion, with an Udinese player getting booked 50 seconds in. In the 4th minute, a quick series of passes down the right hand side led to Sagna chipping a delightful pass to an onrushing Ramsey, who took his time in delivering a great cross to an unmarked Walcott, who simply air-tapped it past a helpless Handanovic. 1-0 to the Arsenal, first goal of the season for Arsenal and Walcott, and it was the perfect start for a team that has been in turmoil for the last couple of weeks.

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Following that, the game quickly developed into a highly pulsating, end-to-end match. Udinese almost caught us by surprise in the 11th minute, with Di Natale sending a curling freekick which rattled the bar and left us scrambling. Udinese started to grow into the game after that, taking advantage of our indecisive and unimaginative attack to launch some pretty dangerous counter-attacks every couple of minutes. The scariest of these came in the 29th minute, where Armero won the ball from Song in his half and then started on a breathtaking run, waltzing past Sagna and Koscielny as if they weren’t even there, and set himself up for a one-on-one with Szczesny. Fortunately, his shot was aimed straight at our keeper, who palmed out of harm’s way. Afterwards the match continued in its usual fashion, with Arsenal dominating in possession, and attacking mostly from the flanks, but Udinese doing well in the counters. Near the end of the first-half, the game slowed down a bit, both side’s players showing fatigue.

The second-half started in a pretty worrying fashion, with the introduction of Djourou for Gibbs. The most optimistic explanation for this was that Gibbs was carrying a yellow, and therefore Wenger wanted to protect him for the second leg. No such luck, friends; Gibbs apparently injured his hamstring and joins Traore in our injury list. Ouch. This meant that we got to see Vermaelen play at LB, something which got a lot of discussion during the summer. Anyways, the second half started with Udinese dominating, playing the game in our half and looking for ways to probe our goal. They almost got their break when a series of good passes found an onrushing Di Natale in the box, and he was about to pull the trigger but thankfully Djourou blocked the ball at the last second. It wasn’t too long afterwards when injury struck again. It was, most incredulously, for Djourou, who had been on the pitch for barely 10 minutes. It turns out it was his hamstring again, and he came off for Carl Jenkinson, notorious for giving Homey heart palpitations at night. Vermaelen shifted back to CB and young Carl got his Arsenal debut at LB, where he would go up against the impressive Isla.

The match then settled into the following routine: Udinese attacked in our half, the ball was cleared, and Arsenal started on a promising counter which ended in nothing. Once again, this showed a very serious lack of creativity and direct play in our attacking forays. An Arsenal player would get the ball, play some nice passes with a teammate, then would get in the box and…. that’s it. Either he would dilly dally with the ball for far too long and a defender would win it from him, or would be forced out of the box and have to start a new play from scratch. Not only are we missing an efficient playmaker in the Cesc role, we’re also missing players who have a clear and direct plan on what they’re going to do once they’re in a good position, and DO IT. Either taking the shot (TAAKEE THE SHOOTTTT, STAN!), or quickly passing it to an onrushing teammate, but doing something. We had that with Cesc and first-half-of-the-season Nasri last season. Let’s hope Wenger gets the needed reinforcements to be able to inject some creativity into this team.

The match was nearing its end when two notable things happened, one on either side of the pitch. Nearing injury time, Gervinho went on a run and delivered a great pass to Walcott, who sidefooted it to the far post, only for Handanovic to palm it away at the last second. A 2-0 scoreline was hardly merited today by Arsenal, but it sure would have been nice to take that result to the away leg. Sadly, it was not to be. Then, in the last minute of injury time, Koscielny brought down the Udinese player on the right side of the goal, just outside the box. This was a position where we have conceded goals countless times before, so it was very much a hearts in mouths moment. Thankfully, Di Natale blasted the free kick out of play, and that’s how it would end, 1-0 to the Arsenal.

