But, unfortunately, there’s some bad news as well. For starters, while I wouldn’t say we played poorly, we certainly could have played better. We did score twice, but our finishing was poor, and generally our execution in the final 1/3 of the pitch lacked quality. I’m not sure if it’s because of the drop in quality of players because of injuries, fatigue from the international break, or just because these players haven’t had the chance to really play together very much this season, but Standard’s defense was really there for the taking and we should have been quite a bit more lethal in attack. And despite the fact that Standard offered little going forward, we continued our worrying trend of only allowing a few shots, but allowing really dangerous shots when we do–Standard hit the post a couple of times. Almunia only made one save all game.

The main point of worry, though, is injuries. We suffered two injuries this game, and both came where we can least afford it. Gallas left at half-time–I assumed that it was because he took a nasty blow to the head when he and Arshavin tried to head the same ball (his eye was nearly swollen shut by the end of the half), but apparently he has an ankle issue, too. No word on how serious it is or whether he’ll be available for Chelsea on Sunday. More certain is the diagnosis of Kieran Gibbs, who, as cruel fate would have it, injured his foot a couple of minutes into injury time right before the final whistle. Broken metatarsal in his left foot, out for around 3 months. Frak. When I first saw it and read about it, I thought, “Arsenal medical staff strikes again,” thinking they had misdiagnosed his “bruised foot” from the international break and sent him out to play when he shouldn’t have been out there. But that injury was in his right foot, so the fact that he suffered two foot injuries in the span of little over a week appears to be just a coincidence.

Make no mistake–this is a real problem for us. With Clichy and Gibbs both out injured, our options at left back are distinctly unappealing. We have Armand Traore, a talented young player who doesn’t seem to have the defensive chops to play the position as well as we expect, or we have the option of playing one of our reserve center backs (almost certainly Silvestre) left-back; or we can move one of our starting center backs to left back, and either play reserve center backs or drop Alex Song to the backline. Any of these options make us significantly worse.

And the Gallas injury hurts too, because it forces Wenger to either play Song out of position or play Mikael Silvestre. I suspect he’ll go with the latter. You’ll remember last season that it was Silvestre, against Chelsea, who gave up on the ball that Didier Drogba beat him to score the goal which put us out of the FA Cup. Look, Silvestre seems like a decent teammate and a good guy. But there’s no escaping the fact that he has been exposed as a footballer well past his prime, and no longer able to play at the highest level of the game. He’s got some veteran savvy, but all the experience in the world does you no good if you can’t keep up with and physically impose yourself upon defenders.

And, unfortunately, he seems to be Wenger’s preferred option. I don’t think we’ve gotten the whole story on why this is, but Senderos seems to be out of the picture unless absolutely necessary. It’s a shame, too, b/c I’ve always thought Big Phil was a pretty decent player who just lost some confidence and made a few high-profile mistakes. Especially against a striker who relies on brawn as much as Drogba does, I think Senderos would be our best option on Sunday. But Senderos was pretty clear about wanting out of the club in August, and the relationship between him and the club seems to have soured. Although it is to his credit that, if this is the case, he hasn’t been giving a bunch of interviews about it like so many other players would have.

At any rate, I am very, very, very worried about the ability of a Sagna-Silvestre-Vermaelen-Traore backline to deal with the likes of Chelsea. Having no depth on the backline really cost us down the stretch last season, and it should have been very apparent to Wenger that we needed reinforcements this season. And yet, we just replaced Toure with Vermaelen. I don’t understand why it wouldn’t have been worthwhile to go out and get a player like Sakho or Bassong, young guys who would have been willing to be a back-up and play on the Carling Cup squad for a season or two with the implicit understanding that they’d have a chance at the first-team once Gallas moves on. For all Wenger’s genius in the transfer market, his persistent blind spots can be downright infuriating.

I have to hop on a plane in a bit, so I won’t give a full recap–I’m sure you’ve read about it and seen the highlights by now anyways. But we definitely controlled this match. Aside from a couple shots which hit the posts, Standard never really threatened. On the other hand, it felt like, especially in the first half, we created a lot of opportunities, but just lacked a killer instinct. It seemed like we hit the post or put balls a few inches wide half a dozen times. But Nasri’s goal was a very composed finish, and Denilson’s goal…well, the keeper should have saved it, but it was a brilliant, audacious effort, and sometimes those catch the keeper flat-footed and you get rewarded. It was a well-deserved victory, and frankly, the scoreline probably flatters them a bit, it felt much more like a 4-1 game than a 2-0 game.

On to the ratings:

Almunia 6.5. Only made one save (on a muffed shot) all match, and never had to struggle. It’s worrying that he seemingly never has to make saves, but neither of the shots which hit the bar were his fault. Another decent performance where he didn’t have much to do.

Eboue 6.5. Made a few decent runs, but wasn’t as involved as he could have been, and didn’t have too much to do at the back.

Gibbs 6.5.Solid performance from Gibbs, of the kind that I think we’re dearly going to miss for the rest of the calendar year. Sigh.

Vermaelen 6.5 Was solid at the back, but against a punchless team like Standard, really should be getting forward a bit more.

Gallas 6.5. Only played first half, but played well, and got his head on a couple of dangerous balls–could have been rewarded with a goal on another day. Here’s hoping he’s okay.

Denilson 8. Great performance on his return from injury, and showed that he’s going to be an important part of this midfield going forward. He also probably played well enough to make Wenger think about playing him in the holding midfield role and Song at center back if Gallas can’t play on Sunday. If everyone was completely healthy, who would be playing in our midfield? It would definitely be Cesc and Song, and I think Denilson may very well be the third member of that.

Song 8.5 Man of the Match, for the second match running. My goodness, he’s having a good run of form. I think he represents our best hope of slowing down Chelsea–he’s got the physicality and aggressiveness to battle with Drogba & Co., and I could see him really disrupting that diamond formation.

Cesc 6.5. Not terrible, but just never really got it going. Gave away possession a few times on bad passes, and wasn’t a consistent threat. Also lost his temper again, and drew a yellow (although he incited retaliation which drew a red). Looks like a guy who could use a day or two off to me.

