Premier League - Match #12

Reading 1 Shorey
Arsenal 3 Flamini, Adebayor, Hleb

Arsenal regained the lead for the Barclays Premier League from Manure after registering a comprehensive 3-1 victory over Reading at the Madejski Stadium. It was a difficult match for most of the first half as the home side showed their intent of not letting last season scoreline being repeated.

A superb all around performance saw Arsenal winning 4-0 in style, prompting the Royals to park their bus in front of the goal for this meeting. They managed to hold Arsenal off, until two minutes before the interval when a a flowing move saw Manu Adebayor releasing Alex Hleb on the right side of the penalty area.

The Belarusian player cut back the ball across the goal and Matthieu Flamini who had made a wonderful run into the area was on hand to divert the ball into the back of the net.

Then six minutes after the start of the second half, the visitors went two goals ahead. This time Adebayor found Tomas Rosicky on the left and the Czech player's cutback found Cesc Fabregas who set-up Adebayor, who ended his goal drought with a wonderful placed effort, giving the unsighted Marcus Hahnemann no chance at all.

It was Arsenal 1,000th Premier League goal and the first for the Togolese international since his hat-trick against Derby County earlier this season.

It should have been 3-0 a few minutes later when Adebayor beat Hahnemann and slotted the ball home. Much to his dismay and mine, his effort was ruled out for offside, which replays suggested was an erroneous call by the referee assistant.

But the scoreline did change with thirteen minutes to go. Hleb who scored during the rout last year, found the net again with a superb individual effort. His close control beat two Reading players before tricking Hahnemann with a deft flick before powering the ball home despite the best effort of a covering defender on the line.

Like last year, the match produced a fourth goal, but this time around it was to the delight of the home fans when a lucky bounce gave England defender, Nicky Shorey the chance to put his name on the scoresheet after having hit the post from a free-kick a few minutes earlier.

It ended 3-1 to the Arsenal and that was enough to put them back at the top of the league again.

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