Now, getting the win in the current situation we’re in was very nice, but it’s obvious that this current squad alone won’t be able to seriously compete in any competition this year (to be fair, we haven’t seen Wilshere due to injury, but still..). This team is currently unimaginative, too reliant on one form of play, and completely predictable. We’ve been re-linked with Hazard, along with Marvin Martin and Jadson. Whoever it is, Wenger has to be sure they’re good enough to inject a certain oomph into our attack. The good is that so far, our defense looks much better than season’s past, and it’s making up for our attacking deficiencies. The bad side, of course, is that we’ve lost 2 defenders already, and our squad is thinner than a twig at the moment. Let’s hope Le Boss recognizes this too and does what is necessary.

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Match Stats
Possesion: Arsenal 54%-46% Udinese
Shots (on target): 10(7)-13(3)
Corners 6-7
Fouls: 19-11

On to the player ratings:

Szczesny: 8.5 Co-Man of the Match A big, big reason why we won this match. Goalkeepers have a very simple job, in relation to everybody else- keep the ball out of the net. Udinese threatened all game long, but only managed to get 3 shots on target, 2 of which were very dangerous. Szczesny saved them all, from blocking Armero on the one-on-one, to saving Di Natale’s freekick with a camera save. He’s been good so far this season, and if he can keep it up, I think we’ll be looking at our first season since 05-06 with an undisputed #1 who can give good performance week in, week out.

Sagna: 7 Had to deal with the impressive Armero all match long, and bar a couple of instances, Sagna dealed with the Colombian with the same composure and skill we usually see from, well, Sagna. His expertly chipped pass set up Ramsey that led to the goal, and had a good time in exploiting the space left behind by Udinese to go up front when we attacked. Another good performance overall.

Koscielny: 6.5 I think he’s quickly becoming one of the most underrated CB’s in England. As noted in the comments, Koscielny is very much a technical, sweeper-type CB, and did his job very well. It could be that he benefits from having Vermaelen as his partner, because for the most part he held a very composed figure, and didn’t struggle too badly against Di Natale. Still, he had his moments that he needs to iron out, in particular a pretty unnecessary foul at the last minute that led to Udinese getting an FK in a dangerous position.

Vermaelen: 8.5 Co-Man of the Match Man, it’s GREAT to have the Verminator back. Was ever-present in defending set-pieces and dealt with Udinese’s attacking threat well, and was another big reason why we finished with a clean sheet. Limited Di Natale from doing much damage, resulting in Udinese’s biggest opportunities coming from a FK. Almost got on the end of a corner early in the first-half too, and wasn’t too bad in the short time he played as a LB, although we’d need to see him play more in that position to see if he can adequately perform. He’s going to be big for us this season, and, so far at least, it looks like he’s developing a great partnership with Koscielny.

Gibbs: 6.5 I mentioned on the preview that this match was going to be a big test for Gibbs, what with Udinese’s attacking wing-back and all, and I think he did fine. Dealt with Isla generally well, and showed good understanding with his fellow defenders. The only thing I think that was going against him is that I didn’t see him exploit the space that Udinese left behind the same way Sagna did, but he’s still learning. Most worryingly, has gotten a hamstring knock which saw him subbed at half-time. Oh, Fibergibbs.

Song: 7.5 He certainly played the role of holding midfielder well today. Apart from losing possession a few times in the first half, Song did his job very, very well. His tracking back was excellent, and was always hounding the Udinese players when they had the ball, especially Asamoah. At times, he looked like an auxiliary CB, assisting Kos and TV5 and the fullbacks in getting the ball from the Udinese players. Apart from one foul early in the first half, I don’t recall any brainless moments, and I think we’re going to miss him for the next 3 games.

Ramsey: 7 He got the assist on Walcott’s goal, and was always trying to start something. Unfortunately, he needs to be sharper when passing if he’s going to be successful as a pseudo-playmaker this season. But the upside is that he’s only going to improve, and indeed he had a couple of moments in which he showed what he’s capable of, including a delightful pass to Walcott in the second-half that created a chance for him.

Rosicky: 6.5 He showed a lot of hustle, and his passes were always on target and were well made. But he was clearly lacking in the playmaker aspect, and he doesn’t really have a look for defense-splitting passes in the way Cesc and Wilshere (and possibly Ramsey) have. He’s a good squad player, and I think he’ll be good for us this season when it comes to retaining possession and defending leads, but we have to get a new CAM, because Rosicky isn’t doing the job very well.

