block6gooner

Last night our (mainly) young guns put in a pretty good performance against Olympiacos but in the end suffered a 1-0 defeat. Not that it matters we are top of our group, that had been decided before last night, and it also gave Arsène the chance to rest some first team players. The game was pretty fast paced and there was a genuine parallel between how our first team plays and they way the youngsters equipped themselves last night. Slick passing and movement around the pitch were apparent throughout most of the game until some legs began to tire, but given some are yet to leave their teens this lack of full fitness is not a surprise.

The impressive performances of the night goto three players; Lukasz Fabianski played well in goal, he has a great command of his area and seems more confident and more effective coming for crosses compared to Almunia, yes he possibly could have done better for the goal but overall his positioning and shot stopping was good – I suspect he will push for number 1 next season if a keeper is not purchased in the mean time. Aaron Ramsey was again outstanding, his passing is akin to Cesc at times, some fantastic through balls that many players would be unable to even imagine playing let alone have the balls to try them. He is a massive massive prospect for us, however can the team accommodate both him and Fabregas in our current formation? Fran Merida also played well, he had good movement and seemed to pop up all over the pitch. Another hot prospect for Arsenal but he needs more work than Ramsey.

However all was not well with some of the performances last night, I hate to single out players but something has to be said about Carlos Vela’s performance. For a player who has represented his country at international level and has been a starter for us in the absence of van Persie he really needs to do better than he did last night. He had three chances that a quality striker should be putting away, or at least getting the ball on target. If he was one of the younger players who was making his first appearances for the team I could give him some leeway, but he is not. He should be far better than he showed last night. I was disappointed in his performance.

One final thing I will say is how shit the ITV commentary is. We have not been on ITV this season, and I take back a lot, but not all, of the things I have said/shouted about Sky and their commentary. In the early stages of the game they mentioned Steven Gerrard, Liverpool weren’t even playing for fucks sake. Then as the game progressed it was “have a pop at Arsène” time, some of the comments they came out with:

“Can you remember the last time Arsène started 5 English players and 1 Welshman in his first team?”

The ITV stats department went away to find out and came back with the reply from the commentators. But there was no mention of look here are 5 great English players that the Arsenal Youth Academy has helped develop, no it was just the usual xenophobic crap about foreign players and a foreign manager.

The list of substitutes was read out at some point in the second half, each one said in a completely different tone compared to the normal commentary voice that was used, as if to exaggerate the odd sounding surnames these johnny foreigners had. Then when we were about to make a substitute these two comments were made:

“A very weak bench for Arsenal tonight”

Yes, we are playing mainly our reserves you twunt.

“Gilles Sunu, heard of him? No I haven’t either”

Err, yes the Arsenal fans watching your shite channel have.

I may write and complain to ITV. Seriously!

It was also the first time I have watched ITV HD, can’t say I was that impressed either there was a lot of pixelation around moving players. Sky have the edge here as well. Anyway we are through to the knock-out stages, I will post later who we might be drawn against – I think the draw takes place on the 18th December.