Blogger: #14
People who have the misfortune of interacting with me on a daily basis know that an Arsenal loss means one of two things:
1. A bit of a thundercloud over my head which makes me despise everyone and everything.
2. A weariness that is borne out of self-pity. A when-will-this-misery-end kind of misery.
But I woke up today with, believe it or not, satisfaction. My mum would gasp if she read this and would strongly suspect her son to have taken in a gallon or two of something that could cause his arrest if he chose to drive. Instead he chose to drivel (haha, but seriously, I'm as sober as can be). Some may accuse me of not being passionate enough, well, I wrote a very angry little piece right after our previous loss, which happened 12 GAMES AGO *smirks*. #25 told me it was too vitriolic and wasn't fit for public consumption, so it was consigned to the dreaded drafts list ( I deleted it later, the end). Now, it's not even like I chose to be satisfied with the game, it just so happens that I am. You may think that this is an Arsenal fan who has lost his marbles, and you're certainly not mistaken, but hear me out.
Now, this was the first big team Arsenal faced this season (haha, Spurs) and we acquitted ourselves very well. Don't let the annoying nasally commentator fool you, the whole 'we were poor and played off the park' card doesn't work here. Dortmund pressed with great cohesion, and made life very hard for us, yes. We were a little lethargic and a few of our players were below par, yes. But despite all that, Dortmund had only two real chances. On the other hand, we could have had four on another night.
The game started with Dortmund racing off the blocks, although it wasn't quite as breathtaking a start as the one we had against Napoli. We dropped deep and although it may look like we were getting smashed, there was never really any period of time where we looked out of control. I will draw your attention to that annoying commentator again, who insisted we needed to do more, despite our strategy effectively shutting Dortmund out. I will now proceed to disagree. I disagree. Their goal came about simply because Aaron Ramsey decided to go on a slaloming run to the Dortmund goal. However, he committed the fundamental error of starting this run right outside his own penalty area. Sort of thing that happens all the time. Another day, we'd be toasting him. Mkhitaryan got the ball, and shot what I could only make out to be an apology of a shot. It somehow managed to flummox Szczesny though. 1-0 to Dortmund. But apart from that, they were restricted to a few shots from distance. It was controlled stuff from Arsenal in response to the waves of pressing that are a hallmark of this Dortmund side.
At the other end of the field, the two hottest players in the world were locked in a duel. Olivier Giroud may come 2nd in the looks department to Mats Hummels, but he bested the German on several occasions on the pitch. One of these successful duels resulted in Tomas Rosicky unleashing a ferocious volley that was cleared off the line by good ol' Hummels. It wasn't long before Subotic got into the act, with some slapstick defending that allowed Olivier Giroud to unleash a spectacular volley from like six inches out. Because Olli G doesn't do tap-ins. No sir. It was a well deserved reward for a guy who's been written off by so many people. He showed in this game he can hold his own against a top club. And make no mistake about that, Dortmund are a top, top club, probably better than any side Arsenal would have to face in the Premier League and it's to our immense credit that all 3 results would have seemed fair.
At this point, I'd like to point out a few indivividuals and praise/criticize them. Rosicky was really good, constantly buzzing, creating space, trying to make things happen. Shame he's so criminally underrated. Wilshere and Ramsey were off the boil, but another old head, Mikel Arteta, was phenomenal. You'll hear a lot of guff about Arsenal missing Flamini, but that's a massive disservice to our Spanish Pirlo (yes, I went there, sue me). I appreciate what Flamini brings to the table, but to say we'd have won/not lost without him is simplifying what was a fine tactical battle which I am not qualified to talk about. Ozil was heavily marked, but was very effective once he moved to the right. Cazorla sparked things up, and was unlucky not to score when Ozil set him up. I'm too lazy to add the umlauts by the way. I forgot to mention that we had a goal disallowed for no real reason in all this rambling. Ramsey couldn't get his 71453556th goal of the season because some guy pushed some other guy. What baffled everyone was that they were on the same team, so it doesn't really matter, but the ref disagreed. AND CAN SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME WHY HE ENDED BOTH HALVES ABOUT 30 SECONDS TOO EARLY. 30 EARTH SHATTERING SECONDS WITHIN WHICH WE'D HAVE SCORED 4 GOALS. Or not. #7 reckons he needed to pee, #18, who is the craziest of the lot, suggests it was a screwup by the broadcasters. Anyway, as the half progressed things were beginning to brighten up on the Arsenal horizon. We were pushing for the winner. Unfortunately, just as we were in the ascendancy, Dortmund pulled off one of those pesky little counter-attacks and that was game, set, and match.
It was a fantastic game between two evenly matched sides. Arsenal more than held their own, and would feel a little hard done by the result. Arsene Wenger was uncharacteristically critical of the team, calling them naive, and that in itself is something I view as a positive change from the ridiculous protection of old. The group is wide open, but I've no real worries that we'll get through provided we bounce back. It's been a theme of ours to lose a bunch of games once we've lost one. But this group has something different about them. A togetherness, a tactical awareness, and a toughness that has been missing for so long. And despite myself, I can't help but believe. Believe that we'll do very well this season that is. My bad, I meant I BEL14VE. (Take that United).