Walcott: 7 He scored the winning goal and the first goal of our season, and was generally lively down the flanks after that. Was involved in most of our plays and, in the first half especially, seemed our most dangerous player. In the second half, however, he was guilty of spurning two great chances to increase the scoreline; one was an almost one-on-one which he.. just sort of chipped out of play, and the other one was the aforementioned pass from Gervinho which would have gone in, if not for Handanovic’s save.

Gervinho: 6 Well, the good thing is that he has a good amount of pace, is decent at getting himself into spaces, and switches flanks quite frequently. The bad things is that his final ball is really, really bad. Either he would get tangled in trying to dribble past his marker and lose the ball, or he would pass or cross erratically and end in nothing. As our only first-team signing, he’s going to play a big part in our season so he has to improve on that. Finally gave a good ball in injury time to Walcott, who should have buried it. Unfortunately, he’ll be suspended for the next 3 EPL games so we won’t be able to see more of him for now. But I think once he starts to improve on his passing and his finishing, he’ll be a monster.

Chamakh: 4.5 If Chamakh is going to be RvP’s backup for the rest of the season, then I hope RvP doesn’t get injured at all, we keep Bendtner, or we sign a new striker, because Chamakh was atrocious today. His passes were always off and resulted in lost possession for us, something that played into Udinese’s plan of hitting us at the break. He looks clumsy when dealing with the ball and completely short on confidence. Let’s see if he can improve from here on out.

Subs:

Djourou: 7 He was only on the pitch for 10 or so minutes, but he was quite good in them. There were fears that after having a bad end to the season and a shaky pre-season, Djourou had regressed in form. Not today. An expertly timed block denied Di Natale from slotting home the equalizer, and he was impressive in the air. A decent backup for TV5 and Kos at the moment, and let’s hope his injury isn’t too bad, because right now we’re an injury and a suspension away from seeing Squillaci start for us. Yikes.

Jenkinson: 6.5 Homey’s Favorite Player, as I like to call him, came on for the injured Djourou, and was given his impromptu debut defending the left-hand side, which I’m told is not his natural position. After a couple of shaky moments, Jenkinson adapted well and held his own against Isla. He seemed solid enough and I didn’t really notice any nervousness in him on his debut. Let’s hope he can keep it up because there’s a chance he’s starting this weekend.

Frimpong: 6 Came on for Rosicky, and generally did a good job of defending the midfield. Led a promising charge upfield later on which was good, but all in all, not a bad performance for the guy who in all likelihood will start against Liverpool.

Right, don’t forget to deconstruct my ratings in the comments. Have a good Tuesday!

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Category: Champions League, Fixtures, Match Review

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sbobet

great post.
i like it.
Gigi_man

A key word that might help us, like the great Zizou said, Control of the ball,
According to Ziz, whenever he received or gave passes and the ball was controlled properly it gave the chamce pf fooling the opponent.
We tend to do a 1st touch pass and when we re not sharp we seem sloppy.
Over all, good review and agree mostly with the ratings.
Like Perry said thatwe said, a fox in the box was missing imo.
Great Wojo yesterday, excellent.
Rico

Slightly off topic from CL, but Song has received a 3 match ban for standing on "Thug's FC"s Joey Barton. Now we have Song and Gervinho suspended for 3 matches, many injuries, no main player maker and liverpool and Manchester Utd coming up.
When does our luck change in this League? Is it only Man Utd who has the endless supply of fortune (referencing to the second goal, the double deflection).
Patoux21

It reminds me of Rooney elbow blow in front of the referee last season when he wasn't punished at all. Anyway I wonder sometimes if players like Song have a brain
Rico

Rooney swore down a TV camera on a Saturday afternoon (when most families have the TV on including young kids) and only received a two match ban. The FA had to look into footage to see Song stand on Barton. Fair?
Patoux21

Not fair but it's no brainer that ManU is favoured by the league and referees
Zamil_m10

shouldve put in Arshavin for Chamakh or tried out one of Miyaichi or Chamberlain at the 60th minute+ when Marouane was clearly useless. Vermaelen and Szcenzny Excellent. Songinho, Sagna and Theo were good. Ramsey is like a taller,faster cesc but needs to find some creactivity. Gervinho is alot like Arshavin EXCEPT he tracks back reaaaally well
Benjamin Dockter

