A frustrating evening all round as two teams who needed a win but couldn't afford to lose played out an an uneventful goalless draw that did neither team much good.
As frustrating as it was, positives can be taken and of course it could have been worse. In the second minute Mikel Arteta (otherwise pretty solid) was criminally caught in possession 30 yards from goal by Robin van Persie but thankfully Arsenal's no.1 fan's shot was tame and comfortably saved.
Arsenal were the more adventurous of the two sides but neither team wanted to commit too many men forward after embarrassing weekend results. It was a little worrying how much we were struggling to create chances. Mesut Özil has been coming in for some stick lately but he looked classy last night and was desperately trying to make something happen. I think he would really thrive if the players around him were driving into the box with pace. I'm sure that with Theo or Ramsey in the team he would be creating good chances for them to finish but with Giroud ahead of him he has to be much cleverer to create good opportunities.

Fortunately for us, the player Olivier was brought in to replace wasn't fairing much better. After van Persie's early miss he also shanked a right-footed shot well wide and had a second half header quite brilliantly saved by Szczesney.
The main positive from the game was of course our clean sheet; our 11th in our last 12 home games. We did look the better side, taking more shots, winning the vast majority of aerial duels, having more possession and passing better than our opponents but those stats rather hide the fact that we just didn't look too dangerous. Cazorla and Özil looked the most likely to make something happen and De Gea made a couple of good stops from Santi. As I've previously mentioned, we don't really look like getting in behind teams so that leaves shooting from range (not a tactic to rely on), getting the ball out wide and crossing it in (which Vidic dealt with well, albeit a bit grabbily and foulily) or trying to work our way through the middle tippily and tappily (which is bloody brilliant when it works but oh so difficult to pull off). Last night we did a bit of each but none quite came off. The closest we came was the aforementioned Giroud miss and Koscielny's header which was stopped on the line by Valencia.
We are of course still in a good position, 2nd in the table with games against Sunderland, Stoke and Swansea next up in the league. The time for missed opportunities must now be behind us or not only will we fall away from Chelsea and City, but we could be caught by Liverpool or (whisper it) a Spurs side managed by Tim Sherwood...
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