There was a lot of positives to take from today’s game. We played aggressive, attacked regularly, and until the penalty (which took some air out of the sails) on the dutch skunk we looked like a team that was playing as if they were challenging for a top place finish; not fighting for fourth. All in all, I thought it a really solid effort IMHO.

Let’s be honest, the game could not have opened up any better than it did. Scratch that, skunky could have pulled up lame on his giveaway pass that led to the offside goal by Theo but damned if I didn’t enjoy that series of events. I mean, there couldn’t have been a single Gooner out there that didn’t find themselves giddy like a kid on Christmas morn’ whilst watching skunky’s shite pass lead to Theo’s bullet into the webbing. Pure bliss.

And let’s not get started about offside, etc. The fact is that there have been plenty of calls that go either way on the whole offside argument and herein lies the little bit of luck that went our way for the goal (damn right I’ll take it when it’s for us!). If you’ll recall, I believe skunky himself has enjoyed such treatment earlier this year on his own goals so enjoy some crow red deviled egg fans. Sometimes I think the slightly missed offside call is reminiscent of the weak foul called in the NBA on the superstar; sometimes you get the call your way, sometimes you don’t. Either way, we went into this game knowing that we had to take control and gain momentum and that is exactly what we did. The goal had an instant lift that allowed Arsenal to stay aggressive throughout most of the first half and play some of their best football to date. But then…

Brain fart. Seriously. That is what happened. A shitty back pass, a sloppy challenge. Brain fart. I half expected Bacary to fall down, get back up all woozy looking and sniffing around like someone had just sat on his face and farted. Oh Bacary… just really hasn’t been your year… Truth be told, I’m not worried about losing Sagna in the offseason. I understand that teams will look at his consistency throughout the past but many will not want to shell out good (big) money wondering whether they are getting the previous consistency or the slow decay of a defender who seems to have had more than a fair share of brain farts this season. Brain farts aside, I want him to stay, I think he wants to stay, and I believe today is a day that will cause him to want to stay and show that this year was the aberration and not the new Bacary “what is that smell?” Sagna.

Which leads me to a thought that I argued in the past when the BFG got beat on a similar play which led to a penalty; why do defenders, when they get beat, seem to always go after the sloppy challenge from behind which essentially gifts the other team a penalty (goal)? Seriously? Just bear with me on this for a second. You get beat. Shit. Run back, keep pressure on, BUT DON’T FOUL AT ALL COST! While getting beat sucks and you don’t want to be that guy, isn’t there still just as good a chance that the guy botches the shot anyways if he feels you breathing down his neck? Now, an alternate argument could be that a penalty isn’t guaranteed either BUT when you send a guy like skunky to the spot it seems like you are essentially gifting them goal instead of making the man earn it.

Later on we seemed to do a solid job pressing but some of the changes we made just didn’t quite get us the finish we needed. Jack looked a little better but the boy just seems a bit off. Gervinho. Meh. I have nothing to say. AOC did a pretty good job of getting forward and created some decent chances but he is still young and his mistakes, IMHO, still appear to be a guy who is still figuring his game out (he is still quite a young chap). Really though, we were never going to snag more than a goal or two against United’s D and though we did play well enough for the 3 points you can’t argue against the call on Sagna which led to our splitting points.

Right. Points Scenario update coming soon Gooners.