What A Difference A Year Makes

from the road

BARCLAYS PREMIER LEAGUE

Ground: Anfield            2 September 2012

Referee:  Howard Webb

Liverpool 0-2          Arsenal           

                                          Podolski [31]

                                          Cazorla [67]

Owing to a pretty grueling work travel schedule, prior to Sunday’s match I had not seen a full ninety minutes of Arsenal football in this nascent 2012-13 league campaign, nor have I made it to the Factory as a consequence.  But if I can’t get my drinks off of Liam or Jack Keane, I’ll more than happily take them off of Jack Bradley from his own lower level bar. Not only did the racket of his blender suggest some delicious frozen rum drinks, it nicely obliterated the grating noises that permanently flow from Stewart Robson’s gobby mouth.

With that fuckwit providing the ‘color’ commentary and Howard Webb governing proceedings, Ted, Jack, and I set about taking in this season’s visit to Anfield with some trepidation. The customary atmosphere was lacking. There was the usual air of injustice from the home support at any perceived slight by the opponent [perhaps why they staunchly defend a guy like Luis Suarez?] but outside of that the Scousers had little to shout about. We were looking dead solid and it was nice to see the emergence of synchronized movements on defense in this Arsenal side.  In other words we had some seriously decent team shape. Over the past years I have grown accustomed to the team weaving patterns on attack, but it was beautiful to see the team move in unison when they didn’t have the ball to thwart the opponent.

Our away support was brilliant, as always, with the possible exception of what sounded like the “she said no” song that many of us have loathed prior to van Persie’s departure.  I understand folks are free to express their displeasure at him, and I don’t have much problem with that. But I’d rather we all agreed to go about it in a different way, and I’m not sure what place it had in this particular match. To put it in context, it’s kind of rich to take the moral high ground about Suarez and then call our former player a rapist. Then again, football supporters at times just need that emotional outpouring, and for some that means abusing a player many feel betrayed us.

On the other side of that coin we have a player who has also spent much of his stint at Arsenal on the treatment table. In short, Diaby was incredible. He did have a few of his typically dicey moments wherein he found himself surrounded and lost the ball, but more often than not he seemed to just swivel away and surge forward into space. It was some performance given his long injury absence and one that bodes very well should he continue to overcome his injury problems. We were suitably impressed.

We were however, distinctly unimpressed by Luis Suarez, who frankly is a massive twat. That I’ve already mentioned his name three times in this report says plenty. He spent the entire match running through his gamut of pathetic attempts to get penalties and free-kicks at every opportunity. Only five minutes in, he conned Webb into booking the BFG, and considering it was Mertesacker’s first foul we were a little wary of things to come on that front. Suarez would continue in this vein, but we were utterly amazed no penalties were awarded, especially given that instant yellow card and the aforementioned pressure from the home fans. I was almost hoping one penalty shout would be legitimate just to rectify last season’s spot kick in the same fixture, but was suitably pleased none of the claims had any substance.

While there has been some anxiety over our lack of scoring in many sects of Gooners, there has equally been a measure of calm based on the belief that we will benefit from a team coming out to play us, rather than the deep defending we saw in the first two matches. We repelled just about everything with relative ease in the early exchanges, without getting too much going by way of attack ourselves. Perhaps because of this, Liverpool piled on even more pressure, with Glen Johnson getting deep into our territory with increasing regularity. Without doing much going forward himself early on, Podolski put in an admirable shift defensively against Johnson.

It was a combination of Johnson’s bombing forays up the wing and Podolski’s tracking back that produced our first goal of the match and of the season. As he retreated, he picked up the ball in transition from Mertesacker who cut out a sloppy pass from Gerrard. Very similar to his preseason goal against Cologne, the German played it forward to Cazorla then completed the one-two with a gut-busting run that covered half the pitch and ended with an authoritative finish.

Speaking of our little Spanish wizard, Cazorla was a metronome. I bet you dude’s heart rate was the same slow pace all day despite getting close attention from Scouse pressure throughout.  Podolski seemed a little lost before his goal at times, but after scoring he was simply excellent patrolling the wing, and the understanding between him and Cazorla grows visibly with each game. The two connected again in the second half, this time a peeling run by Cazorla from inside overlapped Podolski around the left, and bore down on goal after the perfectly weighted return pass came from the German. Our new midfield wizard took the ball in stride and attacked the near post, then drilled a low shot past Reina’s feet toward the far side netting that was swatted into the near corner by the keeper’s left hand. Two nil up with about twenty minutes left and we celebrated not just a deserved goal for our best player thus far this season, but what we felt was a first win as well.

Liverpool threw everything forward in search of a goal. With the points seemingly in hand we put our energy into securing the clean sheet. The effort by Vermaelen to do just that in the closing stages was particularly outstanding. He threw himself at every Scouse attack, cleared the line after Mannone parried a fierce drive back into the goalmouth, and rode a late tackle from Gerrard onto the hard track surrounding the pitch, all with minimal fuss. It was a commanding performance, fitting of our newly appointed captain.

Diaby would get rightful recognition as Man of the Match for the shift he put in, but there were plenty of other standout showings across the pitch. It didn’t really come off for the Ox, but he did the dirty work required of him with a maturity that was good to see, and made an obvious adjustment after the break that improved his defensive play that much more. Giroud seemed to win everything in the air and the signs are there that he will provide a crucial outlet when we can’t work the ball up the pitch on the ground. He had a few lovely touches in link-up play that led to good shooting opportunities and had a glorious chance [albeit from a tricky angle] to open his account from a another bombing foray from Diaby. He is not far away from his first goal.

Once again our team defending stood out. Gibbs was absolutely solid. We may be witnessing the birth of a great left back this season.  Despite the early booking Mertesacker was magnificent, particularly when he stretched out to toe-poke the ball away from Sterling, who had an excellent day himself. Arteta was tremendous yet again from deep, covered whenever necessary, and one time drifted out behind a forward move from Gibbs to tackle their attack into submission. Emphatically. Even Corporal Jenkinson looked unflappable, a few dodgy cross-field passes notwithstanding.

In fact, the whole team played in a way that I described Koscielny [who made a late appearance as a sub] last season. They look like they just love to defend right now. There was a palpable sense that they were fighting hard to preserve the clean-sheet and the complete absence of the fear we saw so often last season in the late stages of such games made for a much more enjoyable ending to this match. One or two worrying chances were snuffed out that had me yelling “no no no no no no no no YES!” as the ball was cleared to safety.

When the final whistle blew the only thing that could really deflate our mood was the fact that we now must wait two weeks to build on this result.  Because of that this international break may seem a bit longer, but it’s nothing like licking the wounds from an 8-2 drubbing. What a difference a year makes. I am loving this side.  


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