Wolves 1-Arsenal 4

By: Martin | November 7th, 2009

Watch Wolverhampton Wanderers v Arsenal in Sports | View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.comOr should I saw Wolves 3-Arsenal 2? We come away with 3 points on a scoreline which flatters us a little bit, on the back of 2 early Wolves own goals which put us up 2-0, a vantage point from which we never looked back.

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.