Arsenal strain to clear blockage with a floater
Nick Floats In
By Boris Mellor
April 3 2010
Wolves looked set to block Arsenal for over 90 minutes, indeed their fans were part celebrating a famous draw, and part whistling for the match to end as time nearly ran out. Arsenal had strained to score all game and rarely looked like they would. They created chance after chance but the finishing was poor, to be fair some of the chances were not that good.
Evidence of how this team strains to score is that this season they have scored 18 goals in the last ten minutes. Of course it should not be ignored that this also shows great team spirit.
Both the crowd and the team seemed hung over from Wednesday night, and some were probably dreaming of the Tuesday to come. This felt like one of Arsenal's worst displays in a long time, and apart from wasting chances, and allowing a few chances to Wolves nothing of very much importance occurred for much of the game. Rosicky did not find the Fabregas role easy, although being kicked when he had the ball didn't help. With Nasri on the bench the Gunners lacked a playmaker with guile.
Grim Stats
I couldn't help musing on the stats that although Arsenal have won 42 out 59 Premiership games following a CL match since 1998/9, they had only won six out of 13 home PL matches that were sandwiched between two CL matches.
This began to play on my mind as the clock counted down, but when the added time board went up with 5 minutes on it I felt reinvigorated, as did the crowd and the team. However, even added time was being consumed without any sign of the deadlock being broken, and then with a only minute left Sagna floated the ball across the Wolves goal for Bendtner to head the ball well away from the keeper and into the net. Bedlam, the stadium went mad with some singing Super Nik and others enquiring who exactly the Wolves fans were.
I was composing an obituary to Arsenal's title challenge but now mentally binned it. Yes it's a long shot, and the injury list grows longer by the day, but the team has a never say die attitude and with Man U only a point ahead and the Chavs pegged back to a three point lead it's no time to wave the white flag.
Easing the problem
If the team can get rid of the goal scoring blockage and start scoring regularly they could be there at the very end. It's a pity Wenger didn't add a little more goal scoring fibre to the diet during the Xmas transfer window, it might have eased the problem and guaranteed an end product
Afterwards in the Bank we celebrated the victory, but couldn't help commenting on the constipated manner of the Gunners performance, but it was agreed that squeezing one out at the end had finished the job off. As is often the case the constipation ended with a floater.
The Bank posse heads off to Barcelona in good spirits.
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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2010:04:05:13:36:28 by Padre Pio.
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
Toilet is how that game felt for most us, I am sure.
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.
Can We Now Trust The Process 🤔🤷🏿♀️ or Should We Still Remain Cautious 🙇🏿♀️
"When we had to suffer the team is a lion because they suffer together." 4 July 2020 at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Arteta on his team's first away victory at a club above them in the Premiership since September 2015 at Leicester.