Standard Liege 2-Arsenal 3 (Updated with Player Ratings)

By: Martin | September 16th, 2009

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.