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Hands up if you saw that result coming. Hey. You there are the back… put your hand down, you little fibber!
Well, okay, Arsenal have really gone off the boil as this season has lumbered to its conclusion, but I can’t honestly claim to have expected a win today. A draw perhaps. I’d have been delighted with the point that would have finally guaranteed our Premier League survival regardless of other results. Three is exceptionally welcome.
And we can thank Darren Bent. He took the chances when they came perfectly. That’s what we paid the big money for. He was faultless when the opportunity came.
Let’s be honest, we might reserve at least a subtle head nod in the direction of the referee today as well. There was a good shout for a penalty turned away and a second half goal disallowed for mysterious reasons, but don’t waste any time being concerned about it, those are the kind of breaks that have evaded for much of the season.
It was an excellent team performance, especially from a defensive perspective during the opening 20 or 30 minutes when the game was really won. Ashley Young and Stewart Downing stuck to their less offensive tasks very well. Fabian Delph provided the ingredient we’ve missed a lot in the middle, playing just ahead of Reo-Coker and Petrov.
The back line kept their concentration for the most part and the work ethic was superb. Kyle Walker stood out again keeping Arshavin quiet, but they were all very good. Mostly. There were a couple of exceptions, as there are in every game, but we got away with them today.
Brad Friedel was quite superb again today. He may well be about to get a year extension at Villa Park and that can’t be a bad thing on today’s showing.
Michael Bradley got a run out in place of Petrov for the final ten minutes and actually looked pretty lively in a such a brief cameo. Heskey replaced Delph, pushing Ash inside to shore up the left flank during a nervous finish which inevitably featured conceding a late goal just beforehand.
I suspect there were no shortage of Villa fans expecting another goal to be conceded during injury time, but I, for one, was reasonably calm. Reasonably. It just didn’t seem likely to me, Arsenal just weren’t that driven.
And so it finished. The other results today were extremely interesting. West Ham have now been relegated after seeing a two goal lead cancelled out and then conceding a third in injury time at Wigan. Fulham won at St Andrews and next Sunday is now a five way battle to avoid two relegation spots.
And we’re not involved!
Finally. We can breathe a sigh of certain relief and enjoy the drama below us. Perhaps we’ll dispatch our own vultures to circle the east end of London, I know of a certain German midfielder there who professed a willingness to return to Birmingham before. I’m just saying.
Okay. I don’t about you, wherever you may be in the world, but where I am it’s beer o’clock!
Well done today boys, can’t fault your effort whatsoever and you finally got what you deserved.
UTV
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22 Comments to “Arsenal 1 Aston Villa 2: Bent brace bags the spoils”
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Funny game, isn’t it?
One other observation – Bradley wins headers in the midfield. This, alone, should guarantee him a starting place, as no other midfielder wins a header. Ever.
word.
he’s a genuinely decent player, he really is. it’s unfortunate that we’ve only really got a good look at him in *that* game where no one emerged with much credit.
bannan and herd perhaps. at least for effort.
I am the one in the back who saw it coming.
I thought it was time for everything to go right for Villa, and for Arsenal to complete its meltdown. A little luck and help from the referees always welcome.
Played the whole second half scared, but it was just enough.
Good to see Collins and Dunne showing some of last year’s form.
fibber!
Nan, long time no speak my amigo.
Hope this is cheering you up a bit, you used to be the one I relied on to cheer me up then you turned ubber miserable
Get on the valium as I liked the old Nan
In a 3 man midfield we should surely have someone over 5 ft 6 cos next year it could be Delph, Bannan plus one and if that one is recoker the average height is 5ft shortarse
Gardner would also bring some height, he should get the bench at least for Liverpool
the central midfield situation is going to be very interesting over the summer.
i’m assuming that nrc will be off. maybe petrov will be put out to pasture. maybe not.
i’m guessing we’ll be looking at a core of makoun, bannan, delph, gardner, hogg.
what we could do with, as i think you suggest, is a more athletic version of nrc to hold it all together. then again, i like nrc a lot and wouldn’t be unhappy if he stayed.
maybe bradley will end up staying, but that might depend on what nrc does. don’t know.
and then there’s stephen ireland, remember him?
