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Old Gooner's thoughts on: Arsenal vs Sunderland
These days a clean sheet is definitely something to be savoured. So it would be churlish to ask "How did we manage it?" After all this is the Sunderland who scored twice at Chel$ki so they're quite adept at hitting on the break.
Unfortunately we couldn't put in the 7 at the other end that the chavs scored...though given the amount of possession we had, 9 would have been a more fair reflection of the game. For the statistically minded we made 524 passes (81% accurate) versus the 209 (62%) of Sunderland (and both totals discount passes made by the substitutes)
A mixture of GBH, (amazingly earning Sunderland only 5 yellow cards) good blocking, good keeping and/or bad shooting and the woodwork kept us out and the relief of the last minute penalty was palpable.
Given how rude I've been about Abou Diaby pre Christmas, it really was a surprise how much disappointment was felt when it turned out he was injured. Can't help feeling he would have had an absolute field day given the amount of space on offer.
Mind you I've also eaten humble pie over comments made on Eboue and, admittedly long ago, Song. Alex was very solid as usual and Manny was great yesterday being our driving force down the right. Theo managed to prove that he was 5 yards quicker than McCartney over 50 yards and, um, er, um...oh well, let's not talk about Theo.
Fishface was busy proving he was about as slow as McCartney and the thought did go through my head that even if Sol had worn his feet down to his ankles on Wednesday and was running on stumps, he might have been an improvement.
Overall the keeping was an improvement and Mr. Fawlty earned his bread with a couple of very good saves. Best was that he rarely flapped (a wild kick putting the ball into fishface excepted), wasted clearances or threatened hospital pass roll outs. Hopefully, he'll be getting not only his confidence back but the confidence of our defence.
11 premier games to go and really, we have to do a 1998 and win them all to have any chance. Chel$ki have both Manchester sides, Villa, Spuds and Liverpool still to play and it's easy to think that they could drop 7 or 8 points within those, let alone games such as Wham who presumably will still be fighting relegation fears. MFU seem to have an easier run in with 7 home games but should be good to drop points at City and given the way they played yesterday we can hope that L'pool, Spuds and Bolton could grab draws. And that would do it...as long as we keep on winning!
Gooner for 60 years...
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On this day in 1906
1906 - Charlie Satterthwaite netted both goals as Phil Kelso's team secured a 2-0 First Division victory at home to Middlesbrough.
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