Arshavin 6.5. Confirmed what we thought–he really gave it a go as the center pivot forward in the 4-3-3, and I think he’s our best option, but several times got bullied off the ball by bigger defenders. Still, big ups to a guy whose head bleeds all over the place and just asks for a couple of stitches and a clean jersey and gets right back out there.

Nasri 7.5. Looked pretty good up front, and showed some poacher’s instincts on the goal. I like Nasri.

Vela 6.5. I also like Vela. He looked pretty solid, I thought–creative and dangerous, and really could have easily scored early in the game, when his shot off a corner kick hit the post. He’s got a world of talent, and I think he really could be a very good high-level striker in another year or two if he continues to get experience and mature. Plus, my roommate thinks he’s “soooooooo hot.” So he’s got that going for him.

Walcott 5.5. Looked off, couldn’t adequately use his pace and skills to create chances.

Rosicky 6. Decent substitute performance, especially considering he was playing further back on the pitch than he normally does.

Silvestre 6. Looked fine, as he played the entire second half. But the problem isn’t against lesser teams like this, it’s against teams which really test how much gas he’s got left in the tank. We may have to find out next week.

Well, that’s that–we have now made the knockout stages 10 years running, which is a remarkable level of consistency. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, we should all be grateful to support a club that has established such a level of year-in, year-out success, even if it hasn’t translated to trophies the last couple of seasons.

Also, in good news, the club announced this morning that Alex Song signed a new long-term deal with the club. Song has really come into his own this season–there aren’t five better holding midfielders in the world at the moment. And it’s shown not only in the difference in possession we retain this season versus last season, but also in Fabregas’s performance. Song has given Cesc what he had in Flamini and what he was missing last season–someone to cover his back and allow him to go forward, but also to win the ball consistently and get the attack moving the opposite direction. Song has quietly become one of my favorite gunners this season, and I hope he plays for us for a long, long time.

I’m going to be traveling for Thanksgiving, but will try to drop by and update once or twice on goings on, and I should be able to have a preview of the Chelsea match up Saturday night. Hope you all have a happy and gluttonous turkey day.

I opened up my preview for this match with the following paragraph:

Back in action at the Stadium of Light tomorrow, for what I expect to be a very tricky match. Seriously–this match scares the hell out of me. For one thing, it’s a road match against a top half side with a very good home record–those matches are always tough, no matter what. But throw in the fact that nearly half our first team is injured, and that everyone is already talking about next weekend’s matchup with Chelsea, and this has all the makings of an Arsenal stumble. I dearly hope I’m wrong.

I don’t know if I’ve ever been so disgusted to be right.

All year, I (and many others) have been talking about how different this season’s Arsenal squad is from last season. After today, though, you’d have to say: maybe not so different as we thought.

Last year’s team, you recall, made a habit of mailing in awful performances against teams we should have been expected to win against, only to turn around and turn in strong performances against our fellow top 4 clubs and in the Champions League. The only possible explanation is that the club, while capable of playing great, simply didn’t have the focus and mental strength to play their best week in and week out. That’s basically what happened today.

I know, I know, we have plenty of at least somewhat legitimate excuses–injuries, tired from the international break, etc. But you know what? (1) Sunderland had plenty of injuries/suspensions of their own; and (2) we had plenty of world-class players–Fabregas, Arshavin, Eduardo, Nasri, Song, Vermaelen, Gallas, etc. To be blunt, all of those players are likely better than any single member of Sunderland’s squad. We should have won. Period. And we didn’t, because Sunderland wanted it more than we did, and they came out and outworked and outplayed us. Full credit to them for that.

I generally try to avoid hyperbole, so I won’t say that this match ended Arsenal’s title hopes. We’re 8 points behind Chelsea, but with a head-to-head match-up next week and a home game against Bolton in hand. If we were to win both of those matches, we’d be just 2 points behind, easily within striking distance. But I will say that it’s hard to imagine a league-winning side turning in a performance as lackluster as what I just saw from Arsenal. I was at the pub, and the Arsenal game was playing right next to another tv, which was showing the Chelsea-Wolves “match.” The contrast between the quality and composure of Chelsea and Arsenal was disturbingly evident–it didn’t make for a very good morning for me, I have to say.

Like we did so many times last season, we seemed overly content with merely retaining possession and passing the ball back and forth outside of the proximity to goal where we needed to be to cause any real danger. We had 65% of the possession, yet you wouldn’t really say that we dominated the match. Tomas Rosicky missed a beautiful chance inside of 5 minutes, but the entire rest of the game, we only created a few chances and never again forced unproven keeper Martin Fulop into making a difficult save.

This is also the first time we’ve been kept off the scoresheet since the 0-0 draw with Manchester United last season. To be blunt, I think a big part of it was Robin van Persie–we miss him more than even I thought we would. Eduardo certainly didn’t play well, but only so much of the blame can fall on his shoulders, because he’s just not the kind of player to fill that position. Robbie’s position in the 4-3-3 is the fulcrum for the entire attack, constantly getting the ball into feet and sending back out again to someone in a dangerous position. On the other hand, Eduardo is most comfortable as a true poacher, probing for weaknesses in the backline without the ball and popping up to take one touch and get a shot on goal from a dangerous position. For a guy who should have been involved in the attack a lot, Eduardo seemed awfully invisible for almost all of the match. I’m not sure what the answer is, but I do think Wenger needs to go back to the drawing board in terms of who should take RvP’s place as the center forward, b/c Eduardo isn’t up to the task–if it means temporarily abandoning the 4-3-3 until van Persie returns from injury, so be it.

Anyway, as to the match itself, there isn’t much to say by way of recap. Fabregas created a beautiful chance for Rosicky which he wasted by shooting directly at the keeper in the 5th minute. After that, there just weren’t too many chances. Eduardo had another great chance inside the box, but instead of just shooting low to the side of the keeper, where he had room, Eduardo tried to be too clever and chip the ball over the keeper, and his chip went well wide. We had a couple of quality balls into the box late after Sunderland had scored, but couldn’t get anyone on the other end of them. Sunderland didn’t fare too much better–Malbranque had a couple of shots inside the box unmarked (apparently Traore doesn’t quite understand what a left back’s duties are just yet), but in the 73rd minute, off a corner kick, the ball ricocheted around and came straight onto the foot of Darren Bent, who just had to poke it past Almunia. The marking was very poor, and as the ball came back into the six-yard box, Rosicky just stared at the ball, apparently attempting to clear it through the use of telekinesis.

