West Brom 1-3 Arsenal

By: travis | March 4th, 2009

That certainly was good. On a cold and rainy day the Arsenal finally came through with a result. Yes, it was against the team sitting at the bottom of the table, but one of the things this team had been struggling with is winning against the lesser opponent. Tip of the cap to Niklas Bendtner who played well and should have come away with a hat trick. His criticism over the past few weeks was deserved, but he showed this week why Wenger has placed his faith in the Dane. If only he could discover some consistency.

It wasn’t all rosy yesterday, as West Brom managed a goal thanks to a very poor wall — Eboue, it’s clearly your fault. His decision to move out of the way of Chris Brunt’s shot made for a very nervy time for me. I thought that they would revert to the same old Arsenal, unable to score against a lesser opponent. But West Brom’s defending was horrible, and Toure’s goal allowed for a sense of relief. He did pick up an injury — more on that below — and had to replaced for Diaby (who looked alright himself) but hopefully the Ivorian won’t miss out on too much action. Aaron Ramsey came on and had a gaffe. Enough of the negative; it was a win after all.

Arshavin has impressed me, despite the fact he’s struggling for fitness and is playing his way back into shape. Once again, he created a scoring opportunity that was capitalized on this time, and he will need more time to adjust to his new surroundings and new teammates. You can’t expect too much from him, but so far things are good. He’s been surprised himself by English football:

“But to tell the truth it seemed less difficult on TV. Only now do I understand how dynamic and hard the football is here.

“Now I would like to score as soon as possible. Everybody expected me to score in my very first match but that never happens, especially with me. But nothing was easy and immediate for me. Arsenal is no exception. So I need patience and hard work now.

“The main task now is to get into the Champions League for next season.”

Come on Andrey, if everything was as easy as it looked on tv, we’d all be professional athletes. You can’t really believe you though it would be this simple right? I love the little quote machine already.

It’s not all good news in the wake of West Brom as Kolo Toure seems to have aggravated a calf injury. That’s not a good sign with Gallas already out. It was a shame to lose the clean sheet streak, but if both Toure and Gallas are out for awhile we’re looking at a centerback pairing of Song and Djourou. Yikes.

That’s all for now. Players will be returning to full strength, there’s a whole lot of build up between now and next week’s tie at Roma. That’s all for now.