Arsenal 4 - 1 Everton - Mesut Magic and Mikel's Massive Cojones

It would be hard to overstate the importance of this game; at 12.35 I took my seat and turned to my Dad and said we "have to win this game." Now the "must-win game" has become a bit of a cliché; used whenever a team who has a point to prove, but in this-case with the league looking increasingly unlikely and the Champions League even more so, there was a real sense of make-or-break at the Emirates on Saturday; the players needed to stand up and be counted and boy, didn't they do just that?

For me, the key moment came halfway through the second half; with the scores level, Oxlade-Chamberlain showed quick feet to skip past Barry in the box and was tripped. Mark Clattenburg pointed to the spot and Arteta stood up to take the penalty that could knock his old club out of the competition. He buried it in the bottom left hand corner only for the referee to book Giroud for encroaching on the area and make Mikel retake the penalty. The pressure must have been immense and I immediately started fearing the worse but Arteta showed superb level-headedness and absolutely enormous cojones to slam the ball into the top-right corner of the net. The sense of elation and relief was immense and thankfully he didn't bother with any of that muted celebration nonsense.

Mesut Özil had come under fire in a big way for Arsenal recently and even for Germany last week but he was a joy to watch on Saturday, working hard defensively, scoring a superb opener (winning me a tenner in the process) and then laying a brilliant fourth on a plate for Olivier Giroud.  He wasn't the only player to excel; Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was dynamic, driven and effective. He did make a couple of sloppy errors but busted a gut to achieve immediate redemption on both occasions. Santi Cazorla completed a trio of excellent attacking midfield performances, surprisingly strong in the tackle and extremely incisive with his passing. When all three of these guys are in the starting line-up and playing like that, you wouldn't give the opposition defence much hope.  I think Arsène must be very tempted to play the three of them again on Tuesday.

Özil opened the scoring at the end of our first meaningful attack, with a very cool finish across the goalkeeper after excellent work and a perfectly-weighted ball into Mesut's path. The crowd roared as his name was announced, a rather different reception to that of the German fans on Wednesday night.  There is no doubt that he is a man with a point to prove and his reaction on Saturday after being taken out of the firing line by Arsène for a couple of weeks was very positive indeed.

Everton hit back a little against the run of play with a quick and incisive break. Had Flamini not had been booked he may have tried to tackle Barkley and perhaps Per and Bacary Sagna were a little slow to be caught behind Mirallas and Lukaku but Barkley did do extremely well.

Fortunately, the Arsenal players kept their heads and went on to produce an excellent second half performance. I  would say, with the possible exception of the first half of our home game against Napoli, that it was the best half of football we've played this season... so far.  Two big contributors to our strong finish were Olivier Giroud (who scored two goals) and Tomas Rosicky (who was involved in both of those goals and didn't give the ball away once); both of whom came off the bench to great effect. Our third goal arrived after Rosicky played a well-weighted ball to the overlapping Sagna, who took his time and expertly picked out the near-post run of Olivier Giroud for our decisive third goal.  The sun was out, the Arsenal fan's were singing "We're going to Wemberley" and the sense of joy was immense.

This delicious cake still needed icing though and it was duly provided with an excellent counter-attacking move; Santi Cazorla tackled McGeady, then two first-touch passes from Rosicky and Özil left Giroud with a tap-in. It was one to add to Arsenal's list of superb team goals and the pace and incisiveness of the move was reminiscent of previous great Thierry Henry and Robert Pires inspired teams.

A 4-1 scoreline was arguably a little flattering but there is no debating the fact that it was an extremely impressive performance, especially when you consider what a strong side Everton are and how well they played on their last visit.  One minor complaint is that we didn't create much from 13 corners. Yaya Sanogo didn't manage to make the same impact he did in the last round of the FA Cup but we looked stronger after Giroud's introduction. I expect Olivier to start against Bayern after 4 goals in his last 3 games.

After the full-time whistle, the fans stayed behind to applaud the players, who wandered round the pitch returning the gesture. Per Mertesacker, in particular, felt the warmth of the crowd following signing his new contact, with his BFG song ringing out loudly.

There was more good news to come on Sunday. Initially most Arsenal fans were unhappy to draw Manchester City or Wigan. However, surprisingly, two hours later Wigan had defeated the oily Citizens 2-1 with a heroic performance. It means that Arsenal are now favourites to win the FA Cup and Samir Nasri was really unhappy, which makes me very happy.

This gives us a huge chance to win our first trophy in 9 years, to get that monkey off our back and get some success under our belts. No pressure lads, but this is huge, now go out there and make it happen; get that trophy our season deserves.


Man of the Match: Mesut Özil - It looks as though the rest has done Mesut the world of good. He was excellent on Saturday - full of running, great passing and one superb finish - issuing a reminder to Arsenal fans of how lucky we are to have a player of his ability in our team and making those in the press who are so desperate to write him off look a little foolish.

An honourable mention for runner-up Mikel "massive cojones" Arteta for his penalties and 92% pass completion rate.

