vs Fenerbahce.
Wow! what a night in Turkey. A potentially tricky match against a team who hadnt lost at home in Europe for 15 matches was despite the scoreline...actually a very tricky match...For all the fantastic flowing moves that produced the goals there were many times that the Fenerbahce players hassled and closed us down quickly and stopped us from getting into that rythm. By that stage though the damage had been done. The first 20 minutes the Home defence made our makeshift back 4 look like World Beaters and my god (Bergkamp if your wondering) that is far from the truth. By the time they had worked out that a big gap between centre backs a long way up the pitch, teamed with Fabregas' ability to play precision passes would rip them apart they were already 2-0 down and fortunate to not be 3 behind as the keeper saved well from Nasri's effort. Adebayor struck the first after negotiating the obsticle of Theo who thought that as the defence werent going to bother he should at least stand there so as it wasnt too easy for Ade to score. In fairness though it was a good composed finish from the lankster. Next up, a mere minute later Fabregas again slid a ball through and Theo this time raced through to round the keeper and despite the tight angle and the fact the ball was running away from him slightly he managed to wrap his foot round it and squeeze it inside the post. The home crowd had been silenced. They needed to sort it out quick. In fairness to them, they did look dangerous on the attack all night, i dont know if its cos they were actually dangerous or just because our defence was SO bad but Song blatently cut across his man to earn himself a booking and give away a free kick which was swung across and played back into the area by Guiza who found Silvestre in great space to tuck it away beyond Almunia. It actually did cross my mind right there and then that Silvestre is in fact under orders from SAF to completely ruin our season but he did seem to try harder after that so im still undecided. After 21 minutes, the impressive throughout, Diaby, showed great feet and turn of pace to get away from his man and fire hard and low left footed across the goal into the far corner to once again hush the crowd. Almunia was in good form all night and kept out Guiza on multiple occasions after he far too easily escaped our defence. The break came and went and not too long after the restart a Fabregas free kick found its way up in the air and dropped out the sky to be hammered home by Song with a fantastic volley. As Fenerbahce pressed hard and tried to break through without being caught offside we continued to counter attack. They did eventually get it right and Guiza sneaked through to lob over Almunia. What could have been a tense last 10 minutes or so was controlled well by our brilliant use of the ball and ability to keep possession. This was outlined brilliantly when from about the 90th minute until the 4th minute of injury time we passed it and rarely let Fenerbahce get a touch on it as we pressed well looking for that final moment. It came after a couple of rejected attempts at breaking through when the ball found its way to the impressive Ramsey on the edge of the area who fired low into the opposite corner to mark a special moment and a great night in Europe again for the Arsenal...
Vast improvements are needed when it comes to defending but our ability to outscore the opponent is getting us through at the moment!
.....D3