Arsenal 3-1 Partizan Belgrade

Arsenal 3-1 Partizan Belgrade

Postby Rockin' Robin » Fri Dec 10, 2010 8:30 pm

It was really nerve-wracking, just like the Arsenal we know and usually love, but occasionally cannot stand.

Last night there were one or two moments where it was the latter. It seemed like we had to make things as hard as possible for ourselves. A couple of erratic pieces of defending gave us some real heart-in-mouth stuff, including a goal for Partizan (their first in open play in the entire campaign) but luckily we pulled through.

Lukasz Fabianski continued in goal, while the back line was a little different; Kieran Gibbs replaced Gael Clichy at left back, lining up alongside Bacary Sagna, Sebastien Squillaci and Laurent Koscielny. In the end, the Englishman would only last 25 minutes.

With Cesc Fabregas still sidelined, we played something of a 4-4-2. Denilson, with his new shaven-head look, and Alex Song lined up in central midfield, flanked by the flying Samir Nasri and the fairly but not equally impressive Andrey Arshavin. Robin van Persie and Marouane Chamakh started together for the first time, with the Dutchman playing off of his new partner.

We went close a couple of times early on, but they were nothing but half chances. We'd hoped for a quick start, to rip into Partizan from the word go. In reality, it was anything but. The dazzling Nasri carved out a chance for van Persie, who tried a difficult effort which was quite a bit wide of the post. He could have controlled it and tried something less unorthodox, but in the same way, Nasri could have picked out the late-arriving Arshavin. But with Arsenal, the ifs and buts are so frequent it's less painful to not talk about them.

Instead of looking to impose ourselves on the game, we looked nervy. We often shifted the ball out wide to Nasri, in the hope he would spur us on to victory, but even our man of the moment had difficulty carving open Partizan's defensive line-up.

Song found himself in a good position on the half hour mark, and swung in a cross. RVP was there, and took it down, turned, and went down under the challenge from the defender. It was fairly soft in truth. There was contact, but not enough to throw yourself onto the ground like Robin did. However, in the current climate, sometimes you have to exaggerate to make sure justice is done, and it was a foul.

The man who had won the penalty took it, and buried it confidently, powerfully side-footing the ball over the diving 'keeper. I was surprised he didn't dislocate his knee caps with his celebration; jumping into the air and landing into a knee-slide. 1-0 to the Arsenal. We were gonna kick on from there, right?

Wrong. We continued to struggle, and the closest we came to a second was Emmanuel Eboue, who had replaced the limping Gibbs, scampering down the left and swinging in a cross, which was subsequently knocked over the bar by a Partizan defender.

In the second half, things got worse. A cascade of defensive errors saw Cleo, who scored and missed penalties in the reverse fixture, curl in a deflected effort to make it 1-1. One mistake from us, or even one mistake from Shakhtar in the Braga game, which was 0-0, would see us going out.

Luckily, neither happened. Well, that's not entirely true. We made lots of mistakes, so many you couldn't count on your hands and feet. Unless you had 50 toes on one foot.

But none of the errors turned out to be costly, luckily for us, and the score stayed at 1-1, until Theo Walcott replaced Andrey Arshavin, who had been disappointing. Theo brought us some much-needed urgency. And when Sagna's cross was nodded into the ground towards Walcott by a defender, he made no mistake, controlling the ball with his chest and cushioning a perfect volley into the corner. Thank goodness for that!

We still weren't entirely comfortable though. We still might have let that lead slip, you never know with this Arsenal side. Especially if Braga had scored and news filtered through that if we conceded, we were pretty much out that late on. Luckily that didn't happen either.

What did happen was Alex Song tip-toeing through the Partizan defence and playing in Nasri. Song looked for the return, and Nasri pretended to be playing it to him, but sold the defender a gorgeous dummy, completely fooling him and making just enough room for the shot, which he buried with aplomb. His fine form continues, as we continue to make progress in the Champions League.

First place would have been dandy though... oh well. Bring on Schalke, Bayern, Real or Barca!
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Arsenal 3-1 Partizan Belgrade

Postby Git » Fri Dec 10, 2010 10:52 pm

Nice report.

I was terrified.
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Re: Arsenal 3-1 Partizan Belgrade

Postby Rockin' Robin » Fri Dec 10, 2010 11:16 pm

Thanks, I found myself screaming at my TV several times. :lol:
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Re: Arsenal 3-1 Partizan Belgrade

Postby Gunner Down Under » Sat Dec 11, 2010 5:58 am

Nice report mate, well done :thumbsup:
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