On to the ratings:

Almunia 6.5. Didn’t really have too much to do. His best save of the game came on a play where Darren Bent was offsides anyway, but patrolled his area well.

Sagna 7. Another good performance–good getting back on defense, but seemed consistently involved going forward as well.

Traore 5.5.I’d say that he confirmed Arsene Wenger’s preseason statement that Traore lacked the defensive chops to really play left back. He looked decent going forward, but was pretty calamitous at the back–left Malbranque unmarked in the box twice, and generally just kind of ran around aimlessly when Sunderland had the ball. Took a yellow on a very dangerous tackle in injury time for good measure. His future is not at left back.

Vermaelen 6. Defended well, and stayed tight at the back, but didn’t get forward in attack as much as he could have.

Gallas 6. Ditto.

Ramsey 5.5. Woof. Big step back. Looked tentative and confused, and generally just didn’t look like he knew what he was supposed to be doing. Doubly bad because this probably paves the way for Diaby’s re-entry into the starting XI when he comes back from injury.

Song 8. Man of the Match. Maybe the only bright spot. Aggressive and strong in the middle of the field. On several occasions he would go into an exchange alone against multiple Sunderland players and would come out with the ball on the other side. I know he’s only really come into his own this season, but I’m calling it–he’s one of the best holding midfielders in the world right now.

Cesc 6. Seemed strangely timid and frustrated the entire match. Couldn’t find much in the way of through balls, and kept losing his temper. He’s got to be more composed and influential if Arsenal are to ever become an excellent team.

Eduardo 5. You know, in a sense, it’s not entirely his fault, because he was being asked to play a role that doesn’t suit his skill set. And van Persie didn’t take to the role instantly, either. But even considering that, he was awful–the center forward role in a 4-3-3 is the focal point of our attack, which makes it baffling that Eduardo was almost completely anonymous. He squandered the one decent scoring chance he did have.

Rosicky 5.5. Missed a tremendous chance very early in the match, and despite having possession in Sunderland’s half on many occasions, struggled to create anything at all.

Nasri 6. Not too bad, but has yet to settle in and find his role in the 4-3-3–based on what we’ve seen so far, I’m not sure forward-wing is the best fit, although with his preseason injury he’s only been able to make a couple of appearances.

Arshavin 6. Created a couple moments of real danger, but didn’t look like his normal self, justifying Wenger’s decision not to start him.

Vela 6. Wasn’t as involved as he could have been, but almost drew a penalty in injury time.

Walcott 6.5. Worked very hard in his substitute cameo–how many times in the last 15 minutes of the game did Walcott get forward with the ball only to find himself surrounded by Sunderland shirts with no Arsenal shirts anywhere near him? It seemed like he was the only one who was really desperate to get forward and equalize. Made a claim that he should be in the first XI if he’s healthy.

Truly a wasted chance. A wasted chance to keep pace with Chelsea and Manchester United, and a wasted chance to put some space between us and Aston Villa, Manchester City, and Liverpool, all of whom dropped points today. But we lost, and we’ve got to look forward. We’ve got a chance to win our Champions League group on Tuesday at home, and then Chelsea travels across town to the Emirates on Sunday for a big showdown. If we’re to have any hope of winning the league, you’d have to think that’s a must-win–at the very least, a loss would put us 11 points behind, which you’d have to think would be a mountain too tall to climb.

I think Wenger isn’t going to be sleeping too well tonight, as he tries to figure out whether, in van Persie’s absence, he still has the personnel to operate the 4-3-3, and if so, exactly how. We’ve only got two days off before Tuesday’s matchup with Standard, and then five days later it’s Chelsea. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, I’ll be back with a preview for the Standard match on Monday.

Wolves strategy was pretty obvious, and wasn’t a bad one as far as these things go. They came out and played like the game was only 20 minutes long–they were sprinting from station to station, aggressively closing down Arsenal whenever the Gunners had the ball, and generally did well in putting the Gunners on the back foot. It was akin to a boxing match where the underdog comes out swinging extra hard, knowing that his only real hope of winning is to knock out the champ in the first few rounds. Their hope must have been to try to grab a quick goal or two early, and then park the bus in front of their own goal for the remainder of the match. Wolves played well, and were certainly the better team in the first 20 minutes, creating the first several scoring chances.

But they never really got a quality shot on goal in the first spell, and by the middle of the first half they were clearly tired and had to dial down the energy and intensity. You could definitely feel the tide of the game turning, and Arsenal opened our account off a corner in the 28th minute when Wolves defender Ronald Zubar was so preoccupied with keeping Eduardo away from the ball that he didn’t notice the ball deflect off his leg into the goal.

It wasn’t too much longer before we doubled our lead–Ramsey played Eduardo into a one-on-one, and, instead of passing the ball back to Ramsey, who would have been through onto goal, Eduardo decided to shoot off-target. Which would have been bad had it not been for Wolves defender Jody Craddock, who deflected it back onto target past keeper Wayne Hennessey. It was kind of a funny moment, actually–Ramsey was arguing with Eduardo about not giving him the ball back as the ball was actually going into the net.

Then we grabbed a wonderful goal right before the break when van Persie put Cesc through on goal with a superb pass, and Cesc coolly finished to make it 3-0 Arsenal. And that was basically the game. We came out after the break and absolutely dominated possession, it looked like we were toying with Wolves. In the 66th minute, Hennessey could only punch out a corner kick, and he violated a rule every pee-wee keeper is taught–if you’re going to punch it out, punch it to one side or the other, not the middle. But he punched it out to the middle, and Arshavin reacted quickly to get to it and poach it into the corner of the net.

Of course, this being Arsenal, we couldn’t have a clean sheet, and gave up a soft goal on a corner very late in the game when Craddock, completely unmarked, got his head to a corner kick and headed it nicely past Almunia. And that was it–4-1 Arsenal, an away win, and into 2nd place for at least a day. Abou Diaby had to leave the match in the 24th minute with what looked like an ankle injury, so we’ll have to wait and see how serious it is.

