Photo Credit to the BBC
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Now normally I would have had a good old rant, but this is going to be a short one as I had to pull an all nighter at the office and I’m dead on my feet…or on my butt more like.
So we played Stoke and we always knew it was going to be a difficult game, they hate us, we hate them, everyone hates everyone and so on. The expectation was that Arsenal would carry this going into the game and of course we conceded in the first minute. By half time we were 3 goals down and I was thanking my lucky stars that I was watching the game in a friend’s office instead of the viewing center because if I was, I would have punched someone, then gotten the shit beat out of me, so yaay! I’m alive and well.
After seeing Giroud’s impact against Southampton, I was rather pleased to see him in the starting lineup, but then, he went on to be hugely disappointing.
Now while I’m not a Giroud basher, it’s in circumstances like this I understand the people calling for a new and better striker to be added to the team. We saw this last season against Chelsea when an early Giroud chance could really have changed the narrative but he spurned it and we got thwacked.
It was the same at the Britannia. We were a goal down and if Giroud had just put that chance away, maybe the story would be much different. This was a game in which we had to take our chances and even though we had a dreadful first half scoring a goal was not impossible.
And then came the second half.
We weren’t much better but we did score two goals and Alexis almost scored what would have been like the greatest goal ever, but a momentary lapse in concentration and the ball hit the bar. I watched replays of that chance and I could see that in just that last second when he actually kicked the ball, he wasn’t looking at the post. This could be down to fatigue as he’s obviously tired and jaded but all in all it was all too little too late. The red card to Chambers I felt was quite dodgy and unmerited and it went a long way in blunting our attacking force.
We lost the game and it left me with a hollow feeling to see those ogres celebrating while we walked away trying to look brave. It was a defeat all our own making and I wonder what Arsene is thinking now, how is the team going to respond? That’s the real question.
I have no hopes for this season anymore, but I do believe we can do reasonably well, we just need to find a system that works, here’s hoping we win against Galatasaray, we really need it.
But on the bright side.
Chelsea lost *wink*