Miyachi wasn't on the bench. I think it was smart of Wenger to bring on Frimpong over another attacker. A clean sheet is more important than a second goal.
JPR

Is it legal in Britain what Pep Guardiola keeps doing to Arsene Wenger? Just wondering. Maybe he's hacking voicemails or something to get an unfair advantage. Someone should look into it.
Richardcake

To be honest I thought the performance was very very average. The amount of times kos gave the ball away. Are you people watching the same game. Rosiky was rubbish. Arsene needs to spend cash now or he will get fired!!!
Lana W. Dawood

Please don't shot me but I wouldn't mind Wenger buying Trezeguet.. He's was a great player and still got it in him, and yeah he's old but we need the experiance.. What do you guys think?
brenton

Maybe as a super sub, and then only in a Michael Owen at ManU role.
Lana W. Dawood

he has always been underrated! Trezeguet was once one of the greates strikers and formed a pretty impressive partnership with Alessandro Del Piero!
FredJacob

World cup finals 2008
brenton

Hazard and Baines, please.
Patoux21

Hazard and Mata plz and Cashley Cole lol
Rico

I was impressed by the interview Arsene had before the match, kinda restored my faith in him. He was straight to the point about the people he buys and to trust him. I do, just needs to get a move on!
The game itself was good, it was good to see our defenders being place under pressure and being able to withstand it. Although I still only trust Sagna and TV5 so fair.
Chamakh was a disappointment, I've stuck by him through the poor ending of last season but he's on thin ice, his performance was lazy and half arsed. Was it just me or was he playing a little too deep for attacking position? He should have been on the shoulders of the defenders but was caught closer to the half way line in many occasions. I did see him ask for several through balls.
Rosicky, although was semi decent, isn't anything close to what we need in the middle of the park. We are missing a Wilshere or Nasri badly.
Patoux21

To be honest I don't think the defense has really improved. Udinese had many opportunities to score and they didn't because they were clumsy or unlucky.
Crusader

Having loaned Vela to Spain for the season and Bendtner seemingly on his way out we are left with only two true strikers in the team RVP and Chamarkh. My thought is that Wenger must be planning to sign a striker or else we'll be seriously out of depth upfront.....
Benjamin Dockter

We're seriously out of depth in every position but attacking wingers and even then it's mostly untested youngsters.
Jpeturson

Gibbs and injurys. Why in the hell was Gibbs not in a strenght program this summer. Either this kid has god a birds body or he is the softest guy on earth. Being a young man and always injured is serious buisness. I have said before that Arsenal need a new strength coach most of all. We have had more nagging injurys like achillies problems then any other premiership club. either our players are exstremely softhearted or our strength coach is not doing his job. Wenger needs to issue that matter. because those injuries should not occur in the magnitude they have doing at Arsenal. Its a joke
Tomisin

The key to unlocking this season is having Gervinho keep it simple. He has to stick to the basics. Run down the wing, Pass into the box. Run down the middle,shoot and hope for a deflection or rebound or even a goal. THe passing aspect is what made Walcott a hit last season. simple and clean.
Tomisin

Articulate and to the point. Nice post match analysis JG. i think you're the only new bloggger i'm not really familiar with. Used to Homey, Darren and Brenton. Hope to see more of you. cheers
Homey_Mills

JG is the man. He was away in Peru for three weeks, but other than that, has been a regular blogger since our group took over.
Desperate Gunner

One nil @ home is an excellent result in European games.... We score one goal there, and they need to score three. Arsenal are more or less qualified for the UEFA CL. On a side note, Wenger needs to improve the squad. Playing Jenkinson against pool and Man U is not ideal. Forget the Cesc, Clichy & Eboue money... Whatever happened to the money for the Abedayar and Toure sales to Man Citeh. I think it was 40 mil and we bought 3 CB's in the last 2 seasons for 20 mil or so.
I plead with you Wenger to spend the money from the sale of players.... I'm not asking you to invest more money.... Please Wenger, AFC is one of the top clubs in the world and we generate enough revenue to pay the market wages....
We want trophies and NOT A PROFIT.... Trophies and breaking even is SO possible
Martin

Wow. Just got home and watched the match, and I think we were really fortunate to get away with a 1-0. I'm downright terrified of next week's match, I was really impressed by Udinese.

