Arsenal 1 - 0 Swansea: Not pretty, but Arsenal win

After a near two-week break, the Premier League was finally back and, for once, the majority of Gooners were actually looking forward to this.

It'd be fair to say that many of us saw this game as an opportunity to win comprehensively and restore some much needed confidence. What we got was far from that, but at this point can any of us really complain?

You could tell that the team lacked a bit of belief and confidence. While the performance was slightly better, the passing was still a bit slow and the link-up between the midfield and attack wasn't very good... actually it was near non-existant. Van Persie didn't receive much support from Arshavin or Walcott, while forward runs from Ramsey and Arteta were sparse. This resulted in not many clear cut opportunities being created.

When Arsenal aren't doing so well offensively, it's going to be an anxious game. Swansea had the pace on the flanks to trouble Arsenal defensively and they did. Arshavin left Gibbs exposed frequently and he had a difficult time defending against Dyer and Sinclair (both swapped regularly throughout the match). Sagna also found it tough, but fared better thanks to be good positioning and experience.

In the centre, the partnership of Koscielny and Mertesacker was okay, but understandably not great. Mertesacker was actually beaten in the air a couple of times, but Koscielny overall had a good showing and stopped a number of attacks.

If we played a better team, then we probably would have been punished for being average going forward and not putting Swansea to the sword. Walcott typically blew hot and cold and lacked an end product, while Arshavin drifted in and out of the game despite scoring the only goal. It sums up how average we were going forward when the only goal came from a comical goalkeeping error - not taking anything away from the finish, of course, which was actually very good.

Wenger's subsituttions were also odd, replacing the very good Frimpong with Coquelin and replacing van Persie with Chamakh. In my opinion, it would have been better if we had subsituted the lost Ramsey for Park Chu-Young and seriously go for that second goal. Then to help see the game out, we could have subbed off Arshavin for Santos. It just seemed that replacing one defensive midfielder with another was redundant, and replacing our best striker with someone not in form was just plain strange. Surely the in-form Park would have been a better choice and if he wasn't fit to play, why put him on the bench over Chamberlain?

All in all, we can't complain too much with the performance since we did win the game. The absolute most important thing was to win the game and we did. The performance will improve with time; the new signigns will need time to bed in and the team probably needed a couple more wins to fully restore the confidence that had been completely shatered after a turbulent August.

Player Ratings
Wojceich Szczesny - 7. Carrying on his exellent form this season, making one world class save in the first half and being solid throughout. Did make one mistake though when he came out and missed a punch; fortunately Graham missed the open goal.

Laurent Koscielny - 7. Our best defender on the day. Had many successful tackles and interceptions.

Per Mertesacker - 6. Steady debut. Made some good, clean tackles and blocks, but you can immediately tell he'd better alongside a more agressive and assertive centre back.

Kieran Gibbs - 6. Struggled a bit defensively, did well going forward. Something we're probably going to have to get used to seeing.

Bacary Sagna - 6. Typically solid.

Emmanuel Frimpong - 7. Was good defensively but sloppy with his passing.

Aaron Ramsey - 6. Was neither here nor there; seemed to let the game pass him by.

Mikel Arteta - 7. A solid showing both offensively and defensively.

Andrei Arshavin - 6. Scored the goal but did nothing else.

Theo Walcott - 6. Overall, was disappointing. Just didn't produce much of an end product, be it crossing or shooting. Movement was also a bit flat - maybe effected by that midweek hamstring tweak?

Robin van Persie - 6. Lacked service, but wasn't invovled that much in the play.

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Francis Coquelin - 6.

Yossi Benayoun - 6.

Marouane Chaamkh - 6.

a win is a win......

was impressed with Per Mertesacker and Arteta......

we have got a lot of work to do

Team dench was quality...man of the match

We had our 3 new signings out there with maybe a week of training with us. Not bad, we got the result and we will only improve.

Arteta's passing wasn't good enough for me.
Performance was actually good, but we just couldn't get the goals to make it show.

We're still lacking creativity.

Gervinho and Song should just fill the missing pieces.

walcott didnt impress me today.

Yeah, let's judge Arteta after one game.

Come on guys, we played a good team IMO, we had our chances, the guys we had had minimum training with our team. Next game will be Arsenal's real team.

Iceman wrote:Arteta's passing wasn't good enough for me.
Performance was actually good, but we just couldn't get the goals to make it show.

it was good enough for me especially considering it was his first match. ramsey on the other hand, needs to be reassessed. he really needs to watch some game tape of himself to see how many passes he misses and how he holds the ball to long too often


great game by Mr. T though. team dench was active. and gibbs was actually decent for a change

RedEyesWhiteBeard wrote:

Jamin wrote:We're still lacking creativity.

Gervinho and Song should just fill the missing pieces.

walcott didnt impress me today.

walcott needs to play more 5 a side football. hes technique on the ball is a joke.

...He is alright. does a decent job on the wing.

I would still start Gervinho ahead of him but both are frustrating with no end product

Raptorgunner wrote:Come on guys, we played a good team IMO, we had our chances, the guys we had had minimum training with our team. Next game will be Arsenal's real team.

we played swansea not stoke

Swansea-s defence looked very naive, we should have scored like 3-4 goals with that defence, anyway a win is a win.

With Gervinho, Wilshere and Song coming back we'll be a very strong team.

MOTM?

Raptorgunner wrote:

urbaNRoots wrote:Swansea-s defence looked very naive, we should have scored like 3-4 goals with that defence, anyway a win is a win.

With Gervinho, Wilshere and Song coming back we'll be a very strong team.

MOTM?

get out of here

Frimpong all the way

MOTM would be Frimpong for me.

Ramsey looks lost because he's constantly switching positions and really can't decide if he's the primary playmaker or in a deeper box to box role.

MOTM for this match would be no one lol seriously

Oh.. Just saw the highlights..
Rvps right leg shot.. Chamakhs header.. Decent game if we got some more goals...
Oh.. Sczenys save was fantastic....

23arshavin23 wrote: MOTM for this match would be no one lol seriously

how ??

what about chez ??

Team dench ??

Sagna ??

gunnerlistick wrote:

23arshavin23 wrote: MOTM for this match would be no one lol seriously

how ??

what about chez ??

Team dench ??

Sagna ??

what about them, explain ??

We have to be proud of this win, new players, tired players, first game after that horrible game. Missing few of our best players. I am proud of guys, the best part is to win with 1-0.

MOTM would be the whole team.

23arshavin23 wrote:

gunnerlistick wrote:

23arshavin23 wrote: MOTM for this match would be no one lol seriously

how ??

what about chez ??

Team dench ??

Sagna ??

what about them, explain ??

They performed very well...especially Team dench. As a team we din't play well but there was some very good individual performances out there today.

I wouldnt take anything from this performance. It wasn't the player's quality. Most of them played 2 matches in space of 10 days while most of the Swansea players had a 1 week of holidays.

I think it's obvious who's going to outperform who ?

Despite that Our players gave everything they could and Please, dont blame any of them.

Arteta played really deep, Ramsey was more forward then him. Think that was an experiment by wenger to see how Ramsey would do with Arteta. Also We changed our formation to 4-3-3 instead of 4-2-3-1. That affected the performance as well

Frimpong wasnt the motm for me, he was good but not that good, imo.

Think Koscielny/Mertesacker/Arshavin should be the MOTM, Both were excellent.

We need games to gel, that much is obvious. So ignore the performance from today's match and lets focus on Dortmund.

1-0 win, clean sheet. Yea good weekend imo