Arsenal 2 – Huddersfield 1: 10-Man Arsenal Fortunate to Move on to 5th Round (UPDATED with Player Ratings)

A familiar sight today

Well, I’m not quite sure how we did it, but we won, and we’re going through to the 5th Round. But let’s all raise a toast tonight to the guy who decided how big the goal should be — because if that goal had been 3 feet taller and 3 feet wider on either side, we would have lost 9-2 today.

First off, hats off to Huddersfield, who came out and played hard and aggressively. They were in our face all day long, were creating chances and getting stuck in, and probably deserved at least a replay. They should be proud of themselves, and their fans should be proud of them. We thought this match was going to be a walkover, and it definitely was not. Full credit to them.

I thought the first half started all Arsenal. We were the playing most of the match in the Huddersfield half, moving the ball back and forth across the pitch without too much difficulty and creating a few half-decent chances near the beginning. there was one particularly good ball for Bendtner that he tried to take first time right outside the six-yard box and badly mishit.

He didn’t let it get him down for too long, though. Just a few minutes later, a ball was played across the pitch for Bendtner, and he did very well to get onto the ball on the edge of the box, and unleashed a hard shot to the far post. Well, outside the far post, it looked like, but it just deflected off Huddersfield defender Peter Clarke and inside the far post. In the Premiership, I think that would be judged an own goal, since the initial shot wasn’t going to be on target, but apparently in the FA Cup the team gets to decide who gets the goal, and I suspect Arsenal will let that stay with St. Nick. 1-0 Arsenal, and at that point you just had the feeling that it may have been just what the team needed to open the floodgates for a comfortable Arsenal win.

Alas, that was not to be. From there on out, things seemed to go pear-shaped for Arsenal. Most worryingly, Nasri pulled up short with what appeared pretty clearly to be a hamstring injury, and had to go off after about half an hour, with Rosicky coming on. I would be absolutely stunned if he’s available on Tuesday, as these hamstring injuries are usually a minimum of 2-3 weeks. I don’t need to tell any of you how instrumental Nasri has been for us all season, so missing him for some important matches, including, potentially the first leg of the Barcelona tie, will be a big loss for us.

Huddersfield was also the better side over that latter part of the first half. While they failed to force Almunia into a single save, they put several balls just wide of the post in the first half. There was one good shot from long that was just wide, they had a header that was just wide, and they had several instances where they hit us on the counter by putting the ball wide and then crossing it low into the box, where they just couldn’t quite get a man onto the end of it. But it was nervy stuff, and they very clearly were not going away.

They were bolstered late on in the first half, in the 42nd minute, when their player ran past 3 Arsenal defenders — he got past Gibbs first, then Koscielny passed him off to Squillaci, then he played the ball through Squillaci and caught Squillaci a bit flat-footed as he looked to run around him. Squillaci stuck out his arm and effectively clotheslined the guy. Referee Mark Clattenburg showed no hesitation in going to the front pocket and pulling out the red. We can’t have any real complaints about the decision — it was just a stupid decision by Squillaci, particularly because the ball played past him was very heavy, and Almunia would have almost certainly gotten to it before the Huddersfield player did.

First-Half Stats:

Possession: Arsenal 56% – Huddersfield 44%
Shots (on Target) Arsenal 7(2) – Huddersfield 6(0)
Corners: Arsenal 0 – Huddersfield 1

So Arsenal were down to 10 men, giving Huddersfield some hope. After the break, Alex Song came on as a substitute for Marouane Chamakh. Bendtner rotated up top, Rosicky went out to the right, and Diaby shifted up, and we played with just one withdrawn central midfielder.

We had a golden chance to make it 2-0 not too long after the restart when Arshavin was put through on goal — he did very well to get on to the ball and bear down on goal, but it was a tough angle, and his left-footed shot was wide of the post. Should have done better.