There were some positives, but I'm worried. As near as I can tell, we now have five fit defenders -- Sagna, Jenkinson, Vermaelen, Kos, and Squillaci. So we're one injury away from having Squillaci play in a very important match, and two injuries away from having to turn to Ignasi Miquel. Either we need to buy a defender or start giving our defenders some kind of Highlander/invincibility tonic.

And I just thought we looked sloppy and undisciplined for most of the match. How many times did one of their guys get on to a through ball past our backline? If we play that high line and are that shaky again, I think we could get torn to pieces.

And we've got to do something in the middle of the pitch. We had no penetration at all -- every good thing we did came through the flanks with Gervinho and Walcott. I know part of it might be Udinese's 3-4-3, but Rosicky, as hard as he works, just isn't getting it done. We've got to get someone with more attacking skill in there.

I've been trying to be optimistic, but I really do think if we play like that we could find ourselves in 2 weeks time with 1 point from 3 league matches and waiting for the Europa League group stage draw.

Maybe I'm overreacting, and I've always said you'd rather play bad and get a good result than play brilliantly and not get the result. And if we can just score a goal in Italy next week, that forces Udinese to score at least 3 to go through, which is not an easy task.

We shall see.
Zamil_m10

man if we get another injury i think we should try and test Miquel first, Squillaci is a tried and tested failure
brenton

After we scored and they had a few chances I thought for sure we would need at least another goal to win. Partly we were lucky, partly our defensive players made great last second blocks, partly Wojo was very good a few times. I'm just amazed they didn't have an easy tap-in at some point.
Homey_Mills

I know we've only seen two games so far, but it's quite ironic that the strength of the team may well be the "holy trio" of Wojo, Kos, and TV5. Much better than the unholy trio we had last year, as I recall. But it's funny how now we're having all these questions about our attack, when that's typically not been the problem before. Maybe that will make us tough to beat in competitions like the FA Cup, Carling Cup, and CL.
Perry S.

Errrm go back to the last 3rd of last year, Gigi & I were chirping away about how we needed more creative options in the attack....something along the lines of wanting a true "fox in the box."
Gigi_man

Wow, you really are a record keeper! I know we said things ut knowing that in the last 3rd, hats off to you for that, mean it!
pw

Did anyone wonder how we won this game?

Doesn't it feel good having a decent goalkeeper? I doubt we would have won the game if we had Alumnia in goal....

I hope we can continue to win these "sloppy" games, because that's how Man U does it...
JPR

That's how Man U used to do it. Not with De Gea this year.

Why is it that Ferguson always seems to come up with quality field players, but Wenger now seems lost?

Maybe he's getting senile from his treatment by Pep Guardiola the last few years.
Zamil_m10

lol ManU's last win consisted of a match winning own goal made up of double deflections
Solah

Why can't someone tell Arsenal players to shoot? See Barca vs Real Madrid, David Villa had to shoot from the edge of the box, even when is obvious that Barca is an excellent passers of the ball compared to Arsenal. Moreso, I really do not understand how Chamak plays now, I thought I was the only one that noticed it. On Gervinho, he should be asked to shoot pure and simple as he appears not to understand how to dribble opponets.
brenton

I thought we tried more shots from outside the box in the first half than I've seen in a while. None got through, but at least they were shooting.
FredJacob

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...
Rohanl A

another video yet again....
Zamil_m10

AFOBE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! yeah Freeman looks seriously good
FredJacob

what you guys think about freeman
Rohanl A

nobody cares fred
Kas123

Freeman?
brenton

Attacking mid (?) for reserves/youth team. Seems like he's got a great touch on the ball.
FredJacob

yea he does and i, was watching Arsenal top ten goals he was at number 4 with a cracker
Rohanl A

he sucks fred, tsk tsk tsk
FredJacob

You suck also
Colombian Gunner

Bring in Armero and Riquelme, theres your left back and CAM
Cesc and Eboue gone in just a couple of days...that a hard one to watch (as tears might come out of your eyes)
Perry S.

