Burnley 1 Arsenal 1: match report and player ratings
I’M just back from watching the Burnley v Arsenal screening put on in Club Level at the Emirates and all in all, it’s hard not to be disappointed.
If you didn’t see it then in a nutshell: after a dodgy opening five minutes that saw Almunia tip a Vermaelen header onto the bar we went through a purple patch that saw Cesc score, Arshavin hit the post and a few other chances go begging (not necessarily through poor finishing). Burnley crept back into it and a silly Vermaelen challenge gave them a penalty, which they scored. The excellent Cesc went off just before the break and for a long, long time after it we were limited to half chances but not a lot more. At the other end they had what looked like an onside goal ruled offside and could have had another penalty for a handball, albeit an innocuous one, by Silvestre. They also hit the post.
Most disappointing was the failure of a number of our players to raise their games. Sure, Burnley are tough at Turf Moor. Five wins, three draws and one defeat is proof of that. But that makes it all the more vital that players really lift themselves.
Cesc Fabregas did. Until he went off he was excellent, winning everything driving forward, scoring and generally leading like a captain should. Andrei Arshavin was making a decent fist of it too. But around them Samir Nasri, Abou Diaby and Theo Walcott were passengers, joining the game when it came to them instead of showing initiative and making things happen.
Cesc was replaced by Ramsey, who failed to rise above the mediocrity around him and Theo was eventually replaced by Eduardo. Yes, Walcott was having a shocker. But the move robbed us of what little natural width we did have. We never made a third sub, which I found odd given Eboue, Wilshere and Vela could all have given us that width and it wasn’t as if there weren’t a couple of candidates to come off.
Does this result put us out of the title race? No, of course it doesn’t. For a start, if we win our game in hand, we’re five points behind, which in a normal season is nothing. In this season of hiccup after hiccup for everyone, it looks even less.
The fact is that after a set of back to back away fixtures for us and back to back home fixtures for United and Chelsea, we have ceded no points to Chelsea and gained one on United.
Sadly, that is not to say we look like potential Champions. Right now, we clearly don’t. We’ve a goalkeeper in dreadful form, a defence who don’t trust him, a decimated attack and a midfield that is not supporting as it should.
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