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Arsenal vs Steaua Bucharest 12th December 2007 – UEFA Champions League Match 6 – Emirates Stadium  I’m finding it hard to get motivated about tonights match. It doesn’t mean very much at all. There’s a slim chance that we can win our group but that would require Sevilla to lose away to Slavia Prague and that’s very unlikely. These matches are the worst thing about the Champions League group stages and I moan about these every year! The fact that we had already qualified was reflected in the starting line-up: Jens Lehmann Philippe Senderos Armand Traore William Gallas Bacary Sagna (Lassana Diarra 70) Abou Diaby (Emmanuel Eboue 70) Denilson Alexandre Song Theo Walcott Robin Van Persie (Eduardo 65) Nicklas Bendtner I rolled up at the stadium a couple of minutes after kick off but didn’t miss much. The match is being played at the tempo of an Arsenal practise match. We take the lead after 8 minutes by which time we had already had about 4 shots on target. It came after some good running from Theo Walcott who distributed the ball to Sagna wide right. Bacary picked up the ball and provided an excellent cross across the area to Diaby who controlled with his right and then fired a shot into the top right hand corner as we went from 3rd gear down to second. We dominated the match and it was one-way traffic. Diaby nearly had a second but his powerful drive, also into the top right corner, was somehow saved by the Steaua goalkeeper. Robin Van Persie was the highlight for me. He was absolutely brilliant and in the absence of Cesc he was the playmaker controlling play and involved in all of the good attacking moves. Steaua had a couple of chances too but they played like a team lacking confidence and Traore always seemed to be there to block them. Traore is a very good player too. He looks like Clichy and plays like him too. Traore was involved in a good chance too after he made an excellent run down the left flank and made a very good cross towards the far post. It was picked up by Robin and his dipping shot was on target but saved.  Van Persie was involved again when he twisted and turned with the ball on the edge of the penalty area before passing to Bendtner. Nicklas made no mistake blasting the ball into the net for a 2 nil lead at Half-Time. Half-Time Usually at Half-time on Champions League matches (there’s no alcohol) it easy to get served during the 15 minute interval but today there were only 4 lanes (instead of 8) so it was impossible. This was not surprising though as I think the staff would struggle to get a square peg into a square hole at the best of times. It’s 0-0 in Prague so if it stays like this then we will win the group. We don’t help ourselves when we let Steaua back into a game that we were cruising. They get their goal with 25 minutes left to play. It was a looping header past Lehman and a goal in which the returning keeper should have done better. Only a minute after we conceded the news of a Seville goal comes through and then straight after the re-start they get another to make it 2 nil and this extinguishes any hopes we had of winning the group. To make matters worse their second goal was scored by ex-Tottenham scummer Freddy Kanute. Steaua’s goal signalled a wake up call for them as they started to play football for the first time in the match. Sevilla got a 3rd goal in Prague and we hung on for a 2-1 lead in a game we dominated for well over an hour. The final Group H table:
This means that we will have to play another Group Winner and I have a feeling it will be Thierry Henry and Barcelona but the important this is that we are in the draw for the next round. |
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