One of the benefits of being self employed, and having a preggo wife, is that I have the joy of picking and choosing work days right now. Today, I chose to take the day off to watch the match live instead of waiting to see it later via DVR. Right before it started, Fox Soccer had a condensed replay of the match between the two teams from the 2004/2005 season where Arsenal hung a 7-0 scoreline on the Toffs… Sadly, I wasn’t much a soccer fan, thus no Arsenal, and did not watch those glory days of the early/mid 2000’s. The game featured an Henry in his prime, an aging Bergkamp, and a young Arteta in the Everton side. It was a pleasure to watch the dominance of a team that was at 4th (Everton) and Arsenal “settling” for 2nd that year. Oh to have been a fan during those days… What is wonderful about coming to the game as a fan so late with Arsenal is that I have the pleasure of relishing in the history and looking forward to the future Gunners. I expect we’ll quickly hang 7 on Everton today, right? Well… not quite…

The first half saw us pulling off our best impression of the first half from Norwich. Actually, no, we played quite a bit better than that and saw decent chances via Gibbs and then Ramsey’s great cross to a sliding Giroud just keeping us from going up. We didn’t exactly dominate the first half but we did play well enough that luck could have seen us through a goal or two. At the start, the ref seemed completely content to let a very physical match play out and only later in the first half did he remember that he had, and could use, a yellow card for fouls (wait, what the F are these things on my pocket?!). What was striking to me was how physical Everton came out to play and I quickly became frustrated that the ref seemed content to let them bulldog their way around the pitch before FINALLY pulling a couple yellows out for fouls on Theo (his pace was great to see early on). Also, I was waiting to see Jack just drop Fellaini for the strong arm shite he was pulling in the middle… just punch the arse Jack! In my opinion (which if you will recall is ALWAYS RIGHT), Gibson should have been sent off with a second yellow and his plays on Theo didn’t make them any more palatable  when the ref later calls a less harsh foul by Pienaar on Theo for almost the exact same play (we all could tell that  if Gibson hadn’t already had a yellow he would have gotten one with that second challenge which means he should have been given the second yellow dammit-just hand that man his bags and send him the F on his way!).

Anyways, for me, Ramsey was the man of the match. The bloke pressed Everton, was quick to get back, and seemed to be pulling off an incredible impression of Rosicky’s style of play before his little knock kept him on the bench. At first, when I saw the lineup I thought “Ok, well, with all the mids in there I would rather see Rosicky than Ramsey but I guess this could work…” Glad Ramsey proved me wrong as he continued is strong form as of late (his first half was no joke, the lad is getting his big boy pants on to play these days). While we didn’t make any big mistakes in the first half we also didn’t quite do enough to pull ahead and Everton could have easily been up 1 to nil as they had a decent goal scoring chance themselves.

Second half started much better and I thought we ended up playing well enough that we deserved the win. Late changes were made with AOC/Podolski coming on for Jack/Theo and again, the feel of the game changed quickly (I didn’t quite understand that Nacho change at all, maybe Arsene saw Gibbs with his hands on his hips one too many times?) We saw many opportunities to score late, AOC continued his brilliant runs at goal and Podolski even got himself going with plenty of early touches. That said, I still don’t understand why either of those guy didn’t start from the get go but it was nice to see such a positive effect on the game the instant they came in. Podolski, while not ripping one through one of the defenders, worked really hard and earned us quite a few corners late in the game. It was a welcome reminder that the guy is not just a leg but also a competent decision maker (Gervin-who?) by winning us many late game chances via corners. In the end, we ended up with many goal scoring opportunities but not much else to show for it.

That said, I would really like to criticize the starting lineup choice and blah blah blah about what could have happened with our chances if we had started a differnt lineup but sometimes I just think the soccer gods don’t give us that single goal we need to win the game. There were plenty of spots where we could have scored and you could see the momentous effort put out by the players but today we just couldn’t get one into the back of the net for the win. No doubt that we were the better team today, we deserved to win, and as the game wore on (and I was jumping up and down and yelling at the screen) I just felt like Arsenal were going to pull it out. Truth is, I feel like I could see that in the players too. While I want to be disappointed and pissed and all the other inappropriate things I would like to say, I do believe we still have the momentum going forward. We came away with points and there is a psychological advantage to knowing we are still ahead in the table and putting pressure on those below us (finally) to win games in order to keep pace. Additionally, I was REALLY happy to see  we didn’t make some silly mistake that had us gifting 3 points to the other side (seriously, how many times has that happened recently where we dominated a game and then lose on some shitty set piece).

All in all, I do feel a bit robbed but I really liked the effort today. Save for a little luck this one should have seen us take three but happy we took something none-the-less. Still many points ahead to be grabbed and lots of potential speed bumps for our competition; all is not lost… yet.

As for tonight, I will be touring a hospital. Yep. Wish me luck. (um, excuse me nurse? where is the bar? no? no bar? Can I keep my beer in your fridge then?)