The biggest storyline, for me, though, was how good Aaron Ramsey looked in his first league start–you can tell he’s inexperienced, and he made his share of mistakes, but he was by far our most energetic player, and it seemed like he was everywhere. He made a clear statement, and that statement was “I’m ready to play and I’m ready to play now.” We famously won a bidding war with Manchester United for his services before last season, and I have to think that Alex Ferguson is banging his head against a table after watching this match, especially since United haven’t had much luck with midfielders under the age of 50 lately. If Ramsey can keep up that level of energy and intensity, he should be playing ahead of Diaby, no doubt about it.

On to the ratings:

Almunia 7. Rarely troubled, not at fault on the goal, and did well getting out and controlling his area on corner kicks.

Sagna 8. Co-Man of the Match. Maybe his best performance of the year–controlled his flank on defense, got forward on the attack. If this is how he responds to competition, maybe he should be benched for Eboue more often?

Gibbs 7.Another quality performance from the youngster.

Vermaelen 6.5. Not a bad game, but why in the hell was he ducking after losing his man and allowing him to get his head on the corner? If you lose your man and see him getting a shot away, the least you can do is try to get up and stop it…

Gallas 7. Solid performance. Looked like he picked up some kind of foot injury late in the match, but he finished the match, so hopefully there’s not too much to it.

Ramsey 8. Co-Man of the Match. Popped up everywhere, and made a case for future inclusion in the first-team. I remember watching him last season and wondering why Wenger paid so much money for the kid. I am no longer wondering that.

Diaby 6.5. Looked pretty average before he was subbed out. Hopefully he’s okay, although it has to be said that the team looked stronger after Song came on for him.

Cesc 8. It’s a measure of just how good of a player he’s become that he scores a goal, distributes the ball around and generally orchestrates the offense, and we chalk it up as an average performance by him. Also, how much do you love this guy? After he scored, he immediately deflected the attention to Robin van Persie, who really made the play which set up the goal. Classy, classy, classy–honestly, the day he leaves Arsenal is going to crush me. I hope it doesn’t happen for a long, long time.

Eduardo 8. He didn’t score a goal, but it was his presence and pressure which forced the two own goals. Was very active and moved very well the entire match, and also made his case for a regular place in the first 11.

Arshavin 8. Was a menace to Wolves the whole match, and his goal was one of those goals that looks unspectacular, but is actually very, very difficult. First, to react as quickly and instinctively as he did is a mark of a great player, and then to redirect the ball into the corner on the first touch is much, much harder than it looks.

van Persie 7.5. For the second consecutive match, failed to score but was still instrumental in the Arsenal attack, especially on the third goal.

Song 7.5. Okay, I realize that part of it was due to the fact that Wolves was playing with so much energy and intensity early. But honestly, if you were to do a comparison of possession and scoring opportunities before and after Song came on for Diaby, I think it would be shocking. He came in, and seemingly instantaneously we were blunting Wolves’ attack, controlling the midfield, and creating opportunities at the other end.

Nasri 6.5. Made a bit of an impact in his brief cameo.

Rosicky 6.5. Good in limited action–had a very good chance he should have done better with.

Any of four or five players could have won the (very prestigious) Man of the Match award, but I decided to give it to Sagna and Ramsey, because I don’t believe either of have gotten it yet this year, and both really did have superb games.

Anyway, that’s it in terms of Arsenal for two long weeks. We’re back in action two weeks from today against Sunderland on the road, which will be a tricky match. The two weeks off will hopefully give the guys on our injury list some extra time to get healthy again, and with a lot of international teams only playing friendlies, maybe some of our guys will manage to stay healthy through the break.

I’ll post a good highlights video when I find one, and will post with any news should any occur. Enjoy the rest of your weekends.

Well, as the Who said, “The Kids Are Alright”

Arsenal beat Liverpool 2-1 to go through to the quarterfinals of the Carling Cup. And look: sure, it wasn’t Liverpool’s first team, either; we were playing at home; and it wasn’t like this was a purely youth team–Senderos, Silvestre, and Eduardo can all rightfully be called veterans, and Bendtner, Fabianski, and Nasri are all young but have a lot of first-team experience. But you know what? It’s still impressive for the second-team, which had youngsters like Kerrea Gilbert, Fran Merida, and Craig Eastmond, to beat a club like Liverpool in a knockout competition. The kids will take confidence from this performance, I have no doubt.

I didn’t see the match, so I won’t give out ratings, but Merida grabbed an early goal, Insua equalized for Liverpool, and then Bendtner scored the winner after the break. The liveblog I was reading made it sound like Ramsey acquitted himself very well, and it’s great news that Nasri was able to play for 90 minutes, with no apparent ill effects. If he’s not ready for a start against Spurs on Saturday, we’ll surely see him against AZ next week.

And we’re through to the quarterfinals, which is when we got knocked out by Burnley last season. Of the eight teams remaining, all eight are Premiership sides (well, more accurately, seven Premiership sides plus Portsmouth…), so we’ll have our hands full no matter who we draw. With the exception of Liverpool, the Big 4 clubs plus challengers (Aston Villa, Tottenham, and Citeh) are still in it. The weakest clubs remaining are Blackburn and Portsmouth. That match will take place the first week of December.

Realistically, we don’t have much of a chance of winning it, but this is great in that it means the youngsters get one more well-deserved chance to show what they can do against a top-level team. And getting to the semifinals would be great, as it would mean two more matches, since the semifinals feature a two-legged tie to get to Wembley.

But well done to the kids, it’s a quality win. In lieu of ratings, I thought people might be interested in a poll. This is something I always think about when I watch these League Cup matches. If, for whatever reason, the squad that played today was its own club, how would they do? Or, in other words, if you just took away Arsenal’s first choice 11, how well could they do in the domestic (Premiership) table. Obviously top 4 would be out of the question, but could they finish in the top half of the table? Could they avoid relegation? Vote below:

How Would Arsenal’s Carling Cup Squad Do in the Premiership?(polls)

It’s tricky–they’ve put in some good performances over the last couple of seasons, but shown their vulnerability at times, too. For, I would say bottom half of the table, but I think fairly close to mid-table. I could see this squad finishing in the 12th-15th range.

Anyway, good day to be a Gunner. I’ll be back in with Spurs preview stuff on Friday.

