What a great result! Arsenal 0 Ajax 0

Henry
By Boris Mellor
December 8 2005

What a great result! But that’s enough about Benfica’s victory over the Salford Red Soxs. In my preview for this game I wrote:

"I might be wrong, but I suspect this will be an utter anti – climax as the result, whatever it is, will make no difference, at all, to either team."

Arsene played a team slightly stronger than he puts out for Man City in the lager cup. A certain lack of cohesion was evidenced for most of the match, and as I feared it meant a stalemate. The Arsenal midfield was able to close down Ajax, but with a lack of experience could create very little themselves. Ajax were a far tougher test than a Championship, or bottom of the Premiership team.

 Hleb, Flamini and Larsson provided very little, and Quincy though full of running fluffed his lines when the big scoring chance came. Henry ambled in and out of the game as if he wasn’t quite sure why he was there. Reyes reminded him by winning a penalty, and the Captain stepped up to carry out his duty. My feeling was that the Ajax goalie spooked him as he took the penalty. He made himself look big filling the goal, Henry, keen to put it beyond his reach put the ball a fraction too wide, it was still curling in as it passed the post.

Fortunately Henry’s miss did not undermine the morale of the Gunners, but as the second half resumed the game had stalemate written all over it. Even van Persie, summoned by the crowd, and welcomed as saviour, could not break the deadlock. However to be fair he had a bloody good try, and almost replicated his Blackburn goal, but the goalkeeper blocked the resulting shot. Ajax replied late on with some shots of their own, but their shooting remained as wayward as it had been all evening.

There was a plus to all this – the Gunners kept a clean sheet against a team that attacked at high speed with tricky wingers, and fast direct forwards. The fact they didn’t score was partly bad luck, but the Cygan less back four had a good game. Eboue started off slowly, but after 30 minutes in became effective. Senderos had a great game, as did Kolo. Although Kerrea Gilbert had barely 20 minutes on the pitch the crowd were impressed by his tenacity.

Not a great night? Only a draw, only 16 points out of 18 – it could have been 18. However the five teams that did get maximum points in the CL never won the competition – so for the superstitious amongst us it’s probably for the best.

Nonetheless as the crowd wended its way home through the rain the biggest cheer of the night went up, Utd were out of the Champions League. Another great night in Europe.

But enough of the CL for on Saturday it's back to another tough away domestic match away. Some mistake surely, hasn’t David Dein fixed it so the Gunners always play at home after European nights?