The much anticipated encounter at the Emirates did not offer the excitement one had hoped for as both teams played out a very tactical contest which resulted in most of the play occurring in midfield. Both keepers were relatively jobless, and I can’t remember Reina having to affect any significant saves. Alumunia however was superlative on Babel’s strike just before the end.
This result does not damage our cause for a CL position much since both direct competitors playing today also had mixed results. Villa drew at home to Man Utd, and Spurs lost away to Wolves. It does however damage any optimistic hope of clinching third off the Gunners. We were five points off; we could have gotten to two points, now we are at eight. We are still fourth nevertheless.
In hindsight I think we did miss Kyrgiakos today, and perhaps the goal we suffered could have been a different affair with him around. Ngog did not have a very positive game and I felt Rafa could have gotten Babel on at least 10 minutes earlier. Nothing much else to add really. I just hope Carra’s injury which lead to his preventive substitution is not serious.
Next game against City is an important match. It’s another direct encounter and we must pull all the stops to take three points from them. They will be recovering a PL game away to Stoke next Tuesday prior to the showdown with us the following Sunday. Stoke will hopefully do us a favour a slow them down a little, possibly giving them a hard time physically.
Tonight we’ve lost our positive streak of results but I somehow still feel that the team did not disappoint. I feel a draw would have been a much fairer outcome.