From the first whistle we dominated this match, creating a number of chances and taking a 2-0 lead within 20 minutes off of a fine finish by van Persie and a good cherry-picking goal by Diaby. It looked like it was going to be a walk of a game. But then, as this Arsenal team has done so many times, it seemed like we let our foot off the gas a little bit, and Lee Bowyer scored a scrappy goal when Mannone couldn’t hold on to a high ball into the box and no red shirts were around to clear or block the rebound. The second half was one of those “nervy” halves of Arsenal football, where we always seemed in control of the match but couldn’t get the 3rd goal to put the game out of reach. Until Arshavin got the ball outside of his box, did his thing, and put a fine finish past Joe Hart for the goal that sealed it in the 84th minute.

There isn’t really too much to say about this match. We came out strong and took the early advantage, then sagged a little bit, gave up kind of a fluky goal, and then except for a few scary moments controlled the second half. This game also featured a very rare free kick IN the box–it wasn’t a penalty kick, but Arsenal got to take a direct free kick from inside the box. It was pretty much like a penalty kick where the defenders were allowed to form a wall on the goal line. Unfortunately, Robbie’s kick was just inches too high and ricocheted off the cross bar. I certainly wouldn’t say this was an easy way, but I couldn’t say it was too difficult, either. The other big story was that Theo Walcott had to leave injured after being on the wrong end of a rough tackle. It appeared to be a leg injury of some sort–he stayed in for a little while after the initial tackle, but always looked tentative putting weight on the leg and was replaced by Arshavin.

On to the ratings:

Mannone 6 Not terrible, but a subpar performance from the Godfather. His positioning and shot stopping was good, but it looked like he had dunked his hands in melted butter before the match, because he couldn’t hang on to anything. Gave up a rebound on several shots he should have held, and then was at fault for the goal, when he should have snatched and held the ball, but instead just deflected it to Bowyer who was able to finish.

Eboue 7.5. Looked good at right-back–covered his back well and joined in the attack. After Sagna came in he moved up to the front, where he was less effective. But with his versatility, I get the feeling he’s going to get a lot of playing time this season. If you had told me that this time last year, I would have been distraught, but as it is, I’m quite happy he’s around.

Gibbs 7.Not spectacular, and had a couple of bad giveaways, but generally looked comfortable and competent at left-back. Not bad for a guy who hasn’t had much game action lately.

Vermaelen 8 Very comfortable. I know he’s only played in 8 league games, but honestly, given his age and the fact that he’s going to get better, how many defenders in the Premiership would you rather have than TV5? I think that’s a very, very short list at the moment.

Gallas 7. Not bad, not great. Meh.

Song 8.5. Man of the match. Was a beast in midfield winning the ball, and his great through ball created van Persie’s goal. It was too bad that he picked up his 4th yellow card on what I think was a pretty questionable call, as it points him one yellow away from an automatic one-match suspension.

Diaby 8. Best game of the season from Diaby. Put a nice finish on the 2nd goal, and generally used his athleticism to both get forward in the attack and get back and cover the backline. On occasion, he shows us exactly why Wenger has so much faith in him–today was one of those occasions.

Cesc 7.5. Not nearly as dominant as he was in the past couple of matches, but still put in a strong performance. Even more impressive give all the personal issues he’s been going through the past week.

Walcott 6.5. Used his pace to create some chances, but had to come off very early due to injury. Here’s hoping it’s nothing too serious.

Rosicky 6.5. Looked okay, but didn’t show the creativity I know he’s capable of, and squandered a couple of golden chances early.

van Persie 8. Beautiful finish off his non-chocolate leg, inches away from a second on the free kick, and continues to get better as a target-man/hold-up type. Quality performance.

Arshavin 8. Troubled the Birmingham defense, created a couple chances, and took his goal very well to seal the 3 points.

Sagna 6.5. Looked pretty good at right-back in limited action.

Wenger’s Tie 7 Solid, in every sense of the word.

Will post highlights when available, as well as any update on Theo’s injury once anything comes out. We’ve got a quick turnaround, too, since we’ll be traveling to Holland within a couple days to play AZ in a very important Champions League match-up on Tuesday. Hope everyone has an excellent weekend.

Didn’t get to see the game, but from the looks of things, it was one of those games that easily could have been much more lopsided than the end result–I think 2-0 flattered the Greek side a bit. 12 shots on goal, many of them golden opportunities from close up, is quality, and I think we’re almost always going to win if we can create chances like that. The lack of finishing continues to be troubling, but it seemed like bad luck as much as anything here–Cesc hit the crossbar, their keeper made several quality stops, etc.

Since I didn’t get to see the match, I’m not qualified to give a match report or rate players (not that I’m ever actually “qualified,” but I’m even less qualified than usual here). So I won’t say anything else about the match. But as I said yesterday, I think the most important thing is that we already have a 5 point lead on the 3rd place squad in the group–if we can get 4 points from our next two matches against AZ, I think we’ve basically punched our ticket to the group stages, especially with a home fixture against Standard after that.

Blackburn on Sunday, and then it’s the international break. Chelsea and Liverpool are the late fixture on Sunday, and Aston Villa locks horns with Man City on Monday, so if we can lock down 3 points we’ll definitely pick up points and move up the table.

Holy Jeebus, what a game. To recap, we gave up a goal in the second minute on what is quite possibly the stupidest thing you’ve ever seen a player do on a pitch. For some reason, on the edge of his own box, Eduardo decided that instead of controlling or clearing the ball, he would blindly backheel the ball right back into the middle, where the oncoming Standard attacker gathered it up and put it into the corner of the net past an out of position Vito Mannone.

We immediately compounded the error when William Gallas was called for a penalty, which was buried for a 2-0 lead. When I first saw it I thought it was a soft penalty, but upon watching the replays, I think Gallas definitely clipped the guy’s foot, which brought him down. We were down 2 within 5 minutes, and it was quite shocking.

Disturbingly, we didn’t really respond as I would have hoped. While we certainly controlled possession, that was as much a function of Standard keeping everyone behind the ball as it was due to anything we did. They were clogging up the passing lanes, and Arsenal looked pretty non-threatening for the entirety of the first half. We didn’t have many scoring chances, and our set pieces were absolutely abysmal–up until about the 75th minute, I swear that on every set piece, the kick taker either kicked it: (a) softly to the keeper; (b) out of bounds; or (c) way over everyone’s head. We’re never going to be a great team from set pieces, but my word, at least putting the ball into the box where guys at least have a chance to go up and get the ball.

