Post Birmingham 1/1/11

Birmingham 0-3 Arsenal

A new year and the first game of 2011 for the Gunners! We came into this game 2 points behind Manchester United and Manchester City, who were also playing today. Before we look at those games we have a look at how the Arsenal got on.

Birmingham -v- Arsenal

Kick Off: 5.30pm 

Venue: St Andrews

   Weather: Very Wet+Rainy

Line Ups

Arsenal: Fabianski, Sagna, Clichy, Koscielny, Djourou, Song, Wilshere, Fabregas, Nasri, Walcott, Van Persie. (subs: Arshavin, Bendtner, Denilson, Eboue, Rosicky, Squillaci, Szczesny)

Birmingham: Foster, Carr, Ridgewell, Dann, Johnson, Ferguson, Bowyer, Larsson, Beausejour, Gardner, Jerome. (subs: Derbyshire, Fahey, Hleb, Jiranek, Taylor, Phillips, Zigic.)

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The Arsenal kept up the pressure on the two Manchester sides with a convincing 3-0 win over Birmingham City. A Robin Van Persie free kick gave Arsenal the lead, Samir Nasri's 13th goal of the season and an own goal from Roger Johnson wrapped up what was a great win.Cesc Fabregas was as always pulling the strings in midfield, while Walcott and Nasri worked the flanks, with RVP up top.

Arsenal were on top and in the 13th minute when Scott Dann brought down Van Persie, we took the lead. Van Persie set up the free kick and struck it off Lee Bowyer at the edge of the Brum wall. The ball hit his elbow, and deflected into the back of the net, 1-0 Arsenal.

The chances came and went for Arsenal. Jack Wilshere should have marked his 18th birthday with a goal, but missed with a side footed effort from 8 yards out. Foster did well to block an effort from Nasri but it was no surprise when on 57 minutes the Frenchman made it 2-0.

8 minutes later it was 3-0, an own goal by Roger Johnson. Nasri set up Fabregas whose shot was blocked by Foster, then hit off Dann, then Johnson, and into the back of the net.

The win keeps Arsenal third after Manchester United beat West Brom 2-1 at the hawthorns, and Manchester City beat a resilient Blackpool 1-0 at home.

A nice bit of good news arrived on The Arsenal Website on new years eve with wenger confirming that Emmanuel Eboue has signed a new long term contract at the club. I am personally delighted with this as i think hes been a great player over the last season or two and is always improving. Great to keep the current squad together and build on it, well done Wenger.

Eboue signs long term contract

!!QUICK NOTE!! Please bear with me over the next few weeks or so, the layout will chop and change, and ill end up putting up a little poll or something so the very few followers i have can vote on whice one ok? ill also be updating more frequently soon enough, and even more frequently through the transfer window as gossip or news comes in.

Thanks for reading, Jay.

Post Wigan 29/12/10.

Wigan 2-2 Arsenal. (29/12/10)

Well that was Wigan. A game we all thought we would win, and definitly a game we thought we Should have won. But, as we all know, football doesnt work that way!

The match kicked off and right from the off we could see Wigan were really up for it, Ben Watsons penalty on 18 minutes was a stone waller, and he made no mistake about putting the ball in the back of the net. Wigan led 1-0.

Watson's Peno Finds The Bottom Corner.

 Abou Diaby had to go off with what seems like a minor injury, lets not hope its a re-occurance of his previous one. The game was fairly open, neither team really creating many chances until the 39th minute when Arshavin buried one right in the bottom corner with a lovely volley. 1-1.

Arshavin Equalises.

 Four minutes later Arshavin turned up again but this time as the creator, putting Bendtner through for a nice finish, 2-1.

Bendtner Scores.

 We all thought that was it, especially with Charles N Zogbia getting sent off for a little go at wilshere, lovely! But no. Wigan put a cross into the box, the walking disaster at times that is Lukasz Fabianski runs out, flaps his hands, misses the ball, it falls onto a Wigans players head, comes back across the goal, and Sebastien Squillaci was there to head it home! Into his own net.....

Squillaci Heads Into His Own Net To Level it Up.

Its not the disaster we witnessed last season against Wigan, but it was a poor performance nonetheless. With 8 changes from the team that beat Chelsea, and on paper a team we all thought would beat Wigan, we showed some vulnerability at the back again. Clearly were still in the title race, a long way from being out of it. But with Manchester City more than likely introducing a few new faces to the Premiership, building a better team, we really need to step up our game and be a bit more consistent.

After that set of fixtures the league looks like this..

Table taken From The Barclays Premier League Website.

POS NAME P W D L F A W D L F A GD PTS 1 Man Utd 18 9 1 0 27 6 1 7 0 12 11 +22 38 2 Manchester City 20 5 3 2 13 7 6 2 2 19 9 +16 38 3 Arsenal 19 6 0 3 22 11 5 3 2 17 11 +17 36 4 Chelsea 19 7 1 1 19 4 3 3 4 14 11 +18 34 5 Tottenham 19 5 4 1 16 9 4 2 3 13 14 +6 33 6 Bolton 20 5 4 1 21 12 2 4 4 11 14 +6 29 7 Sunderland 20 5 4 1 11 7 1 5 4 10 15 -1 27 8 Blackpool 17 2 2 2 11 11 5 2 4 15 18 -3 25 9 Blackburn 20 4 3 3 12 9 3 1 6 14 22 -5 25 10 Stoke City 19 4 2 4 12 12 3 1 5 11 12 -1 24 11 Everton 19 2 4 3 10 12 2 6 2 11 10 -1 22 12 Liverpool 18 5 2 2 15 7 1 2 6 6 16 -2 22 13 Newcastle 19 3 3 4 20 14 3 1 5 8 17 -3 22 14 WBA 19 4 2 3 12 13 2 2 6 13 21 -9 22 15 Aston Villa 19 4 4 2 15 12 1 1 7 5 22 -14 20 16 Wigan Athletic 19 2 5 3 10 19 2 3 4 7 12 -14 20 17 Birmingham 18 3 5 1 9 7 0 5 4 9 14 -3 19 18 Fulham 19 2 5 3 11 14 1 5 3 8 9 -4 19 19 Wolves 19 4 2 4 14 15 1 1 7 6 17 -12 18 20 West Ham Utd 20 2 4 4 12 16 1 4 5 8 17 -13 17

Third after 19 games, 2 behind United but they've played a game less, still a long way to go in this title race. But by God i know we'll fight till the very end!