Liverpool 5 - 1 Arsenal: Omnishambles

Grim. Brutal and grim... and bollocks. So what went wrong? Well everything really...

As Michael Owen gleefully reminded us four or five hundred times, Liverpool were quick out of the blocks against Everton and they repeated the trick against Arsenal and we were completely unable to contain them. There were some alarming individual errors that culminated in us shipping 4 goals in the first 20 minutes. The first of which was by the usually error-free Per Mertesacker - he let the ball bounce past him, seemingly unaware of Suarez behind him and then brought him down. It was as poor as it was uncharacteristic and from the resulting free kick, Mrtn Skrtl scrd hs frst gl f th gm #nvwlbantz.

Whilst no Arsenal player covered them self in glory or anything other than horsesh*t for that matter, Mesut Özil had a particularly nightmareish game, twice conceding possession poorly in the build up to a Liverpool goal. He is a great player and I really hope he shows that on Wednesday, and for the rest of the season for that matter. These individual errors/lapses in concentration were so disappointing but they were far from the only differences between the teams... The Liverpool players were just so much more determined and hungry for the win; they looked so much quicker. The ease in which they managed to get in behind us was alarming and not something that we ourselves can really threaten to do without Walcott in the side. At times it felt that the only thing that could save us would be some poor finishing, early runs and offside flags but there was no saving us on Saturday - we were well and truly (and deservedly) battered.

Before the game I was of the opinion that we were considerably stronger than Liverpool in defence and midfield and if we could control the game in the middle and cut the supply to the forwards (as we did at home) we could win the game. Pffff, not even close.

We did score a goal, but I can't remember taking so little pleasure in an Arsenal goal. It was a consolation akin to being given a toaster after getting sacked from your job, evicted from your home and left by your wife.

I found the best way to deal with the pain unbearable agony of the game was to hurl abuse at Daniel Sturridge (that f*cking dance) and Michael Owen, who was just insufferably smug, barely containing his laughter. Honestly, from the level of joy he was expressing you would have thought someone was tickling his balls with a feather duster for 90 minutes.

The manager and the players are making the right noises: "f*cking embarassing" according to Szczesney; "Was a really poor performance today from me" admitted a worryingly sluggish Giroud; "We won't let that happen again" said Mertesacker; Areta told us that “the manager was really upset at half-time, but that’s normal because it wasn't good enough for this football club. It was the angriest I have seen him.” Indeed Arsène was so angry that he fell over.

However... we aren't suddenly a terrible team. Using the examples of Mertesacker and Özil who both made errors leading to Liverpool goals; Mertesacker is not suddenly completely unaware of what's happening around him and Özil isn't now a sloppy passer who often gets caught in possession. This does need to be a wake-up call to them and the rest of the team as they fell well below the very high standards they have set themselves this season.

Next up are three home games against United, Liverpool and Bayern Munich and a reaction is needed. United, as everybody knows have been utterly shambolic this season; their match against Fulham yesterday was as bizarre as it was hilarious - they were so very dominant with 31 shots, 649 passes and 81 crosses yet drew 2-2. Whilst their lack of success from those crosses is staggering, we will need to defend any crosses a lot better than we did against Liverpool.  Liverpool's visit next weekend is of course all the more important now as the FA Cup remains our best chance of silverware and now there is a mental barrier to break down; we need to show that the last game was an anomaly and that we can better Liverpool.

As Arsène said in his post-match press conference: "People will raise questions. We only have one way to respond and answer to that - which is on Wednesday night." For the love of all that is holy, please let us do just that...

Arsenal 2 - 0 Liverpool Match Report: Football in Formula 1 speed

Well that will do nicely!  After a couple of home defeats in other competitions, the visit of Liverpool promised to be an important clash for both teams. At kick-off, following Chelsea's defeat, Arsenal and Liverpool were first and second in the league respectively and there was a lot of discussion on whether either team can stay in the hunt for the title.  The result and performance thankfully suggested it looks far more likely for Arsenal and the five point lead at the top of the table certainly gives us hope.

With a late injury to Jack Wilshere the team rather picked itself.  There were some concerns given the injury to Mathieu Flamini that we would struggle to contain the on-form partnership of Suarez and Sturridge but Mikel Arteta produced his finest display of the season in front of a solid back four to help keep an invaluable and impressive clean-sheet.  Given our outstanding offensive play and the two superb goals it would be easy to ignore Mikel's performance but a glance of the stats shows you just how impressive he was.  He completed a fantastic 100 passes, 29 more that the second highest (Özil) including a vital ball to Sagna in the build up to the first goal, he had 13 ball recoveries (equal most with Skrtel) and he won more tackles than anyone else on the pitch (7).  The only negative I can remember was letting Henderson run unchallenged into the box, although perhaps that was a deliberate ploy given how shambolic Henderson is.

