Pegged at the Death

The Gooner in kT was away from his home when the this FA Cup third round match was played. It was an intriguing match with The Swans already registered a win over us late last year.

I was hoping that we could get a good result at The Liberty Stadium (a place in the next round would suffice, thank you) but the worst part was not being able to follow it minute by minute.

The reason for being away was due to a photo session with the Negeri Sembilan Super League team and by the time I reached Shah Alam it was well and truly over.

Luckily it was just about the match and not our FA Cup dream.

Michu gave the home side the lead after coming on as a substitute around the hour mark and I could imagine myself saying, "Here we go again!" in anticipation of an early cup exit.

However Lukas Poldoski brought things level with ten minutes to go and then Kieran Gibbs blasted us ahead a couple of minutes later. We were three minutes away from the fourth round when Danny Graham ensured another trip to The Emirates for the Swans faithfuls in the middle of the month.

Of course I would have preferred it to be settled on a positive note for us but the chance to catch them in FA Cup action again certainly not a bad thing either.


COYG!

New Year's Day Stalemate

After four consecutive victories, almost every Gooner were expecting the match against Southampton should be another three points safely on board, especially this was the team we dispatched 6-1 earlier in the season and were hovering around the relegation zone.

At the end of the ninety minutes at St Mary the score read 1-1 and none of the goals were scored by an Arsenal player. In fact we were lucky to come away with a point at all.

Neil Adkins had set up his team to stifle Arsenal's fluidity and they did it so well which meant there was not enough time for the likes of Mikel Arteta, Santi Cazorla and Jack Wilshere to have any effective control in the middle of the park.

In fact almost all Arsenal players were never comfortable on the ball during the match. Errors crept into their game and rash decisions were made, such as the one made by Bacary Sagna who cleared the ball to the feet of an opponent who then set up Gaston Ramirez who slammed the ball home past Wos Szczesny.

Our threats were quite easily nullified by the home defenders but still we managed to create some moments that could have developed into more positive outcomes.

In the end we had to thank lady luck for bringing us on level terms. Theo Walcott floated in a free-kick from the left and in his attempt to clear the ball,  Guilherme Do Prado diverted it into his own net with Artur Boruc left stranded on his line.

Thus it was a mixed start to the year, not a winning one but on the positive side not a losing one either.