Think my belief is misplaced? Drop in a comment.
Thanking you,
Yours sincerely,
#14
People who have the misfortune of interacting with me on a daily basis know that an Arsenal loss means one of two things:
1. A bit of a thundercloud over my head which makes me despise everyone and everything.
2. A weariness that is borne out of self-pity. A when-will-this-misery-end kind of misery.
But I woke up today with, believe it or not, satisfaction. My mum would gasp if she read this and would strongly suspect her son to have taken in a gallon or two of something that could cause his arrest if he chose to drive. Instead he chose to drivel (haha, but seriously, I'm as sober as can be). Some may accuse me of not being passionate enough, well, I wrote a very angry little piece right after our previous loss, which happened 12 GAMES AGO *smirks*. #25 told me it was too vitriolic and wasn't fit for public consumption, so it was consigned to the dreaded drafts list ( I deleted it later, the end). Now, it's not even like I chose to be satisfied with the game, it just so happens that I am. You may think that this is an Arsenal fan who has lost his marbles, and you're certainly not mistaken, but hear me out.
 |
| I'm as sane as this guy. |
The game started with Dortmund racing off the blocks, although it wasn't quite as breathtaking a start as the one we had against Napoli. We dropped deep and although it may look like we were getting smashed, there was never really any period of time where we looked out of control. I will draw your attention to that annoying commentator again, who insisted we needed to do more, despite our strategy effectively shutting Dortmund out. I will now proceed to disagree. I disagree. Their goal came about simply because Aaron Ramsey decided to go on a slaloming run to the Dortmund goal. However, he committed the fundamental error of starting this run right outside his own penalty area. Sort of thing that happens all the time. Another day, we'd be toasting him. Mkhitaryan got the ball, and shot what I could only make out to be an apology of a shot. It somehow managed to flummox Szczesny though. 1-0 to Dortmund. But apart from that, they were restricted to a few shots from distance. It was controlled stuff from Arsenal in response to the waves of pressing that are a hallmark of this Dortmund side.
At the other end of the field, the two hottest players in the world were locked in a duel. Olivier Giroud may come 2nd in the looks department to Mats Hummels, but he bested the German on several occasions on the pitch. One of these successful duels resulted in Tomas Rosicky unleashing a ferocious volley that was cleared off the line by good ol' Hummels. It wasn't long before Subotic got into the act, with some slapstick defending that allowed Olivier Giroud to unleash a spectacular volley from like six inches out. Because Olli G doesn't do tap-ins. No sir. It was a well deserved reward for a guy who's been written off by so many people. He showed in this game he can hold his own against a top club. And make no mistake about that, Dortmund are a top, top club, probably better than any side Arsenal would have to face in the Premier League and it's to our immense credit that all 3 results would have seemed fair.
At this point, I'd like to point out a few indivividuals and praise/criticize them. Rosicky was really good, constantly buzzing, creating space, trying to make things happen. Shame he's so criminally underrated. Wilshere and Ramsey were off the boil, but another old head, Mikel Arteta, was phenomenal. You'll hear a lot of guff about Arsenal missing Flamini, but that's a massive disservice to our Spanish Pirlo (yes, I went there, sue me). I appreciate what Flamini brings to the table, but to say we'd have won/not lost without him is simplifying what was a fine tactical battle which I am not qualified to talk about. Ozil was heavily marked, but was very effective once he moved to the right. Cazorla sparked things up, and was unlucky not to score when Ozil set him up. I'm too lazy to add the umlauts by the way. I forgot to mention that we had a goal disallowed for no real reason in all this rambling. Ramsey couldn't get his 71453556th goal of the season because some guy pushed some other guy. What baffled everyone was that they were on the same team, so it doesn't really matter, but the ref disagreed. AND CAN SOMEONE PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME WHY HE ENDED BOTH HALVES ABOUT 30 SECONDS TOO EARLY. 30 EARTH SHATTERING SECONDS WITHIN WHICH WE'D HAVE SCORED 4 GOALS. Or not. #7 reckons he needed to pee, #18, who is the craziest of the lot, suggests it was a screwup by the broadcasters. Anyway, as the half progressed things were beginning to brighten up on the Arsenal horizon. We were pushing for the winner. Unfortunately, just as we were in the ascendancy, Dortmund pulled off one of those pesky little counter-attacks and that was game, set, and match.
It was a fantastic game between two evenly matched sides. Arsenal more than held their own, and would feel a little hard done by the result. Arsene Wenger was uncharacteristically critical of the team, calling them naive, and that in itself is something I view as a positive change from the ridiculous protection of old. The group is wide open, but I've no real worries that we'll get through provided we bounce back. It's been a theme of ours to lose a bunch of games once we've lost one. But this group has something different about them. A togetherness, a tactical awareness, and a toughness that has been missing for so long. And despite myself, I can't help but believe. Believe that we'll do very well this season that is. My bad, I meant I BEL14VE. (Take that United).
Think my belief is misplaced? Drop in a comment.
Thanking you,
Yours sincerely,
#14
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