Scoring ways! |
9 minutes into the game and Walcott was looking as menacing as ever. His runs behind and through the defense were brilliant and it didn't take long for the first opening. RVP lobbed a pass over the defense to Walcott and just when he was about to control and finish, in the penalty box, Bassong tackled him and Walcott went to ground. The referee had to award the penalty. Bassong was red carded for the being tackling last defender. The penalty was deserved, the sending off might be a bit too harsh. But that was the referee's decision. RVP took the penalty(his first goal in 4 matches), and that too in some style.
Some people might argue that if Ashley Young's antics against QPR were criticised, so should Theo Walcott's. But I guess they just have to look at both the incidents, you have the Youtube, and see for themselves if they are similar or world's apart. No more comments on that.
Wolves were down to 10 men inside the opening 10 minutes and the home supporters almost felt sorry for their team. However, it got worse just 2 minutes after the first goal. RVP again made a square pass to Walcott near the Wolves' penalty box, and he finished it neatly past Hennessey. The crowd was frustrated at being 0-2 down in 11 minutes. They targeted their frustration on Walcott and booed him throughout the match, whenever he got near the ball. He looked a bit turned down after this and it just looked like the crowd rounded him up a bit.
Actually it was not just Walcott, but the whole team put on the brakes and played cautiously, content with passing the ball around and keeping possession. This added to the home supporters frustration and they started cries of "Boring, Boring" to put off the Gunners.
Arsene said,
We started well and then had a situation where we could control the game. Did we push on or not? After that we played a bit with the handbrake on, they played deeper and defended like mad with a great spirit until the end of the game.Maybe that gave Wolves a chance to try and attack a bit with whatever they had. Some defensive lapses allowed the Wolves' players to put crosses into the box. Santos, in particular, looked a bit off his game. Though he is not known for his defensive capabilities, he did not looked comfortable at all in defense.
Szczesny didn't have much to do in the match apart from two brilliant saves. One came when Jarvis crossed the ball to Doyle who headed it goalwards, and though Szczesny looked to be going the wrong side, made a brilliant fingertips save from 3 yards away and parried the ball away. Another one came, off a Milijas shot and the Pole made a save it at his near post.
Though we were looking quite comfortable in the game, with 0-2 ahead, there must something going at the back of the Arsenal players' minds that if Wolves scored a goal, they will be right back in the game. The third goal had to be scored, but it couldn't come soon enough. Midway through the second half, Song was dwelling far forward in the oppositions penalty box and made a pass to Benayoun on the edge of the box. Benayoun spotted Hennessey moving towards the far post and shot at the near post for a clever finish.
The third goal surely sealed thee victory for the Gunners and the only thing left to take care of was the clean sheet, which we got. We got some goals to add to the goal difference, RVP was back on the score sheet and three more points in the league for us. RVP equalled Ian Wright's Premier League record of scoring against 17 different teams in a season. We are now 5 points ahead of Rottenham and Newcastle, and sitting happily in third position. Arsene said,
I am very happy that we are in this position but I am also very cautious because some teams have been in that position before. We want to win our next game because where we have come from this season we must be focused. We have come from very deep and to stay in this position we have to focus on our next game.Obviously focus is going to be important, considering our next match against Wigan and their recent exploits. They were very unlucky to lose against Chelsea and they came back strongly to beat Manu yesterday. Surely the Gunners have a lot to study before the Monday night game and there are enough lessons learned already for us to act positively and "focus" on the next game.
Go Gunners!
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