After that, it was Huddersfield that were creating all the chances. There was one instance where the ball was bouncing around in the Arsenal box, and it was just about to fall to the Huddersfield player on the edge of the six-yard box, where Arshavin, of all people, showed great hustle and determination to slide in at the last minute to clear the ball. Then they had another header in the box which they put just wide. After that, they had their best chance of the match up to that point, when Alan Lee rose up and put a nearly perfect header just inside the post, but Almunia got down and across to make a pretty spectactular save to keep it out. Then Huddersfield put a shot just wide. Then another shot just wide. Then Song had to make a last-minute clearance for a corner.

And then, they finally broke through on the resulting corner, when Alan Lee rose up and powered a header into the back of the net. It was definitely coming — Huddersfield had dominated the previous 10 minutes, and had been sending dangerous balls into the box and dominating us aerially all match long. Honestly, at that point, I felt like we were just hoping for a replay. We were down to 10 men and making Huddersfield Town look like 1994 Brazil, and it just felt like Arsenal were really on the ropes.

In the 69th minute, Wenger rolled the dice by bringing on Cesc for Diaby. And Arsenal responded immediately. A long ball into the box was headed back down perfectly by Bendtner for Koscielny, who for some reason was that far forward. He took time he probably didn’t have, but did put a very hard shot which looked to have been on target had it not been blocked by the defender. And off the deflection, Eboue put in a pretty decent cross that Bendtner got up and got a head to, but put over.

We had another great chance a few minutes later — Arshavin got the ball on the left side of the box, did very well to fake out and get rid of one defender, and then instead of shooting passed the ball off to a wide open Bendtner who was unmarked near the penalty spot. Bendtner wasted the chance by taking a touch, when he really needed to take it first time. But it was encouraging that Arsenal were looking so much more aggressive and on the front foot than they had at any time since they scored the goal.

And then Cesc Fabregas got the ball on the edge of the box, showed some very good skill to lose his man and pick out Bendtner in the middle of the box, where he was brought down by the Huddersfield Town defender. Clattenburg pointed to the spot, and showed the Huddersfield defender yellow. There was definitely contact, but if I’m being honest with you, I think Bendtner went down a bit easily, and the call was a good break for us. Cesc did that stupid stutter-step penalty thing that Crynaldo always does, which I’m not a big fan of (maybe that’s just the former goalkeeper in me talking), but it worked, and it was 2-1, Arsenal.

Huddersfield didn’t give up, to their credit. They earned a free kick in a dangerous spot shortly after the penalty, and the direct shot was a really well-placed, dangerous curling shot which got up over the wall, but just couldn’t get down in time and hit the top netting. And we did a fairly good job of killing the game off late, and somehow got a win in this one, and are now through to the fifth round. 2-1 Arsenal, final.

Full-Time Stats:

Possession: Arsenal 42% – Huddersfield 58%
Shots (on Target) Arsenal 15(6) – Huddersfield 17(5)
Corners: Arsenal 3 – Huddersfield 5

This certainly wasn’t an impressive performance by us. Quite the opposite, in fact — we were crap, and continue our worrying trend of looking like a relegation candidate-team whenever we don’t have our first XI unit out there, which is worrying and inexplicable given the caliber of players we have in depth. Guys like Chamakh, Bendtner, Arshavin, and Rosicky are seasoned internationals who have played important roles for years in teams which have contended for domestic and European trophies. I don’t mean to disrespect teams like Leeds, Ipswich, and Huddersfield, but I can think of no logical reason why they should struggle so much to break down second and third-division teams. But we’ve got a long season ahead of us, and we will need to rotate, so we will need those guys to step up if we’re to win things this season.

The good news is that we won, Almunia played well, Diaby played okay without getting injured, and Cesc showed once again the effect he can have on the team. The bad news is that Nasri got injured, we played like crap, and certain players continue to put in poor performances.

