EPL Week 26: Arsenal Draw Against Sunderland, Manchester United Defeat Blackburn Rovers 2-1
February 24th 2009 05:48
Arsenal – Sunderland: 0-0
On Friday night, I was faced with a dilemma when checking the match schedule for the weekend. I had two choices: wake up at 7:30 AM and watch all the games back-to-back or forget about Chelsea for awhile and get back to Arsenal – a team that I haven't watched since Fabregas went down. Leaving Chelsea out to dry would give me a two-hour bonus sleep, but at the same time, knowing Arsenal's previous results, waking up at 9 o'clock for a probable 0-0 game didn't look very appealing. And yet, I did it. And I'm still cursing over the sleep lost for this match.
So why am I telling you this instead of talking about the game? It's simple really. Nothing happened in the game. Van Persie sent his chip over the goalkeeper wide, and Carlos Vela showed the risk of going with youth with two golden opportunities squandered in the final minutes of the game. Other than that, Sunderland looked pretty good, organized and all. But I'm still bummed about the fact that they completely stopped attacking once we reached the hour-mark. With a defense like Arsenal's, win is always one goal away. As for Arshavin, he looked... decent, I guess. He had a couple of dangerous shots but you could tell that he's not yet in-tune with his teammates.
And that's it. Nothing more to say about this one.
Arsenal's line-up: Manuel Almunia; Bacary Sagna, Kolo Toure, William Gallas, Gael Clichy (Kieran Gibbs, 85th); Andrei Arshavin (Carlos Vela, 70th), Alexandre Song (Emmanuel Eboue, 77th), Denilson, Samir Nasri; Robin Van Persie, Nicklas Bendtner.
Manchester United – Blackburn Rovers: 2-1
Over at Old Trafford, Manchester United were looking to add to their lead at the top of the table with a visit from the Blackburn Rovers.
I had a bad feeling about this one as soon as I saw that Kuszczak was going to be in goal. You don't have to be a soothsayer to know that the confidence of United's back-four wouldn't be the same without Van der Sar. The Red Devils were the first to find the back of the net at the 22nd minute via Rooney, but Blackburn equalized one minute later as Santa Cruz took advantage of the collision between Ferdinand and Kuszczak to put the ball in a wide open net.
On that play, you can blame either Ferdinand or Kuszczak, but the fact of the matter is that the goalkeeper's uncertainty in exiting his net put his defender in a compromising position. Indeed, when Kuszczak finally decided to leave his net, Ferdinand had already cut the angle on Santa Cruz so that he could only shoot near-post where Kuszczak was supposed to be. Instead, the netminder rushed towards the two players without ever reading the play, and ended United's streak of clean sheets.
Seeing that his opponent's netminder was nervous for most of the game, Sam Allardyce decided to go for the three points by inserting more offense-minded players on the pitch. The result was a missed chance at United's end at the 57th minute turning into a superbly struck free-kick at the other end that gave United a 2-1 lead. At this point, Blackburn had nothing to lose and went into all-attack mode. Ferguson reacted to his counterpart's tactic by replacing Jonny Evans by Vidic to clean up the box and its surroundings in a more ruthless fashion.
The space left by Blackburn's attacking players quickly turned into an advantage for United's fluid counterattacks. Berbatov and Rooney both missed great chances to extend their lead (Rooney actually came close three times) but Ronaldo's goal stood as the difference between the two teams.
Manchester United's line-up: Tomasz Kuszczak; Rafael Da Silva, Rio Ferdinand, Jonny Evans (Nemanja Vidic, 60th); Cristiano Ronaldo, Michael Carrick, Paul Scholes (Ryan Giggs, 81st), Nani (Carlos Tevez, 60th); Wayne Rooney, Dimitar Berbatov.
On Friday night, I was faced with a dilemma when checking the match schedule for the weekend. I had two choices: wake up at 7:30 AM and watch all the games back-to-back or forget about Chelsea for awhile and get back to Arsenal – a team that I haven't watched since Fabregas went down. Leaving Chelsea out to dry would give me a two-hour bonus sleep, but at the same time, knowing Arsenal's previous results, waking up at 9 o'clock for a probable 0-0 game didn't look very appealing. And yet, I did it. And I'm still cursing over the sleep lost for this match.
So why am I telling you this instead of talking about the game? It's simple really. Nothing happened in the game. Van Persie sent his chip over the goalkeeper wide, and Carlos Vela showed the risk of going with youth with two golden opportunities squandered in the final minutes of the game. Other than that, Sunderland looked pretty good, organized and all. But I'm still bummed about the fact that they completely stopped attacking once we reached the hour-mark. With a defense like Arsenal's, win is always one goal away. As for Arshavin, he looked... decent, I guess. He had a couple of dangerous shots but you could tell that he's not yet in-tune with his teammates.
And that's it. Nothing more to say about this one.
Arsenal's line-up: Manuel Almunia; Bacary Sagna, Kolo Toure, William Gallas, Gael Clichy (Kieran Gibbs, 85th); Andrei Arshavin (Carlos Vela, 70th), Alexandre Song (Emmanuel Eboue, 77th), Denilson, Samir Nasri; Robin Van Persie, Nicklas Bendtner.
Manchester United – Blackburn Rovers: 2-1
Over at Old Trafford, Manchester United were looking to add to their lead at the top of the table with a visit from the Blackburn Rovers.
I had a bad feeling about this one as soon as I saw that Kuszczak was going to be in goal. You don't have to be a soothsayer to know that the confidence of United's back-four wouldn't be the same without Van der Sar. The Red Devils were the first to find the back of the net at the 22nd minute via Rooney, but Blackburn equalized one minute later as Santa Cruz took advantage of the collision between Ferdinand and Kuszczak to put the ball in a wide open net.
On that play, you can blame either Ferdinand or Kuszczak, but the fact of the matter is that the goalkeeper's uncertainty in exiting his net put his defender in a compromising position. Indeed, when Kuszczak finally decided to leave his net, Ferdinand had already cut the angle on Santa Cruz so that he could only shoot near-post where Kuszczak was supposed to be. Instead, the netminder rushed towards the two players without ever reading the play, and ended United's streak of clean sheets.
Seeing that his opponent's netminder was nervous for most of the game, Sam Allardyce decided to go for the three points by inserting more offense-minded players on the pitch. The result was a missed chance at United's end at the 57th minute turning into a superbly struck free-kick at the other end that gave United a 2-1 lead. At this point, Blackburn had nothing to lose and went into all-attack mode. Ferguson reacted to his counterpart's tactic by replacing Jonny Evans by Vidic to clean up the box and its surroundings in a more ruthless fashion.
The space left by Blackburn's attacking players quickly turned into an advantage for United's fluid counterattacks. Berbatov and Rooney both missed great chances to extend their lead (Rooney actually came close three times) but Ronaldo's goal stood as the difference between the two teams.
Manchester United's line-up: Tomasz Kuszczak; Rafael Da Silva, Rio Ferdinand, Jonny Evans (Nemanja Vidic, 60th); Cristiano Ronaldo, Michael Carrick, Paul Scholes (Ryan Giggs, 81st), Nani (Carlos Tevez, 60th); Wayne Rooney, Dimitar Berbatov.
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