Queiroz’s remarks make me laugh

UNTIL Willie stole into Wigan’s box to head home in the 83rd minute, it had begun to feel like the three points were about to slip through our fingers, along with a crucial opportunity to open up a points gap on Man United.

Despite totally dominating possession, we gifted Wigan perhaps the two best first-half goal scoring opportunities, with two free headers that resulted from a couple of moments of defensive indecision. Following the break and the news that United were behind at Bolton, the more fickle Gooners began to express their frustration at our failure to trouble the Wigan keeper.

However despite my continued concerns about the solidity of Arsène’s first-choice partnership at centre-back, if there’s one attribute that William Gallas has added to the Arsenal party, it’s his winning mentality. For the second consecutive home game, we have to be grateful for Gallas’ tenacity, as without his late goals we’d have lost against Man United and failed to capitalise on their slip-up on Saturday.

I had to chuckle listening to Carlos Queiroz’s comments on Match of the Day about Bolton’s intimidating tactics. Arsène always gets slaughtered over the Arsenal’s ‘don’t like it up em’ attitude whenever he does likewise. Myself, I quite relish these ‘Beauty & the Beast’ type confrontations, so long as the opposition doesn’t resort to the sort of malicious attempts to inflict GBH, such as Marcus Bent’s cynical assault from behind on Denilson. To my mind it’s the physical nature of our football and the levels of commitment, which make the Premiership a far more enthralling proposition than the less intense brand of the beautiful game played on the continent.

In the knowledge that the majority of sides would be swiftly put to the sword in a straight contest of ability, we’ve grown accustomed to the opposition paying us the compliment of trying to kick us off the park. Theo Walcott is far from the finished article, but he’s come a long way from the lightweight of last season, when he was so easily muscled off the ball.

On an afternoon when Wigan’s Michael Brown spent the 20 minutes leading up to his inevitable booking, charging around like a headless chicken, clattering into anything that moved, it was very pleasing to see young Gunners like Denilson, Diarra and Clichy, standing their ground in the face of such aggression.

Having held out for so long, Gallas’s goal knocked all the stuffing out of the visitors, while at the same time forcing them to be more ambitious. It wasn’t long before we took advantage of the Lactic’s efforts to venture forward, cutting them to pieces with a swift counter that ended with Rosicky securing all three points, as he scuffed home our second off the inside of the post.

It was then a matter of sweating out the remaining minutes of the radio commentary from the Reebok, fully expecting the inevitable last gasp equaliser after news of the four minutes of injury time. What has bothered me most in the past when Sam Allardyce’s Bolton have bullied us out of the points with a lion-hearted display, has been the knowledge that the very same team would be likely to timidly lie down like lambs against their Lancashire neighbours. However under Megson it would appear that Bolton were able to overcome their inferiority complex for the first time in nearly 30 years.

I’m sure it was no coincidence that this defeat occurred with Vidic absent at the heart of United’s defence and on the face of it, Bolton away is a more taxing proposition than playing Wigan at home. However where previously one might have questioned Arsenal’s strength in depth, could it be significant that we coped with the enforced absence of the likes of Fabregas, Hleb and Flamini, while Fergie mistakenly assumed he could afford the luxury of leaving out similarly influential figures, from an already depleted side?

The finely tuned Arsenal engine might clunk and grind a little without our first-choice stars but crucially we made it home safe. Meanwhile, Fergie might want to renew his AA subscription for the jump-start Man United require without Ronaldo & co.

* goonersdiary.blogspot.com