But the bottom line is that we moved on and avoided a replay, and we did so for the most part without using many of our first XI players — Cesc played a little over 20 minutes, Nasri played a little over 30 and got injured, Song played 45+ minutes, and Koscielny played the full match. But Cesc and Song should certainly be well-rested and ready for the Everton match. And that’s our next priority — Everton played their first-team squad on Saturday against Chelsea, so we should be fresher, and they’ll be without Tim Cahill, who is representing Australia in the Asian Games final. That’s a match we really need to get 3 points from if we’re to keep some pressure on Manchester United and keep our title hopes alive. I’ll be back with a preview of that one up tomorrow.

On to the player ratings:

Almunia 7 Looked nervous at times, but by and large played very well. Made decisions well, commanded his area, and made one world-class save to deny Huddersfield a goal. Still probably too little, too late for Almunia to salvage a first-team future at Arsenal, but it was good to see him back and in good form.

Eboue 6 Pretty good going forward, but seemed out to lunch several times in terms of covering his own area. Wasn’t great, but hardly the chief culprit for Arsenal’s crap afternoon.

Gibbs 5.5 Surprisingly poor today. Took a stupid yellow for kicking the ball away early, conceded some stupid fouls, let the man get by him that led to Squillaci’s red. Was at sea for a lot of Huddersfield’s most dangerous attacks down the right flank. Needs to be better than that.

Squillaci 4.5 Well, that time off and rest didn’t make him a better player. Stupidly conceded a red card when he could have just let the ball run to Almunia, and put the team under real pressure all match long having to play a man down.

Koscielny 6.5 Probably could have done more, but anchored the backline while he was partnered with three different CB partners at various times, a pair of full backs who left the central pairing under constant bombardment, and a midfield which wasn’t always doing the best job of shielding the defense. Solid.

Denilson 5.0 Disinterested, ineffective, and overrun in midfield.

Diaby 6.5 Considering how little he’s played lately, I thought he was surprisingly solid, if hardly a game-changer. Hopefully he can build on this, get a decent run of health and playing, and contribute to Arsenal’s trophy bids going forward this spring.

Nasri 6.5 He was energetic and pretty dangerous before going off injured. Here’s hoping the injury is nothing more than a standard minor hamstring strain, and that he’ll be back and effective in 2-3 weeks.

Bendtner 7.5 Had some of his trademark terrible finishing, but other than that, was by far Arsenal’s most dangerous attacking player for most of the match. Was energetic and threatening the entire match, and deserved his goal, even though it was probably an own goal. Drew the penalty that led to the winner. Really one of the few starters who did himself any credit at all today.

Arshavin 7 You can knock his finishing, which continues to be terrible, but you can’t say he was lazy, because he really gave it all for the team today, most spectacularly when his last minute, inch-perfect, diving tackle in the Arsenal box cleared a ball right before a Huddersfield player was about to get a shot off which could have very well led to a goal. And he had a couple of decent passes deep in the Huddersfield half. I still feel (hope?) that a breakthrough to his old form is imminent.

Chamakh 5 Frakking useless. What’s going on with him? He doesn’t look anything like the player who was so effective for the first 3 months of the season.

Rosicky 5 Came on for Nasri and played 2/3 of the match, but didn’t really offer much of anything to the attack. Maybe still suffering some ill-effects from his long layoff because of the virus.

Song 6 Was decent considering he was playing out of position, but Arsenal were under siege for much of his time on the pitch, and we could have used someone who was better in the air.

Cesc 8 Man of the Match. I’m not sure whether it’s his skills, his presence, or some combination of the two, but it was like someone flipped a switch when he came on. The team was in the process of getting overrun like Huddersfield were Barcelona, but Cesc comes on and all of a sudden the team regains its composure and starts to look the more dangerous side, despite being down a man. Coolly converted the winning penalty, and his celebration in this one, as in the Leeds match, should leave no doubt as to how seriously he takes this competition. Talismanic performance.

That’s it — back tomorrow with an Everton preview. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

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Category: Arsenal News, FA Cup, Fixtures, Match Review