Arsenal 1-1 Fulham
Arsenal : Vermaelen 82
Fulham : Vermaelen 64 (O.G)
First of all, I would like to send my condolence to Gary Speed, who passed away recently.
I didn’t watch the match but from the highlights, it looked like we were in control of the game as usual, but it was apparent that we were not as sharp as our usual. May be the mid-week UCL game has taken its toll. Fulham players, especially Mark Schwarzer who denied us the win, unfortunately.
Here’re the le’ Boss’s post-match comments.
The positive again is that we have shown exceptional spirit, desire and refusal to lose the game. Many players were on the fringe today and we had not completely digested the Champions League game on Wednesday night. We needed to dig deep.
As usual he did not criticize the players in front of the media. I must admit that the boys are not robots that do not any rest but if mid-week UCL game is a good excuse to draw or lose the UCL game, I would rather have Arsenal out of the UCL so we can concentrate on BPL. I take BPL more seriously than UCL and that’s the case of most of Gooners out there.
Mid-week games are not unusual; in fact it will happen almost every week during Dec-Jan period, especially during the Boxing Day matches.
I believe he (Vermaelen) scored unfortunately [at his own end] – left-footed players many times refuse to play with their right foot. But he has shown enough character to come back and score a great goal. On crosses he is very good, he reads the ball well. Overall he had a very good game.
It’s unfortunate to drop two points today because overall I thought we did enough to win it.
I don’t blame Vermaelen for the own goal; accidents do happen sometimes and overall he did well in his department. His equalizer was fantastic to watch as well and it saved us the embarrassment of losing at own yard. I agree with Boss this time.
on Fulham’s performance…
I don’t blame Fulham. They are in a position where they need points and you can understand that. You have to accept that football is played by human beings and even if you prepare well you can be a bit less sharp. You can drop points against anybody in the League. If you look at the team sheet of Fulham, they are all international players in there, good players. It’s not a shame that you can concede a goal against them.Overall if you look back at where we came from we have a long unbeaten run and of course we are disappointed because we dropped two points. But I feel we are in a way of improvement and hopefully we can show that again Tuesday night.
Fulham played well against us and again Wenger gave the excuse of mid-week UCL game. I saw this excuse like a thousand times in the article. BPL is a very competitive league and you can drop points against any team. That is why I value BPL title over UCL title. To win BPL title will show that we have brilliancy and most importantly consistency in those brilliancy that I talked about.
If we are going to have our usual player selection policy for the Tuesday game, I would be VERY. SURPRISED. to see us win the “richest” club in the world. May God bless us.
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