Last night we recorded our first draw this season, not bad given it was our 14th competitive match this term. It wasn’t the most exciting Arsenal game I have ever watched though.
Alkmaar enjoyed the greater proportion of possession on the night and we looked happy to sit back and lap up the pressure. Which, given our superior strengths should not have been an issue – no disrespect to Alkmaar here but we are a better side. We do have the quality to contain teams and let them play the ball around the park, but we need to be solid defensively if we are to do so.
Our goal came form some great play, Arshavin played a ball to van Persie who could have shot, and perhaps in other teams he would have done, but that is not the Arsenal way. Instead he played a great square ball to Cesc who tapped in to put us a goal up and seemingly in control of the game. But the players clearly sat back, there was not much effort and the passing game was not as slick as it has been. I thought Cesc on the whole did not pass the ball well, but given the high standards we are used to an “off game” for him is still probably a good game comparatively speaking. In the latter 15-20 minutes we began to look jittery, balls were cannoned out of the area as if we were struggling against a Barcelona or a Real Madrid team who had us under the cosh. We were denied a penalty when Carlos Vela was clearly fouled, but I suspect that will happen quite often this season. Before we conceded the goal I thought we looked vulnerable from the set piece, and a cheap offside gave Alkmaar the opportunity to equalise and that they did. Arsène and a few of the players today have talked about switching off, that is pretty much what happened and thankfully it was only an equalising goal in the group stages that we conceded and not a late tie winner in the knock-out stages.
However all is not lost. An away point in the group stage should not be sniffed at. We are still top of our group and are highly likely to qualify. Yes we didn’t play great but we had some players out injured, it wasn’t a vital game which I think meant the players were not mentally up for it. Some plus points to take are the continuing development of Diaby and Song, who I both thought had better games overall than the rest of the squad. Both players are a key part to our squad and now that Diaby has a run of games under his belt I think we are seeing the potential that Arsène has talked about for so long.
As I said we are still top of the group, I don’t see us having problems beating Alkmaar at home in a few weeks time, that will pretty much seal qualification for us. And don’t forget things could be much much worse, look at Liverpool, things are much better with us.
The squad now has a decent break until we face West Ham on Sunday. More on that later in the week. One piece of good news was the return of Samir Nasri for the reserves last night, hopefully he is not too far from first team action.
