Well, on what appeared to be a beautiful sunny day (with great vocal support by our fans) Arsenal almost did the unthinkable (although more par for the course this year) and dropped points. If not for the constant clearing of legitimate WBA chances by what amounted to a back line of 6 in the end, Arsenal may have walked away with 1 point instead of the 3 they deservedly earned.

Things started well enough with Ramsey providing decent pace and the entire front line doing well to put pressured on West Brom. There were some early frustrating issues, Sagna’s crossing (or lack thereof) for instance, but it was Arsenal’s Ivorian hope that help strike gold (Gervinho could be heard yelling, “damn right it was a beautiful pass!”-we all know that was a shot amigo). It was great to see Rosicky put not one, but two (2!?) in today. The man did his best RVP (he who shall not be named) impression yet.

The build up on both goals was great and Arteta needs to be credited for an almost 60 yard pass onto a rushing Gervinho. I am still not sure though if Gervinho really meant to shoot that first bullet at Rosicky’s head or not; don’t care in the end as I am just happy someone was on the other end of anything Gervinho! The only truly frustrating miscue came by way of the man that up to that point I thought did a great job: Ramsey. The lay off and touch play between Cazorla and Giroud was brilliant in the 43rd minute. We have seen this relationship between them before and I really hope it continues to blossom for year to come. Sadly, Ramsey’s first touch after the duo’s flirting was a bit much and what should have been an easy strike turned to the equivalent of a muffed PAT (otherwise known as a Gervinho impression). That said, I still liked what I saw from Ramsey today and believe the added depth of his play will benefit Arsenal the rest of this year and into the next when we get back to playing for, you know, hardware (what?!).

Now on to my real issue with this game: Per’s awful red card. No, it was well earned. What was awful about it was his tact in that moment. Putting aside the fact that he just got punked (you can see him looking to the sideline in a moment of prayer/desperation that a flag would go up), I am more pissed at the idea of his decision making  after he got outplayed. Please, someone, explain to me his logic in fouling and risking getting a red card when up 2 nil? What harm would have occurred to have just continued to keep pressure on Shane Long when he played the ball, play the odds that he might miss the shot anyways (or have it blocked by Fabianski) and play on without risking being sent off causing your team to play down a man the rest of the match?

Here is the way I see it:

Worse case if you allow Long to continue without the hard challenge: goal scored but you keep 11 men on to finish the game.

Best case: he misses anyways and you dodge a bullet albeit I still write some shitty things about how I can’t believe you start for your National squad and while you are tall your brain has turned to mush from altitude sickness.

Instead, we had the worst of the worst: red card, penalty scored, play down a man for 20+ minutes and just barely (BARELY) scrap out a win. Just bollucks if you ask me. This was a tactical error made worse by bad judgment. Bad form Fräulein. Look, Per has been fairly solid for most of the season even though our backline has gone through some changes and a series of matches with complete boneheaded decisions (still can’t tell if it is the players or the coaches) but I expect more out of a guy as experienced as Per. I am reminded of the scene from the movie A League Of Their Own (just don’t, I know there can be some jokes made about me here) where Tom Hanks’ character is yelling at one of his outfielders for throwing the ball to the wrong base and allowing a run to score needlessly.

The point is not that Per caused the game to be lost but rather that his move caused the dynamics of the game to completely shift and almost cause it to be lost (save for some serious misses by Lukaku, thank goodness that guy didn’t start the match, and the rest of the WBA side). In the end, I am just damn happy we walked away with 3 points and definitely did not have this in mind when I figured it would be a “tough test”.

Now if we can see those above us slip up I will resolve myself to be made even happier.

Are you crying? Are you crying? ARE YOU CRYING? There’s no crying! THERE’S NO CRYING IN BASEBALL! (Photo credit: Dave Robinette)