So we were toothless until, in the 45th minute, Diaby sent a nice ball through to Bendtner, who made a nice move to get past his man, turn on the ball, and put a nice shot right between the keeper’s legs to cut the lead in half. The importance of that goal can’t be overstated–being down 2 at the half would have been close to insurmountable, but only being down 1 and having momentum was huge.

But we continued our lackluster play at the start of the 2nd half–if it weren’t from a speedy, scrambly recovery from Gael Clichy, we probably would have conceded a goal right at the beginning of the half, but disaster was avoided. We had trouble creating chances for most of the half. Then, off a pretty sloppy looking set piece, Vermaelen scored the equalizer. It was probably offsides and it was definitely a handball, but somehow the referee missed it and put it in the books. It was a lucky break to say the least.

And then, just a few minutes later, Eduardo put in the winner off his knee on a set piece. And that was it–there were a couple more scares as Standard threw everyone forward over the last few minutes, but we managed to hang on.

There was a lot for us to be concerned about–without Arshavin and van Persie, the offense looked pretty lazy and too content to simply pass the ball back and forth. Our set pieces were crap, and we gave possession away far too easily. And our defense had way, way too many breakdowns against a side with inferior talent playing a single striker formation. An unimpressive performance, some truly shambolic defending, but 3 points is 3 points, and winning an away match in Europe is always something. Right? Ummm…right?

I’m off to bed this evening, but I’ll post some player ratings tomorrow morning.

And…we’re back. Here they are:

Mannone 5.5 The first two times he touched the ball, he was picking it up out of the back of the net. The penalty wasn’t his fault, but he was slow to react when Eduardo made his boneheaded giveaway, and if he had been in better position, he may have been able to stop it. And for much of the first half, he was visibly nervous, looking shaky in the air and clumsy in clearing. After that, he started to settle in and did his job without much fuss, although he was never called upon to make a save of any real difficulty.

Eboue 6. Given Sagna’s poor play of late, this was a golden opportunity for Eboue to make his case for a spot in the first team, but he didn’t take advantage of it.

Clichy 5. Yikes. If he had closed down his man better, we wouldn’t have conceded the corner that led to the first goal. Generally was shaky in the back, and Vermaelen bailed him out several times. If he can’t even shut down his man when playing against a substantially inferior team, he’s going to have some long days ahead of him this season. What happened to the Clichy we saw in 2007-2008?

Vermaelen 8. Man of the match–held and cleared the ball well, and dominated his man both physically and in the air. Scored the equalizer, and very nearly had what would have been a spectacular goal a few minutes later on a backheel in the box. I kind of want to get a Vermaelen jersey, but my last two jersey purchases have been Fabregas and Clichy, and it seemed to have a negative effect on both players. I don’t want to jinx our new boy–thoughts?

Gallas 6. Conceded the penalty which very nearly put us in a hole that we couldn’t climb out of. Grew stronger as the game went on.

Song 5.5. Worst game he’s had all season, didn’t look up to the tempo of the game.

Diaby 6. Best and worst of Diaby yesterday. Showed what he could do by beating several players and laying off a beautiful pass to Bendtner for our first goal. Then showed what he could do right after the half by nearly gifting Standard a 3rd goal with an idiotic back pass.

Cesc 5.5. Pretty anonymous, again. And his free kicks were shockingly bad for most of the game–if he can’t at least put the ball in the box, Wenger needs to have someone else taking free kicks and corners. I guess the silver lining is that if he doesn’t start playing better, we won’t have to worry about losing him to Madrid or Barcelona, because the way he’s playing at the moment, there’s no way he sniffs much playing time in either side.

Rosicky 7. First start in 18 months, and you’d have to say it went well. Looked good in possession and reminded us of what a dangerous passer he is. Once he regains some fitness, he could help the team a lot.

Eduardo 6. I’ve said it before and will say it again here–that backheel may be the stupidest thing I’ve seen on a pitch in some time. The very first thing you’re taught in youth soccer is that if you get the ball near your own goal, your first priority is clearing the ball AWAY from goal. If you do think you have the time and ability to make a pass, you need to make sure it’s a safe pass, preferably AWAY from the goal. What you don’t do is make a blind, risky pass towards the goal. Completely idiotic. Redeemed himself by showing his poacher’s instinct on the equalizer, but didn’t appear to be much of a threat for the rest of the game.

Bendtner 7. Finally got off the mark by notching his first goal of the season, and it was a quality goal. His finishing could have been better, as always, but he worked hard and I thought made a compelling case for why he, not van Persie, should be the center man in the 4-3-3.

Ramsey 7. Wasn’t spectacular, but was running hard, trying to create opportunities, and seemed to give the team a boost once he came on.

Sagna 6. Failed to make much of an impact in limited action.

Wilshere only played a few minutes, not enough to give him a rating. So that’s that. Hopefully we’ll shape up, b/c we won’t go far in the league or the Champions League playing like that. But it’s a win, and hopefully puts us in the driver’s seat early in our group.

Wigan preview coming tomorrow.

Well…I don’t know. I apologize for the delay between the end of the game and this post, but if I had posted my thoughts immediately after the end of the match, the Catholic church would have had legitimate grounds for excommunicating me. So I tried to wait a few hours to cool off before writing anything.

First off, the officiating wasn’t great, but I’m not a big fan of blaming officiating for the outcome of matches. Rooney’s penalty honestly could have gone either way–Almunia made significant contact with Rooney’s legs without getting any of the ball, but on the other hand, Rooney appeared to chip the ball away before there was any contact, so he wouldn’t have been able to catch up to the ball anyway. It wasn’t as obvious a penalty, as, say, I don’t know, Arshavin getting his legs taken out from under him in the box with no contact whatsoever with the ball, but I don’t think it’s fair to say it was a bad call. Likewise, no matter how disappointing it was, the offsides call at the end of the game was correct–Gallas was certainly offside on the play.

