Fearing more glorious Gooner failure
Obviously in my heart I want to believe in Arsène’s optimistic claims that it’s still all up for grabs and we’ve seen enough strange results in recent weeks to give us plenty of hope. The unpredictable nature of football remains one of its most endearing qualities. Yet in my head, all logic tells me that we blew it at Old Trafford, with our failure to trouble Van Der Sar in order to secure that crucial away goal.
The best that can be said is that we travelled back from Manchester feeling grateful that we were still in with a shout, knowing that United would be ruing a missed opportunity to put the tie to bed. But I couldn’t help but feel somewhat distraught, because we’d failed to do ourselves justice, as Arsène appeared to have repeated the very same mistake he made in the FA Cup semi-final, in his efforts to try and select a team to thwart the opposition, rather than simply putting his faith in picking our most in-form XI.
Again we seemed to adopt a siege mentality against United, as if we were trying to repeat the shut-out Chelsea had achieved in the Camp Nou the previous night. Yet we patently lack the defensive resilience of the Blues and as every Gooner knows, this Arsenal side’s best form of defence is to attack.
But for much of the first 45 minutes we didn’t retain enough possession of the ball to escape out of our half of the pitch.
A more proactive manager might’ve begun to ring the changes, as within five minutes of the kick-off it was evident that Arsène’s gameplan was not working and from my perspective, it was not a matter of if United were going to win, but by how many.! Yet le Prof has always adopted a laissez-faire approach, perhaps trusting to the game’s inevitable swings in momentum and preferring to keep faith with his players, rather making any reactive tactical changes which might be perceived as a sign of weakness.
We couldn’t have done more from the terraces, to try and stir the team out of their seemingly suicidal inertia, since it was obvious that it was only a matter of time before we’d eventually succumb to United’s relentless pressure. It’s hard to recall Abou Diaby previously ever producing more than a couple of cameo moments and he definitely doesn’t appear to possess the intense industrious nature needed in this sort of frenetic contest. Where Nasri had found time to dictate play in the Boro game in his more withdrawn role, he was completely overwhelmed last Wednesday. Moreoever, playing in a more advanced position, Fabregas had no chance of exerting any influence, until we escaped our half of the pitch and with Adebayor’s inability to hold the ball up, we struggled to build any of the forward momentum that would enable Cesc to have some impact.
Still, largely thanks to Almunia’s heroics, the fat lady’s appearance has been postponed for another 90 minutes and with an early goal on Tuesday night, there’s no knowing what might transpire. My fancy for an Arsenal v Chelsea final hasn’t been extinguished but I’d be feeling a lot more confident if like the Blues, we only had to focus on beating the opposition, rather than fretting about denying them an away goal.
Notwithstanding the injudicious timing of Stan Kroenke’s boardroom shenanigans, in advance of our biggest game of the season, myself I will be satisfied, so long as we give it a real go against United in the second leg, instead of affording them the sort of respect that appeared to dictate Arsène’s team selection at Old Trafford.
Yet whether fate and good fortune aids our progress to the final, or our season is destined to finally flounder in glorious failure, Saturday’s performance by a Premiership side with the youngest ever average age, was a pertinent reminder of the promise of the Wenger boys’ bright future, a bunch of hungry teenagers who might yet have their say in the outcome of this season’s title race.
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