Arsenal 0 Liverpool 0
Well that was a strange game which should never have finished goal less. It got off to an odd start when the teams were announced. I doubt anyone was expecting Gabriel and Chambers to be starting a couple of hours before the match. But with Kos out with a bad back and Mertesacker ill both our back up centre backs were pushed into starting positions. Not an ideal situation.
The match started brightly though for arsenal who controlled the possession and looked threatening creating a couple of half chances. Then Aaron Ramsey was played through and into the box where he neatly slotted past Mignolet. But the joy was very short lived as the lineman had his flag up for offside. Ramsey couldn’t believe it, and rightly so as replays showed him to be onside. (Even his shirt Brendon).
After this it all started to go a bit downhill for the gunners. Suddenly our make shift defence bagan to look incredibly make shift. Particularly Chambers who missed placed several passes straight to opposition players. Luckily he was bailed out several times by his team mates particularly the impressive Coquelin, who made several excellent tackles and interceptions during the game. But it wasn’t just Chambers looking shaky it was the whole team even Santi and Ozil were misplacing passes. We conceded several corners and failed to clear many of them. Petr Cech also pulled off 2 wonderful saves. First denying Benteke from close range then tipping a drive from Coutinho onto the post at full stretch. Amazingly Arsenal got to half time unscathed.
The 2nd half was much better we quickly refound our rhythm and dominated possession. Ozil was at the heart of most of our moves and played some delightful passes. Unfortunately no one could score. Both Giroud and Sanchez missed glaring chances to score from no more than 5 yards.
Overall this made for a fustrating and odd watch. Where both teams seemed utterly dominant and completely awful at various stages. The late changes at CB didn’t help, the nervousness of all was clear, particularly for Chambers. The mistakes they made in the first half spread through the team and allowed Liverpool to dominate. Chambers looks like he needs a bit more work, he needed a Kos or Mertesacker beside him to guide him. Gabriel though looked like he could be very good. He made a number of excellent tackles and seems to be quite pacey, though doesn’t seem as comfortable on the ball as our Per or Kos. Other positives were the performances of Coquelin, Cech and Ozil. The others just need to follow their example.
Arsenal failed to score at the Emirates again, making it 5 Premiership games in a row that Arsenal have failed to score at home. It certainly seems as of we could do with adding some more firepower upfront. Giroud looks out of form and Walcott, despite his insistence, is not a central striker. Welbeck is still injured and will take a while to reach full fitness. A DM to cover Coquelin is needed too. Seven days left of the window, over to you Arsene….
The Weapons Cache 