Yeah, sad to see such a good teammate go in Eboue, but he really is not useful to this team at this point in time. I firmly agree about Armero.
brenton

Riquelme? Can't tell if you're serious. He won't live in London. He doesn't run much. He doesn't defend. Etc. I'm a big fan, but he is not the player we need.
Kas123

Unrelated to the game today. Eboue deserves mention, he isn't Cesc, but throughout his time at Arsenal, it can be said that he was indeed a selfless servant to our club. He was seldom the best player on the pitch, but he never failed to give 100%, was involved in every celebration even when on the bench, and just an all around positive person to have in the dressing room. I remember when we lost to Birmingham in the Carling Cup final, Eboue was out there picking everyone up, i remember vividly him comforting Wilshire as he cried after that heartbreaking loss. Even when he was booed and replaced by the manager a couple of seasons ago, he never turned his back on Arsenal. I have much respect for him and wish him the very best at Galatasaray.
Benjamin Dockter

He would also go to a lot of the Reserve and Youth team games. I hope we get another character like him. You can't go wrong by having someone so positive being around the club.
Perry S.

MASSIVELY AGREE. We now have Rosicky in that role...he really never says a bad thing about this club either, always supporting it, and basically gives it his all (though not the best either).
Martin

The only player who would always go over and thank the away fans when Arsenal was traveling.
brenton

Agreed.
Joker from espnsuckernet

good post
one problem that arsenal surprisingly has solved is that they hold out well when they are playing shaky-clean sheets to a gritty newcastle team when man down and holding off to an armero inspired udinese-top teams have to get result when they are shaky-united does it often so does chelsea,so does city-arsenal rarely do it-a win and a draw when it could have been worst

but then there is an ever glaring issue popping up again-depth and injuries-as kevin palmer on espn so rightly pointed out with chamakh-is that the back up to rvp arsenal expect or need-
what is wenger going to do with the gap left by gibbs injury-jenkinson is clearly a right back and was uncomfortable playing on the left-and this is just the start of the season wait till the pace is more hectic
of the new arrival arsenal have attained,3 are wingers, a position(and possibly the only one) arsenal are well stacked on -wenger has spent less and when he has its not in the departments where arsenal are hurt

august 31 is not far away what will wenger do
maybe the two games are just too little to judge on or maybe they are sign of things to come-why take chances? arsene should panic
Hamzah

Good fair analysis unlike some of the others i have read i agree we need a CAM and i was hoping Arteta from Everton as a double swoop including Jagielka... ooh that would really piss of everton fans.
brenton

Also, this bitter and angry act by Nasri is a bit fucking much. I've always wondered about his attitude, starting with his issues with other players on the French team. I'll be happy to get the money from the sale, as he is clearly happy to find a bigger paycheck elsewhere. Fair enough. But don't claim it's not about money.
aslan

Nasri claims on his twitter that that's not him, and that it's a fake facebook account. I wonder who initially reported it as his facebook page?
brenton

One of the British tabloids. Okay. Let's see what he actually has to say, then.
JG

What a load of bull. "Bitter and angry"? Yeah, I bet he's pretty angry that Citah are only offering 200,000 a week and their first born sons in his contract. This makes Cesc look good by comparison. He never said anything, and certainly didn't lay out any farcical statements directed at the fans. Nasri wants cash, but he only has one half season to back him up. And we're about to get 22 million for him. Good riddance.
The question remains, will Wenger spend it? That's why today's shaky win was so important.
brenton

I thought Frimpong did very well, just wasn't on for very long. And a very good game for Ramsey. Flashes of what could be. Still a lot of work, but getting there.

Deserving mention, I think, was Koscielny's stupid, stupid giveaway as he tried to carry the ball out of the back, leading to a good chance for Udinese.
Matskas

good rating unless chamakh not 4,5 but 3 (we will better with 10 players) gibbs 7 not 6,5 and frimpong 6,5 not and maybe song 8,5
FredJacob

highlights

http://www.myspace.com/video/5...