Gunners cruise through Liverpool tide!

Arsenal evolved as winners playing Liverpool at home in a Carling Cup Match which placed them into quarter-final stage of the cup competition. It was a delight to watch since in comparison with the mighty Liverpool squad today Arsenal was frail.

Gunners Squad had likes of Fabianski, Gilbert, Senderos, Silvestre, Gibbs, Eastmond, Ramsey, Merida, Bendtner, Eduardo and Nasri. Nasri was instrumental in planning and executing a excellant display with wide range of passes and dribbling. Benitez placed a pretty strong side against Arsenal for this match. It had the likes of Skrtel, Voronin, Kuyt, Insua, N'Gog and later Benayoun and Aquilani coming off bench. This was again a Liverpool side short of Gerrard and Torres.

Arsenal started the goal scoring with a brilliant strike from one of our best young players Fran Merida. Fellow gunners Fabregas and Arshavin rose from their seats to applaud for this wonderful goal which came quite early in the match. But Arsenal goal was taken off from limelight with a more accurate and deadly long ranger from Insua which gave a game on the half time with 1-1. Liverpool threat was constant on the wings and had few wonderful chances missed too. This never bothered free flowing gunners today. Arsenal right back Gilbert showed good defending skills. He had won quite a lot of balls to get gunners going. He seemed to slow on foot but wonderful in tackling and positioning. Senderos and Silvestre also played with the wisdom they gained from experience. Gibbs was the weak link in the Arsenal defence today. I would like to make this comment which I am forced to, "Gibbs is not at all a good wing back." He is good playing as left midfielder or central midfielder. Wenger should soon remove him from that position and try to play him in a role where he is comfortable at. He is good at tackling and long range passes. In fact he is a good passer. He is often out of position while backtracking from an attack. There were quite a lot of occassions when Silvestre found himself alone with no support of the left.

Nasri controlled the game with his wonderful passing and dribbling. Merida gave good support to Nasri and was instrumental in Arsenal victory. Bendtner had missed few chances in the first half before gifting Arsenal with a good sweet left footer from 5-10yards distance. Ramsey was deployed into a more attacking role which was not suiting him completely. With the debutant Craig Eastmond playing the holding role. We saw Sanchez Watt, Randall and Coquelin coming off bench to replace Bendtner, Eastmond and Merida. This time around Wenger was playing serious and sensible substitutions, which made it clear Arsenal took this game more seriously than ever and not in the normal hit and miss cup games which was always a lighter part of Arsenal. Aquilani impressed the fans with couple of wonderful long passes and skills. He looks like a player who can fit into Liverpool midfield beside Mascherano and could mean trouble for opponents. Benayoun was not seen much with the ball after coming off the bench. Voronin had a good chance which was called offside towards the end of the game and also a hand ball claim against Senderos was not given by referee in the dying moments of the match.

Next weekend on October 31, 2009 Arsenal plays Spurs at Emirates. Don't miss that one!