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Monday, 9 January 2012

Va Va Voom 1 Dirty Leeds 0

So we all knew the script didn't we? It just had to be. King Thierry. 1-0 to The Arsenal against Dirty Leeds.

What can you say about the man, other than he's still got 'IT'. 5 Years since his last goal for us, it took him 10 mins to clock up number 227.

'IT' is also something the large proportion of our squad lack. It is also very worrying that our 1st team midfield trio really struggled to put Leeds to the sword. They obviously weren't helped by the pathetically impotent Chamakh, and the hugely wasteful Arshavin, but still for large parts of the game we were really poor.

Ramsey, Koscielny and Arteta were again our best players, whilst Chamberlain, Miquel and Yennaris had solid games without really excelling. But we really do lack the cutting edge in the middle; it was like watching the Arsenal of 3 years ago tonight, no drive, no conviction, no 'want'. It was just pass, pass, pass......

Thankfully the result was the important thing, as it always is, and overall a controlled performance with a very makeshift defence can be seen as job done. However, if it wasn't obvious we were lacking in creativity before, it's blindingly obvious now.

Too often Ramsey slows the play down at the point of the midfield trio, when he should be looking to release sooner; whilst I've no idea what we do with Chamakh. He started quite well with some decent hold up play, but then he just stopped. He knew he'd be subbed if he played shit enough and his blushes would be sparred by Thierry. As ever. Always the saviour.

I'm not meaning or trying to put a dampener on the night, as it was one of the moments that will live with me for a long long time, but if we're having to rely on a 34 year old returnee to provide support to RVP it really doesn't say much for the 'talent' that Wenger has brought through in the last couple of years. Park clearly doesn't have an arsenal career ahead of him, so it's imperative that we do bring in another forward over January.

Hopefully TH can spread his wisdom, calmness and composure to the young lads in the squad and the next 6 weeks will help the majority of this squad improve.

His finish tonight was the TH we all knew, know, loved and love again. Classic Henry.

Theo watch and learn.......

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