Premier League - Match #32

Bolton Wanderers 2 Taylor 2
Arsenal 3 Gallas, Van Persie (pen), Samuels (OG)

I was thinking why all the luck in the world has deserted us since the last couple of months when the second goal by Matthew Taylor went in after a deflection off William Gallas took it beyond Manu Almunia's despairing dive.

The Reebok does not hold much happy memories for me and when we trooped off the pitch two goals down at the interval, headlines like "Arsenal crumbled at Bolton", "It's a Two Horse race now" kept playing in my head.

Even when the second half began I felt there was no way that we could salvage the match, especially with just ten men. Abou Diaby continued to depress me lately and somewhere deep in my heart I wished we had retained the services of Lassana Diarra who would be tough yet skillful enough to play on either flanks.

Almunia pulled a brilliant save from Gary Cahill's header though the referee should have awarded a free-kick after the defender gained his advantage after climbing off an Arsenal player.

Then Arsene Wenger took a big risk by taking off Phillipe Senderos to be replaced by Theo Walcott. Arsenal has had problems playing with four at the back against Bolton before, now they are playing with just three and none of them is tall enough to counter the high balls into the box.

Manu Adebayor came on for Nicklas Bendtner who was a bit unlucky with his shots during the match. The changes seemed to rejunevate the visitors and they came streaming forward in a 3-4-2 formation.

From a corner, Ivan Campo misjudged a corner by Cesc Fabregas and Gallas lost his marker at the far past to divert the ball into the net. Arsenal continued to pressure Bolton and a beautiful flick by Adebayor opened up the space for Matthieu Flamini to shot but the goalkeeper went down wll to stop it.

Alex Hleb reached the loose ball first leaving Cahill with no option but to bring the Belarussian down in the box. A penalty was awarded and Robin Van Persie converted to level the score.

I dared not dream of all three points but the fightback was tremendous. Van Persie showed that he is nearly there in terms of sharpness with a number of chances that came close to give joy to Arsenal fans throughout the world.

Then, Fabregas cleverly ran into space to connect with a Hleb's cutback. His effort hit Andy O'Brien and Jlloyd Samuel before softly hitting the back of the net.

Joy for Fabregas, and joy for mad redo1 who were celebrating just as hard at home.

Perhaps, the luck is returning and hopefully this time they will stay for good.

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