vs Fenerbahce at the Grove
Well it was bonfire night, but there were no fireworks at Ashburton last night. The performance was an improvement but in the second half we lacked imagination and seemed void of ideas on how to break down the defensive Turks. In the first half we created clear chances on numerous occasions. These are the kind of chances that we need to start taking 9 times out of 10, not once.
Aswell as the forced changes, Wenger found his balls for once and made some changes for the better. He dropped the suddenly awful again Almunia and went with our young Pole Fabianksi between the sticks. He looked more assured on crosses, attacking the ball with confident punches, and got down well on a few occasions to make smart stops. One occasion when Fenerbahce tried to counter attack he made the wrong decision to stay when he should have been playing the sweeper role, but had the shot well covered in the end so will live to play another game. Im sure Wenger will restore Almunia to no1 for the Utd match but it was a good assured performance and a clean sheet for Lukasz. Into the defence and Wenger finally brought in Djourou to the middle alongside Silvestre with Toure occupying the right back berth. Johan made the difference as far as im concerned and was the reason for the improvement in the defensive performance. When crosses came over he attacked the ball, dominating the area and not allowing the Bahce players time on the ball. Toure played well at right back and although he's no Sagna, he's looked weak at centre half recently and looked more comfortable galloping down the wing. A few good crosses came over from here and he always was there offering support. Up to the midfield and Wenger included Aaron Ramsey from the start. The youngster had a good game until he was replaced towards the end. He didnt have the creative influence he may have liked but he slotted in well and certainly wasnt a weakness. Nasri was impressive as always but sometimes struggled to get his passes through the two banks of four infont of him. Van Persie ran his socks off, all night, trying to make up for last weekends stupidity it appeared, and just lacked the goal after failing to take a couple of chances and being superbly denied by defender and then goalkeeper on a couple of other occasions. Bendtner was shocking. Really bad last night. Just wasnt at the races even more so than usual. Im so annoyed that Vela didnt come on sooner as when he did we had already ran out of energy and ideas and whatever he tried just didnt seem to come off.
With Bendtners failure to perform last night i really fear for us on Saturday. We're not that great at defending and now cant attack either. With Eduardo, RVP, Walcott and Adebayor all out, i fear Wenger is going to do something mental like leave Vela on the bench and play Bendtner up top solo with Diaby supporting or something along those lines. I fear for us in that situation. I really do.....
Til then...D3