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Arsenal vs Sunderland 7th October 2007 - Premier League - Emirates Stadium The alarm wakes me at 8.15am. I'm not ready to take on the day yet so I reset the alarm to 8.45, and go back to sleep. I then snooze until 9.05 but then have to rush to get showed and make it out the door for 9.45. I drive to Staines because there are engineering works. I’m gasping for coffee but as I head into the shop on the platform the fecking train arrives - 5 mins early!! So I board, coffeeless, to find that the train is going to stop at every station on the way. Great, an extra 30 minutes added to the journey. If you read my match reports regularly you will know that on nearly every match day there's some kind of problem on the trains or tubes. It doesn't help when the match is at 12pm on a Sunday. I feel sorry for the Sunderland fans though, who must have left home at 2am!! We all know that money is more important to the clubs than consideration of the fans. The match is sold out with a crowd of over 60.000 which is a testament to both sets of supporters. As expected, the match starts at a good tempo with Arsenal controlling possession and Sunderland being very physical. No more so than after only a few minutes when Almunia is caught late and hard by Nyron Nosworthy which earns him a yellow card. Shortly afterwards Arsenal have the ball in the net from a Diaby power drive but its disallowed due to an earlier foul on Cesc and we are awarded a free kick just outside the box instead. Cesc and RVP stand over the ball and both make a run towards it. RVP strikes the ball with so much power that there's nothing that Gordon, the Sunderland keeper can do to stop it as it bounces in off the cross bar. One nil to the Arsenal! Our second goal comes shortly afterwards, when after some excellent play the ball is whipped into the box by Adebayor towards Diaby who makes a mess of doing anything with it, but luckily for Arsenal it ends up going to an unmarked Senderos who drives the ball home from about 8 yards. Cruising now. It could be six today. The sun comes out and everyone can relax and enjoy the forthcoming drubbing. It’s so easy with arsenal in full control. Another goal is disallowed after a late off-side flag. This was on around 40 minutes mark which is also the same time that arsenal stopped playing football. Sunderland scored their first goal just before half time. It looked like the initial shot was saved by Almunia, but was the rebound went to Ross Wallace who passed the ball, uncontested into the arsenal goal for 2-1 at half time. Half-Time I was hoping that Arsenal would start the second half better than they ended the first. I was disappointed though as they didn’t, and after only a couple of mins the game was level after a Kenwyne Jones header. Then starts the time wasting and niggly fouls from Sunderland as they try to stop Arsenal from playing. They have been very physical throughout the whole game. With every challenge there’s contact on the Arsenal players, usually leading to free kicks to Sunderland! The game is much more open, and even in the second half. Some lapse defending nearly lets Sunderland through a few times but Almunia is always there to protect us. Whenever we have possession we are playing desperate long balls through the middle to Adebayor. It’s not a tactic that I like. It doesn’t make for entertaining football and it’s clearly not working. Theo comes on for Diaby on around the hour mark. Not a substitution I would have made. It’s a physical game and Theo is not suited to these battles yet. I’d have gone for Bendtner instead. We had some good chances with Kolo hitting the wood work but Theo had a terrible miss with about 15 minutes to go when a good cross from Hleb went to Theo on the Far post who only had to tap it into the net but somehow managed to fall over and allow the ball to be cleared. He’s a frustrating player to watch and only time will tell how good he is. I’m not convinced yet though. After every shot by Arsenal the Sunderland, and Scotland keeper, Craig Gordon wastes more and more time. He takes the kick from the opposite side every time just to waste a few more seconds. It’s blatant cheating but the ref just leaves him to it. I remember a couple of times last season where Lehman got booked for this. It’s actually Theo who sets up the winner. He makes a devastating run through the Sunderland defence on crosses the ball into the box from the right to RVP who is able to somehow control the ball and take his shot in one swift movement, in the air! A class goal and worthy of winning any match. There was a straight red card for Sunderland too as Paul McShane took a wild lunge at Alex Helb and seemed to follow thorough with his knee. The intent to harm was clearly there. I’d like to see it again but it did look bad from where I was sitting. While Hleb was receiving treatment we sang “Just like your manager” at Roy Keane, followed by the “Viera” song. In injury time, not sure how much was given as it wasn’t shown during the match, we nearly scored a forth when Theo’s shot beat the keeper but was saved by the inside of the far post. I don’t think he’ll ever score again – he has John Jenson syndrome! I have to say that the Ref today, Rob Styles, was absolutely shocking. He got most things wrong and seemed to want Sunderland to win as he gave them every 50-50 decision, although at one stage of the game Sunderland fans were singing “You’ve only got 12 men” implying that he was helping Arsenal out!! No way. It does, however, imply that both sets of fans were disappointed with the ref. Overall it was a good game which showed the good and bad of Arsenal. The bad was that we went to sleep after getting in front, but the good was that we again kept going for the winner, and the forth fighting all the way. Last year that would have been 2-2 draw but we kept going in a match that should have been over by Half Time, to take all three deserved points. |
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