The fact is that we were probably the better team on the day, but we lost. It happens, and we need to move on from it. But hopefully Wenger will stress to the team that despite losing, we went on the road to the defending Premiership champions and took the game to them–on a different day, the result could have been completely different. Here’s hoping this will be an event that the players and supporters alike can rally around for the rest of the season.

Andrei Arshavin opened his account on the season with a goal that was nothing short of spectacular. And it was karmic justice, too, since he had just a few minutes earlier been denied a clear and obvious penalty. We went into half-time leading 1-0, but we gave up the lead not long after half-time after Almunia came out and clumsily made contact with Rooney’s legs on a 50-50 ball.

Then, well…I’m not sure what to say. Diaby scored an own goal under no pressure whatsoever. Anyone who reads this site with any regularity know that I am not a Diaby fan, to put it mildly–I think he’s not a player of “Arsenal quality,” and his work rate is often suspect. His two biggest problems have always been: (1) poor decisions and (2) laziness. Number (1) once again reared its ugly head today–I have no idea how that happened, as all he needed to do was head the ball forward and clear, or at least head it to the side for a corner kick. But in his defense, I will say that number (2) was NOT a problem for Diaby today–especially after he gave up the goal, he was running around and playing hard. I’m really unhappy with this result, and Diaby seems like an okay guy, so I don’t want to run him into the ground after such a devastating result, and I DON’T want to say I told you so, but he makes this kind of mistake; he’s always made these kinds of mistakes, and I think he’ll continue to do so no matter how hard he works in the offseason.

And there it was. A 2-1 loss in a game where we should have come away with at least one point. Sigh. But that’s in the past. What’s coming up? The international break, obviously, will keep us out of action until weekend after next. Hopefully Wenger can keep the squad focused on the fact that we outplayed United at Old Trafford, and we’re still legitimate title contenders. The team has been impressive so far in dominating several opponents, but to be a champion you must have the ability to overcome adversity. This is the first adversity Arsenal has faced this season, so we’ll have a chance to see what the club is made of.

On to the ratings:

Almunia 7.5. Neither of the goals were really his fault, although he misjudged the ball on Rooney’s penalty. And every other time he was called into action, be it making a save on a shot or coming out strong on a set piece, he made exactly the right move. Name 6 other keepers in the world you’d rather have in goal. I’m still waiting.

Sagna 7. Another solid performance–did his job well down the left wing and used his skill and athleticism well in defense.

Clichy 7.5. Definitely rounding into form–good performance by Gael today, he’s certainly looking to reclaim his throne as one of the world’s top left-backs.

Vermaelen 8. He’s played 5 competitive matches for us, so I hate to go too hyperbolic too soon. But he looked absolutely comfortable dealing with one of the best attacks in the world, and at some point I do think we’re going to have to say that we have a world class center-back on our squad.

Gallas 8. Ever since being stripped/”relieved” of the captaincy, Gallas has been superb. He kept it up today with a strong performance.

Denilson 6.5. Pretty anonymous. It is, of course, tough against a team like United, but he’s got to find a way to involve himself in the action more .

Song 7. Picked up a yellow early, which may have made him sheepish, but if Arsenal are going to contend for trophies this season, we need stronger performances from him in the holding role.

Diaby 5. Generally not too bad, and I was encouraged by the way he bounced back from the own-goal. On the other hand, though, how good a game can you have had when you flat out gift one of the best squads in the world a goal? Inexcusable.

Eboue 7.5 I thought he continued his recent run of good form, although his finishing was crap.

van Persie 6. Wasn’t really making plays, and could have done better with the chances he was given. Has got to improve if we’re going to succeed this season.

Arshavin 8.5. Man of the match. Drew a penalty which wasn’t given, and then scored a spectacular goal. If he continues to play like this we have a chance at winning every competition we play in.

Ramsey 7. Didn’t shrink from the moment, which is remarkable considering his age and experience. But didn’t make anything happen, either.

Eduardo 5.5. Did all the media exposure get to him? Because he looked overwhelmed and devoid of inspiration today.

Bendtner 6.5. High energy, and was inches away from a brilliant cross in the box to Eduardo.

It’s easy to be negative at this point, and deep down, I’m pretty upset–I’m going to see “Hair” on Broadway tonight, and I’m hoping all that hippy “peace and love” message salves the wound a little bit. But since we won’t play for a couple of weeks, let’s try to be positive. The bottom line is this–we outplayed Manchester United at Old Trafford, and were a couple of mental mistakes away from beating the defending champions in their own stadium. We showed the class and skill to play with any team in the world, and if we continue to improve, we can beat absolutely beat anyone, anywhere, anytime. For a team that many pundits had predicted to finish 5th at the outset of the season, that isn’t bad. I predicted it at the outset that we would win the league, and I’m sticking by this–here’s hoping we can take confidence from the performance, if not the result, and build on this.

Well, that’s it–we’re through to the Champions League with room to spare (5-1 on aggregate). Several things to talk about in this one, so let’s dive right in.

I suppose there’s no choice but to start by talking about Eduardo’s penalty. It was absolutely not a penalty, and absolutely a dive. I like Eduardo, but I won’t mince words–he should be ashamed of himself. Diving is cheating, and does a lot to undermine the integrity of the game. And if I’m going to criticize Gerrard and Drogba for doing it (which I do), I’ve got to be even-handed about it. I hate seeing it, and I especially hate seeing it from someone on my club. I hated it when Eboue used to do it on a regular basis, and I hated seeing Eduardo do it today. And I won’t defend it or justify it.

But. Having said that, I think it’s pretty unrealistic and naive to suggest that it really had a dramatic impact on the tie. We had a 2 goal advantage and we were playing at home against a team which has been pretty dreadful about scoring and getting results away in European competition. We were in control of the match from start to finish, and we were going to move on to the group stages whether Eduardo gets the penalty call or not. It’s as simple as that. So I’m not particularly interested in blindly naive theories about how it “changed the course of the tie” or some other such nonsense, which the announcers wouldn’t shut up about.

We created a bunch of chances, and could have scored 5 or 6 if it weren’t for Artur Boruc, who showed himself to be a world-class keeper today. Celtic hardly tested our backline, and I don’t remember Almunia being really tested at all.