There is that guy at Manchester City, James Milner – perhaps he could be lured to Villa with the promise of significant playing time and a central role on the team. We could even send Stephen Ireland the other way as compensation.
mmm, i think the allure of champions league, playing or watching from the bench, might trump getting to play every game at villa tbh.
as for ireland, offloading him anywhere would be an achievement in my book, going back where he’s already been? well, george bush said it best, or tried to:
“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”
Maybe so, but he seems to be someone who wants to play – and if MC continues to buy the best available players worldwide, he won’t play much. And if they don’t, their stay in Champions League will be brief.
All the talk about the midfield problems this year, it is interesting that the impact of Milner’s departure is seldom mentioned – maybe its just so obvious it requires no mention.
I like the fact that Milner scored once this season, in Game for Villa.
Never seen Bush invoked here before, but, no question, he had a syntactically and grammatically incoherent observation for every occasion.
Perhaps we can get Capello to do a bit of encouraging. Suggest that he’d like to see Bent, Young, Downing and Milner all playing together on a regular basis….
i think about it a lot. i wrote a piece last season about his potential to be our wesley sneijder, sitting as the middle player in the 3 of a 4-2-3-1. he still could be i suppose.
one downside, had he stayed, with ash & downing fit and mostly available all season, it wouldn’t have given marc albrighton room to break through anything near as spectacularly.
i guess he might have dropped into a deeper position when nrc & petrov were both injured for a spell, allowing marc in, but that would mean that we’d have seen very little of bannan this term.
george bush would probably be thinking about newton’s third law… “every action…. erm, each action… damnit, if you do something, something else happens in return. heheh”*
*not a real quote.
Yes, the O’Neil/Milner upheaval was good for ALbrighton, as it was for Reo-Coker, Young, and Kyle Walker. As Bush once famously said, you are “focusing on the part of the glass that is half full.”
Sid, I think I’ve reached ‘the grumpy years’.
solid performance
Ref did help, but only a little, he did make the right calls for the most part. The disallowed goal was for a mighty shove in the box to beat the defender, bent got done for less not so long ago. The lads played well, very well, though I didn’t like how we closed up after we went 2 up, should have gone for the throat instead, 3-0 would have broken Arsenal
i’ve referenced that bent goal in a piece elsewhere. it was at west ham i think and it was a carbon copy.
if i remove my claret and blue glasses for a moment, i’d have to concede that if bent’s goal should have stood – and i think it should – then so should chamakh’s.
but i don’t see any reason to take those glasses off… so, a “mighty shove” it was then!
i want to see more of Bradley offers a threat in the box and has speed to offer support on the counterattack. USA
Thrilled with the result but I was very disappointed with the second half. It doesnt matter who is in charge, MON, GH, GM, we go into a defensive shell and start kicking long balls up to an isolated striker the minute we get ahead. We were lucky to hold on. We played 45 minutes in our own third of the pitch.
On the plus side Friedel looked spectacular, NRC was great and Delph proved he can cut it. Dunne and Collins were solid. I also agree Bradley brought something different to the midfield. His passing was crisp and quick in addition to his winning headers. Unfortunately we gave the ball away far too many times in the midfield due to poor passing. The NRC / Petrov partnership just doesnt bring enough quality.
i think i counted one errant pass from bradley. he wasn’t on long, but he looked much closer to the speed of the game in the premier league.
it was only ten minutes, but a world apart from eastlands where he looked completely out of his depth.
Too many times Petrov was caught trying to be clever instead of lumping it. I agree with the previous comment that Dunne and Collins showed the form that got us all wet last season.
don’t think Ash had too good a game and Reo was decidedly leggy second half, at one point i thought he wouldn’t be able to carry on.
I did not see this coming, i figured if we came away with our goal difference reasonably in tact i would be happy.
Good well balanced read Dan, and i too remember when Nan used to get pi**ed late at night and ramble on for hours cheering us up!! lol
keep up the good work!
like the villa, nan will be back on form next season i’m sure!
three things, i think, worked for us in this game:
1. we got a couple of well crafted chances early and took them. the second one, as usual, was vital.
2. we got the rub of the green with the ref on a couple of key decisions. not saying he got things *wrong* per se, just saying a lot of refs would have decided differently. especially away.
3. we were pretty well disciplined in holding shape. once again, i think nrc & petrov allowed themselves to get pegged a little deep, practically on top of dunne & collins which is asking for trouble, but overall it was a well drilled performance all round.
for me, this illustrates the marginal nature of most games. statistically, arsenal dominated, but we took the only statistic that matters: the scoreline.
points 1 & 2 are the ones that we’ve frequently missed out on and that was the real difference between winning and losing.
funny old game, innit?