Arsenal defeats Stoke City at Emirates

Gunners started off with a totally unexpected formation with Andrei Arshavin on the apex of the attack.

Almunia
Sagna-Gallas-Vermaelen-Traore
Fabregas-Denilson-Rosicky
Eboue-Arshavin-Nasri

Stoke played the natural game fully pushing and sliding. They kept on attacking the gunners physically which took off the rhythm in the Arsenal movements from the early part of the game. Fabregas was often targetted for the fouls. Referee seems to be totally blind 90% of the times. Arsenal played brilliant short passes and cruised forward for sometime but the ball in the final third was awful. No real threat at all in corners and freekicks due to the lack height in the players. Stole players were giants considering the Arsenal height. Arshavin hit the first goal from a beautiful one two passing with Fabregas from the left side of the penalty box. Wenger didn't play any striker at the start of the game. In the center of the park the ground was crowded with Stoke midfielders and defenders which caused real trouble in the movement.

The best chance Arsenal got was when Delap fouled Arshavin which gave us a penalty. To be frank, as soon as I saw Fabregas stepping up for that penalty I knew we were going to miss it. We had Arshavin who won the penalty, Nasri who could take it well, Denilson who had good power with his shots and Eboue who is a known penalty taker. Still the captain took the oppourtunity and hit it so slow that even the kids playing next street can stop it. It was one of the worst penalty witnessed by us. Sorensen was already a known goalkeeper too and now this adds to his fame.

Second goal for Arsenal came through Aaron Ramsey with a great finish considering the number of defenders with him when he was hitting it to the back of the net. Arshavin went down with the defender when the later tried to push Arshavin which game Ramsey a clean run with the free ball and finishing off in style. Ramsey came on for Eboue who seems to be in some pain when he left the pitch. Not sure whether we are waiting for another injury news. But since in our blog we never speculate, which is the main reason not writing about transfers. Let's leave it to the boss to update us. Carlos Vela came out for Rosicky as played as a wide player in the left wing. Vela seems to be out of form like Eduardo and also didn't take up few good chances he got inside the penalty box. With the speed he has and the talent he holds he should have taken those chances.

Traore needs a special mention because this guy was far better than his previous games in his attacks. He gave few good crosses and seems to have improved. But he still needs to work on his defense and also the power of the final balls. He often stays upfront which makes it problematic for other players to cover his area. Finally Wenger played Silvestre in Left Back when Traore looked like struggling to recover from another Stoke City foul. Silvestre just got 3-4mins to play on his renowned position but looked ok with his touches. We always wanted him to play there rather than Center Back.

The gist of it is Arsenal won 2-0 in a match which needed a fair result to keep up the campaign. Denilson was not able to completely shine in that Defensive Midfield role as Song did. Song missed the match due to suspension from 5 yellow cards honour. Song was infact missed by the players and also looks like Diaby should be there since players are reluctant to take on defenders which he is very good at.