He wasn't the only Spanish midfielder putting in his best performance since returning from injury though, no Sir.  Santi was superb and got a much deserved and beautifully taken goal in the 19th minute.  A well-weighted ball down the right flank found Sagna who pulled his cross back behind the near-post run of Olivier Giroud to the big target man Santi Cazorla, who played a clever headed one-two with the post before showing his class with a beautiful volley past Simon Mignolet.  It sounds silly and I know its a cliché but the first goal was always going to be vital and from then on our superior quality in the middle of the park paid dividends.  As Nick predicted in his excellent preview a few days ago, Arsenal's midfield were too good for Gerrard, Lucas and Henderson and I thought this was where the game was won.

A lot has been made of this Suarez and Sturridge partnership but yesterday Koscielny did a very good job of handling Suarez, excluding one moment where Suarez turned him and left him for dead.  Thankfully Sturridge was extremely poor - his most notable contributions being missing a free-header and taking an absurd dive in the first half, which annoyingly went unpunished by the referee.  The Arsenal fans sang: "Are you Suarez in disguise?"  They also gave the bitey, diving, racist, former transfer-target some more grief with chants of "You should've signed for a big club." 

Liverpool brought Coutinho on for Cissokho at half-time but he was returning from injury and did not look sharp at all.  We looked open at the beginning of the second half and our defensive performance, although encouraging, wasn't as convincing as the clean sheet suggested.  The game was taken out of Liverpool's reach by a quite superb strike from the best Welsh footballer plying his trade in England or Spain at the moment, Aaron Ramsey - he controlled a short-ball from Özil, looked up to find he had time and space 20 yards from goal and struck the sweetest of dipping half-volleys.  There isn't much left to be said about Ramsey this season - his transformation has been extraordinary and we are lucky to have him, and for that matter, a manager who was able to bring the best out of him.

It would take too long to single out all of the players who deserved praise today but I will say what a joy the team performance was to watch. I enjoyed Özil's statement that we played at "Formula 1 speed" and certainly there was no handbrake is sight.  Now let's hope the team continues to spoil us by keeping it up in two big games against Dortmund and Manchester United in the next week

Man of the Match: Mikel Arteta

Crystal Palace 0 - 2 Arsenal Match report: Return of Chamakh

Well that wasn't the stress-free walk in the park I had envisioned.  I was hoping for a comfortable win full of beautiful, free-flowing football and dozens of Arsenal goals against a very weak Palace side but it wasn't to be as we rather ground out a 2-0 win.  The sending off of Arteta in the 65th minute when we were one goal up made for an uncomfortable finish but we did take all three points in a game where we really couldn't afford to drop any.

Palace look a Championship side and unfortunately it felt like I was watching a Championship game.  This wasn't helped by the pitch -  it's a wonder the players could even see each other over that long, dry grass, let alone play the ball across it with any zip resulting in countless under-hit passes, in the first half especially.

The first half was more or less devoid of incident and entertainment.  We dominated proceeding early on without creating clear-cut chances but suffered a blow inside the first ten minutes as Mathieu Flamini was subbed of for Serge Gnabry after injuring his groin.  Hopefully it is not too serious as he has been instrumental in our team's success so far this season and was notably not involved in either of our defeats.

Gnabry's performance was a mixed bag - he was sloppy at times but looked very dangerous at others.  He looks raw - he is obviously extremely talented and he has a very good chance of making the grade at Arsenal.  Hopefully, he will make another positive impact on Tuesday night in the Carling Cup.  Serge created the break-through after the interval by winning a penalty after beating his man in the box and being brought down by a rash challenge.  Arteta's penalty was excellent, stuck powerfully into the side of the net.

Arsène said after the game that if Arteta's ban wasn't just ruling him out of a Carling Cup game he would have appealed the decision, however I can't say I have any complaints.  Once Chamakh had knocked the ball towards goal and there was a coming together I fully expected the captain to see red as he was the last man.  Unfortunately I don't think there is a rule that allows refs to take into account whether the player running through on goal is a shambolic footballer whose finishing is almost as bad as his hair so I think Arteta (whose hair looks even better when compared to Chamakh's) had to go.

From then on, it was squeeky-bum time.  Giroud looked increasingly isolated and a little fatigued and Palace came very close to scoring.  In fact, if it wasn't for two super-saves from our in-form goalie, Wojciech Szczesny, we could have been looking at a very embarrassing and morale-damaging draw or even loss.  The first was tipped onto the bar and over and the second was exceptional as he got a very strong hand onto a powerful Jedinak volley from the resulting corner.

As time was running out for Palace, they understandably threw more players forward in search of an equaliser which left them pretty open at the back.  We managed to punish the home team in the 87th minute when our counter-attack found Ramsey in the box.  He cut back and produced an excellent chipped cross for Giroud to nod home.  Olivier looked delighted after what was a tough afternoon for him and I'm sure he enjoyed his goal after missing two headed chances (both from excellent Sagna crosses) earlier in the game.  The goal demonstrated how fit Ramsey is - he just keeps going to the final whistle and even then you get the impression there is more in the tank.  It also demonstrated how clinical he has become and how much his decision making has improved.

All in all, it was the result we wanted but maybe not the performance we had expected.  We were indebted to our goalie and should be hopeful going into some very tricky and important games over the next two weeks.

Man of the Match: Wojciech Szczesny