The second goal was a superb team effort, with Eboue finishing the move nicely. It capped a good game for Eboue, and the goal was deserved. Arshavin came on and made a brilliant move to get the ball far enough away from a defender to get an accurate shot off by Boruc. Celtic midfielder Massimo Donati then scored a pretty amazing goal to pull one back in injury time. On to the ratings:

Almunia 6.5. Didn’t do much at all. Can’t really remember him even being involved much–there was one time when I remember him yelling at the guys on the wall, I guess that was pretty good.

Sagna 6.5 Didn’t do anything spectacular, but had a solid performance and didn’t make any mistakes.

Clichy 7.5. Good game for Gael. Did a good job containing McGeady all game, and put himself in a couple good positions to put balls into the box.

Vermaelen 7.5. Yet another solid, mistake-free performance for TV5.

Gallas 8. He didn’t score, but he got forward and made some dangerous runs on several occasions. Has Gallas ever had a run of form this good?

Denilson 7.5 Provided good cover for the back, and made a couple of great passes to put guys through. Really seems to be blossoming this season.

Song 8. A couple of good defensive headers in the box, as well as being a ball-hawk in the middle of the field.

Diaby 6.5 Decent performance, but was pretty inconspicuous the whole match. Will have to do better to be a regular first-team player.

Eboue 8 Man of the match? Showed what he can do today–made dangerous runs, looked dangerous down the wing, distributed the ball well, and tracked back. Virtually unrecognizable from the Eboue of years past.

Eduardo 5.5. Generally looked dangerous, but poor finishing and diving to earn a penalty spoiled the performance for me.

Bendtner 7.5. Best game of the year for St. Nick, although that’s not saying a whole lot. Great play to set up the second goal, although he squandered several great chances to score. Still yet to find the scoresheet this season.

Arshavin 8. Bringing him in was a risky move, but something tells me that Alex Ferguson, who was in attendance, won’t be sleeping all that well this week after seeing Arshavin turn a defender off his hip and coolly finish a placed shot past Boruc.

Ramsey 6 Picked up a knock almost immediately upon coming on, and had trouble getting going. Did make a good run with the ball into the box, but couldn’t quite chip it over Boruc.

Wilshere 6. Pretty anonymous in limited action.

So we’re through. We managed to avoid the embarrassment of missing out on the Champions League. More importantly, now we’re guaranteed the Champions League money, which hopefully means Wenger has a little extra money to spend in the next week.

Group stage draw tomorrow, so hopefully we’ll do well with that. It’s done by coefficient, and we’re in pool A, so we’ll avoid the other elite teams. Hopefully we’ll get a decent draw and have a clear path to the knockout stages. I’ll update after the draw. And then it’s on to Manchester United on Saturday for a massively important early season matchup.

So, let me say at the outset that I’ve gotten 6 hours sleep combined the last 2 nights, had to move my stuff out of my old apartment (in hellish heat), drive 13 hours to New York, and move stuff into my new apartment (in hellish heat) today. Anything I may be writing at the moment may therefore fall considerably short of the standard of excellence (*ahem*) you have come to expect from this site, so proceed at your own peril. You’ve been warned.

I didn’t get to see the game, but from the highlights it looked like we were really in control of the match all the way through. And while beating Portsmouth isn’t a great feat, scoring 4 against such a defensive-minded team is something we should be proud of.

Abou Diaby grabbed an early brace to give Arsenal a 2-0 lead. Regular readers of the site know that I am not a fan of Diaby. But he created the own goal against Celtic which sealed the victory, and scored two against a good defensive side yesterday. However, I would point out that, while both were decent finishes, on both plays another player (Eduardo and Cesc, respectively) on the team made a great play to be able to find him wide open in the penalty area. I’m still not a believer, but it can’t be denied that he’s a player with enormous athleticism and talent. And I was definitely intrigued by reports that he bore down and spent all summer working out and getting ready for the season. While it would be a pain for me to have to find someone else to pick on, if Diaby could start to realize some of his immense potential it would go a long way towards helping Arsenal win trophies.

We conceded a headed goal (nice play, but the bottom line is that a keeper should never give up a header on a 50/50 goal, because the keeper has a huge advantage–HE CAN USE HIS HANDS to bat the ball away!) to cut our lead in half. However, after that we scored yet another goal on a set piece, another deflected goal off of “Ricochet” Gallas–if this keeps on, I think we should change our formation from a 4-3-3 to a “put Gallas in the penalty area and kick the ball at him as hard as you can” formation. Finally, Aaron Ramsey got through for a clear breakaway and buried the chance for his first Premier League goal. Here’s hoping it’s the first of many, because the young man really has a chance to be a special player.

van Persie had several chances and didn’t capitalize, but did force David James into making several difficult saves. Despite our goal-scoring success this season, our strikers haven’t put many past the keeper–of 12 goals so far, only one has been scored by a striker (Eduardo, against Everton). But really, this shouldn’t be a concern at all–our defenders are getting more prominently involved in set pieces, which is a good thing, and due to the way we’re playing our midfielders in a 4-3-3, they have more chances to make runs or drop into space and have scoring opportunities. And the bottom line is that we have three proven top-quality finishers on our front line (RvP, Arshavin, Eduardo), and if opportunities continue to arise, they’ll show their mettle my getting on the scoresheet often enough.

The other big news item from the game is Cesc Fabregas had to leave at half-time with a hamstring issue. Wenger was uncertain as to the nature of the injury, saying that if it was just tightness Cesc could probably play against Celtic, whereas if it’s a pull he could be out for 3 weeks. Regardless of what it is, I say Cesc needs to be on the bench mid-week–he’s just coming off an injury, and we’ve got one foot in the group stages, and he should be resting until Saturday to try and be fit against Manchester United. Keep your fingers crossed it’s just tightness and Cesc can be ready to go sooner rather than later.

In other injury news, Carlos Vela is out for a month with an ankle injury picked up on international duty. Aye carumba. Es muy malo.

In other news, Arshavin came out and said that Arsenal need to make some new signings, because Arsenal lack the depth of their other Big 4 rivals. I’m conflicted–on the one hand, transfers are the manager’s decision, and players shouldn’t get involved; on the other hand, I think he’s absolutely right. So I don’t know–I guess the bottom line is that Wenger isn’t going to do anything just to please a player who’s been at the club less than a year, so this won’t have any practical impact at all.